Feed My Sheep
from The
Vibratory Turmoil, Tension and Misery
Uranda August 20, 1953 Class
Our visit this afternoon in the city of
Denver emphasized a number of things: one, the blessed privilege of peace we
have here. The vibratory turmoil, the rushing to and fro, the tension and the
misery, the sufferings of humanity which are so evident in untold ways—and the
blessed privilege we have here of knowing a peace which is not known in the
world. There are so many human beings who are subject to futility, who have
reached a point of hopelessness, of not caring, and we need to have a still
deeper appreciation of our privilege and responsibility, a dedication which
cannot be caused to waver for even a moment, to the end that we may as
effectively as possible serve.
In our togetherness we have been
considering many things with respect to service, what it means to serve and how
to serve. We are here on a basis of dedication to service. You have all
meditated upon it in various ways, but I was wondering if tonight we might in
our togetherness gain a deeper realization of the significance and the
opportunity, yes, and the means by which we may serve. Sometimes familiar
things tend to take on an appearance of sameness. We tend to take them for
granted, and we tend to assume that what we hear of familiar words has been
heard before, and the mind and the heart seek for something new. In the pattern
of change, we have been given the assurance that there is something new. The
divine Word is, "Behold, I make all things new." But we have old
problems with us: problems of the social order, problems of government,
problems that take on a political pattern, problems of human relationship of
every sort.
Generally speaking the approach to these
problems is made on the basis of trying to treat the disease, to heal an ill
condition. Our approach is to seek to find something that is right, a point of
health and strength in a body that has illness, so that we can increase the
health and the strength in the body, that the illness may be crowded out. The
same with the mind and the heart. It is easy to look for what is commonly
called evil, or sin, and condemn people for it. Sometimes it is not so easy to
find something that is right in other human beings and begin to encourage it,
begin to give it an atmosphere in which it may grow and become strong and
become a dominant factor in the life of the individual. Looking for the right
things, looking for the starting points, is our business.
This opens up a consideration in our
field of spiritual psychiatry, the problem of understanding other people if we
are going to serve them, the problem of how to find a means of inspiring the
acceptance of an increase in that which is right. Most human beings exist on a
basis of a deep conviction with respect to what is wrong, both with themselves
and with others. This difference of approach is something which requires an
educational program before human beings can begin to see its value.
I was particularly thinking in
relationship to ourselves. We need to remember that we are a part of this world
family, this world body, with all of its parts, with all of its ill conditions,
with all of its suffering. We cannot consider ourselves as being separate from
it, and if we are not separate from it and we think too much about all the
tragedies and the sufferings and the ill conditions, the injustices, we will
tend to become subject to them. We need to face the facts and then pause to
consider what it means to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven at hand, right
here on earth. How much does it mean to us?
When we see all of this misery in the
world, when we recognize the tremendous problem before us, the human tendency
is to feel that it cannot be done, that it is too big a problem, and to become
fearful. And yet your body was made to let the spirit of life manifest on
earth, your mind was created to let the spirit of truth have meaning on earth,
and your heart was created to let the spirit of love have meaning on earth. To
start with, these three aspects of yourself as the human being do not function
perfectly. We cannot say with respect to any of you that the manifestation of
life through you is perfect. Your body is not yet a perfect instrument for the
manifestation of the spirit of life, but it is moving in that direction. Your
mind is not yet a perfect instrument for the manifestation of the spirit of truth,
but it is moving in that direction. Your emotional nature is not yet a perfect
instrument of the manifestation of the spirit of love, but it too is moving in that
direction.
If we start looking for that which is
right we may be forced to recognize that with many human beings in the world it
is just too late. With many human beings there is no way to help them. We have
recognized that there must be basic integrity. Sometimes it is covered up,
sometimes it may be hard to find; but if there is a basic integrity, that is
the first point. And the second is, the individual must be not only willing to
be helped but must eagerly seek and accept help. In this pattern of
dedication to service, we recognize that some people will not let you help
them. Therefore as long as there are people in the world who will let you help
them we must not waste time trying to help those who do not want to be helped. There
are so many who are ready to be helped, looking for someone who can help them,
those in whom we can inspire or uncover a spark, a starting point of integrity.
If you have these two things in any human being, regardless of his problems,
regardless of difficulties with habits, alcoholism or dope or anything else, if
you can find or uncover these two things, you can do something. If you cannot
find or uncover or inspire these two things, you cannot help that person no
matter what you do.
If you are trying to do something but
are not actually doing something, can we classify that as service? We must not
confuse trying to help someone with the actuality of helping, trying to serve
with the actuality of service. If we see this distinction and recognize it
clearly in relationship to ourselves, we can see that, regardless of intent or
ability, regardless of purpose, unless we actually do serve someone in the
sense of helping them, our effort is not service.
In the world there are many service
organizations, there are many people deeply interested in helping their fellows
in various ways—church people, ministers and laymen, all sorts of approaches to
this problem of helping others. I have seen many a minister who genuinely
wanted to help someone, who was looking primarily at what he conceived to be
the sins of the individual whom he sought to help, and he took a more or less
condescending attitude, a perhaps halfway tolerant, halfway judging attitude,
where there was no meeting point established. If the minister is as righteous
as he wants to appear to be, and if he is dealing with and seeing the sins and
the evil in the people whom he is trying to serve, there is no meeting point
between the two. The individual feels that there is a self-righteousness; he
does not feel a contact and he feels that he is not really being appreciated,
just more or less condemned. If your function is of reality, you cannot have a
meeting place with others on the basis of their unrealities, and unless there
is a meeting point between two human beings, they are not going to really, in
any direct sense, influence each other's lives.
It is our business to influence the
lives of people in any way that rests within our ability on a legitimate basis—to
influence the lives of people toward a constructive expression of life. But
what is our meeting point? The ill conditions, the sickness? Many people like
to have a pattern of relationship established on the basis of their sickness,
and I have been forced at times, in order to get a toehold so to speak, to
listen to some tale of woe or other about an operation, sickness, etc.—you can
learn something about human beings as you listen to them—and then to say
something about, "I know, I have been sick too." Just a touch.
"I've been through something." Not to exaggerate it, but many human
beings simply do not know how to have a meeting point with another person
except on the basis of sickness, illness, operations, misfortunes, tragedy, and
if we are going to find a point of relatedness with that person we may be
forced to touch an acknowledgment of something of that nature, but we must not
dwell on it. What is our meeting point? The righteous condemning the evil? No.
If we are functioning on the basis of reality we are looking for that which is
right.
I remember a good many years ago, in the
early period of the depression, I got into a very difficult circumstance,
financially, etc.—now, you see, we are going to have a meeting point on the
basis of a little bit of suffering—as I want to bring something out so we can
see it clearly. I was persuaded by some well-meaning friends, finally—they
talked several times about it—that I just ought to go down to the Welfare
Department and get a little help. Everyone else was doing it, why shouldn't I?
I was having difficulty feeding my family, finding enough income to, well, just
barely keep alive in the physical sense. My whole soul rebelled against the
idea, but I finally decided, well perhaps, for the sake of my wife and baby, I
ought to: "Perhaps I'm letting pride stand in my way, perhaps I ought
to." So I went down, and into an atmosphere that was so utterly repulsive.
Then the cross-questioning started and the ideas were presented. They started
to treat me as if I were some kind of a criminal, and if I were not some kind
of a criminal, some scoundrel or ne'er-do-well, I would not be looking for any
help. I stood it for a while. I got up and walked out. I never got the
so-called welfare assistance; I decided I could get along without it. But there
I was, under a circumstance that would put any young man's integrity to a test,
feeling futile enough; difficult enough in any circumstance; and the situation
in the world, you know how it was. And instead of recognizing the situation as
it was with me, the whole additional load started pouring in on top of me—the
very attitude that was taken, to make me appear even in my own eyes to be worse
than I really was. And I rebelled about it, I rejected it.
Another time, back in the middle
twenties, there was a certain circumstance—I was ill and no one to care, in the
outer sense. I had been too ill to be on the job, and when I tried to go back
to work my boss told me to go back to bed. I had been in a room alone, sick,
for a week and I thought I would go crazy. So I could not go to work. I didn't
have any money, but I couldn't, just couldn't, go back to that rooming house.
So I got on a freight train and took a little trip, and wound up in a little
town down in Oklahoma. It is a mining town. I got down there and looked for
work. I thought maybe I could get another job but was not successful. I had not
had anything to eat for two or three days, which was probably all right for the
sickness; but I had been cold and miserable. Various times in my life I had
contributed as generously as I knew how to the Salvation Army, and I thought,
"Well now, I have given a lot more to the Salvation Army than a meal and
maybe a place to sleep tonight would cost." And I sure needed it. "If
I ever needed it in my life, I need it tonight." So I went down to the
Salvation Army to get some help. I needed something to eat and a place to
sleep, just for one night, so I could have enough strength to go on. Of course
they were having a meeting, and there were two or three other fellows
apparently having the same need in some way or another. And these Salvation
Army officers, whatever their proper titles were, proceeded to do some
questioning, which is understandable up to a point. Then they proceeded on the
basis of saving our souls. Here we were, hungry and tired, and the Salvation
Army captain insisted that we get down on our knees on that hard floor. He
would not even listen to us. We had to get down on our knees as the first thing,
and then the prayer. He was the righteous mouthpiece of God and we were the
poor, lost, sinning souls. Oh, the whole thing was made so utterly repulsive. It
stirred every rebellious, independent streak in me, to think that under that
circumstance, in that need, I was required to be treated as if I were, well,
something or other. Actually the food that I got was nothing. It was the
nearest nothing I was ever offered. And it was a cold night, there was snow on
the ground, and after a long rigmarole to save our souls, finally I was taken
to a room. There was a little iron cot there and a little thin cotton blanket
on it, and that is all, absolutely all—a little thin cotton blanket, no cover.
I got under it with my clothes on and got everything I had over me and just
simply froze. I finally left the room very early in the morning and went down
to a place where there was some kind of a plant or something, and managed to
get warmed up a little bit. It was a terrible experience, and I would not have
given a nickel for the help I had received, and I have never donated to the
Salvation Army since, either. I have donated somewhere else, but not to the
Salvation Army. Maybe that does not truly represent them, but my experience was
very unsatisfactory. I needed help and I was not given help on any decent basis
at all.
I am pointing out that all too often
this thing that is called service, that people render to others, is not
service. It is something so utterly contemptible, something that takes away any
bit of dignity that there may be left, anything that allows the individual to
recognize himself as having any meaning. We need to see that service, if it is
to be really rendered, needs to be on the basis of that which is, and not on
the basis of that which is not. If we are functioning in reality we do not have
attunement with that which is wrong, with that which is sick, with that which
needs to be changed. If we are functioning on the basis of reality we need to
look for that which is right, the point of integrity, to inspire the
willingness to be helped, to seek help. If the person is seeking help, at least
on the face of it, we can take it as an honest gesture to start with. If he
proves to be dishonest, then that is his tough luck, not ours. And we can
remember that the body is designed to let the spirit of life have meaning on
earth, that the mind was designed to let the spirit of truth have meaning on
earth, and the heart to let the spirit of love have meaning on earth. In one of
those three levels, surely, we can begin to find something. If we just give a
person an attunement and don't say even a word for the mind, not a gesture of
love for the heart what have we done? Gone through the motions of serving? We
need to be able to bring these patterns into alignment.
I had an experience once, something that
lives in my memory. After leaving Oklahoma on that trip that I mentioned, I got
to Joplin, Missouri, and I went up one side of the street asking each
restaurant if I could do something, wash some dishes, for a bite to eat. No,
they wouldn't even offer me a crust of bread. Going down the other side of the
main street I got pretty well down; it looked like it was running out of
streets and then, I wondered, what was I going to do? I was terribly hungry,
and getting so weak I could hardly walk. And I went into a tiny, little
hole-in-the-wall place. It specialized in a stack of wheats and a cup of
coffee. And I asked this man if I could do a little work to get something to
eat. He said, “No.” He didn't have anything for me to do. There was a man
sitting at the counter and he looked at me and he tossed a dime, one thin dime,
on the counter, and he said, "Give the kid a stack and a cup of
coffee." Some of the sweetest words I ever heard in my life. My body was
starving for food. "Give the kid a stack and a cup of coffee." That
was a thrill. I don't know whether I managed to thank the man adequately or
not. It is something that stands out in my memory. That was service, real
service. I have a few such memories running back to my earlier life.
We reach the point where we can
feed the hungry—"Feed my sheep." The Master repeated it three times
when He was talking to Peter. Peter denied Him three times. "Feed my lambs—Feed
my sheep—Feed my sheep." Feed the body, feed the mind and feed the heart;
feed the three phases of being in those whom you do serve, and be alert to ways
in which you can feed them. I have seen so many starving people treated as if,
well, it was their just desert to starve, and I do not mean just physically
starving. People that were hungry. When we look for that which is worth feeding—not
to condemn, not to find fault, not to try to treat what is wrong, but to feed
the hungry, to serve—how do we do it? With ostentatious display? Or a comradely
attitude, a meeting point, something that reaches into the heart, something
that arouses gratitude, something that puts you on the basis of meeting the one
whom you serve? I wonder. What does service mean to us? What does service mean
to us? Are we alert not to force something upon someone but to feed the hungry
and let the pattern work out, let the cycles clear, so that we get completely
away from "what I am going to get out of it," completely clear in the
true expression of service? To feed the hungry.
