Spiritual Adapting

WED., OCT. 19, 1988, 7:03
FARM, STUDY

The reading you are now doing tells you about adapting done by the physical body. The body is a marvelous mechanism… a creation over long earth time. (I was in no hurry, as I am not now.) One of the great capacities I “built in” to the human body is adaptation… a capacity it shares with other life forms. Life “fits together.” Humans were not created to be significantly different from other forms of life but to be a part of a mighty web of diverse life forms.

Some humans have great capacity to use the mind to understand the world in which they find themselves. Some of this thinking is quite arrogant… that which portrays humans as such a superior form of life that human needs and wants are always to be achieved, whatever the effects on other life. This represents the dictum that “the first shall be first.”

Now, as you well know, I have great feeling for humans, for the superior human is My greatest creation, individually. Yet the superior human must know that she is, finally, a small part of a great panorama of life, all interrelated. All forms of life, to be successful in living, must be constantly adapting to other manifestations of life. Much of this is unconscious, being a part of the wisdom of the body. Yet some is conscious, and some has a definite spiritual quality to it.

The books you are reading are crammed with material on physical adapting. Your ultimate task is to relate this all to spiritual adapting, so that you portray the healthy human as one who is adapting holistically, with some humility balancing his arrogance. I shall help you see that spirit is a vital element in the total adapting of humans.

I see and accept that much of what humans have done in the medical sciences has helped with adaptation. Immunization is a form of artificial adaptation to organisms that can cause sickness and death. Organ transplants are an ostentatious form of adaptation, and there shall be others developed that will be high on the “arrogance scale.”

It is poor spiritual adaptation to feel and act as though human life is all that counts. Good spiritual adaptation is based in the affirmation that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof… they that dwell therein”, linked to the interpretation that the “they” refers to all forms of life, not just humans.

Now there certainly is competition for food, that essential of life. And yet the American supermarket is a symbol of arrogance in its display and provision of foods that go far beyond needs. Eventually there shall be a return to balance, with those who have so much having less, bringing forth the possibility of spiritual adapting to these apparent losses and a closer walk with a God not so tied to affluence.

The possibility of losing this Farm is, finally, an opportunity for spiritual adaptation. Can you live life as fully in a different place? Can you find and develop places that offer the same nurture for your spirit as you enjoy here? Can you develop activities that will be comparable in satisfaction to what give you pleasure here? The future has not been predetermined. It is not certain that you shall have to move, as it is not certain that this place will remain yours. In such uncertainty spiritual adaptation is called for… changing what can be changed and accepting what cannot… and walking with Me in new places, humbly.

As your physical and intellectual capacities diminish you can be sustained best with good spiritual adapting. Increasingly your spirit will carry you in the teaching process. You shall not be a fount of new knowledge, but you shall guide the growth of spirit in the classroom setting. You shall have to deal with some criticism, but your spirit is quite capable in such encounters.