Appreciation

SAT., NOV. 13, 1982, 7:10 AM
FARM, STUDY

You have persisted, o son. This is not an easy task when your mind has started to deal with the early matters of the day. You couldn’t relax into a meditative state, and you still are not in the mind/spirit relationship that is best for this time of teaching. Still, you did persist, and you fulfill your commitment of a week today, and I appreciate that. Never lose the resolve to fulfill any commitments that I seek from you or that you make to Me. It now shall be time to organize the teachings from the last few months and review them. This shall supplant receiving new teachings… for a time. I do not want you to lose appreciation for these morning lessons… and you are close to that now.

I have told you that one of the characteristics of the “spiritual life” is appreciation. It involves an extending of self toward another or toward an aspect of the world and feeling the value that could go unrecognized and unacknowledged. The mind can appreciate, but its appreciations tend to be the more obvious “objects” or subjects of this response. You can appreciate obvious kindness by another… or a truly magnificent sunset… or a well-written answer on a test. The well-developed spirit, however, helps you to appreciate persons and situations that are not so obvious. I am making you more aware of such, and your range of appreciations is increasing. (Yes, it will be acceptable for you to finish this later in the day. You have persisted, but it is more painful than fulfilling.)

7:59 AM / 5:06 PM

You return as We both knew you would. Now let’s continue with appreciation. Both/and thinking is important to full appreciation. You can appreciate one condition and also its opposite. The cool air of today made you appreciate the warm days of summer. And yet you appreciated the cool also and look forward to the cold of winter. Since appreciation is a kind of valuing, it just follows that, yes, you can value opposites… and sometimes because they are opposites. For everything there is a season.