The Afterglow of Revelation…

The Messenger Marshall Vian Summers received a new Revelation: “Poverty” (September 10, 2014, 12:05 pm, 27:03 mins. in Boulder, Colorado, USA)

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To the Worldwide Community of the New Message,

It was a misty, drizzling morning, having rained all night.

These early to mid-September days are the anniversary of the catastrophic flood that occurred here, one year ago.

At that time in 2013, The Society and all those who had attended were just emerging from the Annual Encampment of the New Message Worldwide Community, and were coming down from the mountains on Monday, September 9th. From that day, September 9th to the 15th, 17 inches, or 43 cm, of rain fell. And as it were, the great waves poured in torrents down the mountain canyons all around The Society’s members’ homes and our humble New Message Sanctuary and offices.

This morning though, I thought, “As long as they stop, these rains are good for the garden.”

Marshall returned from an early morning trip into town, saying urgently that he was being called. Two days before, he had received a very mystical and inspiring revelation entitled “Grace,” and in some ways was still recovering from that experience. Now he was being called again.

I stopped what I was doing. We prepared. I offered Marshall some herbal supplements ahead of time, hoping they would lessen the physical demands of this profound experience of revelation to come.

As he was seated, head bowed for several minutes, he looked up at me, slowly nodding, and said, “This (pause) is going to happen.”

His head bowed again. It was very quiet outdoors. The sun was just emerging from the clouds.

And then the Voice suddenly spoke, “Very good, Marshall. We shall proceed. Today We shall speak on poverty.”

“Poverty—the poverty of the Soul, the poverty of the body, the poverty of isolation, the poverty of disassociation from others. Poverty takes so many forms…”

And on and on, and then, “But it is a freedom journey, all the way, at every level of society, at every level of personal well-being, at every level of affluence.”

Marshall’s hands were on his lap pillow, fingers touching, forming a triangle. His eyes were closed the entire time.

The blackbirds, in the background outside began to call, “caw, caw.”

As the Voice spoke, many images came to mind.

“The peoples of the world who cannot find shelter and food and security and sanitation, they all need assistance. It is the calling for the wealthy to provide for poverty at this level…”

“You will be able to do much good in the world with what you have, and it will restore to you your integrity and your self-respect…”

Marshall’s left arm and hand began twitching and jerking lightly. And then,

“You will always want more, endlessly wanting more, endlessly, because your Soul is not satisfied. It is an emptiness you cannot fill…”

The sacred gestures continued. Leaning further forward, his hands were held out and then brought back together, and then enshrouded his eyes for a moment.

Then he sat upright with hands together, overlapping and folded inward toward his chest, arms bent, slightly rocking back and forth.

“…you are not really living the life you came here to live. You are not really doing what you know you must do.”

Still rocking, rocking, hands still folded, left index finger pointing, the other fingers still gathered in an embrace.

“Poverty is in you. It is all around you…”

Now the rocking back and forth was more pronounced, eyes closed the entire time, hands in prayer.

“…begin to count your blessings, which are more numerous than you even can account for at this moment.”

And on…

“Religion is about service. It is about taking care of people. It is about healing wounds…If your religion does not lead to greater service and compassion, then you are failing it at its core.”

The Voice continued on and on.

Marshall’s right hand enfolded the left, with left index finger pointing upward.

“What We speak of here today is what Heaven values.”

Hands outstretched on their sides, resting on the lap pillow.

“In your heart, you will know you came here for a greater purpose. In your heart, you know you are not really living the life you are meant to live. In your heart, you know you must be true to that which is permanent and real within you…”

Sitting upright, hands in prayer state chest level, and then hands and arms opening at chest level and then back to prayer state.

And finally, leaning forward, hands on his lap pillow, facing each other, index fingers pointing stiffly into the air with emphasis.

“The restoration must happen in enough people, in you…”

And finally a powerful directive at the end…

“Face your poverty and it will give you the incentive and the determination to proceed.”

The room and the surrounding environment were so quiet. Marshall sat motionless for some time before emerging from his state.

Eventually, he seemed to recover his senses. He dutifully attended to the equipment and sat back, and in the moments that followed, recorded the following message about his experience for all of us.

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Message from Marshall Vian Summers just after receiving “Poverty”

These are my comments on my receiving the teaching on “Poverty,” part of the New Revelation from God.

I awoke this morning and immediately prepared to do a set of errands out in town, and I set out to do these things, but as I proceeded, the sense of Presence began to grow, and I found it more difficult to concentrate, more difficult to pay attention to things. I found myself becoming irritated, a feeling I now recognize as emerging from the experience of being called, being called away from all other things, becoming irritated by becoming involved elsewhere, not wanting anyone to ask anything of me because I am being called.

So I came home with a growing experience of Presence and knew that I would have to prepare to receive the teaching that I received today.

I share this with you because you must understand that the Presence can come upon me at any time, in any place, in any set of circumstances, and I have learned over the years to recognize its signs and its outer manifestations.

I liken it to a great storm that is descending, a great Cloud of Revelation, and I can feel it coming (almost whispering). Before it envelops me, I can feel it coming, and my mind begins to reorient itself to that, which it does so naturally.

The theme of this Teaching came into my mind minutes before it started, with one word, and that word was “Poverty.”

So I set up the recorders, prepared myself and said my dedication. I waited until I heard the words, “Let us begin.”

When I heard those words, as I always do, I wait to hear them again to make sure it is really time to begin.

I waited. And then I heard this Voice a little closer now. “It is time to begin,” speaking in my mind, as if my mind were now an open conduit to Heaven.

As I wait, the Voice will begin and slowly I and my mind will fade into the background, which happens very gradually. I am listening, and I am hearing what’s being presented, what is being recorded, but after a time, I sink into a deeper state, and I am no longer listening and hearing what is being said and recorded.

Towards the end of the experience, I will begin to hear the final statements, and then the recording will stop, and the Cloud of Revelation will slowly begin to lift, leaving me in a very quiet empty state of mind, which is actually quite luxurious and wonderful to experience.

After I turned off all the recorders and made sure everything was set, I gave myself a little bit of time to experience this.

It is like being in a great concert hall after the performance is over, and everyone has left, except it is bigger than that.

The Cloud ascends, but I can still feel it, and I know it will take the rest of the day or perhaps longer to fully return to this world, for I will feel that Presence for some time.

Afterwards, while it was almost effortless for me to receive during the time of reception, my mind is very tired, as if it had put in a full day’s work in the last 30 or 40 minutes.

So I have learned over time to nurture my mind and not to expose it too much in the world or to other problems or difficulties, to give it time to restore its energy because the Engagement is so powerful.

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Several hours later, after recovering somewhat from his experience of revelation, Marshall and I took a walk along the foothills above our home. We considered the Voice of Revelation’s profound Teaching on “Poverty”—a grave and ever present condition of the human family. As we walked, the reality of worldwide poverty surrounded us. I felt its overwhelming presence, recalling the Voice speaking.

It seems that through the Messenger, the New Message Revelation is intent on speaking to both the visible and the invisible poverty that is present everywhere around us. And that is why the Messenger is being called to many places of need in the world.

Marshall stopped on the trail, sensing the impact of “Poverty,” and what I was foreseeing in my mind about the Messenger’s future. He said quite sternly, “Patricia you can do this. You already have years of nursing—on the streets, in homes, in hospitals. The suffering is not new to you. Remember this. I will need you to help me…”

Patricia Summers

“I am rich so I can give.” – Step 158
“The poor cannot give. I am not poor.” – Step 159
“The world is poor, but I am not.” – Step 160

 

– from The New Message Book of Practices: Steps to Knowledge – The Book of Inner Knowing, received by Marshall Vian Summers, in a state of revelation in 1989.