Balancing… A Form Of Both/And

MON., AUG. 30, 1993, 1:50 PM
OFFICE, PULLIAM HALL

Wisely, you are looking ahead to Our next Ruminations and, sagely, you are focusing on these excellent Teachings that were selected for an earlier issue, but were not included. This rejection was not because they weren’t informative or important, which you see they are, but because you have a self-imposed limit to your pages. So, yes, now is the time to use some of these in a letter with this theme. Balancing is the main gerund verb in your Wellsprings model, and it does imply deciding on how to interact with competing “goods”, or with good and evil, when the latter seems attractive, for one or more reasons.

Your President, your Congress, and your Nation will soon be attempting to rebalance your medical care “system,” so that all citizens can receive needed benefits and costs will be contained. As a people you seem to want more medical services but no additional taxes… or costs to families. You want more efficiency in the “system,” but you also want more jobs… and less elimination of jobs. You want freedom to choose practitioners and facilities, knowing that this complicates the system and increases costs, overall. It shall be interesting to see whether the political process can produce a better balance, without too many undesirable “side effects.”

One of your classes this term is the one dealing with alcohol and other drugs. In this you stress the balancing of motivations as the critical factor in whether there is no use, some use, occasional misuse, or chronic abuse. You, personally, do a lot of different balancing with alcohol, in different beverages and drinks. Some of this is conscious, even planned and “executed.” Some is partly unconscious, and some rather completely so. With prescription and over-the-counter drugs the balancing is strongly toward non-use, and use requires some real reason. For most other recreational drugs the easy balance is no-use, because it would require both effort and risk to obtain and use, and no such need is evident.

In the course you will urge them to explore various balances, represented in points of view and actual behaviors. A good balance for one may not be so for another. Your balance now is different from yours when you were their age. And it could be rebalanced in the future, as you age further.

“Balance” can imply a set of behaviors which produces all good and no bad… the perfection of the skilled gymnast on the balance beam or in floor exercise. It also can imply another set of behaviors that produces some negative as well as some positive outcomes, but which seems the best compromise with the realities of life or situations. A person like Jim, your cousin, with developing Parkinson’s, seeks a balance of drugs… medications… that produce maximum good and the least amount of harm. This isn’t easy, in the differences in reaction to different activities and situations.

Thus, balancing is the process of trying to restore balance, when “perfection” is lost or some different effects seem desirable.

One of the aspects of balancing that is of most interest to Me is that of the knowledge that you are a child of Mine and should be wholly dependent on Me AND the knowledge that you need to be independent as a human, living this life fully, with little concern for future rewards and punishing consequences. Some people achieve a fairly comfortable balance and maintain it. Most need to keep rebalancing, depending on consequences and the power of each competing “knowledge.”

You come to Me to hear ideas that shall turn your balance toward Me. Yet in your profession, in your church, and among many of your friends and relatives you must show forth a balance different from what I recommend. You are a “closet mystic,” which is not completely comfortable but seems preferable to the balance of “full exposure.” You are hearing Me now, but you could also be using this time in preparing for tomorrow’s classes. Many would not consider this the best balance… while a few would.

Is there some ideal balance to life, or is continued balancing to be preferred? Unless there is some emergency I want, for you, a balance that includes Me regularly and includes more rereading of past Teachings. With this as the stable base, I then recommend creative, continual balancing, with growth of spirit as your major criterion for what you do and don’t do. Now you have a start…

Shalom
2:50 PM
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