A Good Era… Yours

FRI., AUG. 9, 1996, 1:03 PM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

Two more people leaving your Department, as you look forward to your last full-time year, makes it seem as though changes continue. You have been here the longest, as a faculty member, and you have enjoyed attaining that seniority. When you leave the Department will continue strong, and the memory of you will fade, about as you expect. But you will agree with Me, I’m sure, that this era in which you have lived and worked has been quite a good one, for you, certainly.

Your childhood was happy and busy. Your adolescence was very fulfilling and not troublesome to you or to your parents. You did well in school and better in athletics than you expected. The last part of that “sub-era” was in the Navy and at a university (for your 20th birthday was less than a month before you were discharged from the Navy, with a lot of good memories… you had wished for just a bit of combat, but… well… not in this life.)

Fraternity life was a short “sub-era”… then came Punahou, with coaching, teaching, and then romance… and marriage. Graduate school… young sons… back to Punahou as a Dr. … and then a Dean, and another “sub-era” was fulfilled. Stanford was the real, direct beginning of your professoring career, and it was also when I, as the Triune God, became more real to you. Yes, you were born again during that time, and you even began some early morning writing, which you didn’t realize was a prelude to this.

Getting the jobs you had had been simple. You were accepted into Stanford without any problems that you remember. Positions just seemed to be handed to you. Extra money came along when it was needed, but yours was not to be an affluent life. You interviewed for the job here, but apparently you were the prime candidate. This was it, for you and your family… in-town living, time at Kentucky Lake, and then the Farm era.

Your professional field has not had great success, even though it should have. Both programs in which you studied have dropped away, and other once strong programs have weakened. So you wonder if there will be a similar fate for this one you will soon leave. You have helped the field become more holistic, with more concern for spirit, but the powerful field of medicine, with its physical focus, still is seen, by most, as what “health care” is about. So your era, as a health educator, has been one with which I am pleased… the re-introduction of the spiritual and increased concern for the health of the environment and the sustainability of the whole web of life. Yet, “as someone said”, Trend is not destiny. This may or many not continue. It won’t depend on you, but you’ve been more important than you are aware.

Since the war in which you had a small, non-combative role, there have been other wars, none settled decisively. There has been much loss of life, but way more births than deaths. There has been a pretty good balance of people and resources, and you and your children’s families have lived rather easy lives. You are only faintly interested in what the next era may bring. You hope for a minimum of suffering, but you know that you may need some more before your era ends.

You are aware of much spiritual activity, both in and outside of the church. You wonder whether you are actually near the beginning of a more spiritual era or whether all this, of which you are aware, is of minor consequence over-all, and for most persons.

It really doesn’t matter, does it!? Each era is important to Me, in some ways… AND ALSO… it doesn’t matter much to Me what trends develop and which become dominant. It actually is sometimes more fun to relate to an era or a culture where I am ignored or denied than when there is full acceptance of Me. For out of such come some fine, but often surprising, servants of Mine. Sometimes this is chosen freely. In other instances I select someone and “off We go.”

Your dominant Christian theology pictures Me, as God, either angry with the earth scene or hurt and sad because humans aren’t behaving as I want them to. To you I say: I am rarely angry, and almost never sad. I see good in almost every era, but this one you have chosen, and with which I’ve helped you, has been quite a good one. Finish it out in good style. Then We’ll see what comes next.

So be it
2:04 PM