© 2013 Gaétan G. Charland, Louise Charbonneau, Marc Belleau, Sylvère Marcoux
© 2013 Urantia Association of Quebec
¶ Word from the President
HELLO FRIENDS AND MEMBERS of the AUQ.
I hope that the summer season has allowed you to renew your strength and to begin with enthusiasm the new season that is beginning and with it the resumption of several study groups. Know that study groups are one of the means strongly recommended by the Revelators to carry out the mission of The Urantia Book. I invite you therefore to participate in one of them or if the desire takes you, to start one in your locality. You can contact us if necessary either to participate or to start one.
In June of next year, Urantia Association International will host a symposium on study groups at Edgewood College in Wisconsin, USA. For financial and logistical reasons, this event will be held in English only. During this symposium, several aspects of study groups will be highlighted. The first day will be an exploration of their important intellectual and spiritual mission. The second day will focus on exploring the various ways in which groups can operate to foster the growth of participants and to enhance the empowerment of leaders and teachers. The third day will focus on the internal logistics of groups and how to deal with the many unforeseen challenges of maintaining, supporting, and promoting them.
This is a good way to serve the Revelation and on the other hand let us remember this important passage from the UB, where in our modern life today it is easy to forget the importance of spiritual realities, often being too busy or preoccupied by the needs of our material life.
Some persons are too busy to grow and are therefore in grave danger of spiritual fixation. Provision must be made for growth of meanings at differing ages, in successive cultures, and in the passing stages of advancing civilization. The chief inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance. (UB 100:1.2)
I would also like to respond to Pierre Sauvageau who, in an article published in the October edition of Réflectivité entitled Paradox of faith, works and service, leads us to reflect on the motto of the association which is, “To love is to serve.” Mr. Sauvageau is right to ask these questions, to serve what? The organization? To serve whom? Here are a few lines to shed light on our motto. As The Urantia Book says so well and Mr. Sauvageau reminds us, “To love is the desire to do good to others.” (UB 56:10.21)
But in what ways can we do good to others? In The Urantia Book the words serve, service, and services appear 198, 677, and 147 times, and the words love and love 85 and 186 times respectively. I would compare love to the bed of a river and service to the water of the river. Love when it becomes alive manifests itself in kindness and thus becomes service to someone, an act of mercy, a testimony of brotherhood, etc. We should always serve another person, even if sometimes we do it through a cause, a mission, a revelation, or an organization. Love is inseparable from service, for to manifest itself it must come to life, and as a good friend of mine was fond of saying, “The only thing we can do with love is give it.”
In its motto “To love is to serve”, the association wants to emphasize the life-giving and transforming action of love through service, without action nothing happens, there is no real progress. The Association, through its mission (http://www.urantia-quebec.ca/index.php?mod=&id=28&pId=18) encourages readers to transform themselves and thus better serve the community of individuals around them. Of course, the association needs committed readers to serve a growing number of Quebec readers, to help form study groups, organize meetings, send Urantia books to groups of underprivileged readers in Haiti and Africa and many other service activities that aim to promote the spiritual mission of The Urantia Book. The association is not self-centered, you only have to attend our counseling meetings to see to what extent the service of love is our primary motivation.
In winning souls for the Master, it is not the first mile of compulsion, duty, or convention that will transform man and his world, but rather the second mile of free service and liberty-loving devotion that betokens the Jesusonian reaching forth to grasp his brother in love and sweep him on under spiritual guidance toward the higher and divine goal of mortal existence. Christianity even now willingly goes the first mile, but mankind languishes and stumbles along in moral darkness because there are so few genuine second-milers—so few professed followers of Jesus who really live and love as he taught his disciples to live and love and serve. (UB 195:10.5)
So I hope that service becomes an integral part of your life if it isn’t already.
To love is to serve.
Gaetan G. Charland
¶ A woman is to Have and to Be
AS PART OF THE WOMEN’S COMMITTEE, nine readers gathered to hear Murielle Guerrero and Isabelle Marchessault share the fruits of their reflection on self-awareness through a brief presentation entitled ‘A Woman is Having and Being’ on Sunday, October 20 at Line St-Pierre’s residence.
What about the role of women in society? What are the attributes that they possess in order to fully realize their potential as God intended in his plan? What about spirituality in their lives? What influence does they have on those around them?
By her generous, compassionate and loving nature, women often occupy a profession in service. They are the ones who teach, educate, care for, gather, console, support, the child as well as the old, the adolescent as well as the adult, girls and boys. Women are the torchbearers of morality and spirituality; they accompany and guide today the generation that will make up tomorrow’s society. A Russian poetess said: “Give us good mothers and we will make you better children.” Good mothers who know God to make children of God.
Although we are talking about mothers since they are the ones who carry children, make them grow in their womb and bring them to life after nine months of pregnancy, there are also those who do not have any and who are just as concerned with the well-being of humanity.
What an enormous responsibility he has and yet it is his daily life. What are the faculties that make up such a human being as God intended him to be? We questioned ourselves a lot during the meeting and in small groups we found answers that were developed by Murielle and Isabelle during the presentation.
This first group experience will lead in the future to other meetings and workshops on self-awareness and will approach women of all ages. The goal is to raise the status of women, to accompany them in their inner search so that they produce the fruits of the Spirit.
Well done to Murielle and Isabelle who took up the challenge with courage and confidence.
To be continued…
Louise Charbonneau
P.S. The formation of this committee in January 2011 by Line St-Pierre was to promote the participation of women within the AUQ and to make known the value they have as educators in the service of human fraternity.
¶ The gender of God
RECENTLY, ONE OF MY FRIENDS asked me, during one of our exciting discussions, why God is called Heavenly Father in The Urantia Book.
She argued, very rightly, that God has no gender; being neither masculine nor feminine, he cannot be named in this way; God is God, she told me. I completely agreed with her argument and I understood her questioning very well. I then continued my reflection by asking myself why the Spirit is presented as a mother. Why does the 5th revelation present God to us from the angle of sexuality? I believe that it is important to reflect on this subject, because more and more people in our time will have difficulty with this question of the masculinity or femininity of God. We must be able to provide a logical and coherent answer.
A good teacher uses examples that speak to the student, images taken from his reality; this, I believe, is the best way to teach. Jesus used images a lot in his teaching; he taught using parables—those little stories taken from the daily lives of the people to whom he was speaking—to show them spiritual realities invisible to the human mind. For example, he uses the image of the good shepherd to illustrate his own role as the Creator Son. He is the good shepherd leading the creatures of an entire universe to the Father in heaven; he is the door through which we must pass to reach the source of creation. He uses this comparison because shepherding is part of the daily life of the people of his day; it is an image that they can understand. He makes powerful gestures as at the last supper when he, the master, knelt down to wash the feet of his disciples in order to impress upon them the importance of service. The images he uses, the gestures he makes are striking and clearly demonstrate to us the invisible things of the spirit that he seeks to teach us. By choosing the parent-child relationship - we have all experienced this relationship with our earthly parents - the revelators seek to image our relationship with our creator and thus give us a very precise idea of the love that God has for us.
But then why not just give God the title of divine parent? The gender issue would be settled! In reality, the image of the father gives us additional information about God’s function in the universe. Indeed, the role of the adjuster is to fertilize our human thought in order to give birth to our soul. Just as human fathers are the co-creators of our physical bodies, the adjuster is the co-creator of our spiritual self that will survive earthly death. Another reason could explain the use of this image. Throughout the history of our planet, fathers have been the financial support of the family. In prehistoric times, they were the ones who went hunting to bring food to the clan and in modern times, it is generally men who bring home the salary (since the middle of the 20th century, this state of affairs has changed as more and more women enter the workforce). Just as men have been and still are largely the breadwinners of the family, God has been, is, and always will be the breadwinner of the universes; he is the one who gives us the energy we need to grow. By using the image of the father, revelators seek to depict certain aspects of our relationship with God, including his role as co-creator and sustainer of creation.
And what of the mother image? Why is this comparison used to describe the functions of the universe Creative Spirit? It is the work of the Mother Spirit to prepare us to receive the spiritual influences which work in and upon us, especially that of the thought adjuster and the spirit of truth. She does this by endowment of mind through the circuit of the seven adjutant mind-spirits. Before the adjuster can indwell a human being, he must be endowed with the faculty of perception, feeling, and reflection; then this mind must be circuited in the Holy Spirit, the spiritual circuit of the Mother Spirit. Only then can we be indwelt by the divine presence and be able to receive all the other spiritual influences which the Father has made available for our growth. Thus does the universe Mother Spirit prepare us for the great adventure of God.
When mind is thus endowed with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it possesses the capacity for (consciously or unconsciously) choosing the spiritual presence of the Universal Father—the Thought Adjuster. (UB 34:5.4)
It is also our human mother who prepares us for the adventure of our incarnation by equipping us with a functioning physical body; in so doing, she gives us the tools necessary to receive the influences of our earthly father, our immediate family, and the culture into which we are born. Without our physical form, we can accomplish nothing. By using the image of the mother, the revelators are able to give us insight into the functions of the Spirit of the local universe of Nebadon. Just as human mothers enable the development of our physical bodies during the intrauterine life and prepare us to face the outer world, so the universe spirit bestows minds upon creatures so that they may be indwelt by the divine adjuster, so that they may receive all the beneficial influences of the universe that God places at their disposal, and so meet the challenge of the heavenly Father: Be ye perfect, even as I am perfect.
We are sexual creatures and we view things in terms of sexuality. It is natural that the revelators have used this characteristic to help us understand certain aspects of God. We may call him father or mother, but in reality it is of little importance what name we give God. The various appellations given to him simply reflect the function that creatures attribute to him, the relationship they have with him. The Urantia Book provides us with a more than exhaustive list of the various names given to God: the universal Father, the universal center, the first creative source, the Divine Center, the Father of Universes, the Infinite Sustainer, the Divine Controller. He has also been called the Father of Lights, the Gift of Life, and the One Almighty. But throughout the universe he is more generally known as the First Source Center.
The First Source and Universe Center has never revealed himself by name, only by nature. If we believe that we are the children of this Creator, it is only natural that we should eventually call him Father. But this is the name of our own choosing, and it grows out of the recognition of our personal relationship with the First Source and Center. (UB 1:1.1)
It is natural to call God our father or to compare God the Spirit to our mother. The love of our human parents is one of the most beautiful images that can exist to depict our relationship with our Creator. However, when we awaken on the first mansion world, we will be devoid of some of the characteristics that belong to our sex. While the names father and mother are useful here, they are only temporary scaffoldings. As we ascend in the universe, the changes of status and condition, the successive metamorphoses we undergo, and the expansion of our consciousness will require images that are increasingly eloquent and better adapted to express our ever-expanding conceptions of the nature of our relationship with the eternal God.
On a planet of sex creatures, in a world where the impulses of parental emotion are inherent in the hearts of its intelligent beings, the term Father becomes a very expressive and appropriate name for the eternal God. He is best known, most universally acknowledged, on your planet, Urantia, by the name God. The name he is given is of little importance; the significant thing is that you should know him and aspire to be like him. Your prophets of old truly called him “the everlasting God” and referred to him as the one who “inhabits eternity.” (UB 1:1.6)
Marc Belleau
Marc.belleau@videotron.ca
Precision
In the October Réflectivité the author of the article Paradox of faith, works and service is Mr. Pierre Sauvageau. His name had been omitted at the end of the text.
¶ You have read The Urantia Book, so you are a graduate
IT IS NOT A DIPLOMA that you hang on the wall, it is a diploma that you hang on yourself, on your personality. It reflects the knowledge acquired. You have received lessons on the past, the present and even the future.
You know the wonderful first source of all things. You now know that you are surrounded by resources and resourceful people. You know that you are helped and guided.
Now is the time for you to start or continue a career, a job for which you have all the tools and knowledge necessary. Your resume is well-stocked. It is far superior to that of your contemporaries.
You have to work to earn your living here, you also have to work to earn your “eternal” life.
Your job is to love, love and love again. When you love someone, you know how to give them joy and pleasure. You know how to forgive them, you know how to help them. You will start to love all the strangers you will meet. They are your friends, your brothers. They are truly thirsty for love, they are just waiting for you.
If you no longer have the fear of the unknown, you are on the right path. If not, you will have to want to love. You need the will and the courage to love the person for whom today you feel indifference and even aversion. Loving becomes easier and easier to practice.
You’ll see that loving is easy. You start with a smile. You tell me, I’m too shy to smile at a stranger, it’s perfect!
Give him a shy smile and you will soon see your smile blossom and delight the person who receives it and returns it to you.
I know a technique to make people feel loved. You simply need to visualize a ray of light charged with love and sympathy emanating from your heart and surrounding the other person. This ray of love accompanied by a smile is very effective.
Reciprocity is important too. The recipient needs to know that you feel loved too. A little phrase like, “It’s nice to be with you,” or something like that will make the other person realize that they are a loving person too.
Be generous with compliments that are deserved. If someone opens a door for you, you say thank you, that’s polite. If you say, “That’s nice, thank you,” it becomes a little friendlier, but still impersonal. Whereas if you say, “You’re really nice to hold the door for me,” you’re addressing the person and emphasizing their kindness. That person will be flattered to be recognized as kind and they’re likely to develop that side of their personality because they feel encouraged.
We are all like little children when we receive a compliment. We strive to attract others. The result is that the living environment becomes more and more pleasant, more fraternal. Strive to put a ray of sunshine in someone’s life today and every day.
A smile, a kind word, a small favor rendered will make you a pleasant person to be around. It will make you a happier and more joyful person. People will not approach you because of your erudition, but because they will feel good in your company and you will be able to better teach the truths that you have understood.
Yes, study groups are important, but the most important thing I found was love, the religion of Jesus.
May joy be with you.
Sylvère Marcoux
Thetford Mines
¶ ACTIVITY OF THE URANTIA ASSOCIATION OF QUEBEC
You are expected at the Best Western Hotel in St-Jérôme. Let us know your intention to join us before December 1st at
Association.urantia.quebec@gmail.com
¶ STUDY GROUPS
THIS ACTIVITY ALLOWS MULTIPLE READERS OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF UNDERSTANDING TO SHARE AND STUDY THE TEACHINGS OF The Urantia Book TOGETHER. It promotes spiritual progress by enabling its participants to find practical applications of the teachings of The Urantia Book in their daily lives. This important practice helps to maintain a broad perspective on concepts of truth.
You wish to participate or form a study group; we will be happy to assist you. If you wish to have your study group appear in this list, contact the person in charge, via email association.urantia.quebec@gmail.com or at 450-565-3323.
Group: Découverte
Every Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Laurentians Region Gaétan Charland and Line St-Pierre
Tel.: 450-565-3323
Group: Étoile du Soir
Every Wednesday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Laurentides region
Carmen Charland
Tel.: 450-553-3601
Group: Le Pont
Every Thursday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
South Shore of Montreal
Guy Vachon
Tel.: 450-465-7049
Group: Mauricie Readers
Every Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Three Rivers Region
Madeleine Boisvert and
Tel: 819-376-8850
Roger Perigny
819-379-5768
Group: Veritas
Every Tuesday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Montreal area, near the Church metro station
Lise and Pierre Routhier
Tel.: 514-761-2378
Sherbrooke Group
Every two weeks, Tuesday or Wednesday (to be confirmed)
From 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Helene Boisvenue or Denis Gravelle
Tel.: 819 569-6416
Group: The Ascendants
Every two weeks on Sunday from 13 h 00 to 3:30 p.m.
South Shore of Quebec
Guy LeBlanc
Tel: 418-835-1809
Group: The Agondontarians
Every two weeks on Sunday from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. North Shore of Quebec
Guy & Rolande L. Martin
Tel: 418-651-3851
Group: Les Débonnaires
Wednesdays from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Montreal region
Julien Audet
Tel: 514-315-9871
Group: Urantia Fraternity
Wednesdays from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Lanaudière region
Richard Landry & Gisèle Boisjoly
Tel: 450-589-6922
Group: Vers les Sommets
Friday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Regions Ormstown & Valleyfield
Louise Sauve
Tel: 450-829-3631
Group: The United Urantia Family
Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Montreal region
Mrs. Diane Labrecque
Tel: 514-277-2308
The Partners of the Supreme
Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Quebec region
Richard Lachance
Tel: (418) 614-2520 or (418) 933-0244 (cell)
At Maisonia
Every two weeks on Monday from 7:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Quebec region
Gilles Bertrand & Louise Renaud
Tel: 418-871-4564
Group: Uni-Terre
Every Sunday from 9:00 a.m.
Lanaudière region
Eric Martel
Tel: 450-756-9387
Group: Laurantia
Every Sunday from 9:00 a.m.
Petite Nation region in Outaouais
Denise Charron & Jean-Claude Lafreniere
Tel: 819-983-2113
Group: The Precursors of Divine Reality
Every two weeks on Tuesday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Laurentides region
Mrs. Johanne Séguin
Tel: 819-327-3237
Group: Sans Frontiére
Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Hawkesbury region
Yvon and Irene Belle-Isle
Tel: 613-632-5706
Group: from Outaouais
Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Ottawa Region
Maurice Migneault
Tel: 613-789-6833
Group: The Alphée Brothers
Sunday
Thetford Mines region
Sylvère Marcoux
Tel: 418-332-3560
Group: The South Shore Lighthouse
Every Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
South Shore region of Montreal
Luciano Camellini and Dominique Marchessault
Disclaimer: Any interpretations, opinions, conclusions or artistic representations, stated or implied, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of Urantia Association International or local and national level associations.