Elyon052800StandFastCourage

Coeur d'Alene Teaching Mission Group

Topics:

Fence Post Metaphor

Teachers: Elyon, Malvantra, Tomas, Michael, Lester

May 28, 2000

Elyon (Jonathan TR): Greetings, this is Elyon. Happy am I to be among you, as always. This day, as you collectively as a nation honor the bravery of those who have stood for your country's ideals, I would like to address the topic of steadfast faith. Naturally I am touched by your expressions today, your willingness to reach out to your fellows, your successes and frustrations in so doing and likewise your sensitivity to one another, the desire to be support for each other's personal trials.

Courage can be seen as a dynamic trait, for you know that progressive spiritual living requires the ability to change, to give up what you have held to in order to rise to another level, and it takes courage to let go, to make the jump. But I would like to look at static courage, that courage which holds fast and firm to ideals, to values you deem to be of divine origin and never would be cast aside. This is the courage like a fence post dug down below frostline that will not heave when the currents of change come about, will not topple over when the ground goes soft but will stand firm and hold the values and hold those truths taut in spite of all change about. This quality is supported by your interchange, your camaraderie. By your sharing you each help to drive your fence post deeper into solid ground. You become a network, a fence line, of strong, brave, and courageous spiritual livers.

It is a great deal of labor to properly set a post so that it is stable. Be not tempted to set your post shallow through encountering difficulty at digging, through the pain of driving deeper. Pursue, be courageous, be strong, for, though the intensity and tribulation require some endurance, the length of time that follows when your fence post is set is far greater, and you will appreciate far longer how strong it stands, how strong you will stand for truth and goodness in spite of the conflicts that come your way. So, as your character unfolds and you are perhaps feeling faint or weak, take hold of this notion and pursue. Grab tightly to this understanding that if you take it all this way you will be richly rewarded and long lastingly pleased with the results.

I have quite a troupe here today, and I am going to turn the attention over to another.

Malvantra (Mark): This is Malvantra. I would enter the classroom here with you on this occasion and would offer a little more discussion on the wisdom of a long term approach, as Elyon has suggested.

Maturity and wisdom work together to provide you with an enlarged perspective in which you draw from your experience and stand firm in your commitment to the best overall job. This is different from an immature approach of seeing a task before you simply desiring to be finished with it in as short a time as possible, not realizing that your incomplete efforts yield unsatisfactory results in the long term. Yes, planting your posts shallow may mean that you can quickly see the results of your work and may stand back proudly for a few moments or a few months and look at your work with satisfaction, but your experience shows you that a job hastened through will not hold up against the onset of time, and indeed your fence posts may lean or even topple when not satisfactorily planted. To the immature individual the two fences may look the same upon initial survey, but having the experience and the accompanying wisdom, you are more able to discern that the one job set deep, mortared in, and plumbed straight will prove far more satisfactory in the long run than the hastily constructed job finished in a short time.

We are, as Melchizedeks, only interested in the long term results of our efforts and of yours. We desire to spend all necessary time and effort in undertaking our tasks with all the proper steps that our wisdom affords us. We are well aware that to do the job to the greatest benefit requires the maximum effort. We are accustomed to taking on large projects such as this with you and realizing that there will be great periods initially when we wish that we might see more of the fence completed, but we console ourselves with the knowledge that the posts that are in place are permanently installed. You, each one, are these posts.

We seek to make adequate provision in space, in concrete-ing your stability, in checking once, twice, repeatedly, the positioning of the post before satisfying ourselves with its installation. We are more than willing to take any time necessary to work with you as individuals to be sure that the basics of your positioning are as accurate and as well placed as possible.

We are not concerned with speed in this process. It does not distress us that this process takes a lengthy time. We are far more concerned with the long-term results and looking back down our row of posts at a straight line with secure footings. When you engage yourselves in the processes between yourselves and others, we encourage you to attempt to adopt a long range perspective, a long-term view of the destination, of the end of the journey, that it need not be rushed toward.

Many aspects seem laborious, tedious, even unnecessary, while you are engaged in them. You must rely on your experience and your wisdom to steady your course and pursue your goals regardless of the apparent length of the process, because, when all is finished and you have completed your role, the most that you can hope to accomplish is to have steadily and laboriously planted each post correctly. It may not even be yours to see the entire fence completed.

That may be for others to pick up where you have left off. But be certain that the posts you have planted are correctly positioned and that you have not slighted any one along the row, for the one you slight will be obvious in a short period of time. It will be the one leaning, sagging, and drooping in your line. Do not hurry through this process. This fence is under construction beyond your existence here and requires of you that you simply be a steadfast laborer for the project.

It is a pleasure to address you on this occasion. I always look forward to popping into class and keeping my personality before you. I withdraw to allow for others.

Tomas (Gerdean): What a joy to be among those who are aligned in the army of the Lord, standing tall like soldiers or fence posts. I am going to continue the theme. The tendency toward stream of consciousness is a part of your social skills, and we learn from you as you learn from us, for ultimately a clear and clean consciousness will come around to an appreciation of God our Creator who has given us all these things. When we are empty it is to Him we return for fulfillment. I am Tomas, your brother and neighbor, uncle and friend.

I am reminded of a poem in your culture. Robert Frost indeed addresses fences, stating that good fences make good neighbors. One might wonder, "Why all this talk about a fence?" A fence is a device which creates a barrier which provides for separation, which disallows free roaming hither and yon. There are advantages to fences, making good neighbors being one of them. But it is also an opportunity for those of you who stand in alignment to establish your side of the fence as being one worth protecting and providing for. The idea of caring for what is yours, be it your family, your property, or your values, is a practice which requires steadfast faith and courage and tenacity, but the value of the result is well worth the effort and the time involved, for you have found great security and beauty and order in your work.

I am aware of a movement in your culture today that testifies that there are only two sins: one is to stand in the way of your own spiritual growth, and the other is to stand in the way of your brother's. When you have yourself firmly planted, you alleviate the risk that you will fall over, lean asunder, and create a strain and a burden to your brother who stands beside you. If you keep picking each other up all the time it becomes a problematic fence. and the trespassers may come and go, and wild animals and looters are able to set upon your pearls of great price.

One would think that we are becoming real estate agents here in this configuration today, but the value lessons are imparted through visualizations that you can focus on and allow your creative mind to embellish the truth through your own Indwelling Adjuster. So, be not taken aback by all this discussion of fence posts, for it is but a springboard to the concepts that harken to your minds and souls.

We are indeed many here this afternoon. Your group is abundant, and there will be those who clearly recognize that in your stately yard you grow character and value. You will be deemed a trusted and reliable neighbor. We are happy with you to be a part of the cosmic neighborhood that allows us to have access to each other once again. Thank you.

Michael (Jonathan): Behold, I am the gate. I address you today; this is Michael.

You are within the family of Nebadon, and I am wishing to convey to you that we are an extensive unit of spirit led individuals who are expanding the fence line of the kingdom of the Father. I, the gate of this spiritual collective, swing inward to allow all who will to enter, and I swing outward to encourage all my fellows to go forth and to preach the gospel. I will close to protect those in the fold from danger, but I am never locked. I have apostles who stand as corner posts. I have disciples who are the posts intervening, and the connecting rails of service and worship uphold all my children who are planks that make up our family. Collectively we seek to extend our fence of fellowship to encompass all of Nebadon, that all personalities stand within our arena of spiritual children beneath the Father of all.

I am with you always and will remain silent at this time but present within each of you.

Mark: May we each be with you as you are with us. That is our desire.

Elyon: Dear friends, this is Elyon. I would encourage you to request from us what you may desire to dialogue. There are teachers present to be of assistance.

Harold: Several of us have friends and parents dealing with the problems of old age. Is there a purpose to the process of getting old and less capable of taking care of yourself? Is that a necessary part of our growth?

Tomas (Gerdean): It is necessary given the circumstances of your existence, yes, my friend. If you were a healthier species you would find nobler ways to die, and if you were more advanced you would fuse as a people more frequently. Under the circumstances of your current existence it is indeed a cultural phase of growth. Just as little ones go through growth, and teenagers have their own unique difficulties, as do parents, thus do retirees and the elderly. The problems of transition from this world to the next are greatly exacerbated by fear of the unknown, and physical health is dramatized by the mental attitude of the one growing older, which, by the way, is not limited to the elderly. It is happening to everyone. As there are certain passages of awareness and accomplishment and goals and dreams in your lives, so is the process of maturation a natural process which need not be as difficult as it is here and which we also hope to be able to correct in time. Those who have faith, whose fence post is firmly planted, know that they are upheld by the Gatekeeper, that Jesus will indeed go through this experience with them, thus it is not such a fearful and traumatic event as those who resist the realization of their own destiny. This is one of those unfortunate byproducts of the planet Urantia.

But the fact that you are becoming an army of aware individuals who will be able to stand by each other in your own processes of translating from this world to the next will throw great light on the subject for future generations. The heroic aspects of mortality will renew themselves with your steadfast faith, when you do not fear what is to come but walk courageously through the experience, even encouraging and comforting those who do not understand your faith and confidence.

There is a very heavy downdraft/inclination/pull toward having you believe that you are becoming less as you become older. This is a cultural conditioning that thousands, even millions, of people subscribe to. They are washed up, they think, finished, useless, and thus they languish to the point of illness and premature termination. Again, the spiritual solution is at hand, for if and when individuals are treasured and regarded for their experience and their contribution to the gift of life, they begin to flourish and recognize their strengths. So we see the value of a firm spiritual foundation.

The fear of death is an unfortunate miscarriage, but it is also a remnant of the primitive mind. The outspoken advocates for faith and an afterlife are emissaries of hope to those who have not the vision to realize such a concept for themselves.

Have I addressed your concern?

Harold: Yes. Is there a point of diminishing returns in this existence, and if so how much lee-way are we given to decide when it is more appropriate to go on?

Tomas: I need to ask you, are you discussing or wanting to discuss: A) Euthanasia and/or B) Suicide?

Harold: I think it's a personal perception, but when someone decides when they have done as much as they can in this life, is there a penalty for ending their life?

Tomas: I would discuss your inquiry at length except the terse response that would be given would not be adequate to paint the picture that is necessary to be seen before such a response were delivered. The fact of suicide is a matter of health, whereas one aspect of the individual may thrive, another may be diseased. Even though we are learning to approach life holistically, and there are many healing realities coming to pass, there have certainly been instances wherein one's emotional disturbance interfered with the placidity of human existence or the clarity of their spiritual faith. But there is no punishment for such a deed as far as your background understanding of punishment is concerned. You do not have a vengeful Father. But the acts of the mortals, the ascending sons also, are acts which must be owned up to in terms of cause and effect. If one aborts his own destiny plan and yet has accrued great value in his soul, it is not that he will be punished for his premature assignation with death or his attempt to take a shortcut measure, but that he (or she) will feel upon re-amalgamation that they had shortchanged themselves or disappointed their own capabilities. So that is a lesson that must be experienced and endured even in the morontia realms. This is an example of what I am responding to you with in regard to your provocative question. Is it helping?

Harold: Yes, very much. Thanks.

Tomas: Under no circumstances is a lover of life going to sanction a giving up of life. But as life is better understood and as circumstances of life are better understood and appreciated and, within a context, within a perspective, of your planetary condition, you will find the subject of translation from this world to the next will become more academically approached in some cases, and with a great deal more faith in most circumstances. So, I urge all of those who have problems to the extent that they consider such a radical act to consult seriously with their spirit guides, with our Father, with the medical profession, with any and all resources that would provide mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual relief for the mortal in his or her experience.

Life is not meant to be an extension of suffering, even though often suffering is a result of certain causes. Often if you can get to the root cause you can understand the experience, the need for the resolution of the configuration that is existent. Enlightenment is of course an answer; love is the answer. So, through all of these extremely difficult and sometimes fatal human experiences the love of the universe reigns over all, and mercy will prevail.

That is all.

Lester (Jonathan): Hi guys, this is Lester. I have been hiding in the garden shed, and I wish to make some comments on these issues. You know you are human and that you are wooden fence posts and that over time you will witness that you are decaying around the edges and that following such inevitable consequences of time you will be left with nothing but what's left in the ground.

Had the Adamic mission on this planet been more successful, you would have been pressure treated, and you would have lasted longer. But -- and take this seriously from one as myself who ignored the signals of time -- that this short duration of time for reflective creatures as human beings is designed to cause you to reflect upon the eternal consequences of actions. I was fortunate enough to have taken many a fence nail and many a woodpecker's hole and survive to

receive a morontia post, one more metallic that would not rust.

But it is not you or I who digs up our posts and replaces them; it is the Creator who bestows upon each of us our material form. A fence post may outlast its usefulness as a fence post only to be recreated as a weathered picture frame or perhaps a seasoned jewelry box. Know that frailty or usefulness do not lessen the value of a personality. There are functions for your form beyond your perceived usefulness. Wait upon the will of the Father for what you may do in the times ahead. This I did not pay attention to in my human life and have awakened to the significance of looking deep into the future. The moment is the focal point for comprehending eternity. It is best to perceive the action of today as a building block for tomorrow rather than a conclusion of the past.

I thank you for allowing me to ride along with you this day, and I will scurry off.

END