I was looking for a teacher, and I knew it. I grew up in Texas in a large family in the Depression. My mother was a Bible-quoting person\u2014for everything. It was interesting, though, that I don\u2019t think she had any fun. I was the fourth of nine children and I taught Sunday school in a Baptist Church. But it didn\u2019t fill that part of me that felt close to God. What I knew from God wasn\u2019t in the Bible.<\/p>\n
My personal experience is what carried me through\u2014not what my mother was always quoting. My father just lived the teachings. I can\u2019t recall him ever going to church. But he came from one of the first families of Texas. My mother came from a very fine family as well. It\u2019s kind of sad to see a woman who came from a very prominent family but was never happy. So I made my own fun. I was not unhappy, although I was often criticized for the way I expressed myself. But all of that has all just melted into the nothingness of growing up. Service to me becomes standing as a facilitator and creating a safe space for me and people around me. And taking care of myself and others. I keep reminding myself of the admonition of Jesus the Christ. He said \u201cIf you do it to the least of these you did it to me.\u201d I am now resolved that my actions must produce loving, joy and caring. I have been steadfast.<\/p>\n
I went to the Unity Church, I went to the Church of Religious Science, and none of that touched to me or spoke to me about the love of God. Then I met John-Roger for the first time at an art gallery in Whittier, CA in 1967. I went with a friend and didn\u2019t know there was going to be a guest speaker. The most important thing l will emphasize here is that loving is the key. Our ego or personality have little or no role to play serving others. The great ministry starts with getting the Traveler\u2019s teachings grounded in us, because all we do as ministers in the church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness is predicated on the teachings. Be an example. Be loving. Be caring. Be there for yourself and others.<\/p>\n
I said to the person I came with, \u201cCan you see the stage?\u201d She said, \u201cYes.\u201d For me it was just a blob of white. That\u2019s all I could see. I couldn\u2019t even see a figure on the stage. Just a bright light. As soon as he was finished with the seminar I went up to him and I said, \u201cDo you have classes? Because you know things I\u2019m looking for.\u201d He said, \u201cNo, I teach high school.\u201d (There wasn\u2019t even an MSIA at that time.) I said, \u201cIf you ever\u2026\u201d and he said, \u201cI teach high school, and I counsel with the students.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, my son just graduated from high school, would you counsel with him?\u201d And J-R gave him a light study.<\/p>\n
It was such a special time, because when people connected to the words that J-R put out, they moved out here to be with him, and made all sorts of changes in their lives. He had such devotees, people who were so hungry for the teachings. People would fill several rooms in a house at seminars. J-R told me that he had been my teacher in the lifetime before this one, and I had an unconscious recognition of that. I had really been looking for him. I didn\u2019t miss a single one of his seminars, and I would travel many miles to see him.<\/p>\n
I did audio and video seminars every week at my home. People came from near and far. I\u2019m still in touch with some of them. People would sit everywhere, all over the floor, all of them absorbing what J-R was here to give. It was wonderful because I knew that I had finally touched in to who God was and what God meant to me. It\u2019s beyond words.<\/p>\n
Once there was another spiritual teacher appearing at a conference in Santa Monica. J-R asked me if I was going to see him. I said, \u201cNo, he\u2019s not my teacher. You\u2019re my teacher.\u201d J-R just shook his head. I wasn\u2019t mixing up what I had with something else. I think Spirit kept me very close because I\u2019d been studying Spirit in other lifetimes and never made it.<\/p>\n
J-R told me that in another lifetime I was a man in a spiritual school where you had to study for a certain period of time before you could take a break. Before I graduated I went \u201con leave,\u201d but I was on a vow of silence. My father owned a shipping fleet and I went out on one of the boats for my holiday away. I was standing on the deck of this ship and my foot was caught in the anchor rope, so when they threw the anchor overboard they threw me overboard too. I screamed, and when I got back to shore I didn\u2019t tell anyone because that would be an admission that I did talk.<\/p>\n
I helped duplicate discourses in the early days. Working with J-R\u2014there was nothing like it. I knew the truth was coming through him. I never dreamed I would ever touch to God in the way that J-R opened my awareness. That part of me that had memories from another lifetime resurfaced, not to where I could put times and dates on it, but I knew he was speaking the truth. J-R had no againstness toward anyone, even people who would get angry with him or who would leave the organization. I don\u2019t have many stories about J-R. It\u2019s funny but they\u2019re sort of taken away from you so you don\u2019t spread just stories. It\u2019s the experience that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My Life with the Traveler by\u00a0Genie Ford Genie received the Lifetime Service Award at MSIA\u2019s 2016 Conference I was looking for a teacher, and I knew it. I grew up in Texas in a large family in the Depression. My mother was a Bible-quoting person\u2014for everything. It was interesting, though, that I don\u2019t think she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":73604,"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":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","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":[263,257,110,159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-spotlight","category-ndh-archives","category-service","category-soul-transcendence"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73519","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=73519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}