© 2001 Guy Bourhis
© 2001 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
I was very struck when I read the speech given by Nicholas W. SCALZO (United States) at the IUA international conference in August 2000 and reproduced in the latest issue of this association’s journal, page 3 (September 2000, volume 7, no. 3).
Nicholas recounts experiences he had doing the will of God and letting his mystery monitor “adjust” his thinking, that is, allowing him to replace the selfish and sterile thinking of his host with that which reflects Truth, Love and Service, in short the perfect thinking which would be that of God if he lived our life in our place.
In particular, he recounts an “adventure” which saw him confronted with violence in a Civil Engineering matter and which he resolved to everyone’s satisfaction with an attitude consistent with the divine “approach” to perfection.
I can therefore speak freely, this reading having reminded me of numerous experiences which have punctuated my everyday life and brought me face to face with the violence which has been raging for a long time in the Paris region (or elsewhere), and this well before even the phenomenon of the “Cités”.
I affirm that Nicholas is right: God helps us, beyond what we are allowed to think, as soon as we have made the decision to do what He would do in our place: intervene, act, love. We are protected in action and nothing can happen to us. I have experienced this several times.
Example: when a weaker person (or someone in a situation of physical or psychological fragility) is attacked on the public highway, on public transport or in any other place, you must immediately come to their aid, even if the attacker is carrying a weapon. God animating you, you are all love and you see the scene unfold as if in “spectator lag”. You are in the action and out of it: it is a bit as if God were the actor. The attacker or attackers rush towards you, weapon in hand and arriving a few centimeters from you, find themselves paralyzed by the love that is in you, which radiates from you and encircles them in its mesh. You feel them “deflate” from their violence and become as gentle as lambs. One of them one day even handed me his papers, whereas a few minutes before, he had rushed towards me, a heavy blunt instrument in his hand.
“By loving men and sincerely desiring to serve them…” [UB 110:3.6-10], whether they are attacked or the attackers, we place both in the quality of children of God from whom the latter should never have been separated, even for a single instant. In this regard, the image of the attacker throwing down his weapon with one hand and holding out his papers [^1] with the other is very symbolic: it means submission to the will of God in the circle of three humans of which he is and wants to be, at least temporarily, the third element.
Let us live the will of our Father in the experience of our daily lives (at the office, in the street, with family, on vacation). If the outline of this “authentic” story interested the readers of the Urantia Book, I can bring out the notes that I took on the subject and on the occasion of other experiences. There is enough to make a real little “summary”.
Guy Bourhis