The following are a series of summaries of key points / spiritual insights that were generated from the LP Life Group meetings exploring Genesis 34 : AC 4422-4437.
The Kempton, PA USA Friday afternoon LP Group met for Session 12 on May 25, 2018
Read MorePrinciples cited in Round 2 from Round 1:
- Acceptance brings serenity.
- The Story [in the Word] is always right where we are.
For the past several meetings, to introduce Round 3, after Round 2 we have passed the booklet, Logopraxis Points to Ponder. Each person reads a point in a round till we’ve covered a section.
Sometimes we ask to have the point read over several times and there is a bit of a ponder time. After each reading people comment on what in her experience confirms the point.
Points voiced in Round 3:
- Being faithful to the truth which you do know IS “Faith”.
- When you “nail things down” about doctrine, you wind up crucifying the Living Word.
- We can try to not act out evil, but we cannot try to be good.
Key Points Arising From The Sun US / Mon AU Online Life Group (ACV6 Session 12)
Read More- Truths remove our external covering and place us in the “other life” (the life of our mind/spirit) – they strip us back so that what goes unseen is exposed to view. We see the proprium’s activity more clearly.
- The beginning of the session cycle is often marked by difficulty and a struggle with the text – as things unfold over the work period more interior truths do their work and peace is restored (Shechem/Salem)
- Through sharing our experience with each other we are reminded to return to first principles as the basis for reflecting on our experience of the Text working in our life. This places us in more interior truths – Shechem – leading to – Salem
- The Text provides insight into the nature of the processes involved in this work – to build up what’s needed to sustain us as navigate the states that must arise in our work with truths from the Word
- The stories of the Word describe what must come to pass in us all
- It is essential to develop the skill of removing person, not just in our reading of the Text, but also in its application to what we take as our life
- Through the group, we are reminded that while the external context of our experience of the Text may differ the content of our experience is universal and so applicable to us all
Key Points from ACV6 Session 12 Monday Night Kempton Life Group
Read More- The letter of the Word can bring up challenges to an obedient acceptance of the Word as Divine.
- Despite the ugliness of the proprium, the Lord uses the horror and unites with us where He can.
- In an active state of proprium there can be a sense that a tiny seed of light is also present. The active state includes hatred toward that light. Seeing the hatred is the thing to value.
Key Points Arising From The Mon US / Tues AU Online Life Group (ACV6 Session 12)
Read More- The progression that describes the end of a Church also describes, on a lesser scale, my experience of falling away from the Lord/Word when proprial states are active (end of a Church in me)
- When caught up in negative emotional states internal things are separated from external things and can’t govern my state. When internal things (truths) are remembered my state changes
Question: how does seeing the proprium free us from it?
Audio responses to Questions Arising in Round 3
Read MoreThe Questions
Numerals in brackets indicate timings on the recording where the question is addressed (total time 12:13).
- (00:00) How do we hold the different levels of meaning in the Text?
- (06:52) Can you provide a personal, concrete example, of what’s involved in these events in terms of our own experience?
- (11:18) How are we to view, spiritually, the ravishing of Dinah?
- (11:55) How are we to view, spiritually, the slaughter of Shechem and the men of the city?
Key Points Arising From the Tues US / Weds AU Online Life Group (ACV6 Session 12)
Read More- The desire to be more emotionally connected with truths from the Word – for their internal meaning for our lives to be more readily accessible – this somehow reflects the Shechem/Dinah situation
- The struggle to take hold of externals, to bring them into a correspondence with internals, carries the feeling of something disordered, forced – (the “ravishment” of Dinah)
- We are not just a Church (although we are that) but we are also all the Churches simultaneously (a multiplicity) – the dynamic processes involved in the end of an Old Church and the beginning of a New Church are unfolding whenever proprial states become active, temptation is entered into, old ways of seeing and being die and a new ways of seeing and being arise.
- Shechem – remains through which the Lord breaks into more external states of mind – seeking out what can be adjoined to more internal states – excites resistances from what is opposed in the proprium (Levi and Simeon = in a negative sense Levi = disjunction of what is good and true; Simeon = unwillingness to be instructed by internal things)
Key Points Arising From the Weds Online Life Group (ACV6 Session 12)
Read More- Sometimes engagement with the Word leaves us in doubts and uncertainty – the falling and rising of Churches “in me” – leave us with more questions than answers
- With courage and faith, we find peace – Interior truths from the Word bring strength and courage
- Work with the Text connects all aspects of our life – even if the connections back to the Text are not clearly seen – then again other things that seem disconnected become meaningful through just asking the question; How does this relate?
- LP enables us to view situations in a detached way – love enables this separation from our ego so we can see others from a more compassionate state
- Working in LP isn’t primarily about intellectual satisfaction. There is always a struggle to see the application of the Text to life. This breaks down our confidence in our own capacity to intellectually grasp what is from the Lord, exposes that thing called the pride in one’s own intelligence. Not easy to stomach at times, but necessary.
Key Points Arising From the Thurs Online Life Group (ACV6 Session 12)
Read More- References to the “next” or “other” life in the Text, from an LP perspective, is the inner or mental life, as opposed to the “life” we engage in in the outer world
- There is a qualitative difference between knowing intellectually and knowing experientially
- Reflective work opens things up – both with regard to the text and with regard to our mental life
- The innate tendency to be trusting of others could also reflect an inner tendency to blindly “trust” in the proprium to our detriment (Hamor and Shechem in relation to Levi and Simeon)
- There is a need to return to the literal story so that the general aspects of it can be held in the memory from which it can be reflected upon
- The lower can’t see the higher or operate within it until it is conjoined
- Our historical faith and preconceptions block our capacity to perceive more interior things
- When the Text opens up it gives us what we need for our work
- Active proprial states afford us an opportunity to see interior things
- When we remember that the Text is the Lord we then hear what He has to say
- We are constantly being challenged to let go of natural things so that heavenly things can flow in
Key Points Arising From the South Perth F2F Life Group
Read More- Doing this work increases our sensitivity to others and our desire to reach out and share
- When we try to read for understanding we are instantly met with roadblocks
- This work makes us feel like a ‘ beginner ‘ and humbles us
- We must look to the Word to pull us out of the despair of negative feelings and thoughts
A comment on the different levels of meaning in the Text – re the first question in the audio responses. I was thinking this morning how our very external daily life in which we try to work with the Word, is like that very last ultimate level. And then I just happened to come across this number whilst looking for something else ( as you do!) AC 8443 Truth Divine is not of one degree, but of many. Truth Divine in the first degree, and also in the second, is that which proceeds immediately from the Lord; this is above… Read more »
If more develops on this line of thought, please post it. The 6 degree idea is entirely new to me.
Hi Gray. Only just to add that when you start searching there are degrees in everything. Six degrees for this, three degrees for that, twelve degrees for those. And these are just what the HD offers for our natural minds to comprehend. Yet we are told that there is so much more. Like tree branches dividing and dividing and dividing. Or wheels within wheels right?! The wonder and the beautiful nature of the Infinite. Still it does help to have some concepts to hang things on. After all there are six steps in Logopraxis 🙂