A Lesson For The Future

FRI., JULY 21, 1995, 10:26 PM
FARM, STUDY

You completed the first half of this 2 week class this afternoon, with a story that has proven itself effective. Your feeling this afternoon was quite different from that experienced yesterday. Today the time was sufficient, and you felt good about the result. When you complete this course, next Friday, you will have, by your present declaration, just two years more as a full-time professor. This is the future about which I speak this evening.

Remember the admonition I have offered you in earlier years: I am very little interested in most of the “content” of your courses…and, increasingly, you should be interested more in what interests Me than in what your academic discipline or your university standard recommend. As a senior tenured professor you are virtually above criticism. You are almost free to do what you want to do… which should be what I want you to do.

What was the lesson of today? Arrange for the class group to be in a setting in which they can see one another, and “around the picnic table” is certainly one of those settings. Use it, or around the dining table, at least as often as you do now, and, preferably, more often. Use stories increasingly, stories that directly and indirectly tell of spirit, and which encourage the sharing of spirit. You have been using the prize reaction papers from previous classes as spirit encouragers, and you need to do this even more.

The “creative exam” that you have developed for this course could be adapted for your others. Be less concerned with student’s factual learning, and more interested in how they think and feel. Explore ways to bring forth their spiritual knowledge rather than just the intellectual. In this time period you are unlikely to be criticized… and if you are, shouldn’t you be proud to be hassled for following the leading of the Holy Spirit? I say you should be.

It is rather amazing, isn’t it?… how much you have learned about the folks in this class in one short week. Much of what they are sharing is spiritual knowledge, even as they may not realize it. Even more will come forth this coming week, and I want you to be aware as it comes. Go over that which is written on the back of the “biography sheets”. And then talk with individuals about those motivations and whether they’re being fulfilled. The nature of the course is now well established. You can relax more this week and enjoy seeing growth, in the midst of camaraderie, which shall culminate next Friday.

A set-back was yours to experience yesterday, one that brought some random thoughts about retiring earlier than the 1997 you’ve chosen. Today those feelings were nullified by the delight the class inspired. You will still have a few of the “yesterday experiences,” but if you follow My encouragement you will have many more of the “todays.” Consider also that both you and the learners may need some of those “yesterday experiences” in order to better appreciate the “today happenings.” There is potential learning in every life experience. Don’t limit yourself.

I realize you can’t completely ignore and eliminate content. But I don’t back down from My basic observation: most factual content is of little or no value to Me. Then I’ll add that some of the content of the courses you teach is of interest to Me… more so than that of most of the courses in other departments in this and other universities. Just be aware of what I value and be more true to Me than to the university.

If you can see this as your most important goal these next 2 years will fly by in a most enjoyable way. As you stimulate the spirits in those in your courses your spirit will develop also. You can almost “feel” when this happens, so be more willing to seek this feeling than to give assignments that have little “feeling quality.”