Ignorance is not bliss, but innocence is. Innocent, you are happy. What does innocence mean? It means you are not caught up in the past. It means you look at everything with new eyes, not old. In innocence, your eyes are bright and your face merry.

When all the answers to all the questions in the Universe are within you, how necessary is it to seek knowledge from outside you? When you have more than enough money in your pocket, you don't run out to the bank to get change. When you have plenty of butter in your refrigerator, you don't run out to the store to buy more. You don't go out to find that with which you are already fully stocked.

In terms of knowledge, your mind does not remember what I bequeathed to you. Your body has not forgotten. Your body and heart know more than your mind can contemplate let alone fathom.

Holy are you. You don't think so. You think you are the farthest thing from holy. And when I tell you that you are, you think I am really innocent and unaware of how you really are.

How mistaken you are! I am aware of how you really are. It is you who is not.

I would like to restore you to your innocence where you did not have such strong opinions about yourself. I would like you to waver from your strong opinions and let Me wrap you in the innocence of My love.

You learn. You grow. You come closer to Me. And, yet, at the same time, you still hold on to the appearances of life and are so tied tightly to them.

A strong heart is not tough. A strong heart is generous. Tight hearts are pinched, and therefore weakened. Never think you must harden your heart in order to make it strong.

A tender heart does not get broken as you may have thought. You don't need to gird up your heart. Remember the resilient willow tree that bends and bows with the winds.

Your heart is not meant to dry up. How can your heart flow in love when it is wizened and dry? Refreshen your heart. Tears were meant to moisten your heart, not to dry it up.

If it is hard for you to conceive yourself as full of love, can you conceive yourself as free of negativity? Can you conceive of negativity as nonexistent or fleeting or something you can toss away the minute it arrives? If you cannot consider love as fully present, can you conceive of the absence of negativity in your own heart?

Unconditional love doesn't mean love full-blown at every moment. It does not mean that you will desire to engage with everyone all the time. It doesn't mean that, when someone says or does something you don't like, you don't see it.

A heart that flows is a heart in place. A flowing heart glides over obstacles as if they were bridges. Of course, obstacles are bridges that lead from one place to another. Obstacles do not have to obstruct. They do not have to get out of the way either. You do not have to meet them head-on. You may, of course, or you can go around them, or you can laugh at them, and there are other choices in between. The thing is, there are many ways to step over or go around an obstacle.

Do you begin to see how being is giving?

When you just are, you can only give.

When you are thinking or owning or in fear, you can only withhold.

When you think about giving or not giving, there has been a stop in your giving, or a pause in it.

Yet what you feel, you give. If you are in fear at a given moment, you give fear.

When you are at peace, you give peace.

Part of openness is not making assumptions. Assumptions are judgment. Be wary of what you assume. Assumption is thinking you know something when you only know a part of it, if that.

Assumptions are cryptic. They are damning.

My son Christ made no assumptions. Assumptions are limiting, and he limited no one.

You might say he made one assumption, and that was that I was with everyone, but of course that was not assumption but fact.

He did not assume that beneath the surface of illness radiated glowing health. He knew that for a fact.

It's a good thing when you don't know what to do, when you don't know what to say or what to write. It is good because then you offer openness. When you know, or know for sure, you offer closedness. And closedness is control. Openness is not.

Of course, openness has to be true. An appearance of openness while you are sure inside that you know the answer is not openness but a manipulation of it.

Innocence is unknowing. Innocence is openness. Innocence is the greatest knowledge of all. It is a clean slate. It is openness. It is freedom.

It is not controlling.