Vol. 2 No. 3

September, 1977

The recent suicide of Freddie Prinze shocked the professionals of television as well as millions of viewers of Chico and the Man. Why would someone who had everything going for him take his own life? Freddie's peers could not understand, because they knew that in just a couple of years Freddie had risen right to the top as a recognized, accepted TV personality and comedian. His countless fans saw his death as tragic, because most could not conceive of how a person with "everything" would want to choose to lose it all by one rash decision. If you have youth, health, professional success, financial security, and devoted friends, what more would you want? Would Freddie's less-than-successful marriage of two years alone be enough to cause a man to commit suicide?

Speculation about Freddie Prince's death will continue as long as he is remembered, but I rather doubt that the investigators, family and friends will ever come up with a satisfactory answer. Probably the only acceptable reason will be the current explanation: "temporary insanity due to

excessive dosage of drugs over an extended period of time." Freddie's psychiatrist verified that he had been taking "uppers" and "downers" in amounts five times the recommended dosage. Apparently only drugs had been enabling him to handle temporarily his meteoric rise to TV stardom.

Freddie's inability to cope with fame and fortune is not unique. In sports, in business, in the professions, and in every other field of endeavor, we have all seen people who have worked hard to become successful, but who have had to work even harder to stay successful. What does a golfer do for an encore after he wins a major title? What does an employee do after he becomes president of his company? What does a doctor do after he earns a reputation in his community? Getting to the top is great, but staying there is something else. The "struggle of attainment" is always exchanged for the "struggle of continued performance."

Christians seem to get caught up in the same vicious circle in their quest for "spirituality". Even if they find the

The Secret

of Being

from relative to positive to universal

BILL VOLKMAN

Not that I speak from want, for I HAVE LEARNED TO BE content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I HAVE LEARNED THE SECRET OF BEING filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. Philippians 4:11-12 (NAS).

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PUBLISHED BY UNION LIFE MINISTRIES

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Answer (salvation), their quest does not end, because then they struggle to find the key to perfection (sanctification). Performance (law) - orientated man has always asked, "What must I do to be saved?" Even when he is told, "Only believe" (grace) he responds, "OK, I believe, now what can I do to show everyone that I appreciate the gift of eternal life?" Man has a hard time understanding unconditional love and spontaneous being.

Why is it that personal inner rest and well-being seems to elude mostly everyone? Why is it that "bornagain", "Spirit-filled" Christians frequently manifest just as much inner turmoil and anxiety (and even commit suicide) as those who have made no spiritual commitment? What is the secret of contentment that so few realize? What is the key to "the secret of being" which Paul had learned that enabled him to be content in every circumstance?

From Paul's familiar quotation in Philippians 4:11-12 it is obvious that the key lies in responding equally to contrasting situations and circumstances. Paul was equally content with poverty and prosperity. This was only possible because he saw God as All and in all.

The secret goes beyond seeing prosperity in poverty, or good in evil, or light in darkness; it is seeing both of the sides of any pair of opposites as alike. "Darkness and light are alike to Thee" (Psalm 139:12). If you see either side of opposites as "better" or "worse" than the other you are still taking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. People and circumstances will never be "God's perfect expression" as long as we lament that things are not better, or rejoice because a particular expression is not worse. Be anxious for nothing (no thing)! The secret of contentment is to see that nothing is better or worse than anything else. We are to know nothing of any contrast and comparison that excludes God's Presence. God must be seen as All and in all. Only then have we attained a maturity that has replaced "doing" with "being".

Paul says, "The mature... discern good and evil" (Heb. 5:14). This mature discernment must be distinguished from the immature "taking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." The latter always results in death, because there is a focus of condemnation and separation rather than that of acceptance and oneness. "But from the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17). For example, look at the deaths of every kind that have resulted through the years because of color prejudice. If we do not accept others as equal, our focus of condemnation and separation as to those of a different color is bound to manifest itself in death.

What then does Paul mean when he says that the mature discern good and evil? In the first place, the mature know that neither good nor evil will affect their union with Christ and His Body. All good and evil is God's determined means of expressing Himself through individual personalities, irrespective of the conceptual good or evil involved.

Do you believe that all things work together for good, or only those things that have the appearance of conceptual good? At some point we must see that all circumstances are God in perfect love action for the redemptive good of all concerned. We must comb to see that though we recognize conceptual good and evil, that neither good nor evil can affect the eternal spirit fact of Oneness. Because of our Union with God, nothing evil can separate us from the love of God, and nothing good can bring us any closer to God. Negative appearances and feelings are no worse, nor any better, than positive appearances and feelings.

In the second place, the mature discern good and evil when inner acceptance based on Union replaces self-condemnation and judgment of others in negative situations. Jesus illustrates this in the episode of the woman taken in the very act of adultery (definitely an evil, wrongful, sinful act). His words were, "Neither do I condemn you; go your way; from now on sin no more" (John 8:11). The fact that He did not condemn her past actions does not imply that He was ignoring the evil or denying its reality in both the temporal and eternal dimensions of life. The law of "whatsoever a man sows he reaps" is just as applicable to a Christian as to a non-Christian.

Finally, to discern good and evil is to inwardly know that both good and evil appearances have redemptive purpose in our lives. Joseph saw this, so he told his brothers, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). As we see God in all things, evil becomes Good and good becomes Evil - it just doesn't make any difference. This does not mean we deny the reality of evil,

wrong, sin, hell, sickness, or the negative. But in maturity we see them all with the same single eye as we do their positive counterpart.

The opportunities for daily death are not limited to negative situations of obvious evil. The secret of lifethrough-death is seeing ourselves in Oneness in the good as well as in the evil, in success as well as in failure, in health as well as in sickness. Face the truth that positive circumstances of life can tempt us into the illusion of separation as readily as negative circumstances. Feelings of independence and separation from God seem to be quite natural during periods of success, health, and apparent "good." Most of us tend to experience more consciousness of His Presence in negative situations, such as financial pressure, sickness and death.

Paul had learned the secret of life. He was content in every circumstance because he had come to the awareness that we live in a Onepower universe. He saw that life was knowing the secret of "being." He knew that Reality can elude us as readily in a circumstance of prosperity as in a circumstance of poverty.

A quotation of Rudyard Kipling that someone sent me recently, rather than a scripture, was the catalyst that finally brought me to the beginnings of seeing good and evil with a single eye.

If you can meet with Triumph and

Disaster and treat these two Im

posters the same,

Yours is the earth and everything

that's in it.

(From Rudyard Kipling's poem,

"If")

For some months before this I had begun to see that there could be good in evil, health in sickness, and victory in defeat. This was an improvement, because at least I was beginning to see Him who is the Positive in many negative situations. But fundamentally my focus had merely changed to appearances of good and health and victory instead of seeing universal Oneness. Can you see that good and health and victory can be imposters as much as evil and sickness and defeat?

Our growth in awareness is labelled by the Apostle John as little children, young men and fathers (1 John 2:1214). Another way to label this growth of consciousness is from relative to positive to universal.

As spiritual children we see

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KEEPING A DAILY JOURNAL

Mr. Bill Volkman

Dear Bill:

I surely do enjoy your magazine, Union Life. In fact, I have purchased a plastic file just to keep its issues in. Enclosed is a sum for its continued publication and copies to me.

I keep a journal and try to put something in it every day - some thought or a clipping or just writing down what happened to my family or myself that day. I advise everybody to keep a daily journal. While your family might see you as a very ordinary person, your grandchildren or great grandchildren may some day read what you have written and really be helped. Even though you were very ordinary, the fact that the thoughts were written so long ago will make a strong impression on them. I wish I had something that my father or grandfather, or better yet, my great grandfather or mother had written about what happened to them, or some thought about life that came to them.

Anyway, I am enclosing a copy of the page I wrote in my Journal today. Hope you like it.

Sincerely,

Charles M. Spear /s/

(Editor: A lawyer from Edina, Minnesota, recently sent us a wonderful series of poems and epigrams written by him which speak of the implications of our full inheritance in Christ. Following is a letter from him about his Journal, a sample from His Journal, and a few of his epigrams.

Thursday, June 24, 1977

I have been reading those periodicals I receive called The Spirit of the Word and Union Life. I am going to type some of these articles right in this Journal, and as I do I will make comments on them from time to time. I will put my comments in parentheses (((   ))) like this.

I am very interested about this whole idea of "Union Life". I think some of my own poems and epigrams (especially the first ones like "I Believe in God" and "I") surely state my understanding of Union Life. But, as I think of this Union with Christ more and more, I am trying to find some word or thought that would best explain how or what actually this union is. I have had some thoughts on it.

For instance, a drop of water falling into the ocean certainly becomes "one" with the ocean. The drop Immediately contains the full force and power and mystery of the ocean Itself. Is this something like the Union of Christ and man?

In one of the articles quoted in The Spirit of The Word, Dan Stone, I think, mentions that we are vessels containing the life of Christ. Yes, I think that is true and even more. We are more than vessels, because a vessel

is separate from its contents.

The word I think I have been searching for is the word "life". The word "life" seems to me to indicate a completeness, a whole, a union. St. Paul says (Col. 3:4) "Christ is our life!" I think those four words are the best expression of union that I can think of. "Christ is our life!" We can say that Christ is in us, but that seems to imply the two of us, not us in union but as two, not one. But when we say "Christ is our life", that is union.

God said to Moses, "I am", or as some bibles state, "I am who Am." I think that implies Union. God Is! God is life! "I am Who Am" =God.

It is more than that I exist in God, or I exist with God; it Is even more than that God exists in me. It is that I am God's very life! It is not only that God expresses himself through me or in me; It Is that I am God's life.

I don't know exactly what my spirit is, but I am coming to know what my life Is. When I repeated what St. Paul wrote, "Christ Is our life", and the words "Christ is my life", I began to understand the Union of God - The Father, the Son, (Christ), the Holy Spirit and (believe it or not) me!

Didn't Christ say, "Before Abraham was, I am"? Yes, he did. Isn't this also true about ourselves? While it Is true that only God always was, never

theless, I, myself, always was in the mind of God. God always was, and has always been mindful of me. Yes, mindful of little old me and little old you. These thoughts also help me to think of the Union of God and me, God and you, God and the whole universe. Because everything always was in the mind of God, In the thoughts of God; God was always aware of everything that is and is to be! Doesn't that speak of some kind of union? Can't I say I am one with God because I am always in His thoughts. Even before I was, I was in His thoughts. Isn't that the magnificent Union we are looking for?

God cannot be separated from His thoughts, and I was always in His thoughts! God is my life! I am God's life! "Christ is our life." God is our life. This is Union Life!

Though I don't think I can say that I am Christ, I can surely say that I am Christ's life! And as Christ is also Christ's life and I am Christ's life, Christ and I are one In the union of Christ's life. Now, what was Christ's life? It was His crucifixion, His resurrection, His Ascension and His sitting at the right hand of God. That is also our destiny, irreversibly and unalterably. Because It was His life, it is our life. Yes, Christ and I are one In the union of Christ's life.

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REDEMPTION

AND

CREATION

Is man sorry first

and then forgiven or

forgiven first

and then sorry?

If he is sorry first,

then God forgives

His friends, but

if he is forgiven first,

then God forgives

His enemies.

We don't need a God who

forgives

His friends.

Did Christ die before or after Adam fell?

In time,

after Adam fell,

but

in eternity, before Adam fell.

In the mind of God

Adam was forgiven first

and then created.

This is

what the "good news" of man's redemption is all about.

He was redeemed first

and then created!

That's why the irreversible destiny of every man is

eternal life and

that's also why men are brothers.

They have all been redeemed in Christ and

created in Adam from before the

beginning!

I am not forgiven because I repent.

I repent because

I am already forgiven!

yet

it is but one life.

If I flog my

will

to live our life together,

I can only bring my weaknesses to that endeavor, but

if I surrender my will and let him live

our life together, it is accomplished in His power.

Christ is more than within me; He is in union with me.

It is one life!

It is union life!

* John 17:23 "I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one."

Christ's life and my life are meshed together as one inseparable life.

Our lives are totally and absolutely one!*

In this

union life His life neutralizes

my weaknesses and my life absorbs his power,

In Christ

all of God and

all of man

are meshed together.

They are inseparable.

As no man escapes his own personal crucifixion, no man is denied his own personal resurrection.

When Christ was crucified, man was crucified.

When Christ arose, man arose.'

This has already been

accomplished by Christ and in Christ for all time, and will be experienced In each man

In each man's time.

Life here is the crucifixion;

life hereafter is the resurrection; and life

at the end of time is the

ascension.

It has all been foretold and pre-lived in Christ.

Christ is our life!

No one is lost!

This is true

for all mankind.

This is what I mean when I say

(2 Cor. 5:19)-"For God was truly in Christ reconciling the world to Himself by not reckoning against men their sins."

I believe in God!

Rom. 6:5-"For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be so in the likeness of His resurrection also."

Your letter came as loving arms around me, comforting and encouraging me, assuring me that this too was My Father's Cup. I felt your very presence as I read the loving things that sprang from your heart to mine.

For some weeks my nerves seemed as if they would go out of control. Besides counselling day and night, I keep three kindergarten children from noon til five, plus their friends. I teach Bible to the children on my street from 8 to 8:30 AM; then from 8:30 to 10:30 I teach Bible to an alcoholic lady who is off the booze and onto Jesus. Most days I am interrupted by telephone calls with someone who needs to hear that Jesus is still alive and on the throne, taking care of the little sparrows (which are what we call our problems). Then it is time to prepare lunch for the three children coming from kindergarten, feed them, love them, pray with them about their special thoughts, then off to nap for an hour or so, between cleaning, washing and preparing dinner, usually cooking with one hand and counselling over the phone with the other. At 3 PM my own children arrive home from school, starved to death for a treat which somehow I find the time to prepare. John arrives at 6 PM ready to meet his well-dressed, smiling wife. I don't remember when we had a meal during which someone didn't call with what they feel is a very pressing problem.

In any event, Saturday evening I knew I was going over some kind of an edge. I was sure I was going to start screaming and never stop. I finally convinced John after a couple of hours that I must have some medical help, so off we went to the emergency room. It seemed as if I was hanging on to a very thin ledge by my fingertips. The only person who would listen or understand at this time was Jesus Himself, so with all of me that was left I began to talk to Him.

I had been begging Jesus for some months to restore the youthful, expectant love, and deep communication that had somehow slipped away from John and me. It seemed as if the only show of love and understanding that I had was coming from the Body of Christ outside of my home, so I was enjoying being home less and less. On this night as I began to talk to Jesus, He brought this to my mind, and I said to Him, "I don't care if you don't want to love me through John, I only need you!"

In the past I had asked Him many times to let me live to raise Tim (my 6 year old)), who is the apple of my eye and full of Jesus Christ. Well! He let me see Tim, as well as all my family, filled, contained, and eternally kept by Him. I saw His Spirit in them so there was no longer any real need for me to be with them in body, for my Spirit was in His Spirit and His Spirit was !n them. All was complete, so the only thing left for me to give them was my flesh, and in a moment it was, or seemed, gone. It was as if I was hanging on a meat hook and all, and I mean all, had been cut away by surgery. Precious Jesus

so beautifully cut away all of me right down to Spirit. When He was finished, only His Spirit hung on the meat hook. I was inside of His Spirit forever and ever and could not even be touched. No harm, no hurt, no loneliness could penetrate His Spirit to get to me - my spirit.

Of course, they put me in the psychiatric ward, for I was talking to Jesus. I answered all their questions and was conscious of everything that was happening but I was not threatened by anything they did, or did not say, for I simply did not care. I only wanted to go to sleep. It was pure hell, and yet amazingly it was the Gateway to Heaven. I would never want to go there again, yet I would not take anything in this world for the experience, for now I have no fear or inhibitions at all. I have been to Hell and found that Jesus is Master there too. It cannot hold onto one of us, for we are His children.

I stayed two full weeks. I was heavily sedated, so I got the rest which I desperately needed. We had group sessions and writing sessions. I found the first day that if I ever wanted to get out of there I was not to mention God. So I did not try to be God and I did not try to be Mary. I was truly a free spirit. The psychiatrist was a Jewish man who told me on the first day, "I don't want to hear that God stuff," and he didn't.

At the end of two weeks the doctor said to me, "When you came in here I thought you had a mental problem because of all that Jesus and God talk, but now I know you have no problems, except that you were physically and mentally exhausted. Now you are fine, but you must not put yourself through such strenuous work in body and mind. I then asked him about sedation in case I got nervous, but he said, "You don't need any sedation." Praise God!

I knew God must have taken me there for many reasons. As I said before, I didn't talk about God. One day a schizophrenic came up to me. He was a tormented black boy who paced the floor day and night. He threw his food in the trash in defiance and often had to be put in the "hole," a locked room with only a mattress. One day he came up right in my face and said "You have the Lord Jesus Christ in you, don't you?" I said "You know I do! Would you like to have Him?" He said "I sure would!" I said, "Would you like to pray?" He said, "Not now", and he was off. But I believe with all of my being that he accepted Christ at that very moment and is eternally saved.

Then as I would walk into any room (the day room, the dining room, or the TV room) all cursing and dirty talk would cease in an instant. I was not trying to, be or do anything. Jesus simply went to the psycho ward as me and they recognized Him. When I was leaving every single one of them acted as if I were their own sister. They said they loved me and would miss me even as I indeed loved every single one of them and always will.

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"Lean on ME." Direct, simple, uninvolved, isn't it? An invitation which, if accepted, would instantly cause you to cease the useless "leaning" upon persons, organizations, books, etc. But first it is necessary to understand this ME, to recognize this ME, to become one with this ME, before you can accept such a glorious invitation.

In the Apocrypha, the Book of Ecclesiasticus, we see a very definite word being stated about the begging attitude of life. It is so common sense that it is well worth consideration, no matter what its source.

"My son, lead not a beggar's life; for better it is to die than to beg."

"The life of him that dependeth on another man's table is not to be counted for a life; for he polluteth himself with other men's meat; but the wise man, well nurtured, will beware thereof."

"Begging is sweet in the mouth of the shameless; but in his belly there shall burn a fire."

The beautiful symbology of these verses can hardly, go unnoticed, so poignant and powerful is the message. "My son (my body), lead not a beggar's life." The old consciousness which begs of life the permission to live does not understand the innate power within which does not have to ask favours to perform the works of the Lord. It is amazing that so many are begging - begging in the body, as it were, for the comforts and necessities of life which belong automatically to man.

"The fear (reverence or recognition) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." It is only when man recognizes this Inner Lord of which Jesus so often spoke that he can see the uselessness and futility of the "beggar" consciousness. Most people beg instead of PRAY. They implore a God to do something for them and cannot understand why He does not do it. They compare notes and find that God apparently is very partial, and is not in any sense of the word moved by the beggar's plight. The beggar at the temple gate would have continued a beggar if his requests on the outside had been fulfilled.

We have all been beggars - it has often been shameless begging in the name of the Lord, and it has been fire to the digestion. A woman once took an entire book of mine, adapted it - which meant she cut out all the spirit of the message and with her hobnailed mentality went crashing in,

Walter Lanyon

wiping her dirty feet all over its pages. As well might she have rushed into the Louvre with a can of black paint and painted a moustache and eyeglasses on the Mona Lisa as to "adapt" an entire book. It was filled with the vibration of her fear of what she was doing, but it was done under the guise of "love-offering." Imagine the interest that "love-offering" will collect as time goes on. "God is not mocked" - the beggar may not be sitting at the temple gate; he may be on the very altar, but whatever he gets in his bowl will be like "fire to his belly."

"I have never seen the righteous begging bread." Do you hear? Neither do you have to "take" from another. You take from "ME."

"The fear (recognition) of the Lord is a fruitful garden, and covereth Him above all glory."

Awake, thou that sleepest - arise from the consciousness which is eternally depending on something or somebody - and "lean upon ME." You will find that the moment you begin this "leaning" on ME your life will be replete with blessings and gifts of which you never dreamed. "Life that is dependent upon another is not to be accounted Life," runs the quotation - the looking to a person for life is a slow poison. It is true that it may come through a person or many persons, but it must be accepted and

recognized in God. Else you become a beggar - begging of those who may in many ways be inferior to you. Yet by reason of the fact that the temple