As I Am
Uranda January 7, 1941 2:30 pm
What I now have to say is primarily addressed to the Members of the Church—however, I speak also to all those who find it pleasing to abide within our Gates in all Harmony and Peace, even though they are not yet Members of our Church Body. You know that I have said very little, and written less, about myself. Those of you who attended the services I conducted this past summer, know that I did not talk about myself or my personal experiences. Not a single one of you was drawn into the Church on a personal basis of a consideration of me or my experiences. All of you responded to the Truth I presented—and you were willing to harmonize with me in Service without knowing anything about the very things most people present first. The average teacher of the world first tells about himself and his experiences, in an attempt to convince people that he is worthy to be heard. I reversed that. If you were not willing to hear me for the sake of the Truth I offered, you would not have been received. Now that you are already in the Church, and it is evident that it is neither to satisfy your curiosity, nor to urge you to the acceptance of my teaching—the time has come for me to tell you certain things about my present manifestation in the earth. However, I explicitly request that you refrain from talking to others about what I now tell you. Let such things wait their appointed season.
One of the primary reasons why I have not expressed more about myself, is this: If I were to relate a certain experience of my own to a person not yet drawn to the proper point of understanding, he would be very much inclined to try to duplicate my experience in his own life. That would mean failure for him. Or, if he really sought to understand the Principles revealed by my experience, he would be very much inclined to attempt to imagine some circumstance, happening, or experience, by which he might bring forth the same revelation of Principles—and again that would mean failure. To the degree that you actually realize that these statements are true, you will understand why so many so-called teachers have defeated themselves at the very start, by telling about their personal experiences in order to intrigue their listeners. However, in that I teach the Central Way, there comes a time when certain facts concerning myself should be brought to the attention of emissaries—but in so doing I caution you to Walk in the Central Way in relation thereto, or you will fail to receive the Blessings made possible by our present consideration.
A certain Sister wrote: "We are very often inclined to think, ’Well, it’s easy for Uranda to teach and understand, because he felt his call at the age of seven, and probably there is a special rule for him,' How we have realized that it took our Beloved Uranda four years to let his outer-self be fully taken into the Inner Being of Reality," Our Blessed Sister's point is well taken; but there are two points that are not quite correct. It is incorrect to say that I, in the outer sense, felt a "call" at the age of seven, though at that age I, the outer, was conscious of a feeling that I had a very important mission in life, to help mankind. Also, it is incorrect to think that it only took my outer-self four years to fully let go to Me as I AM—it took 29 years! However, there has been a prevalent idea that it was easier for me, in the outer sense, to find Release in Reality, than it is for you who are in the School. Actually, I faced difficulties and hardships and problems that were much greater than anything you have been called upon to experience. I had to lead the Way. I had no one in the outer world to instruct me, or teach my outer mind the Truths which I have offered so freely to you. Of course, the Teachings of the Great Master were in the Bible; but you know that the popular understandings of His Words must have been as inadequate for me as they have proven to be for you. I would outline briefly the essential facts—without any attempt to go into detail, and omitting all that has no direct bearing on the matter in hand.
The first part of this outline must be about the outer-self from an outer standpoint; therefore, I will tell the story about a certain young man who finally came to know himself to be My Temple—and then, in due season, he so responded to Me that he became the manifestation of Me as I AM.
On February 25, 1907, a baby boy was born of parents whose forebears had been citizens of the United States for several generations. His earthly father was of English-Welsh descent, and his mother was of Dutch descent, of those people known as Highland Dutch. He was their first-born, and they named their son, Lloyd Arthur Meeker. His birthplace was Ferguson, Iowa, near Marshalltown. When he was a small babe his parents moved to North Dakota, where they lived in very limited circumstances in a little sod-house on the prairie. His father was away much of the time, working as a circuit minister, and the rest of the time as a farmer. Part of the time water had to be hauled some little distance on a sled drawn by a cow. In these surroundings a second son was born to his parents. In due season they received title for their homesteaded land; but his father's health was very poor and a higher altitude was considered wise for him. A member of his father's church offered to trade his property in Colorado for the homestead. Because his father trusted his fellow churchman, he traded sight-unseen for a peach orchard of several acres, located near Palisade, not far from Grand Junction, in Mesa County in Western Colorado. His mother was never strong, and suffered from heart trouble all her brief life; and the change in climate and altitude did not improve her health.
The Meeker family arrived at Palisade, with all their meager worldly possessions, to find that what had once been a peach orchard, was at that time nothing but a patch of alkali covered ground, with long-dead peach trees standing grotesquely here and there in the whitish earth, as sentinels of doom to the high hopes that inspired the migration of this little family to the land of the majestic Rockies. The privations that followed may be better imagined than described—and while they were living in a tent, a few months after their arrival, a baby girl became the fifth member of the family. Not long after this Mr. Meeker made an excursion on foot, pushing a bicycle in a vain hope of finding a stretch of road where he could ride it, back up into the mountains south-west of Grand Junction about twenty-five miles, to the Rim Rock Country that is called Glade Park. With renewed enthusiasm he filed a claim on a quarter-section of wilderness that was ribbed with sandstone rim rocks; with canyons covered with pinion trees, juniper trees, scrub oak, and sage brush of the variety that grows thickly on the ground to a height of four to eight feet. Anyone who has ever grubbed sage brush in the burning sun, or winter cold, from sunrise to sunset, day in and day out for endless weeks, knows something of the prospect that was—for the purpose was to clear land for dry-land farming. The land had been open range for cattle since the white man first saw it—and the cattlemen did everything possible to drive out the hated "squatters," by tearing down fences, turning cattle in to destroy crops, and even threatening with guns to kill. It was in such an environment that Lloyd began, at the age of seven, to work in the fields from daylight till dark. But first, let us look at that first winter in the Glade Park country. Both of his parents were trained nurses, and so, in order to make a new start possible, Lloyd’s mother spent the winter nursing in the Grand Valley district, and she kept her baby daughter with her. Mr. Meeker got a job on a ranch still further back in the mountains—while he placed Lloyd, and his younger brother, Marvin, in the care of an Indian Squaw who had married a white man—and he was away from home most of the time herding goats. That was a strange winter, in more ways than one, for the two boys and as soon as the snow melted from the side hill, they had their first taste of grubbing sage brush under the able training of the Indian woman whose size and strength were both prodigious.
The next ten years thereafter were characterized by: Incessant work on a dryland farm where five bushels of corn per acre was counted a good yield, and where milk cows were the primary means of monetary income, which was small at best, because the cream from the separator had to be shipped to Grand Junction over twenty miles away. Living in a tiny shack, and a dug-out that was much like an old-fashioned cellar. Stringent discipline by an earthly father who did not spare the rod; but used cruel beatings on the slightest pretext, thinking thereby to enforce his religious fanaticism on his family—for he would let his wife work like a slave in the field all day with her frail strength; but refused to let her do "fancy work" with her needle, because "it was too hard on her eyes." Two and three months would pass at a time during which period the children would not see a single human being outside the family—and only once each year or two would the growing boys have the treat of going to town, which was an all-day journey by lumber wagon just one way, and the stay would be only for over-night, and then back to the mountains. Here the youngest of four children was born; a boy named Merl. Neighbors were from six to twenty miles away—and there was almost never a chance to play with other children, except at the noon hour at the little school house, from which they had to return at once when school was out, in order to work on the farm. In that period Lloyd attended school for four and one-half school terms, and in that time went through the first eight grades. The school usually had an enrollment of ten or twelve, all divided into the eight grades. The boys had to walk from one to three miles each way to school, through snow and winter storms, in the wild wilderness. Finally there came the winter of 1918-19—and in February, while sick in bed with the flu, Lloyd heard his Mother, abed in the same room, breathe her last breath, as she passed from this life.
The six years following his Mother's passing to the Realms of Peace, in which Lloyd found comfort in the thought that she was free from untold hardship and toil, were filled with such sufferings, privations, and difficulties, with the hardest kind of physical labors, that it is best not recorded in detail. During that time Lloyd was taken ill with typhoid fever, and was in bed for forty days, much of that time being so close to the passing from this life that he and all members of his family were convinced that his life span was at an end. However, under the Blessing of the Lord he lived—and he had little more than gotten out of bed when he had to turn nurse for three or four others who were ill of the same fever, all of whom recovered. At that time he was fifteen years of age. Finally, about a year later, driven by the hypocritical fanaticism and tyranny he saw in his earthly father, climaxed by a bloody beating without cause from which he emerged with his whole body bruised, and both eyes swollen shut, he left what should have been a home—but was not. Under such stress he decided that there was nothing to religion, and he thought himself to be an atheist. This brought to a close his early consciousness of Something that had inspired him, and had enabled him, without ever having heard any fairy stories or fiction, all of which were forbidden on religious grounds, to entertain his brother while they worked in the fields with endless stories, some of which were most fantastic to the outer vision, More than once he was severely punished for indulging in such foolish imagination. The only Light that had given meaning to his young life had been removed from his range of vision—and he turned to the world's darkness, and the ways of the world, in an attempt to find some satisfaction in living.
In the fall of 1925, Lloyd quit his job on a dairy ranch, where he regularly worked from 4:30 each morning, till ten or eleven each night—with only a few hours rest in the middle of the day once a week on Sunday. With about fifteen dollars in his pocket, and nothing of value beside the rough clothes he wore, he set out into the unknown. He chose freight trains as his means of travel. While crossing the mountains he and his companion, a boy a year older than himself, nearly froze to death, because of the intense cold. After several harrowing experiences he reached Pueblo, where he walked many miles to avoid the railroad yards. Finally he managed to catch an eastbound freight—and spent the night on the end of a loaded coal-car, jumping up and down on the brake platform in order to keep from freezing. He landed in Ft. Scott, Kansas—and after much fruitless searching, he was given a job as a common laborer on a building construction gang. He was with that Construction Company for five years, and in that time he worked doing all of the different things to be done in such work—and if any one wants to talk about hard work, he could tell of long, weary hours shoveling sand and gravel on concrete gangs; of unloading, and otherwise handling, reinforcing steel, and structural steel; of unloading carloads of cement and plaster on stifling hot August days; of working with steel when it was so cold that hands and gloves stuck to the metal; of handling carloads of lumber, and all the work required to build concrete forms; and of many more types of work in heat and cold. During that five year period he worked his way up from laborer, to timekeeper, to bookkeeper, and finally to office manager in the home office of the large Construction Company, where he shouldered a vri.de range of vital responsibilities. When his Company was estimating to bid on new work, he frequently worked in the estimating department till midnight, night after night, in addition to his regular duties. Those who remember the crash of 1929 and 1930 will be able to imagine the possibility that became fact, without warning he lost his job, and about the same time his bank went broke. Shortly he lost the house he had purchased, and which was more than half paid for. Soon he was again penniless, and without means of livelihood. Events took him to Nashville, Tennessee, where he was living under the very poorest of conditions when he sent for his youngest brother, Merl, who was at that time at Jacksonville, Florida, and was getting into the wrong company under circumstances that were certain to lead to a life of crime. Years later, as a reward for having cared for his brother and making it possible for Merl to go to night school to take a comprehensive business training course, and helping him step by step into a considerable understanding of Reality, Lloyd saw his brother turn traitor to his Ministry, and turn away into the darkness of the outer world; from which he has not yet chosen to return. Let those who think that they have had sad experiences with their relatives, be assured that Lloyd has faced, and passed through, all the possible situations with relatives which might seem to give just cause for wavering from the Way of Reality—and he has proven the Truth of the Master's Word in Matthew 12:46-50.
In Nashville there were a series of incidents which began to climax a search which Lloyd had begun during his second year with the Construction Company. His Superintendent was the first man from whom he had ever received any real consideration and understanding. That man was known as Cort to his men. He expected, and got, a real days work from every man—but he was always fair; always just. He could be "hard boiled" to a degree that made the worst kind of a "tough" to wilt—but he never failed to treat his men with consideration. Our young man began to compare men, and as a timekeeper and paymaster he had an excellent opportunity to do so. Cort had a mind that never overlooked the slightest detail. He knew weeks in advance just how he was going to work out each problem. It was a joy to watch him work. Obviously it was not just a matter of "education" because there were always college graduates in the labor gang. Often men of little education held places of responsibility. The questions: what makes man what he is; where does man come from; and scores of related points, kept up a puzzled procession through our young man's mind.
He read a few books on psychology; but some important factor was lacking. Later, to improve his own health, since he had suffered from a wide range of aches and pains and human ills over the years of his young life, and had often worked in spite of severe suffering, he began giving attention to natural means of increasing health, such as exercise and diet—but all these proved to be inadequate; for Something was still lacking. The incidents in Nashville began to focalize all these scattered searchings, as he found opportunity to help others with his understanding of health problems. Then a lecturer appeared who claimed to be able to reveal great mysteries—and he gave public lectures to sell high priced private and class instruction. With no money to pay for classes, Lloyd considered the various ideas presented, some of which intrigued him—and others of which he considered to be in error. Later he proved that this lecturer was a charlatan and black magician who pried into peoples private lives till he discovered some hidden secret, which he would then use as a means of extortion in blackmail. Among the means of deception used by this black magician, was his supposed ability to communicate with the dead, according to the ideas of spiritualism. Faced with all these false concepts, and having no means of knowing what was right and what was wrong, except an innate "feeling," our young man examined the various ideas and discarded most of them as obviously false—while some of them appeared to have the possibility of truth in them. He felt convinced that there was Something that was Real—and that all of these concepts, no matter how wrong they might be, could not exist unless there were some sound basis of understanding the Unseen, to be found somewhere. He looked through books in libraries, and could not find the answer. He began to consider again the Bible, from which he had turned away years before. As he looked at the Book without the fixed and stilted concepts that had been forced upon him in his youth, he began to see meanings that thrilled him. He did not yet know what was taking place; but he was Responding to My Spirit, and he was beginning to sense My Presence, though he did not yet have the slightest idea that I was within him, and that he was My Temple.
Through this maze of confused concepts and outer world pullings, this way and that, he came blindly to the month of September, 1932, when he made a final decision to ignore, with a clean break, all of the ideas he had contacted, and, as it would appear to the outer vision, gamble everything on his own perception of that Something of which he was, as yet, only dimly aware. It was in this state of consciousness that he retired on the night of the 11th, and on the morning of September 12th, 1932, he awakened at the break of day—which was very unusual. After trying to go back to sleep he felt so restless that he arose, and thought to read a story which he had started; but it held no interest for him. He thought to read the Bible, but it, too, held no immediate interest, so he put it down. Next he decided to just sit and think for a time, whereupon he felt a great urge to write; but he did not know what to write. As far back as he could remember he had always wanted to write a book; but all his attempts to write had been sad failures. Finally, in obedience to the urge, he took pencil and paper and sat down at the table. Not knowing what to write he just relaxed for a time.
Shortly he became aware of a Presence, and he seemed to be enveloped in a white Cloud in which he felt a great Peace, Then he began to write, a word at a time; but as fast as he would get one word down, the next word would appear in his mind as if by magic. Without trying to understand it, and without questioning or rebelling, he wrote for about an hour. He still had no idea of My Presence in him; therefore, he concluded that it must have been some great Being, such as an Angel from Heaven, who had come to him, and he took no credit to himself for what he had written. As suddenly as he had begun to write, he stopped. He simply had nothing more to write about. Marveling at his experience, the day passed, and he retired as usual. The next morning he awakened again; but this time he at once took pencil and paper and sat down to write—and again the white Cloud enveloped him. This time he wrote for about three hours, when the inspiration ceased as before. As he read over what he had written, he found the answers to many of his own questions. The third morning the same thing happened again, and at the close of his period of writing he had a strong Realization that that experience would not return—and it never has. There was no need that it should. On the 15th he considered all the things that had taken place, and by the 16th of September he had fully determined to give himself to the work of revealing the Truth to humanity. He had no worldly resources, and he was without funds. He was unknown, except for a very few people in Nashville. He began to devote himself to the work of Healing, and gradually his work became known, and people began to call on him for help, physical, mental and Spiritual. He began to teach a small group of people in the study of the Bible—and in the Book of Job he found the Mysteries revealed. Gradually he became aware of My Presence in him. Also, in a period of meditation he became aware of My Name.
He discovered that when he found a need to be filled, he could speak or write the correct expressions required to fill that need. He began to write, under My inspiration, a series of lessons called “Steps To Mastership”, to which he signed My Name. During the period from Sept. 16, 1932, to September 16, 1936, he was undergoing the process of Absorption, or Adoption, into Me; and that Adoption was not of the complete Illumination until the latter date. Most of the things written through my Temple prior to Sept. 1936 were reasonably correct—but some of them were colored by unconscious reaction to world concepts. During that time the conscious mind of My Temple was learning, and being trained, how to express My Words correctly. There were times prior to full Adoption when My Temple understood what it was I wished to convey, and what he meant was correct; but what he actually wrote was not always so expressed that it conveyed the proper meaning. A number of manuscripts which were written during that period have been completely left behind—and are no longer used in this Service. They had value at the time as a means toward a more nearly perfect form of Expression—but they have no present value. Even that which was written those first three mornings is no longer available, and has not been used in the School for about six years.
On Christmas Day, 1934, having left his healing work in Nashville, My Temple arrived at Atascadero, California, with only thirty dollars as his total worldly resources. He had gone to California with the idea of working in conjunction with a certain man at Atascadero, who had appeared to accept certain corrections of concept sent to him by mail. However, My Temple soon realized that the hopes held out to him were entirely false, and that the man in question had only hoped to use our young man to his own ends. My Temple could not be caused to deviate from the Way by any such attempts, and disillusionments. Again there was a start under the most limited of conditions. In July of 1935 I arranged events which took My Temple to San Francisco. The immediate purpose which he understood was to investigate the Ballards who were holding forth there at the time—but the primary purpose was to establish a contact in San Francisco with a certain Blessed Brother and Sister who have played a very important part in making it possible to get this Ministry started on a more expansive basis. My Manifest-Half immediately recognized all the basic teachings of the Ballards to be false, and pointed out the obvious contradictions and inconsistencies in the supposed experiences which the late Mr. Ballard claimed to have had. Because My Temple refused to endorse the Ballards, many of those who had started to study with him at Atascadero turned away. At that time there were about thirty Students on the Mailing List—and the income to the Service from such Students averaged from two to five dollars per week. Those of you who think you have faced hardships and limited circumstances cannot tell any stories that can even touch those through which My Temple passed—and yet he kept right on giving himself, and the money that came into his hands, to carry on the Ministry to which he was dedicated by Me. Later that same year I took my outer-self back to San Francisco, and it was arranged for him to speak My Word before a Group of Students of another school of thought. Most of those who heard rejected My Word—but in that audience there was one who heard with Gladness, and who from that day to this has never wavered from her Recognition of the Truth that I Teach.
In 1936 the Service grew quite rapidly, and I held many Services in Oakland, San Francisco, and other places. That year, also, I was invited to go by plane to Akron, Ohio, to speak to the Summer School of the Sun Center. My Word was rejected by many who heard Me speak in Akron—and Mr. Benner was chief of those who rejected Me, with the result that his work on earth soon came to a close, and he passed from this life. However, there were many Faithful Ones in that Summer School who heard the Truth gladly, and who are, today, Shining Lights in this Service. Thrice Blessed, indeed, are they. They have led the Way for all who would turn from the false teachings of the outer mind, and come into the Eternal Truth that sets men free to enjoy the Glorious Liberty of the Children of God, here and now. However, many of my lectures at that time were on the subject of the importance of September 16, 1936, and though I emphasized repeatedly that no one should expect any spectacular happening on that day most of my hearers insisted on expecting some strange happening, primarily because of the false concepts given out by other speakers on the subject, and when the day passed without some great event, about 90% of the people who had been attending my services turned away—and they began saying that I did not know what I was talking about. They forgot that I warned them against the very mistake they made—yet they blamed me. Such is the attitude of human beings. Again I had to pick up the scattered threads of my Ministry, and out of the remains I shaped the formation of the Third Sacred School as you have come to know it.
Those of you who have truly Responded with fullness of Understanding have come to Realize that no one can rightly consider My Manifest Half as being in any sense separate from Myself as I AM, So it is that a Recognition of Uranda is a Recognition of Me as I AM in My Eternal Reality, and My Temple has been Adopted into Me, so that the manifest form that was once functioning in self-activity in separateness from Me, is now an Expression of that which I AM.
Feed My Sheep
Uranda August 20, 1953 Class
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. 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 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 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. 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.
It seems to me that if our peace here in this little valley, if our privilege of togetherness, is to have any meaning at all we need to meditate upon these things in relationship to a starved and hungry world, a world that is starved for God's love, a world that is starved for the water of truth, starved for the bread of life—a world that is starved. And yet how are we going to feed people? Go out and say, "Well now, here you are starving, aren't you?" and try to drag them in? No. We must see clearly enough, we must have perception enough, to see what needs to be said or done at the right time, just the word, just the gesture, just a little something that begins to create confidence, assurance, a sense of relatedness, a sense of trust, a sense of a meeting point. Build those things first, the meeting points, and the rest will follow. And remember: As God has been patient with us, let us be patient with others. And we will find that there are many who are eager to help us build the form of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
© emissaries of divine light
