From Those To Whom
Much Is Given,
Much Shall Be Required

A perspective on our responsibility to history and to the planet

One of the articles in Rediscovering The North American Vision (IC#3)
Summer 1983, Page 19
Copyright (c)1983, 1996 by Context Institute

The following excerpts from Conversations With John deal with what has been a continuing continental theme - our responsibility to history and to the rest of the planet. It raises issues that, one way or another, any renewal of vision will have to deal with. Conversations With John is a booklet of prophetic commentary on the 1980's, edited by David Spangler (Lorian Press, P.O. Box 147, Middleton, WI 53562, $2. 75, 1980). The title is from Luke 12:48.

THE VULNERABILITY of the United States and of the world as a whole lies in its psychological depression, vibrating to a vision of confrontation and hopelessness. You, who live in the wealthy countries, perceive the possibility of confrontation in the future, such as with the Soviet Union. To us this is a side- issue, diverting attention from more fundamental planetary problems. A key area of challenge for us is that three-quarters or more of your world experiences hopelessness and is engaged in a struggle of the human spirit to surmount great physical and psychological difficulties. These people are focused on simple survival, and their struggle permeates the unconscious of your whole race with a similar vibration. In this way, no matter where you live, the vibrations of struggle permeate your environment. This is not a joyous or confident struggle, but one filled with hopelessness, seeing little beyond the certain arrival of death. This vibration fills your world with an inertia of fatalism and depression, which impinges upon and affects even those who are not directly confronted with the problem of physical survival. It influences how you will see your problems and the inspiration and confidence with which you can meet them.

As long as this pervading energy of hopelessness is there, there is a vulnerability to images of destruction and an inability to transmute them adequately. Fear of both a definite and a vague nature moves through the hearts and minds of your people, challenging your powers of creativity and erecting a fog or veil through which we workers in the realms of spirit must operate and which can diminish our efforts on your behalf. This crucial planetary challenge will not be resolved until those members of humanity who are free from the daily struggle to survive, who have been blessed with abundance, and who, therefore, can place themselves into attunement with wider spheres of creativity and vision, direct their energies to assist those who have no hope by giving them hope and substantive help...

The United States has particular responsibility to "be about its Father's business" and to honor the spiritual sources and visions that gave it birth. It is a planetary nation, emerging not from a particular race or people but from the efforts, hopes, and dreams of men and women of all races and nations. It is the site of a great planetary experiment, a human experiment; the United States emerged with a destiny to serve humanity in ways no other country has ever done before.

Having now placed its sense of power upon what is fundamentally a non-spiritual base - an economic base with too narrow a view of human nature and potential - the United States is being especially challenged by the events of this decade and the arising of the spirit, as within Islam. The United States will also be challenged by elements within its own population and institutions, arising from its economic perspectives, that are fundamentally totalitarian in essence. These may unwittingly, or in some instances with knowledge and intent, limit the freedoms of its people and work against the planetary experiment occurring within its borders. This internal enemy is not a conspiracy from other countries, but a result of attitudes, thought forms, prejudices, and unintegrated, misunderstood, and untransmuted glamours of power which are part of its historical development. It will need to learn certain lessons and to realign with its deeper spiritual heritage and potential; otherwise, its future as a country will be limited and will not reflect the promise of its soul.

Everything happening in the world now represents a cry from humanity for a transformation; a cry for help in achieving another step towards its destiny. The United States came into being to meet this need and, from our perspective, it will do so. We have confidence in its future. However, there is a quality within it that does not understand the need nor the apparent sacrifices it may be called upon to make in order to meet its own transformation and transcendence. This force seeks to embody itself as power and to respond to the cry of humanity with exercises of power. Power is not in itself a bad thing; it also is a divine quality. Truly great is the individual or the country who can learn to embody and use power with grace and wisdom, free from fear and with an understanding of the roots of power in self-mastery rather than in mastery over others. The United States must meet the challenge of its power as a country and learn how to use it in service and with integrity. To simply respond with force and power to the needs of humanity will not be successful; the lesson of this decade will be to discover that there are true limits to power.

Depending on the choices the United States makes it will have either a smooth or difficult period of transition into the midpoint of this decade and beyond. The real danger is not the Soviet Union, but rather the growing force of invocation and demand for justice and balance within the world, particularly within those peoples who suffer because of lack. If this demand is not understood and not met in visionary and inspired ways, there will arise upon the earth a force of anger and rejection that will sweep much before it. This force will leave the United States more impoverished than would otherwise be the case because it was ordained to be the trustee of hope and service for humanity in this time. The United States can lose much unnecessarily if it fails in this test of national alignment and will. It has from four to five years [from 1980] to begin making a clear response to this need; otherwise, before the end of the decade this storm will have spread upon the earth. It may not take the form of a military war, as many people fear - though military conflict will definitely be part of it - but it will be fought primarily on economic, ideological and psychic levels. Those who have little to lose, who are desperate and who perceive no hope, can become vessels through which terror, destruction, and despair can enter your world.

Thus, the cry goes out. Above any other, the United States is the one to which that cry is directed and the country that can best respond. Over the next four years, many people and collective energies will emerge within the United States to help make and direct that response; it is for each person to discern how he or she can align with this response and to do so.

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