by John Gray
When we turned the page of our Gregorian calendars to 2020 about ten months ago, I expressed in one of these teleconferences my hope that this would be a year of clear twenty-twenty vision. I can’t say if things have worked out that way, but I think we could all say at this point that we’ve seen a few things this year! We’ve seen examples of real people acting in selfless altruism, in virtuous character, and we’ve seen the absence of these in dark self-centered depravity and distortion.
Human nature in the raw is on open display more than ever. The worldwide coronavirus pandemic; social discord, unrest, and violence in places all over the globe; intensely fought polarized political battles—just for examples—are more fired up every day, it seems. And we’re told the earth’s polar ice is succumbing to the heat faster than ever.
In just days Americans will elect a president, the country’s chief executive, to preside over the nation for the coming four years. According to political opinion polls, U.S. voters are widely and distinctly divided. People around the world are watching this hotly contested and quite likely very unusual election.
For this little time we have now, however, I hope we’ll lift together out of the noise and chaos of the manmade world and be together in consciousness in a place apart, a place of stillness and peace where no hearts are troubled, and where fear cannot reach. The voice of the Beloved sounds in each of our individual hearts and minds, saying, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” [Song of Solomon 2:10]
Here in this place the air is sweet, and the light is clear and fine. In this atmosphere we may more clearly see and understand because we’re not looking with earthly eyes alone but with spiritual vision, and so we see not only the forms of things but their invisible essences. This is heavenly perspective. Whatever we see is new and alive with meaning.
In this context I was looking at some of the words that are on many people’s minds these days, maybe especially in the United States in the election cycle, and I thought, every day is election day. The word elect comes from a Latin root that means just what we’d think it should, “to choose.” Preside is defined in one dictionary as, “to occupy a place of authority or control, to act as president or chairperson.” That interesting word authority has the same source as author, namely, “originator,” “progenitor” (literally he who begets), and its root source means “increase.” The original meaning of preside from Latin is “to sit in front of.” And the word nation comes from Latin and old French and is the past participle of “to be born.”
If we look at these words anew, we might well ask ourselves, “Who do I elect to preside over my nation?” On every election day—every moment, actually—I choose what governs what I do and say, think and feel, and all that is born through me—my nation. Indeed, I elect who sits in front of my world—my identity, in other words. I elect who is in power.
In a representative democracy we say “we the people” elect the government. In America this isn’t quite politically correct, since we actually elect electors, who in turn elect the president. But we’re fond of the idea that the American people elect the president of the nation. And in the USA, historically that’s usually been true, but not always. The root of the word govern means “to steer” as in, to steer a ship, and it carries the meaning “to rule by right of authority.”
Americans are also fond of saying that in political elections we choose our leaders. That’s mostly a warm illusion since “we the people” haven’t all that much say in who gets to run, or stand, for election. More importantly than that, precious few politicians prove to be real leaders. To lead is “to go before or with, to show the way.” The root of lead means “to go, precede, to go before, to move before, to introduce.” How often a hopeful populace is soon disillusioned by the shortcomings of elected leaders who turn out to be beholden to the people who paid the most to help get them elected. A mentor of years back, Bill Bahan, used to say that becoming disillusioned isn’t a bad thing since it means you get rid of your illusions!
From above the little world of human affairs in which all this seems so important, we immediately recognize that there is and always has been an all-powerful government ruling the cosmos. The earth and our sibling planets stay in their orbits around the sun, and the solar system moves in its course in the galaxy, and so on. It’s humanity that generally lacks the understanding that we really are a part of all this and that we are here to govern this world in the name of the One who elected us. Being mostly lost in space on this score, human beings imagine that we have to govern ourselves without regard to the true government. And we make an unholy mess of things. Humankind is so divorced in consciousness from the government of God that the very idea is considered fiction, or simply not thinkable at all.
Let’s remember the original mandate: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” [Gen. 1:26-28]
Mankind was and still is elected to have dominion, to preside over the earth, to govern as God’s proxy. For far too long, however, humanity has refused to serve. Who’s willing to “man up” or “woman up” and assume the role we were and are created to play? Our mandate wasn’t just in the beginning, it’s now!
What replenishes the earth? To replenish is to fill, to make full or complete again, to restore what’s missing. Well, how in heaven’s name can human beings do that for the earth when what’s missing is man himself? The earth is replenished when humankind is restored as the government of God.
The current world of human experience is artificial. Artificial means “contrived by humans,” as opposed to natural. Artifice is guile. Guile is defined as “insidious cunning in obtaining a goal; crafty or artful deception; duplicity.” Human beings are duped into believing in an artificial self in an artificial world. It’s make-believe. And it is terribly fragile.
What controls in the manmade world? For one thing, most people are aware that there are several thousand manmade satellites that orbit the planet in the near edges of space, and they constantly bathe the earth in electromagnetic radiation. Through this artificial radiation, so much in our daily lives is controlled—communications, electrical generation and distribution, banking, aircraft and other transportation means, military operations, you name it. If this electromagnetic array were to be thoroughly disrupted, most of the mechanisms of modern life would no longer work: no cell phones, no Internet, no television, no GPS, no debit or credit cards. Most newer-model automobiles wouldn’t function, and aircraft would be unable to fly. Not many people wish to look at how very frail and fragile the manmade world is.
And what’s made the human world go ‘round throughout history? One big answer is money. Money and the power that can be wielded through it are fundamental motivators and drivers in human experience. What makes sense as a medium of exchange became the artificial means for exerting control and false government. On U.S. coins and bills it’s stamped or printed, “In God We Trust.” Those words may be well meant, but they’re empty words. What people actually put their trust in is the dollar—or the euro, pound, yuan, peso, rand, yen, or whatever the case may be. Most money these days is an electronic bookkeeping entry anyway. What’s in your bank account? The world’s monetary system works mostly on trust and belief. And right now, this is a very good thing. Just imagine the utter chaos otherwise! A few months ago when the pandemic began, lots of people in the U.S. were frantically snatching up toilet paper. Even a disruption that small to so-called “normal life” brought out the darker side of human nature in some.
But from this heavenly place apart where we gather now, we see it all differently. We are unmoved, untroubled, and unafraid. Our minds can never figure out how things should go, and we’re sufficiently wise to not try. Nothing that truly matters is at risk. When it’s personally true that in God I trust, I know with certainty that all is well.
Those who live in the seat of true government provide the means on earth for the same control that governs the cosmos to operate in the human world. A barely adequate measure of true control has been and is maintained in human affairs, and that through a very few people. It’s allowed time, for one thing, for the elect to be gathered, to come into position to preside. We remember that the elect are gathered from heaven on earth: “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet. And they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.” [Mat. 24:31] We are his angels.
As the Beloved speaks within our own hearts and minds, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away,” so we in turn extend the same invitation to all with spiritual ears to hear. This is what we are doing right now in this Zoom assembly. In the Book of Revelation where the reestablishment of true government is described, it’s said the manmade world, called “Babylon the great,” is fallen. In the midst of that chaos an angel in a loud voice says, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” [Rev. 18:4] The soft, poetic invitation to “rise up, my love…” is restated here now as a compulsion: Come out of her, my people! Let this be an issue that we vote Yes! on in every moment of every election day.
Following Comments…
John Gray: Those of us who gather regularly for these Zoom teleconferences know that there are things transpiring concurrently on a number of levels. But in the highest and finest place, we sit presiding over the vast worlds of connections we each have, and through them we extend God’s love to bathe the world. These times together aren’t especially for the speaker to say edifying things and for everyone else to be entertained. It’s truly a time of unified radiation; that’s what makes this meaningful. And in this is great power—great power that is government at work. It brings change—creative change, not chaotic change. So, when I, or any speaker, says, “It’s good to be together,” I really, really mean it!