Thoughts On A Green, Summer Afternoon

THURS., JULY 2, 1998, 3:52 PM
FARM, PICNIC TABLE

This is a familiar spot on this Farm of yours (Ours), but more for the conducting of classes than for these meditations with Me. It is a beautiful, warm, early summer afternoon, and you look out at the green of your woods and marvel at how My nature doth reproduce. You have always loved trees, and now you live virtually surrounded by them. (It does look as if that rather brittle old tree has lost one of its trunks… some more firewood for when the leaves have fallen and the cool season returns).

One thought of Mine on this fine day is that you are showing too much concern for your “income” and for your future financial state. My concern, of course, is that I have assured you that I shall see that you have all you need… which doesn’t mean you couldn’t have some hardship, but just that I still assure you that I have many ways to “fulfill My pledge”.

In relation to your pledges to your church I want you to continue to fulfill the pledge for the operation and for benevolences… and increase it a bit when the stewardship campaign rolls around. You might also consider a small pledge to UCM, some symbolic help to Hugh and Dan. You and Lenore have made a generous pledge to the Capital Campaign, for building changes that don’t seem “worth the money required”, to you. I have told you before that I am rarely impressed by building projects to meet practical and projected needs. I am more in favor of funds that go for beauty – the beauty of worship. Thus, the maintenance of the stained glass windows and of the organ are more important, to Me, than more toilets, more space for offices and for fellowship. Really?!

I give you no great, important prophesies in relation to the economics of the world. Just consider that with the prosperity of this time, the dearth of wasteful wars, and the wonderful means of international communication, the “goodies” of life are not at all evenly distributed. Any economic downturn (and there will be many reasons for such a happening) will show clearly that the population of you humans is excessive for such a recession or depression. Such would (will?) be a time in which the best in human love and unselfishness will be challenged by the worst – greed, selfishness, and the “dark side of competition”. I don’t call on you to be overly concerned about such a future, but just to live life as simply as is comfortable.

You are “bothered” here by small forms of flying life, and you see prettier forms flitting among the green leaves. You hear bird sounds… and you are called to realize that I have created… and continue to create… in wonderfully diverse ways. You humans are important, but not as important as your culture considers you to be. Remember… and this is only marginally Scriptural… that you are important only as a part of the whole web of life, which includes all of these other life forms (the annoying ones, too!) This is because life is fundamentally and finally spiritual. This physical manifestation is only a part of the journey… a good chance to improve, spiritually, but also with many opportunities to regress and lose spiritual development. Each of you knew this before you came into bodily and mental form, but many forces in the earth scene encourage a forgetting of the real reasons for this stint in human form.

You mused, earlier this afternoon, about your youthful opportunities for leadership, and how you sought and served in several of these. Then it became clearer to you… a true “remembrance”… that your life role was to be that of an educator, with an increasing focus on and concern for the spiritual as a vital “portion” of true health. You were to be a leader as one functioning in ways, spiritual, not as one famous in the standards of your culture.