Pondering The Past

THURS., JAN. 13, 2000, 2:34
OFFICE, PULLIAM

This is a time in your life, o son, when you should ponder the past. This is more than just simple remembering and recall; it goes steps further, considering why something happened… or didn’t happen… and what the consequences were… or could have been. Your memory is fading, so don’t feel anymore frustrated than “necessary” when some details just won’t come back.

From My perspective (naturally) the most important pondering should focus on your spiritual life. When and how did it “begin”? What were the significant happenings and events? Has it been a natural, gradual development or were there some nearly definite peaks and valleys? Let Me guide you on this “ponder.”

You have a sense that you went, with your small family, to Sunday School in your early childhood years, but there are no memories of such. Your first recollections of this aspect of your early spiritual life are of the Junior Dept. at the First Methodist Church when you were 8 or 9 years old. You remember the big meeting room (it wouldn’t look so big now), the times the church orchestra would play…and the Temperance Sundays, when you joined the Loyal Temperance Union. Interestingly you were an abstainer from alcoholic drinks and beverages until you were on the faculty (well almost) at Stanford. In contrast you fooled around with cigarettes and pipe tobacco during high school, but you knew you would never be a “smoker.” You have abstained, in relation to smoking, as you pledged to do.

You had your first spiritual experience with Me after you graduated from high school, on the way to Church Camp in the mountains. You felt lost… and I encouraged that feeling in you… and so you knelt and prayed. I led you then, rather quickly to the Camp… you were almost there anyway. If that had been an isolated event you would probably not remember it, but now you can perceive it as a kind of beginning of your personal, spiritual life.

You were a rather faithful church-goer during your Navy time… and you did consider, with some seriousness, going into the Chaplain Corps. There was no response to your application, and you took that to be a “sign.” It was. That was not to be your career, for the development of your spiritual life. (It would have been a good life, but it was not “right” for you that time. Maybe next life?)

As I’ve told you before, you were “destined” to go to Punahou School and to meet… and finally marry… Lenore. It as also good that you started your teaching career in a Christian school, with a missionary heritage. You also increased in spirit through athletics. At UCLA your spirit had grown as you had a chance to be on athletic teams. This was recognized as you twice were selected for the Sugarman award, for best spirit and scholarship.

When you (with Lenore as your bride) went to Stanford she was the “means” for you becoming a Presbyterian… with the spiritual heritage of predestination. And, during this time, Maryellen introduced you, via a book, to reincarnation and “the life eternal.”

You have continued to be an active churchman, even as your personal theology is not quite fully Presbyterian. You have been, several times, to the A.R.E. (and you’re now re-reading Many Mansions).

All of this was good preparation for My choosing you to hear Me often, write down My Teachings to you, and include them in a quarterly Ruminations. You did go through a period when there was not much direct, positive relationship between your university teaching and your friendship with Me, Holy Spirit. But I was leading you to be a leader in the health education field, particularly in developing and teaching an holistic concept of health, with the spiritual as an overarching dimension. Then in the last portion of your career you comfortably saw your teaching as a spiritual adventure and challenge. You were a spiritual man who taught about the spirit as a wellspring of positive health.