Too Much Future-Too Much Past
(Why It's OK Not to Give a Rat's Ass About Haggai)
I bought a home...
“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by
too much future, and
not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms
of non forgiveness are caused
by too much past, and not enough presence.”
―
Eckhart Tolle,
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Could anything describe the COGs and especially the self proclaimed Apostles and Prophets that sunk to the bottom more than men who live with too much future or too much past?
Every sermon Ron Weinland ever gave found him going back to "the Apostasy" where it didn't take a Psychiatrist to see how much it warped him and set him on his own path to greatness in the name of heading the one true church left. He then spent a number of years with way too much future on his mind and ended up living in the present now not quite as he had thought.
Dave Pack lives with way too much past and future. He worships the style, success and memory of Herbert W Armstrong. He longs for the old days of control over lots of people, clubs, sermons, festivals and church boundary lines. He misses the Ambassador Campus and electric carts. Then he got way too much future into his system with his "soon to be united" malarkey. Now he is stuck in the only real thing there is, for now, the present reality and moment.
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”
Eckhart Tolle,
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
If it one thing I have personally learned from my youthful decisions to study the past and believe others knew the future is that it's all in the head. The past is simply memories in the head. The past is merely a present moment that is over with and replaced with a new present moment. The future is a present moment not yet here and when it comes and goes to be replaced by another present moment.
The Church of God and Fundamentalism has taught me to abhor the terms, "time is short," "soon," and "It won't be long now..." There is no truth in any of it and it is a good way to miss the moment you are actually having for one that has no meaning. Humans have to deal with anger because we have memories and anxiety because we have fears of the unknown and unknowable future. Prophecy is the illusion that one can know. Every prophecy, no matter the "thus saith the Lord" attached to it is just human construct and speculation to resolve, if even for a time, the fear and and anxiety humans have because they are aware that they are aware. Prophecy in the Old Testament is not near what it is cracked up to be. Much of it is failed and much of it that seems to be prophetic, such as the Book of Daniel, is not at all. It is written in such great detail because most of what it predicts has already happened. Empires have already come and gone and dramas well known acted out. As I have said in the past, the reason Daniel 11 is such an amazingly detailed "prophecy" and chapter 12 goes all swishy and generic is that the events in chapter 11 had already occurred and those hoped for in chapter 12 had not but no one really knew much more what to say. A common writing style which most emotional bible reader types have never heard of.
The New Testament stories of Jesus fantastic birth are not fulfilled prophecy from the Old. They seem so because the authors mined the Old Testament for the very scriptures they wrote the story around. They often took only the parts they liked and often grossly out of context. People don't want to hear that.
The Book of Revelation, as noted in the past, is not a book for today. It was for them and it was generally a failed prophecy when history unfolded as it actually did.
The point being that under trained, emotional and perhaps a bit too ego centric and delusional men like __________ and ___________ and __________ make a great living off others by reminding them of the past which is now gone and unreal and pointing them ever into the near future. Pointing people into the far future does not motivate. These things MUST happen soon and in our lifetimes or who cares... It was the same way in the Old Testament and in the New. And they were wrong. Repeating the fears and anxieties of others and acting out their lives as if their times were more special than all times, the lead people into missing the only real time they have in life...this present moment.
“As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.”
“Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now.”
“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.”
“Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now.
Let it teach you Being.
Let it teach you integrity — which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real.
Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.”
Personally, I think my own WCG/COG experience, which I chose and could not have been dissuaded from until I allowed myself to see what I was in denial over and did not want to be as it really was, has always left me with this challenge.
“Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry or hard-done by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon.
It is also insane.”
...and living today instead of in 1980 or 2020 is not just a better way, it is the only way. Future present moments will take care of themselves.
In my view, and it may only be my view, under trained and self absorbed men such as Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, Ron Weinland and others thrive on too much past and future. They attract those who do as well and it seems nothing but a path to lives not actually lived and decisions that will be bad memories of the future.
I can't imagine how those who did give up homes and monies and retirements to Dave Pack in his Clarion Call because back then it was time to pull big triggers, when it actually wasn't and now we know it wasn't, are feeling after this feast. Dave Pack was and is wrong. He will be wrong again in the future when it becomes a new present reality to deal with.
Dave Pack cannot allow his followers/church to recognize the present or they will get very angry and anxious. Coming into their present reality will unleash anger over past promises gone very wrong and anxiety lies in the future because they actually did send it in and now Dave has to admit there are no more dates to set and no matter, he's just passing God's plans on. He actually is not the one who came up with them. In other words..."Don't blame me." Ron Weinland is famous for dumping his failures on his followers. "It was spiiiiiritual!"
I don't think in my entire life any speculator of God who was found wanting ever uttered the words "I was wrong." "I apologize." "I meant well and the Bible seemed to say that but it didn't mean what I thought it meant."
David C Pack has become the source of some serious dis-illusionment. He has promoted illusions big time over the past year, for reasons I will never understand, but there is a price to pay for this. Even the Apostle Paul promoted illusions about the "we who are alive" and "we shall be changed" views he had until he simply said "oh well, I fought a good fight....I'm get my reward...I'm out of here."
It's just better to take the ramblings of those in the past and the promises of some for how it all will be in the YOUR future with a grain of salt. "Under advisement" as noted.
The Dave Packs of religion will keep you living in the past and fearing the future. Now Dave has stuck his followers with anger over the recent past and some very practical problems for their personal futures. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds for him with his huge plans to recreate the past and insure his success in the future. It may be over.
“The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse... By misuse, I mean that people who have never glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew what it is they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Nietzsche's famous statement "God is dead.”
―
Eckhart Tolle,
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Yesterday I finalized my own funeral arrangements. I had a "death benefit" from the sale of my father's home where most of the money is to go for his end of life care. I sat amongst the different styles and qualities of coffins and cremation urns using up all the allotted funds and arranging for my cremains to be dropped in Lake Ontario or maybe in the Adirondacks. I asked to be cremated with a fully charged cell phone in my hand in case I needed to call out and have the gas jets shut off! I picked out a great mahogany box and will probably have a great and ancient axe head I have in my collection also in the box to insure the box sinks and I have a bit of past history with me. Or I'll get dropped in Tupper Lake where my best memories of being a kid are. I already sold my gold Ambassador College Ring to the coin shop and returned the 25 year watch with the dead battery in it to WCG so they won't be with me. I stood on the pier jutting into Lake Ontario with that watch about to throw it into the lake but then repented thinking "why pollute the lake. I'll send it back and they'll know how I feel about it."
When we finished the administrator said, "Well Dennis...you're good to go. Well, no pun intended." We started laughing and the present now seems the best place to live.
