{"id":19,"date":"2010-02-22T05:44:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T05:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/?p=19"},"modified":"2010-03-22T05:46:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T05:46:43","slug":"the-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/the-sword\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sword"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Words offered at Sunday Service, Sunrise Ranch, Loveland, CO<\/a> Following an 8 day seminar entitled “From a High Place.”]<\/p>\n

Welcome. It is a privilege to welcome you into this Dome of heaven, Sunrise Ranch, to be able to offer you some words, which will be followed by our international director, David Karchere, and visiting Trustee and minister from British Columbia, Maureen Waller. <\/p>\n

These words are not speaking at you. They\u2019re an invitation, a contemplation- that somehow we are participating in together. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come down from the mountaintop to tell you about the truth of the high place. I have to warn you, it\u2019s not good. Driving down at first, in the snow, there was a lot of anxiety and trepidation being in that Jeep on the steep-graded road\u2014icy road. To break the tension, Larry Pearlman said to our driver, \u201cRemember the first rule of road racing: Keep the dirty side down!\u201d And it may be true that wheels work better when they\u2019re on the road; but we can\u2019t speak that way in relation to the truth. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday morning, I woke up from a nightmare. In my dream I was looking down at lab results, at a clipboard or something. I had to turn around and face a family and tell them what was on those lab results. I guess I was a doctor of some kind, and the truth of what was on that clipboard would affect the life of those people forever. I came out of that dream as from a nightmare; I did not want to say what was on that clipboard. <\/p>\n

The dirty side of truth exists in relationship to myself and my own personal shortcomings. I\u2019ve been engaging in a pattern of diet and exercise for the last ninety days, and by all measurable, quantifiable results, there have been almost none. My waistline is probably two inches wider. <\/p>\n

Getting to see the process of diet and exercise, I really appreciate Keith Anderson, his expression of assuredness and truth one day: I was sharing some of my frustration, and he said, \u201cYou know, just put half as much on your plate.\u201d And it was just kind of like the end of discussion. <\/p>\n

There is a vise-grip, you know, to get a hold of your health. There\u2019s the diet side and there\u2019s the exertion side. I had about a thirty-day period where I thought I was doing both of those things, and I still didn\u2019t have any results. And what I realize is that it\u2019s really not a vise-grip. It\u2019s like pillars\u2014there are pillars of health. There\u2019s nourishment, exertion, but if you\u2019re not getting sleep, your body can\u2019t do it. And the fourth pillar would be, I guess, elimination. <\/p>\n

During class I get to experience the dirty side of truth related to my own energy, a very one-sided energy. Jane did a wonderful impression of me. We were talking about the Lover, the Lover quarter, and one of the characteristics of the Lover is this melting. Jane said, \u201cWhen Oren is in Lover, he doesn\u2019t even have to melt, he just kind of…\u201d And she did it\u2014she did it perfectly (exuding this heart energy all over the room with glassy eyes). In times of crisis, because I\u2019m such a Lover, I seek not to make waves. Jane did hit it on the head: I would rather do nothing than take action, and just let it pass. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a two-year period that I\u2019ve been secretly engaging in a practice of observation work with a good friend of mine, from North Carolina. It started with art, just drawing a leaf over and over again, and then a practice of some basic journaling exercises through Full Self-Emergence. Now also in this three-month period it\u2019s progressed to the level of thought. <\/p>\n

So I\u2019d like to invite you to this meditation. It\u2019s a thinking meditation, it\u2019s something that goes throughout the day for me, and it just goes like this: <\/p>\n

What percentage of my thoughts are about Oren? What percentage of my thoughts are about reversing the flow? <\/p>\n

Reversing the flow is a key word for service, for consideration of others. And I realize now too, it\u2019s also reversing the flow outward to our divine source. When I first considered this question, I had to honestly answer it\u2019s like 80\/20. I mean really, when it comes to in here, it\u2019s all about me: \u201cWhat did they do to me?\u201d Even, \u201cHow much I weigh today;\u201d and, \u201cGod, I\u2019m so bad at this.\u201d It\u2019s all about me when it comes to in here. After three months of practicing this, it\u2019s kind of more in balance\u2014it\u2019s getting more into the 50\/50 range. And when it gets to 51 percent in the level of others, in the level of God, there\u2019s a magic that happens. I\u2019m really seeing that\u2019s true\u2014just 1 percent. <\/p>\n

I have a favorite minister, and one day I asked him, \u201cDon\u2019t you get bored here? Don\u2019t you go stir-crazy in this little place?\u201d His response was, \u201cI\u2019m too busy to think about it.\u201d I love that. <\/p>\n

The other thing I realize about myself is that even though I am really a Lover, there are times when I can be an assured Warrior, and it\u2019s mostly with my kids. It\u2019s mostly when I feel most secure in my power. There was a time on Valentine\u2019s Day, my son Josiah was asking to go up and hang on my chin-up bar, and I told him, \u201cIf you go up there, you\u2019re getting yourself down.\u201d He got up there, and he screamed. He did not want to let go of that bar, and he stayed up there a lot longer than I thought he would, actually. I just kind of talked him through it, \u201cYou know you can do this.\u201d And when he hit the ground he screamed even louder, like he was so mad that he had actually had to follow through with the agreement on the thing. <\/p>\n

The Master said, \u201cYe shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\u201d (John 8:32) The truth is terrible. I say that not to judge it, but just to release our tendency to judge truth as good or bad or any other label that we could put on it. The truth is true! <\/p>\n

At about the same time that I initiated my observation work, I had a very vivid dream of what looked like a human sacrifice. There was this shadowy, cloaked figure with a huge, jewel-encrusted sword about three feet long and a foot wide. And there upon the sacrificial rock was a woman. And this woman was welcoming this sword into her chest\u2014not being consumed by it\u2014but somehow actively participating in an act of human sacrifice, but without dying, without consuming her, like the fire that doesn\u2019t consume. <\/p>\n

The archetype of this shadowy figure calls to mind also the archetype of the grim reaper, who also carries a sword of sorts to cull what has passed and what should pass. <\/p>\n

In considering these things, Uranda (the founder of this ministry, starting in 1932) said these words: <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is only one thing that will hold you in position upon the divine operating table, so that the sword of truth can perform the essential operations.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hold still for the sword of truth, so that it can perform its essential maneuvers upon the divine operating table. Be still and know. <\/p>\n

So why do I hide from truth? Because I\u2019m afraid. I\u2019m holding on to some illusion of myself, to somehow look better than the truth because the dirty side of truth will make me an outcast. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m here to say God knows the truth. We all know that. God loves you more than any love that you\u2019ve known, and he knows the truth. And the only point to coming into the spirit of truth, for me, is so that me and God can agree, for once, about something. <\/p>\n

So let\u2019s be thankful for the gift of life, let\u2019s welcome the sword of truth, love our divine source and love all relationships. <\/p>\n

It is said that God placed an angel in the east of Eden, with a sword, blocking our access to the tree of life. Eden is a Hebrew word literally meaning \u201cpleasure,\u201d referring to the place of paradise. And at this moment, after being in this class in the high place, I\u2019m really more interested in that angel with the sword than I am in the garden. <\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to walk with that angel, so that I may open my eyes and come into the fullness behind the sometimes half-baked words of the precious ones around me. The fullness behind what is seeking to come out from within me into the world, so that the dome of heaven appearing within can actually come into my world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Words offered at Sunday Service, Sunrise Ranch, Loveland, CO Following an 8 day seminar entitled “From a High Place.”] Welcome. It is a privilege to welcome you into this Dome of heaven, Sunrise Ranch, to be able to offer you some words, which will be followed by our international director, David Karchere, and visiting Trustee … Continue reading The Sword<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meditations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}