In the name of love, you give service to mankind and the world. In the name of love, you give gratitude to the blessing of service that is yours to give. It is not for you to be proud to do a service but to be grateful. You are grateful the same way you are grateful to pick a flower that beckons to you from the garden. You are grateful to bend down. The flower bestows a blessing on you that allows you to pick it, and you extend a blessing to the flower by picking it. The mutuality is admirable.

And, so, beloveds, whatever glad service you give, it is a blessing given to you. You appeared in that spot in order to accept a blessing that was given to you, and your heart is grateful to touch the Earth in respect in this way. When you kneel down to shine the shoes of another, you are serving Me in the Highest. Don’t you know that your service to the universe is like a prayer? And that your prayer really is:

“Let me serve You, O God. Let me serve You in any way I can. Thank You for blessing me with the option to serve. Thank You for giving me free will, so that I may serve You through another and make it my own choice. Thank You for raising my head so that I see what roses of Your Will You have spread before me.

“Thank You for giving me eyes to see and hearts to fill. Thank You for giving me a back that bends and a heart to give from. Thank You for the coin in my purse, and my fingers that can proffer help to another. Thank You for stirring me and turning me around and around so that I may see Your children as One, that I may recognize that they are You Yourself, only in a guise, and that I am You as well, only in a guise that has kept me from that sweet knowledge no matter how often I look in the mirror of Your blessed creation.

“No matter how little I may grasp the concept that I am You, and that as I serve what the world might call the lowliest creature, I am served and that it is I who serves myself. When all is said and done, beloved God, what else is there for me to know but the Oneness of Oneness, not of You and of me, but of the original Oneness before there was a distinction called I and Thou?”

Beloveds, that is your prayer. That is what your heart knows to be Truth. It is not that your heart knows Truth with conviction because the heart’s knowing lies beyond conviction. Your heart knows beyond surmise and beyond proof. Oneness is in another arena altogether. The heart is extant in the realization of Oneness, that in Oneness there is no you and there is no I. When Oneness is known, the idea of you and the idea of Me are only ideas and do not exist to be known. When Reality is known, there is no longer room for concepts. Reality is not a concept. Realization does not come from a thought of yours that you pounce on. It is not a thought at all. Reality is another realm that exceeds thought.

Nevertheless, next time you give a small service, ask yourself humbly: Who is it that gives service and to Whom is it given?