February 22nd 1970
You thank God so often in your prayers because we are able to commune with you. And you are grateful because of the so-called explanations and teachings which you have received from Spirit. But we would enlighten you further concerning the work that you yourself do for us in this, the Spirit world.
People around you, because of their lack of Spiritual knowledge and understanding, often feel sorry because they think of you sitting alone. But you know in your heart that solitude, so-called, is something you often actually crave for, because you feel a certain, unexplainable, contentment when you can sit quiet and think, but there is a physical part of you which still says, "I should be doing something more, I feel that I am wasting my time." But this is not so.
There are many goodly folk who pass hence but who have never thought, perhaps because of their religious upbringing, that it is wise or proper to seek further knowledge concerning life after death. They do their best, they have a certain faith. But they feel that it is wrong, nay wicked, to try to contact those who they think are sleeping peacefully, waiting for the last trump, as it were. Now it is these very souls who, when you are sitting quietly, that we bring into your presence. And we say unto them,
"This is a living human being who believes, who has searched, and who is absolutely aware of life after death. She has no fear of death. She knows that she can communicate with us. And although she lives alone, and is alone, she knows in her heart that she is surrounded by friends, by loved ones, and her so-called solitude is precious time which she can spend thinking and communicating through the mind to us on the other side."
And then you feel that you are thinking deeply, and that you are holding discourse with this one or that, and your clear thinking, and your so-called thought conversations, are lessons or lectures which these people, so many of them recently left the Earth, and so many that have been in a sort of no-man's land, because of their wrong thinking, because they feel lost, because they haven't enough power to bring about a direct meeting with their loved ones because they have closed their minds so firmly to this ever happening.
But somehow or another, they are brought to us, but cannot stand the strong light, and cannot realise that help is at hand. And so those Spirits whose special work it is to contact these when they are ready, when they are, as it were, at the end of their tether and feel, "Someone must come to my aid."
When they think of Christ and the love of Christ, in the proper way, then they can see those that are waiting. And it is almost impossible, although you may not understand this, in some cases to give them a clear explanation. We have to bring them back to an Earth soul, one who is still on the Earth, fighting and wrestling, as it were, with everyday situations and trials and tribulations. But this one must be enlightened, must have strong positive thoughts, concerning life after so-called death. And we know when you are thinking on these things, and when you are in a receptive mood to us and our power of love. And then we know that you will think at these times concerning the love of God, and because you pray so sincerely to help those who are lonely and bewildered, and we bring these little ones into your presence, and if you could see your living room, if you could see the bewilderment in which they come, and the comfort which they receive, and the enlightenment with which they come back to us, with us, back to this world, longing to know more, then you would realise why your so-called solitude is blessed, why you feel comforted yourself, why you feel a certain, unexplainable peace. It is because in the silence, in the homeliness, of your own room, sitting in your own chair, you have been doing valuable work. You have been setting minds at rest, as it were.
We cannot always use you for this work because you make contacts during the day with other human minds who bring their troubles and you are working in this way, thinking of these loved ones and little ones around you who need help. And then other work is being accomplished. But we are always fearful lest these, the ignorant frightened thoughts of others should impinge upon you to such an extent that you cannot work properly for the Spirit.
And this is why, although you sometimes feel you should be a little more sociable to this one or that, oft times we are protecting you from your own natural traits, because really you are hospitable, and you love deeply.
But this trait often protects you from encumbering circumstances. You would have more people, more to cope with, and this attitude, which you have often cursed, is oft times a protection. For we have more important work for you to do when you are quiet and when you are peaceful, than you could accomplish by listening to the childish chatter of humdrum things. So don't worry about this so-called trait. It started out as an encumbrance. If you had given way to it without prayer it could have been a curse, but it is an ill wind that blows, at some time or another, no good at all.
But because even this, even this breeze, shall we call it, that has caused so much discomfort in your mind, has been turned to good, because you have fought against it, so we are using it. And all those who do not understand you, who have not the patience, who cannot see the beauty in your nature we are not interested in at this point. As far as you are concerned you cannot help them. They cannot see through, they haven't the patience. But those few who can, will leave you never. Their love is full of faith and gratitude and all is well.
This transcript reframes solitude, so often seen from outside as loss or waste, as active and specifically valuable work — the "no such thing as wasted time" theme met in earlier transcripts, now given its most concrete form yet. Quiet time alone is described not as absence of activity but as the exact condition needed for a particular kind of help: reaching souls newly passed who, often from a sincere but limited religious upbringing, believed it improper even to seek contact with the dead, and who arrive confused, "bewildered," unable at first to bear "the strong light" of full spiritual truth.
What makes Mary useful here specifically is being human and still alive — these lost souls need to be shown "a living human being who believes... and has no fear of death," proof drawn from someone still walking the same ground they only just left, rather than an explanation given from a world already too far removed from their own confusion to be trusted.
Its most personal passage takes something Mary evidently experienced as a fault — a tendency toward solitude, resented at times as unsociable, even "cursed" — and reframes it plainly as protection rather than flaw: "this trait often protects you from encumbering circumstances," preserving the quiet needed for work that matters more than sociable conversation would. The transcript doesn't pretend the trait started out as a gift — "it started out as an encumbrance... it could have been a curse" — only that sustained effort and prayer turned it to good use, closer to the "wounded healer" theme met earlier in this collection than to simple self-acceptance: not that the trait was secretly fine all along, but that what was difficult became, through real work, genuinely useful.