{"id":110714,"date":"2021-10-20T18:12:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T01:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/?p=110714"},"modified":"2021-10-20T18:12:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T01:12:31","slug":"blessed-by-the-traveler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/archives\/110714-blessed-by-the-traveler","title":{"rendered":"Blessed by the Traveler"},"content":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \n

Donna Cook.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was fortunate to meet John-Roger personally on one very special occasion, and it was a life-changing event for me. It was the spring of 1992, and I had been ordained as an MSIA minister in Washington, DC just a few years before. Once a year, J-R and his staff traveled from California to the East Coast, doing seminars in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. This was always an exciting time for our MSIA community because seeing John-Roger and hearing him speak at a live seminar was a rare and special treat.<\/p>\n

When we heard the dates for the East Coast tour, my husband Don decided we should invite J-R to our home for lunch while he was in town. I laughed and said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you invite the Pope while you\u2019re at it.\u201d But Don insisted we had nothing to lose, and \u201che might just come,\u201d so we sent an invitation to J-R through his secretary Betsy Alexander. When J-R wrote back that he accepted our invitation, Don and I were ecstatic! I could hardly believe it! J-R was coming to our home! This was such an extraordinary opportunity!<\/p>\n

After much preparation and anticipation, the day arrived and I watched out the front window as John Morton and other staff members got out of cars and stroll up the sidewalk to our home. I was impressed with how slowly and deliberately each of them walked, appearing so peaceful and present with each moment. I stood on the porch and greeted each person with a hug and welcome, and then I saw John-Roger, the last one to appear. He was wearing dark sunglasses, and as he approached, with no one else around us, I suddenly became very nervous. Time stood still. Suddenly, I started babbling trivial facts about the town we lived in, and I couldn\u2019t control what felt like diarrhea of the mouth.<\/p>\n

J-R just stood there, silently looking at me until I finally stopped babbling. After a moment, I softly said to him, \u201cI can\u2019t see your eyes.\u201d He lowered his dark sunglasses and gazed into my eyes with a smile on his face. I immediately felt tremendous loving and upliftment. With our eyes locked, we shared a lingering smile, and then J-R broke into a grin as I escorted him into the house. <\/p>\n

In the East they have a word for this called the \u201ctwaji,\u201d which is a spiritual transmission that passes through the eyes of an enlightened one. I don\u2019t know if what I experienced was the \u201ctwaji\u201d, but from that moment on, I felt relaxed in J-R\u2019s presence. He and I conversed freely, like two old friends, for the rest of the day. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch and afterwards he joined Don and I for a tour of our house, where we talked and laughed freely with one another. <\/p>\n

I knew I had been blessed by the Traveler, and my heart was fully opened to the unconditional loving and to the many teachings that were available to me. It is now almost 30 years later, and the memory of that very special close encounter still opens my heart and fills me with gratitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was fortunate to meet John-Roger personally on one very special occasion, and it was a life-changing event for me. It was the spring of 1992, and I had been ordained as an MSIA minister in Washington, DC just a few years before. Once a year, J-R and his staff traveled from California to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":110717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}