© 2002 Karen Lee Larsen
© 2002 The Urantia Book Fellowship
The Urantia Book teaches us that free will is one of the greatest gifts Father has given to all of his creatures. “No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.” [UB 5:6.8]
With all of this free will available to most of the six billion people on this planet, it is no wonder that acceptance of one another and the choices that are made have caused adversity and chaos since the beginning of our evolution. Man’s ego, which seeks acceptance and also craves to do things his way, is another factor in the equation. Add the basic animal instinct to “survive” and our challenge is even greater. The human of animal origin has a great adventure ahead of him, but also a long struggle and challenge to overcome his lower nature of human physiological make-up and to adapt and replace some of it with the higher levels of spiritual ideals.
Forewarn all believers regarding the fringe of conflict which must be traversed by all who pass from the life as it is lived in the flesh to the higher life as it is lived in the spirit. To those who live quite wholly within either realm, there is little conflict or confusion, but all are doomed to experience a more or less uncertainty during the times of transition between the two levels of living. In entering the kingdom, you cannot escape its responsibilities or avoid its obligations, but remember: The gospel yoke is easy and the burden of truth is light. [UB 159:3.7]
Our birth as a human only affords us an opportunity to reach for eternal life, it does not guarantee it. Our human birth is the first step in an endless set of steps towards spiritual progress and perfection, steps that must be reached by the choices we make, ones that can also he altered by the world in which we live and the choices that others make. Thus, must we grow and learn, live and experience this life, and at major crossroads, change the perspective and point of view that we have been taught, conditioned, and made to accept, again reflecting on the truth that these points of view hold. Our journey entails endless choices based on our understanding and comprehension of our basic moral foundations.
Moral worth cannot be derived from mere repression—obeying the injunction ‘Thou shalt not.’ Fear and shame are unworthy motivations for religious living. Religion is valid only when it reveals the fatherhood of God and enhances the brotherhood of men.
An effective philosophy of living is formed by a combination of cosmic insight and the total of one’s emotional reactions to the social and economic environment. Remember: While inherited urges cannot be fundamentally modified, emotional responses to such urges can be changed; therefore the moral nature can be modified, character can be improved. In the strong character emotional responses are integrated and co-ordinated, and thus is produced a unified personality. Deficient unification weakens the moral nature and engenders unhappiness. [UB 140:4.7,8]
At the very core of this individual mission to rise above our animal natures and begin the ascension to the higher levels of reality, is acceptance of others, which 1 believe is first discovered in and through tolerance of all the other people that travel ahead of us, beside us, and behind us. These freewill creatures all have the same desire we do, to “be ye perfect as our father in heaven is perfect.” And this passage tells us that “Every mortal really craves to be a complete person,. . . and such attainment is possible because in the last analysis the universe is truly fatherly.” [UB 140:4.11] Alas, the way we all reach for this perfection, this completion, is very different.
I remember as a child learning a prayer. I didn’t learn it in church. It hung on the wall of my father’s house, and I must have read it a thousand times or more. It reads “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I can recall reading it and wondering what it meant; it would have seemed like a morontia mota if I knew that term then. It v,as just some words with hidden meanings that my young and inexperienced mind could not comprehend. The only way I came to somewhat of an understanding was by looking at the meaning of each word. Years later this prayer was my saving grace. It gave me the strength to overcome my own human frailties and begin life anew. Today, I finally understand the content of this wise and eternal prayer, which to me, speaks of tolerance, of acceptance, and of seeing the bigger picture beyond my tiny little view.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things 1 can not change.” Hmm, what can’t I change? I can’t change the way our planet and our history have occurred; I can’t change the past. I can’t change other people, nor can I change the way they think. I can only plant seeds of truth from my own point of view. The choice to listen and change their thinking, their attitudes, and their actions is up to them. So as I plant seeds, I must be able to find serenity in knowing that I have done all that I can, and that the final choice is up to the other person. I have found great serenity in realizing I am not accountable to the whole world and its entire people. I have found peace in knowing that although I wish and want for the world to be different, I can only alter it one person at a time, by loving them and being an example of God’s love, by coming to know them, their hidden desires and dreams, their motives in life, and why they made the choices they did, and by being a gardener wherever I go. By being tolerant of the choices that others make, I am free from emotional anger. “Anger is a material manifestation which represents, in a general way, the measure of the failure of the spiritual nature to gain control of the combined intellectual and physical natures. Anger indicates your lack of tolerant brotherly love plus your lack of self-respect and self-control. Anger depletes the health, debases the mind, and handicaps the spirit teacher of man’s soul.” [UB 149:4.2]
“The courage to change the things I can” conveys to me that I am not helpless, nor hopeless, in any situation. I can change things in me. That would be my attitudes, actions, words, thoughts, and deeds. Acceptance and tolerance of other ideas and ideals…I can change me, slowly. I can change my conditioned thinking. I can change the way I see the world around me by my positive hope and undying love for humanity. I can change the presentation of my point of view so it does not offend or harm others. I can always do it with love. I can change the old and rusted ideas of the past set in my mind to a higher level of service and kindness. My selfishness and self-centeredness can be changed by placing others first when their needs are much greater than my own. And even when they aren’t.
Has this metamorphosis occurred overnight? Hardly. It is a constant struggle to be courageous and not need to be always right, always the one with the correct point of view. Courage is found in my trust in God, and in knowing that he is always with me, assisting me on my mission. The revelations of growth and change within come occasionally, but they are not as often as I wish they were. That is my humanness, my imperfection. So I keep striving. Today I am beginning to be more tolerant of my own imperfections; thus it makes me realize that other humans must have the same struggles that I do. We are all human; we all have much to learn and overcome.
This makes the burden lighter and also reinforces the fact that none of us are so different, because we all must grow and learn. We all need greater tolerance and understanding of one another, which is found in learning to love one another.
In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you low your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love. [UB 100:4.4]
“And the wisdom to know the difference.” Once I discovered what I could change and what I couldn’t change, once I knew my boundaries and my limitations, wisdom began to come easier. There is a saying “everyone has a Higher Power, and I am not it.” Allowing this thought to roll around in my mind brought me to a higher level of understanding about this wisdom. I am not accountable to God for making the choices for other people. I am accountable for doing what I can ro bear the “fruits of the spirit” in my daily life. Jesus tells us: “Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.” [UB 193:2.2]
I am accountable for striving to reach higher levels of thinking, acting, and living. But we can not forget that there are many that are not ready, some that are not even capable of such spiritual strivings, and still others who choose not to seek the love, truth, beauty, and goodness of God. We must of our own free will choose to discover it.
It is neither tenderness nor altruism to bestow futile sympathy upon degenerated human beings, unsolvable abnormal and inferior mortals. There exist on even the most normal of the evolutionary worlds sufficient differences between individuals and between numerous social groups to provide for the full exercise of all those noble traits of altruistic sentiment and unselfish mortal ministry without perpetuating the socially unfit and the morally degenerate strains of evolving humanity. There is abundant opportunity for the exercise of tolerance and the function of altruism in behalf of those unfortunate and needy individuals who have not irretrievably lost their moral heritage and forever destrayed their spiritual birthright. [UB 52:2.12]
I see the world around me, the bickering, the power struggles, the need to control the way others live, learn, and love, and 1 am reminded of this prayer. I am reminded of the intolerance that has brought us to the present in so many different ways. I can see the pain and suffering that intolerance breeds and steals from those who truly strive to do what they believe is right. My heart often aches for the misery we place on our fellow man because of our own needs and wants to keep things just the way they are. Could we but see the world from another time, another point of view, another life experience, we might begin to know their path, their choices, and their life. And we might come to know why they made the choices they did. Walk a mile in another pair of shoes and the world is a new place. See things from the opposite end and you might even wonder a little more why you are the way you arc. To question ourselves, our moral foundations of right and wrong, should be an ongoing process of progress. To be seeing things from another point of view is part of our mission, part of our task to know the true motives of one another; without such soul searching, we are dormant, stagnant, and dead. Truth is alive and dynamic, and Jesus tells us “My Father requires all his children to grow in grace and in a knowledge of the truth.” [UB 176:3.5]
The Spirit of Truth is always guiding us to think, to see the bigger picture, and to reevaluate our ideals. And although our ideals grow by geometric proportion, by our own humanness, we also must accept our shortcomings, in realizing them here and now. Alas, it is the striving to find serenity amidst the chaos and confusion. It is the courage to change whatever we can, about how we view the bigger picture. And it is the wisdom, that awakens us, by and through the knowledge, facts, and spiritual insights that we come to know. It is striving and courage and wisdom, which help us to reach for the highest ideals of love, tolerance, and acceptance of all humanity. “While divine or spiritual insight is a gift, human wisdom must evolve.” [UB 101:4.2]
Do we have to like all of it? No In fact, we are told that we should not be tolerant of sin and iniquity, but that our personal views should always focus on the individual. Jesus “. . .did not teach passive tolerance of wrongdoing. And he made it plain on this afternoon that he approved of the social punishment of evildoers and criminals, and that the civil government must sometimes employ force for the maintenance of social order and in the execution of justice. [UB 140:8.4] ”He made it clear that indiscriminate kindness may be blamed for many social evils…In all these matters it was the practice of Jesus always to say, ‘Be as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves.’ It seemed to be his purpose in all social situations to teach patience, tolerance, and forgiveness." [UB 140:8.13]
Should we plant seeds of truth wherever we go? Yes. Can we change the way we see all life? Yes! Tolerance comes in the form of accepting one another as we are. Tolerance allows Love to grow and healing to begin. Tolerance gives each of us the freedom to be as we are, to be as perfect as we are, as imperfect as that may be. Tolerance opens up the hearts and minds of all people in all walks of life to the true reality that God dwells in each of us. See first the child of God in front of you, know that the divine spiritual spark pilots their soul, too, and know serenity, that all is as it should be, that no matter what, the revelation of Jesus shall not fail. God’s plan will not be altered into oblivion. All are the faith sons of God. Tolerance is the key to light and life on this planet. And if each new day we are a little more tolerant of one another, think how tolerant we will be in eternity.
In closing, I offer Jesus’ ideas on maturity and growth:
As you grow older in years and more experienced in the affairs of the kingdom, are you becoming more tactful in dealing with troublesome mortals and more tolerant in living with stubborn associates? Tact is the fulcrum of social leverage, and tolerance is the earmark of a great soul. If you possess these rare and charming gifts, as the days pass you will become more alert and expert in your worthy efforts to avoid all unnecessary social misunderstandings. Such wise souls are able to avoid much of the trouble which is certain to be the portion of all who suffer from lack of emotional adjustment, those who refuse to grow up, and those who refuse to grow old gracefully. [UB 156:5.18]
He calls them “gifts.” Perhaps tolerance is more than just “putting up with”; perhaps tolerance is a gift that, when possessed, allows each of us to be fully open to any and all of the diversity that is a part of each individual life, which is a part of the whole. Perhaps tolerance, being a basic moral foundation of family growth, is to be the first thing we learn for such a reason, perhaps because it takes so long to learn.
Karen Larsen is the chairwoman of the Membership/ Hospitality Committee of The Urantia Book Society of Greater New York. This article is a written form of Karen’s presentation to the UBSGNY on September 16, 2001.