2005-01-23-Progress

Session

Opening

DANIEL (Nancy): Greetings, my friends. I am your servant, and great admirer, Daniel, smiling upon you affectionately with a full heart and a beaming countenance.

Your discussions this evening are noteworthy. We appreciated the level of openness with which you conducted your discussions, and the sense of camaraderie and gentle affection among you.

My role tonight is to complement you for your conduct and introduce tonight’s speaker. Because of the length of your discussion and our awareness of the limit on your time, we have altered our previous plan, and so we have decided to invite a guest speaker to address you. We will save our lengthier lesson for another evening. Marty’s teacher Cora will make the address.

CORA: Greetings, my dear friends. I am Cora, Emilissa’s teacher and friend. It is my sincere pleasure to have this opportunity to converse with all of you, and, in particular, to briefly address my dear, dear friend, whom I love with such great affection.

Lesson

Tonight I have been given the privilege of discussing progress and what progress entails for mortals seeking spiritual development and a closer walk with God. My purpose in discussing progress is because so often, from the mortal perspective, progress appears to be the opposite, to be regress. This is because, in order to know God, one must remove the façade that God does not already know you in all your many dimensions. In order to know God, you must let God know you, and in order to let God know you, you must get to know your selves -- not just the picture of your selves that you would wish the world to see -- but the whole you, the real you, the many complex and varied reasons.

Progress entails opening cupboard drawers and doors in unused parts of the house and sorting through the accumulation. As one sorts through this accumulation, emotions from long ago may surface – grief, feelings of inadequacy, anger, shame, and so forth. As one is experiencing these feelings from the accumulations from the past, it can become quite overwhelming and feel as if one were slipping backwards. And yet it is through this very process of cleaning, that over time a person becomes comfortable, aware, knowledgeable of their whole being, and can open up and say, "God be with me in this time" and God be with me in that time" and "God be with me when I feel and behave this way, that I may know you, that I may love you, and that I may truly know your love for me.! Help me to clean house, Father."

And so this is an aspect of progress that can feel like the opposite. In these times it is helpful to keep one’s eyes firmly on the goal and an awareness of what one’s desire is, and trust that if your desire is to know God, to do God’s will, then God is guiding you in that which needs to be undone in order to be done.

This is but one aspect of progress, but it is the aspect to which I will limit my remarks tonight. Unless there are questions or comments, I will take my leave. My understanding is that there is yet another voice.

Group: Thank you Cora.

CORA: It has been my pleasure and my privilege. It is a great honor to serve in this time of correction and I am most grateful to be a part of it and appreciate that my words may have found a home.

AARON (Bob D): Greetings friends, I am Aaron, and I would comment upon our previous lesson for a few moments this evening. We believe the lesson last week has served its initial purpose, which is to bring about a consciousness of change and allow you to react, such that you could internally have the opportunity to grow. Though the lesson was referring to a broad spectrum of events that may happen, or have already happened, and how you would perceive in response, on the micro level it was an opportunity to experience your reactions simply to the announcement of changing times.

Do you feel as though it is a challenge, or do you find yourself seeking first for stability and comfortability? This gauge allows you to recognize human tendencies, such that you might be able to more favorably react as you become aware of other changes and other shifts in patterns, whether related to our group or in the world at large.

There is a stable foundation and comfortability to have in changing times and that is in your secure relationship to the Indwelling Spirit of God. Therefore, your practical and daily application toward strengthening your connection will most favorably provide you with the foundation that allows you to move comfortably forward, even when the world around you seems unstable.

This is not a week for questions and our time has run its course. Ponder the lessons offered tonight and we look forward to further discourse in the future at our other meetings.

Closing

Please stand. Whoever feels the presence, please share those thoughts this evening.

UNKNOWN: Go in peace, knowing that each change, whether large or small, is an opportunity to hang on to the Changeless One who loves you dearly. Amen.