© 2009 Samuel Heine
© 2009 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Hello everyone, friends, readers, students of the Urantia Book and all those living in a living way dedicated to God. I wanted to make this little sharing to express to what extent the nature of the surrounding environment which includes the mineral, the vegetable and the animal is of capital importance for the survival of humans.
“Nature does not confer any rights on man. It only gives him life and a world in which to live it. Nature does not even guarantee him the right to remain alive, as one can realize by imagining what would probably happen if an unarmed man met face to face a hungry tiger in a virgin forest. The primary gift that society gives to men is security.” (UB 70:9.1) I will add to this passage that it is true that the primary gift that society gives to men is security but that nevertheless this cannot be done without respect for nature and its laws. Let us not forget that we are totally dependent on it. Hence this quote from J.M. Frères: “Yesterday, we did not want to share the riches of this earth, tomorrow, we risk having to share the misery of the world that man has engendered by his greed and his selfishness.”
I think that the organization of the “hundred” followed by the arrival of the planetary “Adam and Eve” should allow us to more easily achieve the balance of social evolution while respecting nature and its laws. Ecology is for me the proof that we are moving in this direction. Of course, there are many other battles to be fought so that Love, Joy and Peace reign on earth. It is therefore up to each of us to invest in our preferred field. And God knows there are many where opposites must be harmonized. May we therefore keep in mind that this challenge is part of our consecration to God.
“The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. Men use them—advance in spirit status—by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions. The highest moral choice is the choice of the highest possible value, and always—in any sphere, in all of them—this is to choose to do the will of God. If man thus chooses, he is great, though he be the humblest citizen of Jerusem or even the least of mortals on Urantia.” (UB 39:4.14)
Then, I also wanted to share this other subject that fascinates me: beekeeping, of which here is an extract from the book “Beekeeping for All” by Abbé Warre:
Beekeeping is a good school! Happiness is to give it according to Cappée. Happiness acquired for elite souls. However, this happiness is not always possible, but one can find considerable happiness in nature. The flower is beauty that constantly rejuvenates itself. The dog is boundless loyalty, even in misfortune, gratitude without forgetting. The bee is a mistress and charming educator. She gives the example of a wise and reasoned life that consoles the annoyances of life.
The bee is content with the food that nature provides around its hive, without adding anything, without taking anything away. No ready meals, no overseas produce. However rich it may be in provisions, it only consumes what is strictly necessary. No excess at the table. It uses its terrible sting, even to the death, to defend its family and its provisions. Elsewhere, even when it is foraging, it gives up to men and animals the space they need, peacefully, without recrimination, without struggle.
She is a pacifist without weakness. Each bee has her job, according to her age and her abilities. She fulfills it without envy, without harvest and without anger. For the bee, there is no humiliating work.
The queen tirelessly lays eggs, thus ensuring the perpetuity of the race. The workers, with love, share their activity between the tender larvae, hopes of future swarms and the fragrant fields where, from dawn to dusk, the honey harvest takes place. No room, in the buzzing swarm, for the useless. No parliamentarians, because this discreet people has no taste for new laws nor the leisure for vain speeches.
We call the laying bee queen. This is unfair. There is no king, no queen, no dictator in the hive. No one commands, but all work in the common interest. No selfishness.
The bee observes the law that is as hygienic as it is imperative, a law often forgotten by men: “it is by the sweat of your brow that you will earn your bread”. And I note that the sweat of the bee, while cleansing its body, is of yet another use to it. Its sweat, by changing into flakes of wax, provides the bee with the materials that will serve it to build its admirable cells: a healthy granary for its provisions, a soft cradle for its offspring. So true is it that observing natural laws is always rewarded. And the bee works without respite, day and night. It only takes a rest when work is lacking. Not even a weekly rest. Among bees there are neither rentiers nor retirees… Work and more work! What I admire most about the bee, said Henry Bordeaux, is its forgetfulness of itself: it gives itself entirely to a cause that it will not enjoy: joy in the effort and the gift of the evening.
And for me, bees are what birds were for André Theuriet. When I hear the bees buzzing in the foliage, I think, with a sweet emotion, that they sing in the same way as those I listened to in my childhood, in my father’s garden.
Bees have this good thing that they always seem to be the same. Years pass, we become old, we see our friends disappear, revolutions change, the face of things, illusions, fall one after the other and yet, among the flowers, the bees that we have known since childhood modulate the same musical phrases, with the same fresh voice. Time does not seem to bite on them, and as they hide to die as we never witness their agony, we can almost imagine that we always have before our eyes those who enchanted our early youth, those also, who, during our long existence, have provided us with the most pleasant hours and the rarest friendships.
As a nature lover said: Happy is he who, in the evening, lying on the grass near the apiary, in the company of his dog, has heard the song of the bees blending with the chirping of the crickets, the sound of the wind in the trees, the twinkling of the stars, the slow march of the clouds.
« L’Esprit de Vérité est une influence mondiale universelle. Quand la joie de cet esprit répandu est éprouvée consciemment dans la vie humaine, elle est un tonique pour la santé, un stimulant pour le mental et une énergie inépuisable pour l’âme ». (LU 194:3.18-19)
Samuel Heine