When you interact with David Ord, you get the feeling
that you're walking through an Open Gateway,
inviting you into its wisdom and truth.
As I began writing this piece, too, that's the full
impression I got as I thought of this man, David Robert Ord, editorial director, writer, author, luminary and former preacher.
It helps, too, that I've never personally
met the man. So, impressions are ALL I can
use to gauge his Spirit.
Yes, definitely you get the feel of the vastness of
this gateway and the large width that it spans when it opens.
Naturally, this is a gateway that opens from the inside out.
This is a gateway, too, that is solid and made of the finest
grain of wood available to man...with an ageless
beauty that gets more refined as time passes.
You wouldn't want to paint this gateway. You know
that nature has done, and will continue to do, a
perfect job.
Like the David in history who slew the giant, Goliath, with
a mere slingshot and five stones, you have the feeling that this David,
too, has slain some other giants in life. In this case, it's
the giants of challenges, pain, brokenness... and the issues
of day-to-day living.
Yes. You simply KNOW that he 's
afraid of nothing that life would, or could bring, him now.
He's put those giants to sleep!
He confirms this, too, when he says, "I want to experience
the whole of what life offers me, closing myself off to none of it.
And that's not just the really pleasant things, but the
whole gamut.
"I want to feel the deepest depths, whether those feelings
are happy ones or sad. I have learned that when I react to
something, or avoid something, it's because a part of me is shut down;
the energy is trapped, stuck. I want to open to all of it.
So my essential philosophy is to engage life
fully in each moment, no matter what the challenge."
Getting to this stage in life when you feel and KNOW that you've
conquered life's greatest trials and you've arrived at a place
where you feel nothing BUT wholeness must make him
feel triumphant. But it was not an easy road for David Ord.
"It's been a long journey to find my true being, through a great deal
of pain, but I have been blessed with the right books and the people
coming into my life. Everything has come to me when required
---when I was ready for it."
As the editorial director at Namaste' Publishing, Vancouver, British Columbia, which first published the renown Author Eckhart Tolle, and continues to publish his books in first-run, David Ord has been blessed with being exposed to some of the greatest minds in the "enlightenment" community.
He said that his life has been touched by many.
[Author Eckhart Tolle]
[Constance Kellough, publisher and president of Namaste Publishing, and author of "The Leap."]
[Michael Brown, author of the Presence Process]
"Sebastian Moore, Dr. David Schnarch, my seminary professors Herman Waetjen and Robert Coote, and more recently Eckhart Tolle, Constance Kellough, our publisher and president at Namaste, and especially, Michael Brown with his Presence Process, have helped awaken me.
"Free of concepts of God, I find myself living a divine life that's truly fulfilling."
When the persons have shown up in his life, David says, he's simply responded to what they offer. To grow and keep growing, he says that "I actually read, and read again, and reread yet again the books that came to me. I spent time talking with those who guided me. I invested myself in things like the Presence Process, doing it again and again. So, really it's my willingness to be responsive to the grace that has adorned my path that has been my part [to play in the growth process]."
The openness that I first discerned continues to flow through from David Ord because, he says, "I have learned the importance of being true to myself---saying no when I mean no, with no fudging, and also an unqualified yes. I don't live with the giant 'no' to so much of life that I had for many years. This means I open myself up to every opportunity that comes my way and resonates with my heart. In my work and in all my activities, the crucial thing is to come from the felt-resonance of the heart."
If you're as curious as I was about the path that Ord took to get to this place of centeredness, here's his background:
He was born in Yorkshire, England, thus has a delightful British accent. He was educated in England and obtained his bachelor's degree there. At age 38, having by then relocated to the United States, he went back to school to obtain a four-year degree at the San Francisco Theological Seminary and then went on to the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, obtaining a Master of Divinity degree.
But, he says, most of his "real" education about the Spirit within "was self-taught through extensive reading and the key contacts and people who were able to guide me."
You understand Ord stating this when you understand that for him, "God is the ground of all being, the source of everything, incomprehensible to us because we are finite and God is infinite and yet ultimately the most personal reality there is because we participate in God's own being and therefore are manifestations of the divine Presence!
"In other words, God is the heart of my being---the essence of who I am---although I am only one sunbeam streaming from the giant sun."
This image of God shows the evolution of David Ord from the boy who attended the Anglican Church,(the Church of England), and also sang in the church choir there, eventually becoming "head boy." In his teens, he followed the teachings of Billy Graham, then moved into more fundamentalist teachings.
Ord finally "broke out of all this. For a time, I didn't really have much in the way of beliefs, not even sure about the divine.
"This didn't last long however. About 32 years ago, I began to recognize the divine in everything---and especially in us. After coming to the United States, in due course, I became a Presbyterian minister.
"Funnily, as my understanding has grown, I have moved to about where retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, author of many books but especially his new one called, 'Eternal Life,' finds himself: the divine is consciousness expressing as us."
David moved to the Phoenix metropolitan area in 2007 from Louisiana. He now attends the Episcopal Cathedral of Arizona in Phoenix and is especially inspired by Nicholas Kniseley, dean of the Cathedral. He lives in Chandler with his love, Jennifer, whom he says is "a lot younger than I am."
David says that he plans to allow life to "prompt me, lead me, inspire me in each and every moment, and to respond to all its invitations that resonate with the heart.
"I am blessed with the most exciting work, in which I get to write a great deal and also edit some of the finest material being given to us as a species in terms of the evolution of our consciousness and the development of a fulfilling life."
If he could choose, Ord says, he would have his 25-year-old son, Julian, whom he mostly raised by himself, living close to him in Chandler. Actually, David believes Julian will move nearby in 2010, bringing their 14-year old Norwegian Elk Hound, Ashley, whom David has not seen for almost two years. He is also hoping that the home he and Jennifer now rent will eventually be theirs; he wants to spend time writing on the coast of Italy during the warm months, and continue to add to the extensive travel he's already done. (This has already begun; he, Jennifer and Julian have an early December trip planned to Yorkshire for his niece's wedding being held there.)
This man, David Ord, who has such an openness to offering his wisdom, has touched my life in two fundamental ways:
Through one of his many books*, "Your Forgotten Self: Mirrored in Jesus, the Christ," I fell deeply in love with Jesus!
Then, at his insistence, I, too, underwent the "Presence Process" by Michael Brown in 2008 and found myself altered in mind, body and soul!
I'm sure he has likewise touched many of the lives of people with whom he's interacted. For as he says it best himself, "I want to be present each moment so fully that love, joy, and peace suffuse my life. As I am true to who I am in everything, not compromising myself, I become of service to my family, my community and the world. In other words, I have moved away from trying to 'help people,' which would have been my answer some years ago, to living with the kind of integrity to my own being that makes me valuable to others."
Without a doubt, through the loving nature and Beingness that I know is YOU, David Ord...I'd say you HAVE succeeded! May the peace, love and joy you so freely share with others return to you many fold.
With a birthday coming up soon, I say now: Happy Birthday, friend!
Namaste',
Che'
NOTE: David Robert Ord is the author of: "Is the Bible True? Making Sense of the Bible for the 21st century." (May 1993); "Inside the Mind of Jesus." (with Sebastian Moore; May 2001); "Alligators in Evening Dress." (May 2006); "Finding Self, Finding Love." ((June 2006) and "Your Forgotten Self: Mirrored in Jesus the Christ." (October 2007). You can read David Ord's daily blog, "Compassionate Eye," @ http://namastepublishing.com.
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