© 2005 Séverin Desbuisson, Jean-Claude Romeuf, Chris M. Ragetly, Anne-Marie Ronfet, Claire and Henk Mylanus
© 2005 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
Journal of the association L'A.F.L.L.U. French-speaking Association of Readers of the URANTIA Book
Member of the I.U.A.
Head office:
48, rue Douy Delcupe
93110 MONTREUIL UNDER WOOD
FRANCE
¶ A Word from the President
Dear readers,
It is with great pleasure that I invite you to read our “little” newspaper. Small in size but big in heart, one could specify in a postscript to this edition. The reason for this “light” Link is simple: the editorial team only does 100% authentic, they systematically refuse reheated subjects and overly watered-down articles. No, only real since it is you who live it and write it! So, the Link is like a plant at the end of winter: it needs young shoots to feel the sap flowing under its trunk again. Your contributions in articles, however modest they may be, are therefore essential to the newspaper, if we want it to remain alive! Do not hesitate.
I also take advantage of this platform to invite you all: members, simple readers or just curious to participate from June 3 to 5 in the annual conference of the AFLUB. Attention, unlike the previous meetings this meeting will be unique for the year. In return, it will last one day longer and will also be addressed to the lay readers, see non-readers. For more details refer to the attached invitation.
Happy reading and maybe see you soon,
Severin Desbuisson
President of the A.F.L.L.U.
¶ Summary
- The President’s Word by Séverin Desbuisson
- Proposal for a reading method by Jean-Claude Romeuf
- The Friend of God by Chris M. Ragetly
- The search for God is the search for his three values: truth, beauty, goodness by Anne-Marie Ronfet
- Thought by Chris M. Ragetly
- Testimony: René by Jean-Claude Romeuf
- Gazette Column
- Study proposal in Brittany by Claire and Henk Mylanus
- Brief Urantian News
- Distribution of the Book and related books
❧ 1955 URANTIA Foundation. All rights reserved. These materials from The URANTIA Book are used with permission. Any artistic depiction(s), interpretation(s), opinion(s) or conclusion(s) implied or stated are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of URANTIA Foundation or its affiliates.
Legal deposit: December 1997 — ISSN 1285-1116
Subscription in 1998: 100 FF per year (approximately 4 issues)
¶ Proposal for a reading method.
Legend has it that Dr. Sadler did not truly believe in the veracity of the UB until he read Booklet 139, which deals with the character and temperament of the Twelve Apostles.
I don’t believe a word of it! A man like him could not have failed to emphasize the great homogeneity of the UB and to believe for this reason that the UB had a divine origin. If this book were only the fruit of the human intellect, without the help of divine revelation, there would be great contradictions throughout the 196 fascicles. However, this is not the case, and, over the years, each time that I found myself in the presence of affirmations that offended my mind, of a credo unacceptable at the time, I realized that the error that I believed I had detected, was in fact only the result of an immature thought, of a reflection distorted by I don’t know what feeling or what pride. The solution to the enigma, which was only there to trigger the cogs of my analytical mind and to develop my receptivity to the Spirit of Truth, was later illuminated by the stars of a Eureka.
Jean-Claude Romeuf
¶ God’s friend
“Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, a transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though he is all these and infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator personality, a person who can “know and be known,” who can “love and be loved,” and one who can befriend us; while you can be known, as other humans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality.” (UB 1:5.8)
Here we come back to the ability that we all have to love God, to be loved by Him individually. If He loves us individually, it is because He knows us well, even intimately (His Thought Adjusters keep Him informed), but to know God well (we do not have a Thought Adjuster who indwells God, do we?) we must have recourse to faith.
As I explained in a previous article, living faith is that spiritual reality that allows us to cross the immeasurable abyss that separates us from God the Father. Our knowledge of God is evolving, it is done little by little during our personal ascension towards Paradise. But as the Father, He knows us well, by sharing our experiences, with time and habit we come to know Him better; therefore to love Him better, because we cannot know God without loving Him. It is a mysterious constant but deep down, it is of a logic that is both subjective and objective. I think that the intervention of faith is part of this constant.
C. M. Ragetly
(Quotes from The Urantia Book are in italics)
¶ The search for God is the search for his three values: truth, beauty, goodness.
Our conception of truth, beauty, and goodness never ceases to grow, from our life until we come before the Father. God reveals Himself to us as absolute truth, absolute beauty, absolute goodness. We cannot conceive of Him otherwise. This is our best concept of God. We picture Paradise as a place of breathtaking beauty. We picture the beings surrounding the Father as real living intelligences, and the Father Himself as boundless goodness.
For God manifests Himself to us in this way.
Our mind thinks of God as truth, beauty and goodness.
Anne-Marie Ronfet
¶ Thought
There are probably several reasons why the archangels established a divisional quarter on Urantia.
They are not made known to us. But we can speculate.
For example :
- One reason is probably that Urantia is the planet that hosted Michael of Nebadon during his seventh and final bestowal.
Chris M. Ragetly
¶ Testimony
¶ Rene
Today, I am sad, very sad. My lifelong friend, René (see the last Link) died this morning at five o’clock. I cannot get used to the death of those I love and who leave me in solitude. I will no longer go to drink pastis at his place. I will no longer go to quench my thirst with the beverage of his friendship.
Some time ago I wrote that a Christian has no right to be sad. That was wrong! Jesus himself wept. A Christian simply has no right to give in to despair, because he knows that a higher force watches over him and leads him safely, in the midst of vicissitudes, to the discovery of Love, the source of the first origin.
Now, Love was what united René and me.
René was a big oak. He didn’t bend like a reed! Pretense was not de rigueur with him. Sincerity was his first quality. The shade of this big oak let the sun shine through. Its shade didn’t prevent small trees, like me, from growing. I grew up under its foliage which didn’t shade my growing individuality. The advice he gave me was always rays of light.
We did not have the same creeds, which divide men and often make them kill each other, but we had the same faith, the same hope. We believed in a God of Love, a love that makes eternal, a love of mercy.
Tomorrow, at your funeral, I will not cry and this text will be my bouquet of flowers. Because, René, if you were thirty years older than me, we are today the same age which is that of Eternity!
¶ La Gazette section
¶ Proposal for study in Brittany
Who are we?
We are Claire and Henk Mylanus and would like to introduce ourselves and our projects with this summary. Claire is French and worked in Guernsey and London before settling in the Netherlands in 1976. She studied The Urantia Book in depth with Henri Begemann from 1979 (Henri was the Urantia Foundation representative in Europe for study groups); and after his death she continued with his wife Bauk Begemann. Claire led her own study group in Amsterdam.
Henk is Dutch. He studied The Urantia Book first on his own, then in the 80s with Bauk Begemann. In 1990 he emigrated to Malta and started a study group in 1992 which consisted of 8 to 12 Maltese and English participants.
We got married in 2002 in Malta, and decided to move to France to be closer to our children living in the Netherlands.
The Malta study group continues its meetings under the supervision of a Maltese reader, and here in Brittany we have started with a small group in French which is growing by itself, but we want to do more!
Where do we live?
Our renovated Breton farmhouse is located 10 km west of St.-Brieuc in the Côtes d’Armor in Brittany
The Paris-Brest TGV stops at St.-Brieuc; the station is a quarter of an hour from our home.
The Brittany coast is very beautiful, and there are enough hotels, guest houses or campsites in the surrounding area.
We send all necessary information, and prefer that participants make their own reservations.
What are our plans for 2005?
We want to organize a number of long weekends, in groups of 3 to 6 participants. We try to group the participants by level of knowledge of the book (beginners, long-term readers, etc.). We study on Saturday for 7 hours and on Sunday too. We prepare a lunch each day, for a voluntary contribution
The study during these two days is obviously free, this being the principle of sharing.
What are we going to study?
The weekends will be organized on a specific topic that will have been chosen in advance with the participants. We call this a “special theme”. We have already developed these following themes as a group:
- the Thought Adjuster
- the 7 worlds of houses
- what can the 5th revelation do in our daily lives?
- free will
- prayer and worship, etc…
The “special theme” model always begins with a synthesis of references from The Urantia Book. Then we clarify the topics corresponding to the concept of the “special theme”. In this way we can delve deeper into the parts of the theme in order to arrive at a coherent concept. We do not deviate from the text of The Urantia Book. And if possible, we try to translate the meaning of the concept into our daily lives.
Interested? How to do it?
- contact us at 0682623048 or
- send an email to mylfrance2@wanadoo.fr
- by mail to:
Ldt “The Great Beautiful Fire”
22440 La Méaugon
with as much information as possible:
- what is your level of education or reading?
- what dates would suit you in 2005?
- what particular topic would interest you?
- how many people will you be?
We will endeavour to find:
A date for a weekend with a “particular theme” which brings together participants of a corresponding level
Claire and Henk Mylanus
¶ Urantia News Briefs
- A conference on angels was held on March 25 at 8 p.m. in the Caribe Room of the Conrad Hotel in Punta del Este — Uruguay.
- Elections to the International Service Board (ISB) on March 23, 2005, the following ISB members were elected by the National Presidents and Vice Presidents:
- President: Gaétan Charland
- Membership Committee Chairman: Gary Rawlings
- Chair of the Education Committee: Carolyn Prentice.
- Chairman of the Translations Committee: Peep Sôber
- Chairman of the Conference Committee: Eddie King
- Treasurer: Mark A. Kurtz
- Several Associations have collected funds to see the Portuguese translation published, which currently only exists on CD-Rom. $42,000 must be found for this first edition.
- We are pleased to announce the 5th Meeting of Readers of the Urantia Book in Spain, between April 29 and May 2. The price per person is 106 euros. In San Lorenzo de El Escorial a few kilometers from Madrid. Very open program ranging, among other things, from the seven superuniverses to prayer, passing through the mansion worlds and the faith of Jesus.
- Request documentation from: Olga López
- Urantia Association of Spain
- http://www.auesp.org
- For the British and American conferences see The Journal of the UAI volume 11/number 4 or http://www.urantia-iua.org/events.html…
- During 2005, the Italian and German versions should be published in addition to the Portuguese version.
- Currently, the Chinese translation is absorbing the largest part of the funds intended for translations.
- Creation of a new Urantia Association in the Dominican Republic on April 24, 2005