Seniority

FRI., AUG. 30, 1985, 6:10 AM
FARM, STUDY

This is a term and a concept, o son, that is of value in your society. As people get older they become senior citizens. As people work in a job for a number of years they achieve seniority, a protection and a benefit. Is there such a reality as spiritual seniority. If there isn’t this will be a short Teaching.

Spiritual seniority is a valid concept, and though it has some correlation with age, it is not a perfect one. That is, most of those who display spiritual maturity have developed this during their earth life (apparently) and therefore show it more fully in their senior years than they did as younger folks. However, you also know that there are young people who are more spiritually developed than many of their elders. It is not unimportant that the one story of Me as Jesus during My childhood, staying in the temple with the elders, was a story of spiritual power in youth. (It also was a story of disobedience, an indication that I was “out of the garden” and in the earth.

I feel two ways about seniority, and I invite you to share My ambivalence. On the one hand I hold that senior citizens should be shown respect. Incarnated life in the earth is a valuable experience, and those who survive and live life long should be increasingly honored. It is therefore a mark of spiritual maturity when a young person can honor elderly persons, irrespective of their life achievements. It is the ill-developed spirit that must withhold honor if there are no clearly apparent accomplishments.

Yet you know My ambivalence, for I have told you that some people who live long earth lives remain self-centered, critical of others, and stubbornly apart from Me (even as church people). By earth standards they are seniors, but by My standards they are babes… who seem content to stay that way. Luckily, earth life is not the only means to spiritual growth. For some obviously get to their senior years… and “flunk out”.

I also have told you that My life as Jesus in the earth was a very valuable experience. I have all knowledge, by definition – all theoretical knowledge. But the earth was created as a plane of being where people could develop pragmatic knowledge or knowledge from actual experience. So while I did not need to grow in knowledge and understanding, in fact I did, as a result of My life as Jesus.

But… I had no experience as a senior. My life was to be short, and I sacrificed My opportunity to be a Senior Savior in the earth. So you are left to imagine what My teachings and actions would have been at your age… or approaching 80. Would the stories have been different? Would My apparent anger with the Pharisees have abated? Or was I as fully developed at 33, or thereabouts, as I would ever be? (Would My young servant Samantha have achieved much more if she had lived longer or would she have succumbed to spirit-dulling forces in the realm of celebrities?) I can answer them from celestial, eternal knowledge, but not from experience.