© 2000 Nicholas W. Scalzo
© 2000 Urantia Association International (IUA)
I am very happy to be here with you today at this International Urantia Association conference to celebrate the Spirit of the Universal Father that resides in each and every one of us. This conference is being held to remind us that the Spirit of our Universal Father indwells our minds and shares our daily lives with us every day of our human existence.
And it is in recognition of this outpouring of God’s pre-personal Spirit upon all mankind and upon ourselves personally that we have dedicated this conference and our lives to the glory of the Universal Father and the personal spiritual experience of living his will.
In the next few days, not only will we explore the reality of having a fragment of God indwelling our minds and leading our hearts, but we will also attempt the joy of exploring the many avenues of doing his will in continuous and conscious ways as we live and share our life with him. In essence we will share with each other the personal spiritual knowledge of our Godconsciousness to make his will more personal, more real and a living part of our lives.
We are told by a Divine Counselor:
Those who know God have experienced the fact of bis presence; such God-knowing mortals bold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father. [UB 1:2.8]
Your message to the world shall be: Seek first the kingdom of God and bis righteousness, . . . for this kingdom of which you preach is God within you. [UB 140:1.5; emphasis mine]
This morning, within these hallowed halls are men and women who have experienced the fact of God’s presence and truly know him. These God-conscious mortals have found God within themselves. They have reached beyond the point of belief and have actually and consciously come to know him, for they have experienced God. These God-knowing mortals will be sharing their personal lives with us to offer us the only possible proof of the existence of God. As God-knowing mortals, we will be opening our souls to one another to show the spiritual growth that has occurred in our lives. And in living the will of our Father in our daily lives, we will share how we have made personal and conscious contact with the God-presence of the Spirit of God that indwells our mortal intellect—God Consciousness.
This morning I will be the first of many speakers who will share with you our lives, as we lived and personally experienced living the will of our Father. We love our Father, as all of you do. We are all only men and women trying our best to serve him and our brothers and sisters in the flesh. Heaven knows we are not perfect, especially me. But we are trying to be. That is why we are here today to share and learn from one another the injunction: “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect” [UB 1:0.3; UB 1:5.1; UB 7:4.7; UB 26:4.12 and others]. We hope in the workshop sessions that you will feel free to share your spiritual experiences with one another as we who are speakers are sharing our lives with you.
God must be first in our lives. Our supreme desire must be to know him; to live our lives as he would live it, if we let him; to do his will, his way; to serve him always to his glory; and to love each other as he loves us and as we love him. And knowing that by doing his will, his way, that he in fact lives our lives at various times in ways of heavenly perfection. We have witnessed God’s work, we have seen his perfection in action, and we know him as a real part of us.
¶ The Various Functions of Thought Changers, Thought Adjusters, Thought Controllers
Although the Universal Father is personally resident on Paradise, at the very center of the universes, he is also actually present on the worlds of space in the minds of his countless children of time, for be indwells them as the Mystery Monitors. [UB 107:0.1]
The Adjusters are the actuality of the Father’s love incarnate in the souls of men . . . [UB 107:0.2]
The Adjuster is the love of God in the hearts and souls of men. God loves you- that’s why he comes to indwell you and help you in your life. As we grow up he remains the same, but as we experience life he functions in accordance with the experience we have.
A Solitary Messenger, one of authority of the Infinite Spirit, teaches us in The Urantia Book that,
On the evolutionary worlds, will creatures [like us] traverse three general developmental stages of being: From the arrival of the Adjuster to comparative full growth, about twenty years of age on Urantia, the Monitors are sometimes designated Thought Changers. [UB 107:0.7; emphasis mine]
The Solitary Messenger in The Urantia Book tells us first that we are indwelt by God in the form of the Thought Adjuster. Second, he says that when we are little children until we reach about twenty years of age this Spirit of God within us, the Thought Adjuster, is sometimes referred to as a Thought Changer. This is because the Spirit of God within all of us, as children, functions by changing or exchanging one of our lesser thoughts for another one that is more like his—God-like. He also makes our good ideas even better. He encourages us to do the right thing.
I see in the audience those of you who are older than five years old, but younger than twenty years old. Would all of you please stand up. Five years ten months old is the average age when the Thought Adjusters first arrive to indwell your minds. You all are indwelt by the Spirit of God our Universal Father. He shares his life with you as a Thought Changer. He works by changing one of your thoughts for one that is more perfect—one like his. Let us all applaud these youngest now as they start out their lives with the Spirit of our Father—their new Thought Changers.
The Solitary Messenger then explains:
From this time [approximately twenty years old] to the attainment of the age of discretion, about forty years, the Mystery Monitors are called Thought Adjusters. [UB 107:0.7, emphasis mine]
I see in the audience those of you who are older than twenty years, but who have not reach the age of discretion about forty years old. Would all of you please stand up? The Father fragments of God within you function as Thought Adjusters. Think of your Thought Adjuster as one who adjusts your thoughts. He fine-tunes your thoughts in your mind, so that they are more like the thoughts that he would use if he were living your life.
Now see, kids, these older Urantians have twenty years more experience than you do with the indwelling Father fragment adjusting their thoughts in their minds. That is why he is called a Thought Adjuster. He makes them more God-like. He fills them with truth. He embellishes them with beauty. He envelops them with goodness. He surrounds them with love, and he adds a pinch of his own wisdom. Someday, kids, your Mystery Monitors—the Spirit of our Father in you—will change from functioning as Thought Changers and begin functioning more as Thought Adjusters.
As they now sit down, lets all give these experienced, Thought Adjuster-indwelt brothers and sisters a hand. Let us pray that whatever experience they are adding to their memories each day, they are to the glory of God and useful to their Adjuster. That is why they study The Urantia Book, so the Father has all that information within their minds to adjust and use to his purpose.
Next, the Solitary Messenger from Paradise explains that:
From the attainment of discretion [approximately forty years and older] to deliverance from the flesh [until they leave our planet and start the Paradise ascent], [The Thought Adjusters] are often referred to as Thought Controllers. [UB 107:0.7]
Now, would all of you over forty, who have reached the age of discretion and have been indwelt for more than thirty-four years by the Spirit of Godaffectionately known as Thought Controllers—please stand up. Now see kids and adults, these highly experienced elder Urantians have Thought Controllers. Some day your Mystery Monitors will function as Thought Controllers, much as they do in these seasoned folks. Within these experienced Urantian men and woman, there is discretion— the freedom and authority to make decisions and choices, the power to judge and act, and the action and power of discerning judgment as it relates to doing God’s will. Now as they sit down would everyone applaud these fine men and woman who have experienced life on Urantia for some time now. These are the children of God who have yielded control of their hearts, minds and souls to the Father.
¶ Thought Changers: The Adjuster for Youngsters
My young friends, you are sons and daughters of God! Within you is the very Spirit of God. He is resident within your mind and he indwells you as a piece of God; he is called the Spirit of God; he is called the Adjuster. He is called the Mystery Monitor. He is an actual fragment of the very God of all creation and functions or works in your mind as a Thought Changer. Would every one please say, “Thought Changer.”
Kids, did you know that your very own Thought Changers selected you? That’s right, your Thought Changer selected YOU. He wants to make you perfect just like your Father in Heaven is perfect. And you know that your indwelling spirit of God knows everything about you before he ever indwells you. He knows everything about your parents, grandparentseven to great, great, great grandparents. He knows the way you will live your life, before he ever comes to indwell you.
¶ First Moral Choice: Deciding Between Good and Evil—The Arrival of the Thought Changer
We are told that the Thought Changer was not able to indwell your mind until you have exhibited the worship outreach and [indicated] wisdom function by exbibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil—moral choice [UB 108:2.2].
When you were bom, the Father bestowed your personality on you, and made you who you are. Later, probably sometime before your sixth birthday, your mind was duly prepared and fully encircuited in the Holy Spirit. Then when the spirit of wisdom functioned in your mind, your Thought Changer or Adjuster arrived in your mind at the time you made your first moral decision.
Moral choice is selecting between good and evil, right or wrong. Do you remember the first time you made a moral choice and decided between good and evil? I remembered, not on my own, but one day while I was in deep prayer, asking God why I was blessed to know him, I asked him, “God, when did my relationship with you start?” And a wonderful thing happened to me, for then and there, the Father showed me a part of my childhood experience when I first made my first moral decision. At this moment in prayer, I felt I was back there when I made my first moral choice between good and evil and the Spirit of the Father, my Thought Changer, first came and indwelt me.
I asked God, “Why are you showing this to me, Lord?” And he said, “To teach the children!” And so this is why I am sharing this with you. I believe you are those children he asked me to teach. Never before at a conference like this have there been so many of you together and especially at a plenary talk like this. God sent you here!
¶ The Choice
Anyway, what I was shown by the Father was this replete recollection as if I were there again:
It was a cold Christmas day in 1948. I was five years eight months and 21 days old. I had opened all my wonderful Christmas presents at home, and later I went with my parents and my three-year old sister JoAnn to my Grandmother Ragona’s apartment in Brooklyn for Christmas dinner.
My other cousins were there too, for I had many. When I got there, my cousin Johnny showed me his one Christmas present. He was so excited about it. His family was poorer than mine and his only gift was a small ink stamp printing set. One of the stamps he proudly showed me was a stamp of a star like my teachers used to mark my test papers or homework.
Now compared to my gifts at home this was very inexpensive. Yet, this one thing, that teacher’s star, was something that caught my eye, so much so, that I had to have it. It was a rubber stamp with a wood handle, and it made a red star just like the teachers used in my class. Well, I just had to have that star. So later, when no one was around, after Johnny left the stamp pad set with the star stamp on my grandmother’s bedroom dresser to go in the kitchen and fight with my cousins for the olives, I went over to the box and was about to take the star stamp when I thought:
“Well, if I take this star stamp of Johnny’s, he will cry. But if I don’t take it, I will be mad.”
This was the first time in my life when I had thought of someone else first before I thought of myself.
So I pondered this dilemma. What was I to do? I , so wanted this stamp, but it would make my cousin cry. If I didn’t take it, I would not be happy. So I thought and thought, then I decided, and . . . I took that stamp and hid it in the pocket of my coat, which was lying on the bed.
After I took the stamp it seemed that the whole room glowed brilliantly in a reddish glow, I felt a warmth, and I no longer felt alone. The Spirit of God had arrived.
This was not a great beginning for my spiritual life, I will tell you. I started off as a thief. I had made my first moral decision between good and evil and it was the wrong choice, but it was my first moral choice, nonetheless, and the Spirit of God did indwell me for the first time that day.
Needless to say, eventually my mother found the * stamp in my coat pocket when she went to hang it up, and I got a whipping. I believe Johnny may be here today. As restitution I have brought a bag of stamps and a stamp pad for you. Please forgive me?
Now you probably don’t remember your first moral choice between good and evil; neither did I until I was reminded by the Spirit of our Father. I was reminded for a reason: so I could tell you now.
¶ Thought Changer: Why Call Him That?
Now, why do they reveal the fragment of God in us when we are youngsters as a Thought Changer?
Because that is what he does. The Father fragment within you changes your thoughts. He changes, or exchanges, one selfish thought you may have for one concerned about someone else. He changes a bad thought for another good and more God-like thought, one he would use, if he were you. He encourages us to use good thoughts.
Think of it this way, as if God were to say to you: “Child, if I were living your life at this moment, and knowing that being your age you have only a few Godlike experiences, for you are still just a little soul, instead of you thinking what you are now thinking at this moment, I your Spirit partner, would rather that you use this other more God-like, good, beautiful, and truthful thought. This is the thought I changed for you and it is most wise and loving. This is a good thought that you have previously experienced, but it has been buried deep in your mind. I found it for you. Here take it and use it again in this situation. That is what I would do if I were you.”
God will take the thoughts in your mind that are not helpful to your fellows or yourself at that moment, and exchange them for other thoughts you previously had that are good, truthful, beautiful, wise, and loving, and more helpful for everyone in whatever your current situation.
For example he will exchange a thought you’re having like: “I’m not going to help my family around the house; I want to play,” for his changed thought: “How can I help, so we all could play together?” And then when you choose his thought and do it, afterward Dad says, “Since we finished our work so early today with your help, we have time to go to the movies or to the beach. And you can bring your friends, and I will pay for it. What would you like to do?” Then, your Thought Changer will reinforce these good thoughts, and by choosing to act on them again and again your God-like experiences grow. You will have more and more God-like experiences.
Tell me, kids, what thoughts do you think God already changed for you today?
¶ How Do You Know Which Thought in your Mind is God’s?
Now what can you do to help yourself distinguish God’s thoughts from your own thoughts, so that you can select his perfect thoughts? How do you know which thought in your mind is God’s? Well it is easy. First, you begin by having little talks with our Father as often as you can, every day, every time you can remember. When you wake up and when you go to sleep, when you eat and when you come home from work, school or play. Talk to him all the time. He is there for you. This way you can get to know him better. And the more you know God, the more you will trust him and seek his will, his perfect way of living your life. He is like having the answers to everything. Use him just as Jesus did when he was a youngster.
Next, all you need to do in any situation you are in is to remember to give God, our Father a Holy Instant [snap fingers]. Yes, only a split second, a blink of the eye. A moment of time wherein you, say, “Father, if you were living my life right now, what would you do?”
Then still your mind and search your mind for his thought. You can always tell his thought in your mind from all the other thoughts you have. His thoughts have: the most truth, the most beauty and the most goodness in your mind. His thoughts are wise and loving.
God knows everything about you and everyone else. He knows the thoughts stored in your mind and which is the perfect thought that you should use at every moment you live, so that you can be perfect as he is perfect. And, he knows what you should do. For if he were you, that is what he would do. Hey, that rhymes: remember: “For if he were you, that is what he would do.”
Again my friends, do you want to live as he would live your life, or would you choose without him your own way and make more mistakes? If you want his perfect way, you should tell him that you want to think his chosen or changed thoughts instead of yours alone. Then do what he would do if he were living your life. You should tell him that you trust him, that you will use his thought. His thoughts are always good. His thoughts in your mind are always beautiful and his thoughts always contain truth. His thoughts are always wise, caring and loving. Choose his will by saying: “It is my choice, Father, to choose your way, your thoughts.”
Then, my young friends, before you act, and after you have given him that Holy Instant, stilled your mind and searched therein for the thoughts he has changed for you, choose those God-like thoughts in your mind. You will know his thoughts, for again, they are the ones with the most truth, the most beauty and the most goodness, surrounded by love, and changed for you by him.
¶ Now the Fun Part
After searching your mind for his thought, find it. Now once you find his thought, it will belong to you always, but it will be of no value to you, or to anyone else, unless you actually do it. Yes, do it. That’s right, do it. Then it becomes yours forever shared with God the Supreme. For it is fun to seek for God’s thoughts in your mind. It is fabulous to find them, but doing them is like a grand-slam winning home run in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the world series. It is like hitting a hole in one in every hole at every golf course. It’s like fireworks on the Fourth of July. It is like getting an A on every paper. It is like getting a raise at work every day. It is like falling in love for the first time, or seeing everyone in your family happy. So, trust him, have faith that he will always provide you with his truth, his beauty and his goodness. Then my young friends, after you find his will in your mind, choose to do it, and you will see miracles occur. And the real miracle, of course, will be that everyone that surrounds you, when you do his will, will know of certainty that God is real and so will you.
For you adults, you know that the Father fragment in you does the same thing as the Thought Changer, but as a Thought Adjuster. Instead of changing one thought in your mind for another, and since you have more years of experience and memories than children, the Adjuster adjusts the thoughts already in your mind. He tweaks and fine-tunes them, as if to say, “ If I were you, my son, my daughter, if I were living your life at this moment, this is how I would live it, given your personality, your mind, heart and soul and the situation you are in. Do as I would do: Be you perfect even as I am perfect.”
Live your life as God would live it. Trust him always! This is the greatest fun in the whole Master Universe!
¶ A Little Talk with Our Father in Heaven
You know talking with God is a wonderful thing. You know you can talk to him as much as you want. He actually waits for you to speak to him. He is just sitting there on his lounge chair waiting until you share your day, and you tell him how you feel. He will listen. He always does. He knows everything about you and has a sympathetic ear to all you say. You can privately share all parts of your life with him, even your deepest secrets. He really enjoys that. And when you want to know something, especially about how you could better get to know him or his son Jesus, all you need to do is ask him. He will always answer you. It may take a while, until you are ready for the answer, but he will always answer you. This is true-otherwise I would never have told you.
¶ The Cross
In 1947—gee, that’s half a century ago— when I was nearly seven years old, I was attending second grade at Saint Mary’s School in Long Island City, just across the New York harbor there and up the East River a few miles. You can see parts of Queens from the cafeteria window. It was just before Easter Sunday on one Wednesday moming, during the Lent season. I was standing on the left side, in the next-to-last pew in Saint Mary’s Church with my second grade class. The nun who was my teacher was standing in the last row behind me, but she was farther to the right and looking at the priest who was on the front right side of the church, so she could not see me. There was a service being conducted by the priest called “The Stations of the Cross.”
These Stations of the Cross were white sculptures hanging on the walls around the church. They showed the story of Jesus on his way to the cross. As the priest walked from station to station along the wall, he said prayers and recounted the tragedy of Jesus carrying the cross up to Golgotha on the day of his crucifixion. Each Station showed a different episode in Jesus’ march to the cross.
Being six years old, I did not really understand what was going on, and why this priest was saying prayers, and also who that man Jesus really was. I wondered who was this poor man shown in these stations, being tortured by Pontius Pilate and the soldiers and forced to carry that heavy wooden beam, then nailed on the cross? I mean I knew about Jesus, Christmas and Easter, and all that, from my parents and the nuns who were my teachers, but who Jesus really was-I really had no idea. I thought to myself, as I turned around and looked again at all the stations from the first to the last, how horrible were these things done to Jesus. I said to myself: “What is this all about? Who is this man Jesus anyway? Why did they do those awful things to him? How terrible it is.”
As I asked those questions of myself, I looked toward the front of the church. I beheld there, the life-size cross with the life-size statue of Jesus hanging on it. He was depicted bleeding from the big nail wounds in his hands and feet, the crown of thorns on his head and the puncture wound in his side. I knew if I got caught looking away from the priest at these things I would get in trouble with my teacher, but I looked at the cross anyway. I spoke to myself in a whisper, “How sad and mean! Why would anyone want to do that to someone? Who is this man hanging on the cross whom they called Jesus? Why is he on the cross? Why didn’t someone stop this? If I was there, I would stop it if I could.”
I could not look at the cross anymore. It was too gruesome. So I turned my head away farther to the left, almost with my back to the priest, not wanting to look at these sad things, or the priest at the next station. And as I was looking at the circle of frosted glass petal lights up high about the large fluted column in front of me, I said in my mind to God and repeated again, “God, who is he? Tell me please?”
Then it happened. I remember seeing within my mind a brilliant white, warm light in front of me. It was taller than the lights on the column. It hid the column and lights from my view as bright as it was, but it did not hurt my eyes. As I looked at it in wonder, a gentle, loving voice said to me, “Nicholas, this is my Son, Jesus, who came to tell the world about who I AM.”
Wow! I had to sit down, and I did. Everyone else was still standing, facing the priest who was approaching the front station on the right side wall. Lucky for me, they were all looking to the right, so no one saw me. I began to cry. It was so wonderful.
As I sat there in view of this wonderful warm light, and after hearing this wonderful message that lasted but a second, I said, “God, if you should ever do anything like this again, if you ever do it when I am near, please let me help. I would do anything for him and you. If I could only but sweep the floors for you, I’d be so happy. I’ll even bring my own broom.” Then, I remember adding, “God, please do not forget my prayer now, even if I should grow old and forget myself. I pray that if you ever were to reveal yourself again in any way, you remind me of this moment, and I will be there.”
I sat there for a while after the white light faded away, then I remember a crashing slap on the back of my head, as the nun said, “Nicholas, pay attention, turn and watch the priest!” And as I stood up and turned, I answered, “Yes Madam.”
You see, my youthful friends, I had forgotten about this episode in my life, until one day in 1981 when I was in fervent prayer with our Father, when I asked him why I was so lucky to be chosen to serve him. He recalled for me that day in Queens in Saint Mary’s Church, some thirty-four years earlier, when I asked him to remember my prayer to serve him, even if I should later forget. Now here it is in the year 2000. I am serving him and he has shown me his new revelation about himself, The Urantia Book.
¶ Doing God’s Will
I wish to emphasize and make clear that doing God’s will is nothing more or less than God giving us the perfect solution to all of life’s problems and encounters. He knows all the answers for us, including the answers for everyone else. He knows what is in the hearts and minds of everyone. He knows what is best and perfect for every child and adult alike. All we need to do is search for his will, find it and then do it. Then let him worry about the results.
And doing God’s will is so easy. Believe me. It is like breathing. Any barriers you think exist, are like clouds of black smoke that you can just blow away with a whistle. It is nothing to get there where God is. While he appears to be across the raging river of life, the bridge to the other side has already been built by Jesus, his Son and our master. He has shown us the way. All we need to do is have faith and trust him, then cross that bridge when we get to it.
¶ Thought Adjusters
This statement changed my life when its true meaning first dawned on me early in 1970:
And how they do enjoy communicating with their subjects in more or less direct channels! How they rejoice when they can dispense with symbols and other methods of indirection and flash theit messages straight to the intellects of their human partners! [UB 108:6.7; emphasis mine]
Because of this teaching in The Urantia Book, I was determined, by my supreme desire to serve God to allow my Adjuster to flash his message straight to my human intellect. I focus my studies on the methods Jesus employed in determining and choosing the Father’s will. All of this study, prayer, determination, and supreme consecration to know God and be like him, do his will, his way, and live my life in service to his son Michael—all culminated in the awareness within my mind of the real possibility of my own personal Adjuster’s guidance and leadership.
I learned to love my Adjuster more, to co-operate with him more fully, and I cherished him more affectionately, simply because my Adjuster was deeply interested in my temporal welfare and in my achievements on earth (UB 110:1.3).
I learned from the Solitary Messenger that: It is sometimes possible to bave the mind illuminated, to bear the divine woice that continually speaks within you, so that you may become partially conscious of the wisdom, truth, goodness, and beauty of the potential personality constantly indwelling you. [UB 109:5.2]
Imagine that! He said we can hear the divine voice that continually speaks within you.
So I wanted to hear his voice. I would not be satisfied with less. I imagined the possibility of having my mind illuminated, and hearing his divine voice that continually speaks within me. I wondered at becoming partially conscious of his wisdom, truth, goodness, and beauty constantly indwelling me.
But such, I thought, was for someone as perfect as Jesus, the Son of God. This was not possible for me. Said I, “Who am I, in this commonplace life, that I should be so blessed to have the Spirit of God speak or even communicate in some small fashion with me? I’m not perfect—ask my wife. I’m no saint. Jesus was a Creator son; I was bom across New York Harbor in Brooklyn on the other side of the Verazzano Bridge.” But I knew that as Jesus said, I too was a child of God and the Holy Spirit will testify to it. If I accept it, I too am open to hear the divine voice.
I also leamed that: This Adjuster did indeed triumph in Jesus’ human mind—that mind which in each of life’s recurring situations maintained a consecrated dedication to the Father’s will, saying, “Not my will, but yours, be done” [UB 109:6.5]. It must then be possible then for each of us to consciously know God’s will in each of life’s recurring situations as well.
Why not? All we need to do is maintain a consecrated dedication to the Father’s will.
This is easier said than done—as you know. What must we do to consciously affect that real, true-to-life, day-by-day, hour-by-hour, and momentary consecration attunement with our Adjuster who is waiting and working in our minds as Jesus did?
And then I read that the Solitary Messenger said:
You can consciously augment Adjuster barmony by:
1. Choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty; and goodness, and then co-ordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and love.
2. Loving God and desiring to be like him . . .
3. Loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him . . .
4. Joyful acceptance of cosmic citizenship—honest recognition of your progressive obligations to the Supreme Being . . . [UB 110:3.6 8; emphasis mine]
Can we not understand that our consecration of choice for communion with God, involves seeking his will within our minds as the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness, and loving God and desiring to be like him and loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him, while at the same time joyfully accepting our cosmic citizenship and obligations to the Supreme Being.
This is truly a revelation, but one yet to be consciously tried by many. It seems too easy. And it is.
Will we share our inner life with God? Will we imitate him as we leam to understand his thoughts on the way we should live? Will we say, “I will choose to know your will, my Father”?
Such a creature choice is not a surrender of will. It is a consecration of will, an expansion of will, a glorification of will, a perfecting of will; and such choosing raises the creature will from the level of temporal significance to that bigher estate wherein the personality of the creature son communes with the personality of the spirit Father. [UB 111:5.5]
This is indeed what we all want, is it not? Let us now consecrate our will to your glory, Father!
¶ Turning Point
In 1970, I was 28 years old, a turning point in my life. I thought then, “How long will it take me to achieve that personal communion with our Father as did Jesus?” Jesus spent nearly 24 years of his life perfecting his relationship with his Adjuster. He started when he was 6 with a clean, pure slate. He had no impure thoughts. I was then 28 years old, with a lot of colorful chalk on the board.
I made the supreme choice then to begin my spiritual quest as Jesus did: to have little talks with my Heavenly Father; to be consecrated to him, to speak to him often and seek his will, even if at first I was not sure what it was. I would go with those impulses, feelings and leadings in my mind that I considered to be God-consciousness. I would try to see God’s will as thoughts and picturizations in my mind.
I knew if I were to be spiritually successful in all life’s encounters, situations and circumstances, that I needed to give God just one small moment, one HOLY INSTANT. I needed to first still my mind, then look within it and search among my thoughts for his. Then, if I should find his thoughts, I must choose them as his. Then finally I must have the courage and faith to live them and do them, letting him worry about the consequences. It sounded easy enough, but was it?
I decided I would have faith and trust him that his thoughts in my mind were actually his adjustment of my own familiar thoughts. I would have faith that he had adjusted them, and these would contain my highest concept of his wisdom, his truth, his beauty or his goodness, surrounded by his love.
They should be easy for me to recognize. After all, it is my thoughts he is adjusting. He would never give me more than I could handle or understand, know or do. I am then to only await that hour when I would finally take charge of my mind, seek his will within it, and finding it, have enough faith and courage to actually do it. To do this I must wholeheartedly trust him. Why did I fear this? I will tell you why: it was not yet a part of my conscious personal experience. From that point on I actually and consciously sought his will, found his will or thought adjustments, put aside my fears, trusted him and actually lived my life as he would have lived it.
¶ One Hot Summer’s Morning
In August 1975, after dedicating, consecrating and consciously experiencing the indwelling Adjuster for four years, I was now 33 years old. I was working as a structural design engineer on a 13 -story city housing project in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, when one hot summer’s morning I chanced to visit the construction site.
It was a beautiful day, and I thanked God for it and for my family. God was on my mind the entire moming. For I recall praying earlier: “Father, if I may be of service to you or Michael, I am ready as always to serve.”
It has always been my wish, and I made it plain to my indwelling Adjuster, that I wanted to be able to discem his will anytime of the day or night, as I passed by, when it was noisy or in the midst of a crisis. It was not good enough for me to sit in a quiet place and meditate and commune with God; I wanted to experience the Father as Jesus did, as he passed by, moment by moment, in any and every situation. I wanted him as part of my daily life. Watch out what you pray for my friends: you may get it sooner than you think!
It was nearly 9 AM when I arrived, and the temperature had already hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It was indeed hot. The day’s plan was to place 300 cubic yards of concrete on a steel-reinforced floor deck about the size of a football field. This floor deck was at street level and was the base floor of thirteen floors and the roof.
The concrete contractor decided to place this concrete on this floor deck by getting twenty or more concrete trucks to back up to two big pump trucks. These pump trucks would pump the concrete through aluminum pipes to its destination. Then with hoses on the ends of the pipes, the concrete men would aim it to where it had to go, while concrete laborers smoothed it out. The contractor expected the job to take about five hours straight with no breaks.
It was a great plan, and it flowed smoothly until about 9.30 AM, when the heat made the flowing concrete solidify in the pipes, which stopped the flow and caused both pump trucks to break down.
It was now a disaster. Not only were the pipes stuck with concrete, which needed to be cleaned out, but the floor deck was only 10 percent filled with concrete. Good practice did not allow any cold joints in the concrete floor, which occur when new concrete is placed against old concrete. This would prevent the new concrete from bonding properly with the older concrete. Therefore, there had to be a continuous feed of concrete so that each new placement would mix homogeneously with the last. But now this continuous placement was stopped. If we didn’t get the concrete flowing again soon, we might have to remove the concrete and start all over again.
To add to the problem, the waiting concrete truck drivers began to panic. After all, if the concrete in their trucks got hard, it would ruin their trucks. After 80 minutes of mixing in the hot sunshine, concrete gets hard quickly, even if it’s still on the truck. Some of these trucks had already been waiting that long.
Men argued about what to do. The pump pipes—500 feet of them—were not easy to take apart and clean. Some men argued that by union rules it was not their job to do. Others yelled at the concrete laborers to hurry and clean them. The concrete laborers said it was the pump sub-contractors job, not theirs, to clean the pipes. Arguments were occurring all over the site. It was not only hot in terms of weather, but these very strong, young and tough construction men were getting hot too.
Then the truck drivers, after receiving instructions from their radio dispatcher, began to drive around to all sides of the floor deck. They pulled their concrete trucks up to the formed deck and began to dump all the concrete onto the edges of the floor deck. Panic ensued. There was no way now to move this concrete to its proper place. After all, we are talking about 300 tons of concrete. This was all sitting now in 20 piles, each about 6 feet high. And the trucks drove away.
The foreman of the concrete crew decided to move these piles by placing a concrete vibrator in the middle of the pile. Usually a vibrator is used to consolidate concrete and remove air pockets, if used correctly. But using it this way segregates the ingredients. As you know, concrete is a mixture of water, cement, sand, and small stones called aggregate. When it segregates, the stones—being the heaviest particles—sink to the bottom. The sand flows sideways and the cement rises to the top like cream. Such a mess, when cured or hardened would hardly be called structural concrete with its weak unmixed ingredients. This would be very dangerous for use as a structural floor, especially one that needed to support twelve floors and a roof above it.
The site inspector first saw the foreman moving the concrete improperly, and since I was the design engineer, he said to me, “Hey look, he’s moving the concrete with the vibrator!” I looked at the inspector, and he looked at me as if to say, “Hey, this is your job.”
With that, I turned and walked to this big bearded foreman with the concrete vibrator in his hand and told him, “You have to stop what you are doing with the vibrator; it is the incorrect way to move concrete. You must find a proper method.”
After hearing my instructions, he said some choice words that I’ll not repeat here. He threw the vibrator down and walked away still cursing. As I walked away, I could hear the general contractor’s superintendent, the man responsible for the job, tell the foreman, “You &^%$ get your &^%$ back to work.! Move that concrete now!”
Tempers rose and words were yelled back and forth, bad words! “No way you &^%$ move it yourself!” said the foreman to the superintendent.
The superintendent ran up to the foreman; then fists flew. Before you knew it, all of the general contractor’s men ran on the dangerous deck to support their boss against the big concrete men. Eventually even the electricians and plumbers got into the melee. Everyone who was there was fighting. The deck was dangerous. It was full of sharp reinforcing bars. They had wood boards with them and began hitting the concrete workers. The concrete workers picked up shovels and reinforcing rods to defend themselves and began to beat the general contractor’s crew. All was becoming a bloody mess in a short time. . . . And the concrete was getting harder.
It was now close to 10 A.M. By this time, newspaper reporters, whose offices were across the street, called the mayor, state and federal agents, and the police. But when the police arrived, they did not go on the deck to stop the fighting for fear of their own safety; they only held the perimeter.
Within a short time, federal agents came with the state and city officials, for their offices too were within a couple of blocks of this downtown site. With the shop steward yelling that he was going to pull all his men off this job and also off every other job in the city, they finally all went into the construction trailer with the recently arrived architect, developer, city mayor, and my boss, the chief engineer. You could hear them all screaming and yelling inside the trailer, as the fighting, cursing and wailing continued on the floor deck.
I stood there, with my back to the deck, looking away, up to the sky, thinking out loud, “God, what a mess. All because of me.” The site inspector said to me, “Don’t turn around, Nick! That concrete foreman is looking straight at you, and if looks can kill, you will soon be dead!”
Now at this point, I had many thoughts in my mind, and with the increasing fearful look on that inspector’s face, and after seeing him quickly turn and rapidly leave, I too thought, “Run Nick!” You know, it does not take long to forget God even if you are thinking about him all morning. Now in this moment of crisis, he was nowhere on my mind. I was alone.
But just then, that little still small voice within me, which I’ve come to know so well as the Spirit of God, said, “Seek ye first the Father’s will.” Afraid for my life at this point, I said, “Sure, right, I have no time. I’ve got to go!”
Then it dawned on me that God has the time, even if I don’t. This was his test, crisis time, that I had asked for—and what would I do? All this was happening so fast. But I girded myself mentally, gave him that Holy Instant, stilled my mind, and searched my mind for his thoughts. At first I found these:
“OK, I won’t turn around and look.”
“Walk away, Nick, before you get killed,”
“Who does that foreman think he is anyway? I’ll turn around if I want. He doesn’t scare me.”
“Nobody threatens me. I don’t care how big you are—black mustache or not.”
“What’s around here that I can use as a weapon?”
But then I stilled my mind again and searched therein. In searching my mind I realized that none of these thoughts of fear could possibly be the Father’s, so I prayed, “Father, if you were living my life at this moment, what would you do? For that is what I would do.” And then, this still small voice within me, that I knew so well, said again, “Seek ye first the Father’s will.”
I knew that I needed to curb my fears and still my mind even more, which I really had not done until this point. I recalled how Jesus got control of his mind. Then I searched for God’s will among my thoughts to find his thoughts of truth, beauty or goodness, and * after finding it, then to do it. I knew the qualities of the Father’s thoughts, but I was too fearful to look for them, and still I was afraid and thought, among other things, “Too late, got to go! Get out of here!” These fearful, animalistic thoughts, coming up from the deepest recesses of my mind were hard to lose.
But that voice I knew so well spoke even louder, “Seek ye first the Father’s will.” I stood there, wondering what to do, when I finally yielded and thought, “OK, Father, what would you have me do? It is my will to do your will.”
And with this, a picture as clear as day flashed into my mind, with five small words attached, almost like a live cartoon, and I knew what to do. I judged this thought-picture to be the essence of goodness; it contained truth, it showed friendship and brotherhood—but it scared the daylights out of me! I mean the thought of actually doing it shook me up. Seeking God’s will was exciting even in the midst of this catastrophe, with men beating each other and with me about to get smashed. Finding his will in all this clamoring was exhilarating, but actually doing it was something else.
So I said to him who indwells my soul, “God, if I do that, I surely will get hammered by a shovel.” But then mustering the courage—from where, I do not know—I then said, “OK, I’ll do it.” But I added as I always do: “GOD, I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!”
So I gathered the courage with trust in God that he indeed knew what he was doing. I turned toward this big muscular, 6-foot 6-inch, black-bearded foreman, and with shaking knees and trembling hands, I walked over to him. As I had pictured, I put out my trembling right hand to him. He stood there with his shovel upraised, higher and higher as if to hit me as I got closer and as I reached out for his hand. Then with my hand out, I said those five words as directed: “Hi, my name is Nick.”
That was it. That’s all I had to do and say. Not much, was it? As I did this, that shovel in this big man’s hands got higher and higher. As I approached, I remember saying over and over again in my mind: “I trust you, God. But, GOD, I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! My life is at stake here.”
To my shock, as I reached with my right hand, and after I said my name, and as that shovel reached so high it seemed to touch the sun and shade it from my eyes, he dropped it behind him. He then reached his hand to mine, and shaking it with a firm grip of his right hand, he stammered, “Hi! My name is Brutus.”
My knees nearly buckled, when he then continued: “I know you are right. I should never have tried to move the concrete with the vibrator. It just segregates it, and we would have to remove the bad concrete anyway, and do the concrete work all over again. It’s just too damn hot, you know. The pumps broken down and all, and I should know better. Sorry, Nick!”
And with that, he rolled a wheelbarrow close to the pile, picked up his shovel and began to shovel the concrete into it. He then rolled the concrete over to its final location and placed it properly.
Meanwhile everyone else was still fighting as he shoveled alone. It seemed there was more blood than concrete on the deck-a literal war zone. But as these fighting men saw him shoveling, they all, one by one, stopped their combat, picked up their shovels and began moving the concrete. Even the carpenters, ironworkers, plumbers and electricians pitched in as well—against all the union rules. Even I helped. Less than three minutes had transpired since I had said OK to my Father’s will-and the war was over.
Before we knew it, all the concrete was being placed on the deck, the police left since the fighting was now over, and the concrete finishers came on the concrete deck to smooth it out. It took less than an hour to move the 300 tons of concrete. Of course there were about fifty men working, not just the original ten or so concrete laborers. They even cleaned the pipes with the concrete stuck in them.
The work was done. It was only 10.45 AM! They all looked at one another in amazement. Never was so much concrete moved by hand so quickly. They were like an ant farm.
These guys had nothing to do now. They were finished more than two hours ahead of schedule. The foremen of all the crews, seeing them all finished, yelled, “OK guys, take a break,” then added, “until after lunch!”
And then to God’s glory, I saw each man go to another, even to one whom he had just been beating, and say things like, “You OK? Hey come with me, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee or even breakfast.” Another could be heard saying, “Hey fellows, want some lunch? Come with me, I’m buying.”
And one said, as he put his arm over the shoulder of a man he had just been fighting with, “I see you sometimes as you’re driving home each night. You must live in Branford too. Why don’t you bring your family over to my house tonight? We are having a barbecue, and you’re invited.”
More things were said in this friendly way. Big tough guys, with bruises and cuts they had already forgotten, were shaking hands and walking ơff together-totally awed by what had happened; knowing something special had just transpired, but they did not know exactly what. They all did that which was God’s will and good in their heart to do, and it was really good, really, really good, and they knew it.
Meanwhile, back in the trailer, one could still hear the tempers rise and the angry voices blast through the open trailer windows. And then they reached an apex, and after a very brief silence, one could here the union shop steward yell: “Well then. We quit! We are getting off the job and out of this city! No more concrete for youl”
With that announcement, the trailer door flew open. The officials all poured out of the trailer, only to see the job finished and the men already gone. They had no idea what had happened and where everyone was. Bewildered, they all quietly left and went to their place. Not another word was ever mentioned of this incident. Even the newspaper reporters were baffled and had no idea of how this was resolved. Nothing of this massive fight with fifty men was ever reported. But I knew the truth. And I had no one to share it with, until I was able to share it with my spiritual brothers and sisters like you today.
Now after that experience, I was on a high that I can’t put into words, a feeling like I was back with God on Paradise. But WOW! I thought. “What an experience. Amazing!” I went back to my truck, shut the doors and screamed so loud I thought I could be heard through the closed glass windows all over the city. “God,” I cried, “you’re the greatest. You knew exactly what should be done. You knew perfectly what was in the mind of each man, and what was best for them. You adjusted their thoughts, and knew what it would take to motivate each of them to be in peace and to be good to and actually love one another. You knew exactly the perfect thing to do. And you allowed me to share this with you and do it. God, you’re great! I love you, God!” And more did I say in my heart, praising God and this moment of perfection that I had encountered with him. For I had experienced PERFECTION IN ACTION, and it spurred me on to greater experiences with him in the coming years.