A Return To “Normal”

MON., JAN. 24, 1994, 6:52 AM
FARM, STUDY

Yes, o son, this is finally the day that life for you shall return to what you can call “normal.” Most importantly Lenore will return from her visiting, and this house will become more of a home again. Be sure and keep some of those resolves about showing your appreciation for her more than you have. This has been a good time of “discovery”… that you truly do miss her from your life… and not just because she is more able than you in many circumstances. Over these years together you two have become one, as your marriage vow asserted. Unhappily, many who hear the same words proclaimed do not achieve this “oneness.” And please understand that it is much more a matter of complementarity than of being alike.

As you look out you see the reappearance of the earth, as the snow continues to melt. You have experienced an abnormal time of cold and freezing and you have survived with only a few “problems.” I find nothing wrong with your seeing this as a “taste,” at least, of the life that is normative for most of My people in the earth. In the whole picture of human life running hot water on demand, for a prolonged shower, with shampoo and conditioner, is quite a luxury. Don’t overdramatize your “hardship,” but I recommend quietly appreciating it.

With the second week of classes, and the first for this International Health experience, you are back in the Spring teaching experience that you have come to expect. It still is an exciting time for you, in meeting classes that are energizing for your spirit. There will come a time when this load will seem like a load, and it will be time to consider retirement, but that time is “not yet.” Remember how often I have told you that this is your mission in this life, as it has been in others, in several realms. You cannot envision the variety of ways and scenes in which educating takes place. Perhaps in some future you will take up the teaching role in something like we are in now, you and I. Don’t be concerned as to what this means, exactly. Just remember that I suggested, on a snow-melting day, that it could be so, in your future.

Know, of course, that this is not the end of winter. January is nearly over, but February looms. See these experiences as challenges to the spirit, and profit from your actions in living with cold, ice and snow. Experience tells you clearly that this is not a normally harsh climate, and, by northern standards, you have only “tastes” of real winter. Resist the feeling that this is something just to “live through.” Particularly now, in your senior citizen years, seek to appreciate all of the experiences you are having, as you are having them, for, as you see in those older than you, memory becomes erratic. When you appreciate an experience with your spirit, as you did that hymn sing last evening, your spirit remembers, and this is more important than what your mind can no longer do consistently.

You shall miss the Session meeting tonight, and this shall be a “miss” that you shall both regret and applaud. You are a part of the machinations of your church’s government, but you are uncomfortable in political squabbles. Continue to balance these experiences, facing some and withdrawing from others. Remember that balancing is at the heart of healthy behavior.