An Itch… To Write

FRI., JUNE 20, 1997, 12:44 AM
FARM, STUDY

Yes, o son, you did feel a persistent itch, that prevented your returning to sleep. Hence, you wisely decided that it was time for a Teaching from Me, Holy Spirit. Was I responsible for this “urge”? Why not assume I was… in the spirit of fun.

Since your return the weather has been as perfect as it was the week you were in Hawaii. It rained here much, when you were gone, so the grass is green and abundant, and the pasture grass, too. Your desk here is a mess, but you’ve accomplished one major task and wisely decided against traveling to Ohio for the ARIS meeting. You feel bad about missing the gathering with Bob, but you do have plenty to do here, mainly the completion of Our Letter. You certainly have plenty of material, as you usually do, but the selection process will take some time, and making that trip would have “pressed” you… unnecessarily.

What lies ahead? Preparing for the first 2 or 3 class sessions and then your retirement party, with more people to talk with than for which there will be time. I’m preparing you already: this must be a fundamentally spiritual event. Look forward to experiencing it as such, and then actually feel the spirit that your teaching here these 32 years has engendered. Last weekend you felt it in the various reunion events, plus others, mostly out of the mere 6 years of your career that were at Punahou. This coming event will represent over 5 times those years, with much more spiritual maturity. I’m alerting you early to experience it as the spiritual event that will be a kind of preview of the dropping-the-body experience. This shall celebrate the close of your career and the entrance into the life of retirement. Then, in a few years you can move on out of this earth scene and take up life again in the spirit, celebrating this whole experience as Bob Russell.

There is still much to be done in transition, with leaving your office in Pulliam (which has become a rather regular secondary site for these Teachings) a major step in the transition. Perhaps there will “arise” another place, in town, comparable to that… or will this study, in a different configuration of furniture, be truly primary? That will be answered as your life is reorganized.

It is a slight disappointment that these two concentrated courses during this next month, Death Education, will quite probably be the last of these, for you. Others will take over this splendid opportunity, that you have enjoyed for these 21 years. Just be ready, should there be another class, not quite so popular, that you could continue. I obviously know what will happen, but you must experience it as it comes along. I’ll just say: be ready for anything… or nothing.

You do appreciate, as you should, the contrast between the crowded life in Honolulu and the expanse on which you live. You see it, as you do, as a blessed gift, the life you have lived and will complete on this Farm and in this unappreciated part of your country. You can (and you should!) look back now and see how your life developed, culminating here. You have had almost a perfect university teaching experience, combined with life here on this strangely beautiful place… quite rightly designated as the Farm. You haven’t deserved such a blessing… and yet I’ll also admit that you have.

It’s really a form of Grace, undeserved but given, because it has been fun to guide you here. You don’t have to “earn it”, but you will be faithful in this relationship with Me, in appreciation. To pose the question… what if you should cease to be faithful?… is just silly. You could give this up, but you won’t. I know it, and so do you. The Covenant shall not be broken.