Spirit Food A La Carte Intro, Chapters 1 & 2

Introduction

Something has brought us together. Call it coincidence or serendipity. Nevertheless, you have a curiosity about this subject of food for the Spirit, or we would not be communicating like this. I happen to believe there is some higher part of you that is saying, “It’s time for you to grow, to take on nourishment, so start here.”

I hope you will forgive us if we shock your sensibilities, whether they are religious or agnostic. Or, even if you tend toward atheism, let’s be clear about one thing; the message is the same for all, and that is--you have a choice. And you will be offered to choose your path in the months ahead.

You may not even realize you are on a path in this life. But you most certainly are, and where it leads is yours to determine. You have free-will, and no-one can choose for you. Soon you will find a fork in your path—there you must make a choice. You cannot avoid it, you must keep moving, either to the left, or to the right.

As you stand at the fork in the path you will notice that as the main path separates into two paths one of them leads to higher ground. The other path stays level ahead of you. There are no obstacles in sight for either path as far as the eye can see. At the juncture of these paths there is a signpost and on it a warning. It reads;

“Take either path, they both lead to God. The one on your left is very long and arduous, and takes a long, long time to arrive at the journey’s end. The one on the right is a shortcut. It is the most difficult path to trod, but it leads to joy, peace, unrivaled happiness and love of the highest order at journey’s end.”

If you choose the fork that leads to higher ground, because of the difficult terrain and the climb upward, you will become famished unless you take special nourishment. It will be provided along the way. The menu is a la carte, but priced very reasonably—it is all free.

To begin your journey on the higher path, please consider what your body is capable of digesting at this stage in your development. May we suggest the easiest to digest, and nutritionally complete milk selection on the menu? It’s a good place to start, especially for those inclined toward religion.  

 

 

 

Newborn Menu Selection 1

 

Milk

 

 

Served with a choice of side dishes:

Smugness with a smile

Condescension from elevation

Judgment de jure

 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ.

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed even now you are not yet able. Apostle Paul,       

 I Corinthians 3:1-2.

 

For years I sat in church and listened to the preachers pour out milk for the babes, and I hungered for solid food. I have sat before some of the most renowned fundamentalists preachers, most with Doctorate degrees in Theology—and I still came away with a gnawing hunger in my heart. All those years I listened, assimilated, taught, and likewise served up the milk diet. There was no other to serve. The Bible was the supposedly the answer to every circumstance in life and we were not to ever depart from its teachings. Or, should I say, from the way its food was presented to the hungry crowd. One might well call it the original Milk Book.

As this book goes along you will be asked to examine certain things. Most of these things, if not all, are beliefs. There is a great difference between belief and knowledge. In order to know a thing one must have observed it first-hand. It must have been a sentient experience; you saw the person place or thing; you touched the object; you tasted the dish; you heard the voice and you observed the source; you smelled the smell and observed the source. You cannot say, for example, “I heard this voice in the night and although I couldn’t see from whom it came I know it was God speaking to me.” For you to actually have knowledge of the event you must have seen the person speaking. Otherwise, it is a belief on your part.

Many folks, especially in fundamentalism, speak of knowing certain things. For example, they know it is God’s will for them to take another job; or, for the preacher to be led to another church work, sometimes far away in another state. We could cite many other examples of where belief is confused with knowledge. My mother, for example, is a devout Baptist fundamentalist. She just “knows”; “Whatever the Bible says, or the preacher says it says, is the truth.” She “knows” the rapture is imminent; she “knows” that the Lord will return soon and slay the evil doers.  What she mistakes for knowledge is in reality her faith and her hope.  

Faith is a wonderful attribute in one’s life, there’s no denying that, but one can have faith in the wrong things as easily as in the right things. When Jesus walked the earth, more than one time he used a person’s faith to heal. “Your faith has made you whole,” He would say. Or, “If you have faith as the mustard seed you could remove mountains.” The Apostle Paul relegated faith and hope to lesser importance when he said;

But now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.                I Cor. 13:13 (NASV)

Let’s not confuse faith and hope with actual knowledge, which, as Solomon said only fools hate. Knowledge, coupled with experience, results in wisdom. Solomon is credited for having written the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament of the Bible. The author has much to say about wisdom—for example:

Wisdom shouts in the street. She lifts her voice in the square. At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city, she utters her sayings: “How long, O naïve ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, And fools hate knowledge?”                                    Proverbs 1:20-22 (NASV)

As you can see from this passage the opposite of wisdom is naiveté; to be naïve is to be uninformed and simple. I think we can agree that to a baby everything is simple. Until a baby gains experiences in life they remain naïve and simple. Their desires and requirements are simple; nourishment, warmth, sleep and a sense of being wanted and loved.

One cannot exist in this world, and learn, and experience things, and gain knowledge, and remain simple and naïve. As we grow we require other things we can touch, taste, hear, smell and see. As experiences are added to experiences we begin to reach out for more; more knowledge, more experiences—wisdom. We cannot stay as babes for long. Soon we advance in age and things as a babe are left behind. That is, unless we are under religious teaching and influence. Here is where we begin to compartmentalize our thinking.

Our religious teaching and faith in the Bible are placed in a sacrosanct area of our brains. This area does not grow beyond that which we read in the Bible or are taught by our preachers and teachers--or, by belief in our traditions. This area remains the size and shape we make it as we take in and remember the religious dogma and teaching. But it cannot ever grow beyond the size of the source of the teaching. It is the milk fed area of our existence.

On the other hand, in our secular world we see and hear things that are contradictory to those teachings. Most of us set up a compartment in our brains to capture and remember   things that are happening in the world around us, like UFO reports, hypnotism, near death experiences, and out of body reports by real, honest, sincere people who wish to share these experiences with us.

These experiences come to us second hand. We have not had the experience; therefore, we cannot say we know for sure that this or that really happened, since it did not happen to us. Even though we accept the report it cannot lead to wisdom. It remains an article of faith in that compartment of our brain. If, or when, we do experience the near-death event, or, we find ourselves bouncing along the ceiling looking down on our sleeping body on the bed, then and only then can we know the experience and share it with others.

Some would never accept our report. They are the ones who are so locked into the religious compartment that they would never think to venture forth. To venture forth might mean an acceptance of the other compartment as a valid place to visit with the mind. To visit this other place would be tantamount to committing adultery. Shame and disgust would overwhelm this wayward mind, resulting in the requirement for much prayer and supplication to eradicate the memory. It would, in some cases, even require confession at the altar, or confessional, to purge the conscience of the sin of “dabbling in the occult.”

Therefore, the closed minded ones will never grow beyond the baby stage in their consciousness. This is where they will stay regardless of their age. Denying the world around them they deny themselves of the truth of their own existence.

What about you? Are you able to receive solid food or are you still nursing on milk for spiritual babies?

I have solid food for you, but first you must be capable of digesting the milk perhaps with a little thickening. I doubt if you are yet able to receive anything stronger. That will come later—but only if you have the desire to grow spiritually.

In order to grow spiritually you must be willing to do certain things;

First, suspend your disbelief as you read these pages,

Prepare your mind—you are about to be shocked!

Be determined to grow, to change,—for the better.

In the end you will be asked to make a decision. Everyone on planet earth will have a choice.

Will you take the higher path—the one that leads to Love, Peace, Joy, Happiness and Abundance? Or, will you hunker down with your mind locked in the religious compartment, and take the path that leads to more of the same.

As you open your mouth for a spoonful of well blended cereal moistened with milk also open your mind, and let some truth shine into that compartment with the squeaky door--it probably hasn’t been opened in a long, long time.

 

 

 

 

Infant Menu

Selection 2

Cereal Served with Sweet Milk

 

Choice of side dishes:

Blended Fruit of the Spirit

Manna from Heaven

Honey to sweeten the pallet

 

At one juncture in my life I found myself in a job situation in Trigg County, Kentucky. There, in a small town, I joined a Southern Baptist Church and soon found myself singing in the choir, and teaching the adult men’s Sunday School Class.

Trigg County, by the way, is a neighboring County to Christian County. Christian County just happens to be the birthplace of a man still revered by most who have heard of him—especially the older folks. The man’s name was Edgar Cayce.

I heard a lot about Edgar Cayce living in that community. Even the guys in my Sunday-School class had nice things to say about Cayce. I got curious about this “Sleeping Prophet,” as he was called, and found that many books had been written about him. One such book that I acquired was a biography entitled, “There is a River,” written by a man named Thomas Sugrue. An amazing story unfolded in the pages of the book that had a lasting impression on my mind, and set me on a path to find Truth—solid food.

It seems that Cayce was found to have a very special gift. As he took a nap he talked in his sleep. Now, many of us talk in our sleep, especially if we’ve had a heavy meal just prior to retiring. But Cayce talked about real things, and real people. For example, if while he was napping, someone would ask him a question about a medical condition in an acquaintance, he would forthrightly offer a diagnosis and prescription for medication on the spot. Not only that but many times the medication he prescribed was a concoction of drugs found only on a dusty shelf in the basement of a drug-store, perhaps in a neighboring town.

As time went on Cayce became very famous for his diagnoses, and was visited on more than one occasion by doctors for advice on difficult cases.

Life was good for this healer who had only a seventh grade education. He was earning a living as a photographer, and doing the Lord’s work at the same time. Cayce was very active in his Presbyterian church; he taught a Sunday- School class, and dearly loved the children.

In Cayce’s day churches in the “Bible-Belt” were pretty much in agreement when it came to theology; we were born in sin, we needed a savior to save us from our sins, if we died as a Christian we went to Heaven to dwell with Him for eternity, for, after all, He “had prepared a place for us,” since in His “Father’s house there were many mansions.” They hear it at every funeral.

If, on the other hand, we drank liquor, danced, swore, chewed, looked at those of the opposite sex (oops, there’s that word) while married, lied, cheated—well, the list goes on and on—we would go to Hell for eternity, and there be punished by burning forever and ever. (Sounds like the Devil himself cooked that one up, not a loving God the Father)

Getting back to Cayce; here he was doing good for a lot of folks when one day some information came through one of his “readings” that absolutely shocked him when it was read back. Cayce, by the way, never knew what he was saying while in the trance state. It wasn’t until he awoke and the message was read back that he understood what he had said.

But when his message was read back this time he was stunned. This time, the malady about which he was asked, was said to have been brought into the patient’s life from a previous lifetime!

The information went against everything he had been taught as a Bible-believing Christian. Was it possible that people—even himself, had lived before, and had come back to live another life?

Cayce declared it was time to stop the readings. It must be “of the devil.” He had now entered the realm of the occult, and he wanted no part in it. It was only at the urging of his family and friends that he continued because of the good he could accomplish for others.

As he reluctantly continued, more and more information began to come through about present problems being the result of a miss-deed in a previous lifetime. The word karma came through, and it was construed to mean the result of cause and effect.

There had to be a balancing of actions, and if it took living in another body to make a correction, or make amends, then, another lifetime was chosen. In the next lifetime an entity (soul) might find itself the opposite sex, and be the recipient of abuse that had been meted out previously as the abusive man in a previous relationship. 

Over twenty five hundred such “life readings” are on record to this day in Virginia Beach, VA. An organization, led by Cayce’s son, Hugh Lynn Cayce has headed the A.R.E., the Association for Research and Enlightenment. There they have compiled and cataloged all of his readings by cross-reference. This is still available for research to this day.

The facts of Cayce’s life and work are not to be disputed. You may disagree with the notion of channeled healings and reincarnation information, but one cannot just ignore what happened, and what was recorded historically.

Well, now we have stirred a little cereal into your milk. How does it taste? Are you smacking your lips, grabbing the spoon and asking for more? Maybe you’re ready for something in your diet more substantial. If so, consider the next menu item. It gets better and more solid as we continue.