© 2016 Suzanne Kelly
© 2016 International Urantia Association (IUA)
| Journal — November 2016 — Content | Journal — November 2016 — Index | How to Participate in Jesus’ Gospel Movement |
Greetings fellow Journal readers,
This issue of the Journal is only the second one for 2016. Beginning in 2017 we will be doing only two issues per year with perhaps an additional “Special Edition Issue” like this one with Urantia Association Conference presentations from around the globe. In this issue our presenters will be coming to you from Texas and Alabama USA, from Sydney Australia, and from Cologne Germany.
Our first up is Jeff Wattles, USA with his presentation from the Conference in San Antonio Texas June 2016; How to Participate in Jesus’ Gospel Movement. Jeff as a consummate professor is able to teach us how to assist Jesus in his movement by realizing Truth is a gift; our intuition is a gift. And faith is a gift. It is living, and it grows. What we receive as a gift, we exercise in action. Later we find our own way to give voice to truth. With practice we become comfortable and skilled. How shall we do this work? I’m going to give you two methods. They both involve study and experience. By the end of his thought provoking presentation you too will be participating in this magnificent movement.
Our second presentation Consideration for Study of the Human Jesus, by Mark Kurtz, was delivered to the Alabama online Study Group January 2016. Mark asks us to listen to the Midwayers in Paper 196 to recover the human Jesus from nineteen centuries of dogma. They want to present him to all Urantians! Mark provides us with a thorough glimpse of the Master Teacher and his teaching qualities, ultimately recognizing Living as though we want to follow him may not be easy, but knowing he lived a model human life showing we can endure is a charm of encouragement for each of us. Let us try our best to attract people to his ways.
Our third contributor Alexander H. from Cologne, Germany was a participant, not a presenter at the Urantia Association/Fellowship Conference in San Antonio, TX in June 2016. His experience is a delightful account of the comradery and brotherhood found at all conferences across the globe. Thank you Alexander for sharing this with everyone! This excerpt in particular warmed my heart I loved all those beautiful people and it seemed as if many of them had a special interest in my person, because I was the only guy from Germany there. I did not know that the Americans have so much love for us Germans. That was a precious experience for me. I learned that I really love the Americans too. I like the natural spirituality that connects everyone with another. And the most special thing I noticed on you is what I would call the ability to be so unconditionally enthusiastic and open-hearted. I often thought to keep that in mind and bring a bit of this mentality back to my hometown. Proving if you really get to know someone you will truly love them!
From Germany to Sydney Australia we meet up with Kathleen Swadling from the ANZURA 2015 Conference and take a spiritual stroll as we Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Using the analogy of from the Wizard of Oz Kathleen compares her journey of finding her faith with the golden pathway to doing the will of God; I’ve always thought of those special moments that occurred in my inner life that helped to bring me closer to having a faith in God, were like fine golden threads connecting my inner most core with the source of truth. As more and more fine golden threads emerged they started to wind themselves into a thick golden rope. I started to feel like I had found a golden freeway. Everything that came before was like looking for the on ramp to the freeway; once I found that on ramp and entered the freeway I was on my way!
Believing the gospel will not prevent getting into trouble, but it will insure that you shall be unafraid when trouble does overtake you. If you dare to believe in me and wholeheartedly proceed to follow after me, you shall most certainly by so doing enter upon the sure pathway to trouble. I do not promise to deliver you from the waters of adversity, but I do promise to go with you through all of them. [UB 159:3.13, emphasis added]
Our final contributor Daniel Swadling, is also from Australia and presented To Catch a Fraud at the ANZURA conference in October 2015. In this surprising account of a unifying experiment Daniel found a way to harmonize a group of people by using feelings of fear, shock and then awe. By turning fear inside out he offers us a new way of catching it before it runs away with us. We all know fear, we let ourselves be victims of fear, and we know how it operates. And since you know fear, this puts you in the best position to catch the fear, arrest it, and overcome it before it destroys you. By slowing down your responses to fear you give your higher mind a chance to properly process it, releasing you from its slave-bondage grip, and allows your indwelling spirit to connect with your mind in that moment and further grow your soul.
To view the complete version of the Journal in this online format, click on the “Print Version” button at the top of the newsletter (under the header.) To view the PDF version go to the archives on the website at http://urantia-association.org/publications/uai-journal/journal-archives and find Vol 23. No 2.
Happy and enlightened reading!!
Suzanne Kelly skelly@wtmi.netJournal Editor
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| Journal — November 2016 — Content | Journal — November 2016 — Index | How to Participate in Jesus’ Gospel Movement |