Unedited_(mostly)_Old_Emails_and_Letters–1

Unedited (mostly) Old Emails & Letters – 1

By Fred Pruitt

(The following is an email from sometime in 2002, to John and Linda [Luli] Bunting. It is mostly unedited, though bracketed portions are 2011 clarifications or emphases. One might call much of it “unfinished thought,” or “questions I am pondering,” but this author does come to some clarities in the writing, which even in this less-than-formal and a tad bit “esoteric” presentation, seem important to share and which some might find valuable in their ongoing journey.)

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Subject: tonight

Dear John & Luli,

Just wanted to thank you for the great evening of food and talking. I think we covered about everything, but the thing that I loved the most that got said somehow was that there is only room in the universe for God and no other. Someone uttered some sentence like that. What a sentence!

I was thinking along the lines of what else we discussed, about creation or reality unfolding out of our own consciousness, or imagination in some sense, and while to some that might sound scandalous, when you really consider things in their depth, there is no doubt that the very basis of the material universe is immaterial, or at least no material as we can perceive it.

Our son John came by after John B dropped me off, and I went to the store with him and waited outside while he shopped, looked at the moon and all the activity in the Kroger [supermarket] parking lot. For some reason I saw that individual things are all “forms of thought,” and while that might seem a strange concept to some, how much stranger is that than to believe that at the sub-basis of physical reality there are nothing but waves [or particles or vibrating strings] of energy? Waves [strings, particles]? What are waves? What are THEY made of?

I don’t ask that particularly scientifically, because my mind goes about that far and it breaks. I have tried & tried to read Stephen Hawking’ book [A Brief History of Time] & I go along fine for a while and then he just completely loses me. But I get the point I need from it.

The physical, temporal, is a dim reflection of the non-physical, eternal, and to the physical world, the spiritual world is as nothing. It [the spiritual world] is the actual reality out of which this world springs, but nothing of this world can perceive it. It has no mass, weight, density, height, length, depth, according to any measurement of this world. And we say, actually Colossians says, that “by Him all things consist,” which means, if we believe it, and I do, that the ACTUAL reality out of which this reality mysteriously appears and [is sustained moment by moment] is a Living Word which is the ONLY REALITY there is. All that exists, exists IN God, AND He is All in all!

We interjected that, “With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward.” (Ps 18:26).

I questioned that later, in the light of God being the Only One Who fills His Universe — and everything “else” (i.e. anything, ANYTHING, which is manifest, on some level visible or perceptible) is in some form an expression of Him. This is outside the questions of freedom and predestination and good and evil and any opposites. All of those realities are swirling around in the cosmos and in some form or another all are true, or at least are able to come to perceptible reality and prove themselves, which is probably not necessarily a good measure of truth.

Lately I’ve been thinking about some statements like, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee,” (Ps 91:7) and others statements like them. What a promise, IF you believe it!

But c’mon, isn’t that another “too good to be true” thing? How can we claim such a thing, and live without any sort of fear of tripping up or “dashing our foot against a stone”?

Well, since the devil used that scripture on Jesus and Jesus’ reply was, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” it has been prevailing thought ever since that no one could lay claim to such security — maybe for “salvation and eternal destiny,” but certainly NOT for everyday hanging around. I don’t know about you guys, but my foot is bruised from tripping so much, so it’s hard for me to get my mind around a thought like, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” Who am “I” to expect such a thing? How could “I” be worthy to live unscathed when all the others seem to be falling out all over the place beside me?

And yet out of the clear purity there it is, and you know the [when] the Word has been spoken [to and] for You, and that He is the Author of Fulfillment, and we have no debt whatsoever toward its fulfillment, because He has declared it, and sent it forth by you, and nothing shall, will, can, in the least harm you. Nothing can harm you. You will walk in the midst of battle and not be harmed.

Because all is from the Father and sent by Him who is only Benevolence and Grace and Mercy.

In Jesus Christ the Word IS made flesh, and now, by His Spirit, the Word is made flesh in us, and we walk as He walks, and who has anything to contradict that? Who is it that says there is something out there to watch out for, that can harm us? Who denies the promises of God to those who believe? Haven’t we left that behind? Wasn’t that the good and evil tree, the law contained in ordinances, which was nailed to the Cross [with our Lord Christ Jesus]? Who now says the Sons of God are not free in their righteousness? Whom shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?

Well, it just makes the fire burn brighter.

I cannot fathom it. I do not fathom good and evil as I did before. I only know the One God. Known to us in God the Son, [Jesus Christ] given for us and enlivened in us by His Spirit. [More than just “religious truth,” but this WORD coming] as the wind, coming as water, coming as heartache, coming as ALL things. That’s all I see. I don’t see that other thing. I have no perception of it.

If somebody wants me to see something else, I won’t do it. There is nothing else [to see]. Just the One God, manifesting Himself everywhere I look. Sometimes I have to gulp to say it, but it’s the heart of real praise. And that is the praise He inhabits, not some fakey [worked-up “pep rally”] of the flesh, but the continual praise of the heart, that casts its crown [of self-rule into the midst of the throne, giving all allegiance to the Father, the Source,] where the Lamb dwells.

I just don’t know anything else, and don’t want to know anything else.

Does anybody really BELIEVE they “shall run and not be weary, they shall walk, and not faint”? (Is 40:31). Or is it just a song? Isn’t that the total freedom from fear and condemnation and mistakes, trip-ups, screw-ups, wrong decisions AND right decisions to actually BELIEVE that the Living Lord God IS EXCLUSIVE in us, that He’s a BIG HOG and has taken ALL of US, by that I mean each of us individually, He has taken the ALL of us? (There’s your sanctification process for you.) BODY SOUL SPIRIT! He’s got it all!

What’s left? How are “we” going to “help God” do the job of making us “Christ-like?” How long do we keep that up and expect others to do their part to become “Christ-like?” What “we” is there that could help God do anything? What “we” is there that would have the foggiest idea what would be the “Christ-like/Loving” thing to do in any given situation? How would we know what was the exact right thing to do? I have discovered I haven’t even the capacity for even that. Not only I cannot, I understand not. I’m like Sergeant Shultz, “I KNOW nussing!” [Sergeant Shultz was a character in a 60s US TV show, “Hogan’s Heroes.”]

And that’s the only side of things I know. I remember what it was like, sort of, to be on the “other side,” but even that’s hard to relate completely to being on the “other side,” since while I do have a Damascus-road sort of day to refer to when I knew my salvation, like Paul I also know God, “separated me from my mother’s womb,” and has “thought” of me eternally. So it’s hard to make that demarcation mark in my life to [when I was] “outside” God, though I did pass from darkness to light and it was, from my part, as extremely noticeable as were the scales which fell from Paul’s eyes in about the same length of time.

[Because of that], now to me, all that went before, [sin though it was], [has been] redeemed and made holy in the Blood, since all the earth and the heavens are made new, and that really means all things!

Therefore, there is [absolutely] no condemnation from me, toward me, for my former life, even though like everyone else I did things of which I am rightly ashamed, but all that is clean and new as a newborn babe and likewise is the whole world when seen through the new eyes and viewed from the new heart. Instead of a world with lack and wrong and fear and uncertainty there is instead [in my sight] a pulsating, ever alive creation which is filled from electron to molecule, from planet to star to galaxy, from molecule to quarks and on down to vibrating strings, with nothing but the Living God The All and in all of that, and it is HE Who is Love and Mercy and Grace, and is as William Law says, (maybe my favorite phrase of all), He is “The Eternal Will to All Goodness.”

Check out that word “WILL.” The Eternal “I WILL” to goodness. PURPOSE. DRIVE. FULFILLMENT. I WILL TO ALL GOODNESS. That is HIS WILL, HIS DETERMINED PURPOSE FROM ETERNITY IS NOTHING BUT GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So by grace, through faith, we are found in Christ, and by Him we DARE to believe – that He does not fail, and we [do] run and not be weary, [we do] walk and not faint, and though a thousand fall by our side, and ten thousand at our right hand, it shall not come nigh [us], the chosen of God, and we know wisdom is justified of her children. We will see the fruit, and we will gather harvest, and it will be the harvest of the Love of God, and there will be (and now is) no restraint on Joy and Gladness.