Sons

FRI., OCT. 1, 1999, 6:55 AM
FARM, STUDY

This is the anniversary of the birth of your first son, Bob, Jr., now 46 years ago. This was quite an event in your life, and you remember only portions of it now, but let this happening be the cue for this morning’s Teaching.

I, as Holy Spirit, am not identified as a son… or as a daughter. I Am, apparently, an ungendered Spirit, but I Am At One with God, the Father and Jesus, the Son. So, perhaps the best way to identify Me is, as I told it in the Parable of Predestination, a Servant, but of equal “status’ with the Father and the Son.

I often address you “o son,” which implies that I see Myself as a Father figure for you. It’s “complicated,” of course, by your culture’s perceptions, so just accept that Truth is not often easy to explain.

You were a son to your father. You loved each other, but there was little expression of this until rather late in his life. You were not truly “close,” but neither did you clash. He was a “good father,” and you were a “good son.” You appreciated his coming to see all of your football games when you were a senior and co-captain, knowing that he appreciated athletic prowess that he didn’t have. But you left home at 17, and were “on your own” from that fairly young age.

It then was 10 years of living rather independently. You finished your undergraduate work, after some Navy experiences. You almost completed your first job, as a coach and teacher, when you and Lenore were married. Then came your year of doctoral study, followed by the year of research and first university teaching, which commenced with the birth of Bob, your first son.

But he was not to be your only son, as you were to your father. Son Michael was born (as Mikey) before you returned to Hawaii, and son John Patrick (as Ricky) made you a father for a third time. Back to Stanford, and Peter joined your family, and then, in the new house on the campus, a son #5, Matthew, completed the family.

You loved each one of them, in those days of childhood, but you were busy with your career, knowing that efforts and accomplishments then would earn you the full tenured professorship that looked so desirable. Then came teenage, one by one, and being a father was still partially rewarding, but often painful.

As I have told you I was with you from early in your life… through all that I have described… but it wasn’t until 2+ years after Peter’s death that I made Myself known to you, and did use the greeting “o son”.

You were still a father, but now you were a son, again, in quite a different relationship. Oh, you shared more with your Dad, on visits, in his last years, but not as close as We had become. ( 7:35 / 7:40 )

As God, the Father, I had a Special Son, Jesus, Who lived a rather short life, giving it up, in crucifixion, for all of you who would accept Us, as the Triune God, and be “saved” for continuing spiritual life. As Holy Spirit I Am part of that close family, and, still, as I’ve told you, I have an independence, that is hard to explain, but is actual.

Consider this analogy, though it is not a perfect one: you were a son for many years, and you still are, even as the remains of your Dad’s body is in the ground in Peter’s Park. You have been a father now, for 46 years, with the joys and sorrows of that “role.” Then in My over 20 years with you I’ve emphasized that yours is a strong, growing spirit that shall transcend this life as Bob Russell. Overarching these “roles” as father and son is this of being an aware spirit, a Presbyterian mystic, one who can see beyond the “roles” that are cultural and obvious.