2007-12-02. Heart of the Matter
Rio Rancho #152
Topic: Heart of the Matter
Group: Rio Rancho TeaM
Teacher: Merium
TR: Gerdean
Opening
Prayer (Men-o-Pah): Last year our choir sang this piece and it kind of colludes to us. We sang it about three or four times, which is kind of unusual for us. We sang the piece both before and after Easter. The composer of this piece is Kenneth Medina. Kenneth Medina is black and his life is full of the spirit.
“Oh, listen to your children praying
Oh, send your spirit into this place
Oh, listen to your children praying
Send us love, send us power, send us grace
You gonna know it when the Lord stretches out his hand
And the people of the Lord get down to pray
You gonna be singing a brand new song of victory in this land
When the people of the Lord get down to pray
Oh, listen to your children praying
Oh, send your spirit into this place
Oh, listen to your children playing
Send us love, send us power, send us grace.”
MERIUM: Amen and thank you, brother Carl/Wayawahili/Men-O-Pah & Co. for reminding us of his love, his power and his grace in the eyes of this old Negro spiritual. There is great heart in these words. There is great heart in the soul of each of you, each of you here today, as well as those of you who respond to the harmonious patterns from On High which you can use as steps on the ladder of cosmic ascension, even as we each condescend to climb that ladder in our individual destiny paths and tasks today.
We got heart. “Ya gotta have heart. Miles and miles and miles of heart.” Is that not the song? Intellectual assurances are invaluable and the spirit is unfailing, but when you have heart invested in this experience of living the life, you have added the flavor of fine soup, the aroma of an exotic flower, the pain of experiential living, and the certain thrill of triumph. These elements of character are the playing fields upon which we act out our lives and demonstrate our faith.
Lesson
We come to a new passage in this season, the winter solstice, into a new dispensation, a New Year, a new chapter in global history and in personal cycles of adventure in the flesh. Life is ever ongoing. Always are there opportunities for you to delve into a new pattern, in the experience of which you can gain wisdom through trial and error, through practice, by comparison, and in ways that will augment your existence.
Having heart embraces the human emotions that are also divine, those that are found in the fruits of the spirit, that are found in courageous loyalty to the job where people depend on you, courageous loyalty to the new grandchild or the burgeoning harvest of the future through these new ideas, new concepts, new children, new technologies, new beliefs that are coming into being — often more quickly than we can keep up.
All of these are born upon and live in and through a pattern. Eventually it becomes easier to discern those patterns in which you emerge a better person in which you have been able to minister effectively, in which you have garnered emotional satisfaction, in which others have benefited from your existence, in ways that reflect supreme values, that encourage exploration and that exalt reverence in divine values. Heart accepts the pain, the loss, the suffering, the grief, the unfairness, and rises above it — rises above all that to manifest hope and good cheer.
This is the season to be jolly, to behold the birth of the Christ child, in the eyes of Christendom; a time to celebrate the light; a time to revel in the experience of joy and appreciation for friends and family, to honor those good things about one another that we can depend upon and rely upon because they are an inherent part of the goodness of man, the beauty and the truth of humanity.
When you have heart, every day is Christmas. Every day is a day to celebrate the gift of life, the Spirit of Truth, the fact of sonship, the fraternity of others — human and divine. We are all embraced in a fairyland of love, a dimension of goodness, of heart. How lovely to contemplate that you may be challenged by these words to fulfil the reason for the season and add the dimension of divine love to your festivities through a revelation of heart — the heart of God that dwells within you each. Give your gifts as God gives his gifts: “with love, with power and with grace.”
I’ll conclude my little talk for the afternoon with that. I will allow a new pattern to present itself. Perhaps you will help me. We have several options, but I would like your involvement, your engagement. Do you want to tell me about what’s going on with you? Do you have any challenges, any celebrations, any questions?
Dialogue
Elena: I just wanted to ask about mother, who is going through some health challenges, so I would be interested to hear any comments about her situation.
Paula: I have called her on occasion recently, but she can’t even carry on a conversation; she gets tired. So I just break it off, and I think she is relieved.
Elena: Well, she’s tired.
MERIUM: I think you’ve addressed the subject very well. She is tired! And as you mature, as your body ages, as it also grows weary, it is the opportunity then to reflect upon the life’s experiences past and anticipate the transition ahead. It becomes more and more of a feature of the lives of the elderly, for in a way it is what you have lived all your lives to accomplish: “terrestrial escape!”
It is natural that people should pay attention to this process of changing from one form to another. Since you know you will take up in Mansonia just where you leave off here, it behooves you to know where you are here so that when you arrive there it will not be such a case of culture shock.
Becoming mindful of your relationship with your Adjuster – which is that which survives; that is the soul; that is what has lasting value — that being comprised of the spirit of God and the personality of you — that marriage, then, is what you want to build upon for your future existences.
Esmeralda is and has been grappling with her mortality and making peace with herself for some time. Her pattern, the one that she is familiar with, involves her own mother living well into her 90’s, and so she has a reasonable expectation that she will do likewise. And she well may, in fact, do just that!
Elena: That’s encouraging.
MERIUM: But she will, even so, experience these steps on the ladder of experience that will allow her to make the transition when it comes with peace and grace and not struggling and kicking as so many do, or in complete denial of what’s ahead, as is often the case. And so the best service you can provide for her and those millions of others who are approaching this next passage in their life, is to be gentle with them, and allow their sojourn into the next dimension to be as gracious as possible.
Sometimes death happens suddenly. And those instances, of course, capture our attention and very likely impress us fearfully. But the actual truth is that death comes quietly and slowly to most people. It may come through sickness, it may come from hearts wearing out that cannot be replaced. It may come quietly and without much ado, such that there are a few who are allowed the dignity of dying in their sleep. But the truth is, we cannot advance into spirit beings unless and until we relinquish the material form, and so this is a natural part of the process. It is a natural and necessary part of life. Let it be a natural part of learning and experiencing, as well — not a frightful and fearsome thing, but a natural and normal part of experiential living.
In time, you will be led to a chamber where your fusion can take place. When that day comes for your progeny, you on high can rejoice for the strides that were made and the ways in which you contributed to that evolutionary concept of death being a time of jubilation and release, a genuine graduation from this class to the next, a success story, a victory indeed, and not as a time of deep sorrow or judgment as it is taught and has been taught from time immemorial.
Leave behind the ghost fears; embrace the Light and walk toward it in confidence, in hope, in faith that when you approach the door, the Light will shine. “We’ll leave the light on for you!” And when the door opens, He will be there and He will remember you. What a wonderful feeling that will be. Many of you look forward to that moment even now. We know He is with you, even now, in the spirit, but we know, too, that when you see Him, in the Resurrection Halls, when you awaken to behold your own Adjuster — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — you will have attained something: you will have survived … in the eternal sense.
And so all the struggles, all the conflict, all the confusion, all the pain, all the difficulty, all the sacrifices, all the effort of living life as it is lived on an evolutionary planet are forgotten in the Light. They are made part of your experience, your personality experience, and so you take the value with you into eternity, even as you leave the pain behind. Just as a woman in childbirth forgets the pain of childbirth in the delight of beholding her newborn babe.
When you resurrect you will be in many ways like a newborn babe. You will be overseen and assigned work that is appropriate for your development. You will have brought much with you. You are gathering your treasures, your experiential rubies, as you experience your human existence, with all its difficulties but will also all its joys, mysteries, excitement, discovery and delight — the heart, indeed. (Pause) I rambled.
Elena: No, I appreciate it. That was comforting, actually. I hadn’t thought about — when we think about our Thought Adjuster, I don’t think about seeing my Thought Adjuster. I guess from my viewpoint, from my imagination, I see it as inside of me. “Seeing” him, that was a new look at it, and your words were very comforting so I appreciate that.
MERIUM: You might surprise yourself one day to look in the mirror and see your Adjuster alive and well in your own eyes. It’s a mystery.
Elena: Well, I’ll start looking for him. Looking for different things in the mirror wouldn’t be a bad idea.
MERIUM: Well, if you are to look for the Adjuster in others …
Elena: Right.
MERIUM: … and find their divine aspects, it would make sense that you would have them within you as well, in order to recognize them elsewhere. And having survived without your body, without your trappings, without your titles, property, credit cards, clothing, or mannerisms, who are you? That is the relationship to cultivate. That relationship with your self, which is divine, which is along the order of infinity, as compared to that which is temporary.
Your love of your new grandchild, for example, is reflected in the perfect moment in time. This moment will never be duplicated. In time, you will admire your grandchild’s school papers and ability to draw or knowledge of the heavens, even perhaps their skill at sports or ability to make conversation. That is yet another pattern of reality that is passing and you may not remember them specifically in eternity, but you will remember how that felt. You will remember the delight you shared with life and that life shared with you. You will remember valuing the curiosity spirit, the love of adventure, even while you may forget the circumstances. Was it grade school? Was it junior high school? Was it kindergarten or college? Was it my child or was it someone else’s? Was it a human child or was it a midwayer? But the value, nonetheless, remains a part of your eternal pounding heart. Fear not that you will lose your good memories. Rejoice that you will not always remember the bad ones. This is an eternal truth. The good remains; the dross will fall away.
Paula: All you young people don’t have to worry. Wait ’til you get to be as old as I am! On February 12, Lincoln and I are having a birthday! I know he is deader than a doornail, but I am alive and I’m feeling great, and I’m going to be 89! That’s a heck of an age. Nobody lived that long in the family for the last several generations. Before that, they lived to be 100. I’ll live to be 100 but I’m having such a good time, I don’t want to give that up.
MERIUM: You’ll have a good time there, too.
Paula: I’ll bet I will. You meet all kinds of people and I like meeting people, to find out what they are like.
MERIUM: You have lived to be 89 because you have good stock, you have a good attitude, and you have maintained good habits. All of these contribute to your longevity. The pattern was that you would live much longer than a century, but there have been some setbacks. Those will be overcome in time and you are seeing the reparations take place since man lives longer than he did in ages past, barring those who live to be that ripe old age which is the human potential.
Elena: I wanted to ask you something else, actually. [The question was inaudible, but it had to do with feeling obligated to support all the many service organizations that solicit help, particularly for those less fortunate and particularly at this time of the year.]
MERIUM: I think you’re on the right track. You know what calls you. You have a sense of what obligation is and where your loyalties lie. The thing is, you see, you fall within a certain range of socioeconomic accomplishment, and so you have given here and given there and so it has been noticed that you are a giving person and there are people who depend on people like you to support their ministry.
There is nothing wrong with that except that you are being inundated with the patterns that have developed since more people are being of service and there are avenues by which people can be of service and institutions are often able to do things that individuals are not able to do, such as dealing with other countries or unfortunates. You don’t need to feel responsible for all these service ministries staying afloat. They know the risks. They have their aspirations — both altruistic and not so altruistic, as any human institution will. But if you mind your counsel and live your life, you will discover those things to which you personally, willingly want to contribute; you will go out of your ways to find ways to support that which you feel your heart has responded to – not your social consciousness, your political awareness or your sentimental appreciation of life’s greatest thoughts. But it is unreasonable to think that you can contribute to or support all these organizations. For now, throw them all in the trash. And allow your own awareness to let you know what you want to support.
If you are taking the rest of the year off, as you said you would do, and allowing January, even February to be a period of reflection on how you want your life to emerge, when the thaw comes and sap begins to flow anew through your veins, you will not clutter your consciousness with these overwhelming concerns of others.
When you serve, my dear, you are generous. You are and have been a whirlwind of giving and serving and doing and achieving. You are going to need to learn how to set some of that aside anyway. You cannot keep up the pace. Eventually you will recognize what it will take and indeed the sacrifices you will need to make in order to function more fully in those avenues of life that you will choose to follow and respect.
Elena: Well, that’s good advice. I appreciate that. Thank you.
MERIUM: You need to learn how to weed the garden and thin out the plants as they come up, otherwise they will all choke upon itself and your garden will be a gnarled patch of vegetation without produce. You want to feel effective. You want that satisfaction of knowing you are doing God’s will. You want to know that what you are doing is right for you, will provide you with soul satisfactions as well as pragmatic results that are necessary for you at this time in your life – as you begin to discern for yourself and let go of those things which can no longer be a consideration in your pursuit of doing those things which you know you can and will do something about, based on your choice your own purposive path.
That lesson above serves not just for the solicitors that come along on the Internet, but all the many well-intentioned people who come along seeking something from you.
Student: [Inaudible]
MERIUM: I can see that we are meandering afield.
Elena: Before you go, though, what did you mean about changing the pattern? What were you actually intending … in terms of our meetings.
MERIUM: Well, there is that, too. We can think in terms of the New Year, if that matters. I know that — and this is business. I don’t know that it needs transcribed and broadcast, but — last year Gerdean announced that she wanted to take the first Sunday of every month to provide stability for a meeting and so we have done that, and that has been great grounding for Gerdean and evidently for others as well, but there are modifications that could me made or adjustments or changes that could also be made that would reflect on those of you who attend and/or those of you who don’t. And so perhaps over supper you can talk about any changes you might like to make in the new season.
There are many possibilities, beginning with continuing as we are doing, introducing the occasional Urantia Book study or transcripts of other communities, an effort for others to learn the transmitting/receiving process, alternate dates, alternate locations, individual presentations, projects involving your skills as musicians, and a lot of other possibilities. I know how you are and how we are. We like a routine, but when it becomes a rut, we need to change. If we are in a rut, where is it a rut? If it is a routine, as they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
There are always those who don’t like it this way, or who want change. We need to hear from these people. We need to appreciate their level of growth so we can advance spirit reality in our relationships, in our community, in our culture, in our neighborhood, in our many, many ways and means of relating and bringing forth the Kingdom … on earth as it is in heaven … as closely as possible. In this way we lift it up, out of war, out of poverty, out of disease and into the Light.
Closing
Therefore, Light Workers — my little lightning bugs, 4th of July firecrackers and fireplace cedar log pops — let’s make merry and let me know what you want to do because we’ll be around.
Group: Good.
MERIUM: Bye-bye!
