Spirit = Reality

WED., DEC. 4, 1991, 6:25 AM
FARM, STUDY

While it is appropriate for you, o son, to espouse the holistic position in relation to the reality of health I must push you to consider increasingly the reality of spirit as the dominant descriptor. Said another way… when you are functioning professionally, as a teacher, you should emphasize the holistic concept. But personally you must realize more and more that the true reality of health is spiritual. Probably this shall not be dominant in your lifetime because of material/industrial/business forces, but the very crisis mounting in relation to medical care is a factor hastening its advent.

You have read and discussed the last portion of the Scripture according to James, and while it advocates a spiritual response to illness, it seems primitive and naïve. This is because of your cultural orientation to medicine and high tech responses to illness and injury. In the future it shall become more normative, and Richard’s comment about elders being willing to lay their hands on those who are sick will become more of a viable issue.

What you have read about Dr. Ornish and his work with heart patients is important reality. Be sure and read this again and become more facile in quoting the work. In fact, I would urge you to read the whole of that journal and begin to consider it as the professional journal you read most thoroughly and avidly. (And, yes, it is time for you to begin to terminate certain publications that you do not read. You have begun this selection process. Continue it, say I.) Collect back issues and review them for studies and papers that you have overlooked.

You see, I am pushing you to see that spirit is the dominant reality, even of earth life. Therefore it is the main factor in health… or the quality of your functioning and adapting, to use your adequate words. This is difficult in your culture, but you must come to see that this is a cultural preference… for scientific answers… and one that you should increasingly see as a preference rather than as base reality. At your age you should also be more attuned to spirit, for this is the aspect of self that continues. The body is finally “dropped,” slowly or suddenly, and spirit remains as the lasting reality. You should recognize this before the “dropping” is yours to experience… while you’re still functioning well as a physical person.

Why? Because the other reality is that spirit has the most influence on how the body functions. You are functioning as well… sometimes better… as a whole person since these present disabilities than when you were more physically sound. The attitudes and behaviors that you are displaying are increasing your reserve and making your body more resistant to other deteriorations. You can be aware of symptoms and have these checked, as you will do tomorrow, but do not become overconcerned and do not revert to seeing these as true reality.

The reality of this Farm and this old Farmhouse is spirit, and gatherings of students, like unto last evening, enhance this spirit. Family gatherings are also important… and the continuing love relationship between you and Lenore is the main factor in keeping this the spiritual place it should be. Even the University, for all that it does to enhance learning, is most fundamentally a spiritual institution, with a mission to positively affect the spirits of those who are its faculty, staff, and students. This would not be expressed in the 21st century report, but I want you to see it this way.