Volume 8, Issue 1, page 7
16
ByARTHUR J. BURKS
awn? I ir 1 5;
stis
Same breakfast. Sometimes you get tired of the same breakfast,
but you couldn't get tired of this one. This one,
exactly this one, I could eat seven mornings a week and not get
tired of it. 0 1
You looked at your spouse, who looked back. What was happening
wasn't strange. It was unusual, in that you'd
only, apparently by accident, caught the spirit a few times
recently, but not strange. It was more the way it,should
be and seldom was.
You looked at where Jesus would have been, had He actually been
there, and inside you you spoke for Him
again:
"Breakfast in the bosom of the family is very important. It sets
the tone, harmonious or discordant, for the day.
What you take with you from the breakfast table, good or bad, you
distribute among those whom you contact thru
the day. They, in turn, without realizing it, pass it on to their
contacts. It isn't inconceivable that a good word
spoken at breakfast encircles the world before dinner time, and
you bless strangers whom you'll not see this side of
Paradise. if everybody realized this-everybody knows it, which
isn't the same as realizing -- the world would change
overnight, or overday, for the better. There i s a law governing
these matters. It applies with equal force to bad
words, bad feelings. Good or bad thoughts flow from you as
impulses flow from radio or television.00
It couldn't be Jesus, talking like that, for what did He know of
radio and television?
"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I
also in the midst of them "
H must still apply, else you'wouldn't have felt it so deeply.
Jesus got around. He knew about radio and
television, and many other wonders yet to come. you felt in your
heart, considering it for a moment, that He didn't
disapprove of radio or television, tho He may have been less than
amused at some of the things said via these media.
You decided to tell the family what had struck you. You didn't
wish to preach, or del,iver a lecture, so you began
it like this:
"I have the feeling thatif Jesus were here, and were asked, He
would say that breakfast in the bosom of the family
is very important. It sets the tone .... 01
You went on from there with the rest of what had "come to" you,
wondering what future mornings would be
like. Would the family expect you to produce"gems of wisdom" like
thisevery morning? or would they become
bored with any such daily routine? Well, you could wait and see.
if the family clearly, obviously, sincerely expected
something brief and to the point from you, you would say it, if
there were, at that moment, anything to say. Just to
be on the safe side, you'd work out something important, ponder
on its presentation. and have it ready, just in case.
You would also note that, if the children were interested, none
would gulp his food. or wash it down with too-
copious draughts' of water or milk, postum or chocolate. making in
E R R E E 7
Part 4 - Chapter II (Continued)
HERE were, you noted, no holdover feuds among the boys, or among
the girls, this morning. In some fashion, you
had created an "atmosphere" in which peace seemed natural and
greatly to be desired
There was talk; it wouldn't hav~ been natural if there hadn't
been, and the boys and girls felt freer to talk. They asked
innumerable questions, and you turned another leaf : You answered
every question. If you didn't know the answer,
you answered anyway. after afashion: you said you didn't know .
but that you would try to find the answer
and have it ready tomorrow morning at the latest.
If you were the wife, you didn't say much, but you thought a lot,
felt a lot. Somewhat diffidently your husband
had told you what he was up to. You knew that in his mind, Jesus
was here at breakfast, too. You didn't feel a
Presence, or anything, but you felt as good inside as if you had
felt a Presence. There was so little discordl
You, the husband-father, suddenly realized something : that your
body was the Father's House on earth. It was at
least one of them. If He had many mansions on High, He had quite
a number on earth, also. "Know ye not," said
Paul (you were quite sure it was Paul), "that ye are sons of
God?" If that were true, and you suddenly didn't doubt it,
then a segment of the Father was in you, probably from the
far-off days when He had, with the First Man, "breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life , and be became a living
soul."
That made eating, enjoying your food, and abstaining from greedy
feeding-- not that you were ever greedy so
early in the morning-chewing sufficiently,savoring the taste and
the fragrance of bacon, crisp and crackly; enjoying
the eggs, the toast, the coffee, the jam, the sounds of knives,
forks, spoons, cups, saucers, pitchers,
toasters, as if all were part of your thankfulness to the Father
for the food He had provided
you and your family. Oh, you knew you had worked and earned the
money which had paid for this
food, but without the Father, would you have been able to work?
Would you even have been
here?
$#Not even your skin," said something deeply wi thin you, "is
wholly your own." But
everything belonged to the Father, and everything man needed for
right use was provided him;
all man had to do was ask. and then have the ambition to open his
hands, or to close them in
profitable work to whatever the end d e s i red. if work were
indicated.
" The day," said your eldest son, "begins better than usual."
"It's noticeable?" you said. "You feel it') What makes you think
so?"
ss I don't know. Pop. Sonething. Same day as yesterday, in a way.
yet not the same, either.
APRIL, 1961. The RB