Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Summerland
How to build a life in Summerland
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return to 'Summerland 1-minute' page
Editor’s prefatory comment:
May I suggest that, before reading this article, you first peruse “Summerland 1-minute.” It will serve a prelude to what we discuss here.
This writing is a work in progress. As I see more, I will try to share more.
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Why would we even want to build a life in Summerland?
What’s not to like about, or who would need more than, a full schedule of sailing, hiking in the mountains, strolling on a pink-sand beach, going to parties with friends and relatives, horseback riding, maybe taking courses at a local university, attending concerts, space-travel adventure, entertaining close friends in your backyard to enjoy death-by-chocolate cheesecake – I mean, we could go on listing the activities for a long time.
Who needs to “build a life” when we can just go from one pleasant event to the next?
And, absolutely, we can do this, as much as we want, for as long as we want. No one will bother us, no one will say a word otherwise.
is this all there is
But, as we’ve discussed elsewhere, our lives in Summerland need to be more than something resembling a thrill-packed trip to DisneyWorld.
While we'll have indestructible bodies, with no need to calorie-count, sleep, or even slow down, we will remain creatures requiring meaning in our lives.
And therefore even the most inveterate pleasure seeker -- eventually cloyed and sated, like eating too much ice cream (Heath Bar ice cream is the devil's temptation to me) -- will begin to ponder, “Is this all there is?” – as we then fall into existential crisis. See the writing “Will you survive the terror of living forever?”
Summerland reports address those escaping from the war-zone traumas on planet Earth
See the many channeled reports from Summerland. There’s not much mention there about building a life directed toward higher endeavors: such as, serving the disadvantaged, and being about the business of Mother-Father God.
hospitals in Summerland
This is not surprising because newly-transitioned ones, in many cases, virtually need hospital care. They need to recover from the anguish and injuries sustained in our world. The average new-arrival is in no shape to immediately engage in projects encompassing broader planes of thought.
What they need is recuperation, r and r, and this, very likely, in an uninterrupted manner, for a long time, until they can begin to feel good about themselves, and even to want to live productively.
can't even remember what it's like to feel good
As we've said, so many of us will feel so bad from the Earth trip that we won't even remember what it's like to feel good. All this is natural and the way it works for millions.
Everyone is allowed to take as much time as needed – a year, ten years, a hundred years – to mentally situate oneself, to orient the self toward life in an eternal world where everything is good. We’re not used to this.
Editor’s note: I had a reading with a medium not long ago, and I shared a few ideas and plans about building a life in Summerland, and the message from the other side was this, to the effect, “Those ideas are fine, but almost no one comes over here thinking like that, almost everyone is pretty messed up for some time.”
many of us will want to take part in the ‘cooperative arts’
As people awaken to a need to “do” something, some aspect of work and service, many initially attempt to continue with their Earth professions. For example, there are actually brick layers in Summerland, because that’s what they did in our world, that’s what they know, and so they continue to build things over there. We can do what we want.
But eventually many of us tire of the old ways, and we want to do something meaningful.
A long time ago, Mortimer Adler had this to say about the ‘cooperative arts,’ which speak to an enlightened view of human nature.
works with nature
Cooperative Arts vs. Productive Arts: the products of the "cooperative arts" -- farming (plants), medicine (healing), and teaching (knowledge) -- are referred to as such because, in these efforts, man works with nature. In each of these areas -- all dealing with living things -- nature is able to bring about its ends without human aid but, if done alone, less is usually accomplished. The (merely) "productive arts" seek to create artificial things: shoes, houses, autos, baseball bats -- anything and everything that would not come into existence at all but for human skill and toil.
we cannot help people directly but only work with them to effect change
In “the 500 tape-recorded messages from the other side” writing, I offered much discussion concerning how we cannot help people directly regarding spiritual and mental issues. The “insane 500” over there, however, believe that they can directly change people. They have an exaggerated opinion of their own importance to the process. They think they can actually remold the human spirit, and so they believe that unless they're out there serving, God's work will be stymied; it all depends on them, as they see it, and they fret about this, about how people will not be saved unless they are working. For these dysfunctional ones, suffering from severe ego inflation, service is no "cooperative" effort but merely "productive" project.
bringing in God’s harvest is a cooperative art
The “harvest” is a New Testament metaphor relating to spiritual maturation of human beings.
This will not be accomplished according to common methods of churches of the Earth: Bible-believing, accepting heaven-sent avatars, rituals and formularies, securing an august patron saint, joining the right group with the right doctrines, will avail absolutely nothing. See quotations from the next world on the "WG Guide" page.
As we’ve learned from many reports from the other side, these errant religious concepts will need to be expunged with a kind of “cult-deprogramming” therapy in Summerland.
wake up, get up, it's time to go to work
Yes, I can still hear my dad calling to me at 6 AM (or was it 5:30?).
There is a harvest to be brought in, and we can aspire to be laborers, farmers, in God's harvest fields -- as counselors, teachers, coaches, healers, guides, those who point the way.
Despite this life-focus, there will always be plenty of time for recreation in Summerland, no worries there.
Editor’s note: To reference Chief Blackhawk's channeled testimony once more (see primary quotation below), he has seen that, in small steps, we are led to desire service-work in God’s harvest fields:
“And so, the mind of [a new arrival in Summerland] slowly, gradually turns toward loving, helping, useful work … and not consider solely self… Those on lower levels need a helping hand to climb out.”
And yet he also wants to assure us that there’s an abundance of time just to enjoy life:
“But, it’s not all work [in Summerland]; plenty time play, plenty time enjoy, plenty time learn – so much all the time to learn.”
laborers in God's harvest fields are not just nameless drones in denim overalls
a laborer in God’s harvest field is not a brawnish strong-back performing general dogs-body tasks, but is endowed with a specific service project, particularly designed for that individual, according to unique strengths and talents
We will eventually understand that one of the very greatest blessings of life is to perceive that God has given each of us a particular work to do.
We cannot effect change in people directly, but, like a farmer, we can cooperatively work with nature, we can offer advice, help and aid to those amenable to being helped (and others we will help later, when they're ready).
mountain moving for immortals
Many years ago now, I wrote the article on Mark 11. Originally, I wanted to explain a verse there that seems to say “If you can try very hard to believe such-and-such, then it will be well for you.”
In the process of dealing with this error, I noticed a very great principle in this chapter of Mark. Jesus speaks of “mountain moving,” and what he’s getting at is allowing God to show us some need or some service work that should be addressed.
This service project might be very large, it might require a thousand years, or more, of labor – which is why Jesus called it “mountain moving,” an exceedingly large project. But this kind of super mega-work, designed for an immortal, we learn from the discourse of Mark11, is to be integral to the life of a maturing son or daughter of God.
In the Summerland articles I’ve commented that games and sports are still available to us over there. But, what is the real point in playing golf when we can sink a hole-in-one with every stroke? – pretty boring; our powers of mind and body will be that great. What we need is a brand new array of challenges, fit for an immortal. What we need will be projects at the skill level of “mountain moving.” This ups the ante a bit.
'too easy'
Editor’s note: On the “Summerland” page, there’s a transcribed tape-recorded message from Chief Blackhawk on the other side. He answered a question about how people live their daily lives in Summerland. In the case of his own people, he said that a new-arrival male might attempt to replicate traditional ways of hunting with bow-and-arrow. Augmented skills of the astral body allow him to hit his target every time. At first, this seems a good thing, but it doesn’t take long before it’s realized that it’s all “too easy.” The ensuing disillusionment, the Chief said, might open a portal to the higher levels of consciousness.
uniquely commissioned project managers
I have come to see that, as we mature, not only will we be given a certain, unique vision concerning what we are to work on, but, to that end, we are to arrange and build our lives in Summerland -- creatively, forcibly, inventively, resourcefully, with full line-authority (not just staff-authority) -- to bring all this into reality; to become effective and consecrated project managers in God’s harvest field, with a particular service mission to accomplish. See more at the Mark 11 writing.
a response to a reader's comment
Is there a cosmic struggle between Good and Evil?
Portraying a cosmic struggle between good and evil, the Harry Potter series does its small part to contribute to a dysfunctional group-mind here on planet Earth.
This cinematic fantasy is a warmed over, modernized version of the ancient religious error of a mythological Satan standing in opposition to God.
But evil has no ontological basis, has no substance, is not real, is merely the good turned inside out; there is only the good, and everything, from a larger perspective, that God does and allows, is good; what appears to be evil inevitably works for good.
There is no cosmic contest as popularly conceived but only ego-insane individuals asserting themselves on a world stage.
This is important to understand because if we see the problems of this world framed as the proverbial match between good and evil, then we blind ourselves to know that the seeds of good and evil reside within each individual.
the real cosmic quest
If we’re not clear on this point, then the real cosmic quest, the discovery of the true self, will be set back.
This is so because to believe that “evil is out there,” and that “all of us good guys” represent the right and true, and if we could only “get rid of the bad guys” then life would be good, obfuscates the real issue before us, sends us in the wrong direction, and delays our joy of coming into our own sanity, which is an inner alignment of soul-energies with God.
Carl Jung, BBC interview, 1959: "We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself ... We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil."
Editor's note: Concerning our discussion of God's harvest, this has nothing to do with "defeating Satan," but everything related to aiding human beings to discover their own sanity.
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