“The Last Day”?

FRI., DEC. 31, 1999, 6:27 AM
FARM, STUDY

It is light in the eastern sky, preceding the dawn of the last day (by some “calculations,” at least) of this year, 1999, and, therefore of this century, the 20th. You don’t expect great chaos tomorrow, but you can only wait and see, for you have no way of knowing what will happen in this electronically interdependent earth scene. Do I know how it will be? Don’t ask.

You have no plans other than seeing the New Year… and Century… in, preceded by the telecast of New York City’s celebration of this “transition.” It will have become the year 2000 all across Asia and Europe by the time it is midnight in New York, so you will hear, be assured, of any major glitches coming from computer “misjudgment.”

Here, on this last day of the year and century the sky is clear, the temperature is mild, for winter, and you have, as worries, only the leaking pipe in the basement and this “stack of stuff,” which includes unpaid bills, on your left. (Perhaps you will deal with these… perhaps not.)

You are experiencing bothersome physical and mental losses, but, yet again, I call on you to give these as little attention as possible. Compensate and adapt as best you can, but don’t focus on these, even as they increase, in your own mind and in your talk. Live life as positively as you can. See what you still have rather than what you have lost.

Consider that the “deprived people” of this earth scene have little to lose in this potential electronic “mishap.” If they have survived they have had to adapt. How adaptable are those who could lose the most when computers can’t adapt properly? Await this drama… high or low.

You are pleased to have lived through this 20th century and on into the 21st. Yet, as I have told you, these are symbolic numbers for “sophisticated” cultures, having no reality, other than as “markers.” You are conscious of your age. You even have a personal goal of living until you are 76. Yet you are doing reasonably well in living each day as fully as possible. As you should you reminisce about the life you have lived, but are aware that more and more of the details fade from your memory. You don’t know quite what to expect as a spirit who has dropped your body, but you have the faith that life in spirit realms will be quite wonderful, as I have told you.

So, yes, do review your life and savor the delights you have had. And… anticipate the future… expect to “go gently” into this next chapter of your complete “life story.” But… be active in each remaining day, appreciating life as you have it to live, even with increasing losses.

You are making the gradual transition from life as an active professor, and this seems best for you, at this time. You know, of course, that sometime, in the near future, you will have to give up that office and be, finally, retired. This shall be like unto a preview of your actual “death,” as Bob Russell, in that you will have some sadness in no longer having a “place” in Pulliam Hall, but will accept that change in your life as a proper closure…and an entrance to full retirement. For when it is time for you to “move on” you shall have some regrets, but also some joyous anticipation of “the next life”.

On this “last day” you see this century now coming to an end as being quite wonderful for you. You would not long to live much before you actually did, and you are not sad that you shall not live long in this forward-moving century. You do hope that your leaking pipe can be repaired soon, for you do appreciate the luxury of water that flows from the tap.