© 1978 Jay Newbern
© 1978 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
Notwithstanding that “man’s intellectual comprehension capacity is exhausted by the maximum conception of the Supreme Being” (UB 115:3.4), I know quite simply that we are related because we both have the same last designation —BEING. Even though I as a human being am but a speck of sand and he as the Supreme Being is the Sahara of sand, yet are we of the same family.
In attempting to visualize the unseen finite God I have yet to discern, I picture in my mind’s eye Michelangelo’s Vatican painting of a human, fatherlike God reaching out to touch the hand of man, his earthly son. It is as if we are the fingertips of the Supreme as he stretches himself way out to farflung Urantia of distant Nebadon on the extreme superuniverse border limits of Orvonton and we increasingly actualize our God-given potentials. Our material consciousnesses become part of the nervous system of the Supreme Being.
On this decimal planet, interestingly enough, Shakespeare utilized but ten words to define life: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” If we decide to be, then we are beings and thusly sons and daughters of the Father; to truly be children of the Supreme, we must do or achieve. This, of course, is completely consistent with the Father’s plan of finite progress through effort, creature achievement through perseverance, and personality development through faith.
The way we can relate consciously to the Supreme Being in our daily lives is naturally the way of Jesus — loving service to our fellows. We must manifest. It is good and necessary that Urantians share fellowship and gather together for study groups and conferences, but we must do mote than that. The spectrum of social service in which we can personally contribute ranges from feeding needy infants to counseling terminally ill patients.
We are each irreplaceable atoms of the Supreme. In addition to the sacred privilege of hosting Thought Adjusters, we have been entrusted with the once-in-eternity duty of contributing to the growth and evolution of the Supreme Being by transforming our potentialities into actualities. In one sense, being is the end of becoming, but in another, whoever is identified with the I AM can never find an end to progression. Even now, this very eternal moment, the Supreme is reaching out and touching his beloved children of time and space, urging them in turn to touch in their unique way a brother or sister who needs the compassion of Christ. The only failure is to not try.
—Jay Newbern
Petaluma, California