© 1995 Jay Newbern
© 1995 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| The Hidden God | Fall 1995 — Index | Significant Books: Leadership and the New Science by Margaret J. Wheatley |
Since I have not been admonished by the Master to “Tell no man,” I feel free and even inspired to testify to the experiential reality of his unconditional love and unfathomable mercy. I would bear witness to the amazing grace of Christ Jesus, my savior. Grace is the unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or renewal.
For nearly a quarter-century I have been a student of The Urantia Book; however, two major obstacles were blocking me from genuinely implementing the teachings of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. One was that I was merely intellectualizing my religion; I was thinking, believing, and talking about God, but I was failing to actualize and manifest his will which is to engage in loving service to others. The other impediment to progress on the path of perfecting was the fact that I suffered from the terminal disease of alcoholism. In the depths of my despair, I was reminded of Jesus’ promise: “Forget not that I will stop at nothing to restore self-respect to those who have lost it, and who really desire to regain it.” (UB 159:3.3)
The year of 1993 found me living and working in an unheated warehouse in Santa Rosa, seat of Sonoma County and California’s wine country. Going in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, the drinking and loneliness continued as I religiously listened to K-Love, the contemporary Christian music FM station. The Good Shepherd whispered again to his lost sheep: “I do not promise to deliver you from the waters of adversity, but I do promise to go with you through all of them.” (UB 159:3.13)
In AA we say that a head full of The Program and a belly full of alcohol don’t mix well at all. This truism applies even more intensely to a long-time student of The Urantia Book: “The Adjuster (indwelling Spirit of God) remains with you in all disaster and through every sickness which does not wholly destroy the mentality. But how unkind knowingly to defile or otherwise deliberately to pollute the physical body, which must serve as the earthly tabernacle of this marvelous gift from God. All physical poisons greatly retard the efforts of the Adjuster to exalt the material mind…(and) likewise tremendously interfere with the spiritual progress of the evolving soul.” (UB 110:1.5)
Towards the end of my struggle with self-destruction, even William Shakespeare was instructing me: “To be or not to be — that is the question.” But I am sure that the most powerful truth from The Urantia Book which finally penetrated my fogged consciousness was the revelation of Jesus’ decision while hanging in agony on the cross. The Jewish women had offered him drugged wine to lessen his suffering. “But when Jesus tasted this narcotized wine, as thirsty as he was, he refused to drink it. The Master chose to retain his human consciousness until the very end.” (UB 187:2.3) I finally decided that if our God-man could endure an excruciatingly painful death without alcohol, I could endure a painless life without alcohol. I surrendered to win. My sobriety began on February 19,1994 and must continue for the rest of this earthly life. AA teaches that we get a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
About a week later Ed D., an Irish Catholic AA who had sheltered me in the warehouse and kept me off the streets for more than a year, drove me from Santa Rosa to nearby Petaluma and St. Anthony’s Farm for the primary rehabilitation program.Almost every morning at the before-work meditation I read appropriate passages from The Urantia Book which were well received. Five-and-a-half months later I graduated. I had made in sobriety “…the greatest discovery possible for the human soul to make — the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself, and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience.” (UB 155:6.3)
On August 18, three days before Jesus’2,000th birthday, I left the farm for St. Anthony’s secondary program at Covenant House in San Francisco. I graduated from this program and experienced the reality of God’s covenant in my life. “This covenant…represents the great Urantian agreement between divinity and humanity whereby God agrees to do everything; man only agrees to believe God’s promises and follow his instructions.” (UB 93:6.4) I continued to observe my covenant that I had made with the Father when I took the third of AA’s twelve steps: “I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood him.” Sincere decisions followed by more sincere decisions.
While adjusting to the transition from rural Sonoma County back to urban San Francisco, I realized that 1935 had been a very significant and landmark year spiritually. In that year the revelators finished inditing The Urantia Book. In the same year Alcoholics Anonymous was founded. I believe both are gifts from Jesus. I certainly needed both the 196 papers and the 12 steps!
After eleven months and graduation certificates from both of St. Anthony’s recovery programs, it was time to mainstream back into the real world. The Catholics had certainly done their part. They would now hand me off to the Protestants in the form of The Salvation Army. I chose my independent living space at the Bridgeway Project, the clean and sober residential hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district downtown. Bridgeway was constructive and affordable, it required the discipline of continuing sobriety and spiritual growth.
The only problem was the neighborhood. Denizens of the Tenderloin include hundreds of homeless people, drug dealers and abusers, prostitutes, criminals, and the insane. It also contains poor people, Asian immigrants, and children. I was fearful and paranoid but I knew that when you really sign on with Jesus, he leads you directly into the front-line trenches. “If you dare to believe in me and wholeheartedly proceed to follow after me, you shall most certainly by so doing enter upon the sure pathway of trouble.” (UB 159:3.13) I petitioned Christ for his courage and he gave it to me. “Believing the gospel will not prevent getting into trouble, but it will insure that you shall be unafraid when trouble does overtake you.” (UB 159:3.13)
The Master’s joy and peace have replaced my fear and loneliness. I now work for The Salvation Army as one of Bridgeway’s front desk security clerks, ministering to and lovingly serving my brothers and sisters in recovery. “When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father’s will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.” (UB 117:4.14).
Jesus quoting Isaiah: "Then shall your light break forth as the morning while your health springs forth speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you while the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then will you call upon the Lord, and he shall answer; you will cry out, and he shall say-‘Here am I.’” (UB 147:8.4)
Jay Newbern, originally from Anderson, Indiana, and formerly a correspondent for NBC News/Chicago, is a long-time student of The Urantia Book.
| The Hidden God | Fall 1995 — Index | Significant Books: Leadership and the New Science by Margaret J. Wheatley |