© 2008 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| You Be The Book | Volume 9, Number 1, 2008 (Summer) — Index | The Significance of the Sevenfold Bestowal Career |
The Urantia Society of North Texas Reports on the First Bestowals Celebration
About the time of the Christmas celebration in 2006, the increasing regrets about the way we celebrate Christmas surfaced again. Every year, there seems to be more complaining about how commercial it’s become. After Christmas 2006, there was a decided push to search for a way to elevate it to something consciously more meaningful. The birth of the Christ child marks the beginning of Michael’s seventh and final bestowal. It took place on our world, and we now understand what a privilege it was. We came to the solemn recognition that we owe it to the universe to devise a fitting celebration that they could enjoy with us.
First, the idea was discussed, then came the recognition that we were in agreement about the desire for this celebration, and finally the many meetings where the idea blossomed into dedicated planning. We couldn’t talk people out of our Christmas giving tradition, because it has many spiritual benefits. And what might the whole world, people of all faiths, some day find it in their hearts to celebrate together?
We decided to celebrate all seven of Michael’s bestowals and encouraged everyone to take a serious look at each bestowal to get a deeper understanding of what it meant to the universe. We figured that meaningful symbolism would be important and beneficial. The rainbow would be a good symbol—a natural wonder, already incorporated into spiritual belief. It stretches across the sky and has seven colors. From the beginning, we were attached to the rainbow idea and soon recognized the beneficial association of each color with each of the bestowals. And we kept our eyes open for other “sevens” woven into our culture and discussed them as they came up.
We also discussed appropriate songs, poetry, art projects (especially ones that might work for families with children), and ways to develop a site on the internet so people around the world could take notice. Such a site will certainly be on our agenda for this year’s planning.
We soon discovered that one get-together wouldn’t provide time for proper recognition of all seven bestowals, and it was unlikely that we could gather together every day for seven days. Someone suggested that we all celebrate individually from our homes—one bestowal per day for seven days—spending as little or as much time as we felt called to, and we were hopeful that experience would be unique and soul-satisfying. We could encourage everyone to embellish their private celebrations in ways that they might feel drawn toward. When the seven-day celebration was finished, we could all gather together and we could each bring to the table something to share with the group, something we did on our own. It seemed a rather good way to share, and next year we would have more ideas to choose from.
So that’s what we did! Not only did we get to enjoy a great remembrance supper, but we got to enjoy all the creative ideas the celebrants brought to the table.
Rod Holland, society president, hosted the celebration. The rooms of his home were modestly decorated in the colors of the rainbow. He found a mail-order source for wrought iron, votive candle holders in the shape of a rainbow and provided a small number of these. They were real keepers, and we’ll be using them for many years to come. As an experimental art project, he filled a tall goblet with seven layers of sand in rainbow colors, which he said turned out to be no small feat: “A flat surface might easily and naturally occur on a sand dune, but not in a goblet.” During the celebration and on into Christmas week, he experienced an unexpected, profound sense of peace “that surpasses understanding.” He added, “I will now look forward to the Bestowals celebration every year. That peace alone will be one of our most valuable gifts for the season.”
David Glass brought a poem from his dear friend, K. Brendi Poppel, written especially for the Bestowals celebration, and a Christmas poem offered by Vern Grimsley. He also wrote an account of his experiences during the days of reflection on the seven bestowals, taking us from here to infinity and back. It focused on the far-reaching effects of Michael’s selfless bestowal of himself in the likeness of the creatures he created in order to gain full appreciation of their viewpoint. (See David’s article in this issue.)
Debra Guevara wrote and read a touching poem highlighting the remarkable events of Michael’s final bestowal.
During the planning stage for this celebration, it was noted that Paper 119 doesn’t provide much detail about what Michael actually did during any of his previous bestowals. The revelators weren’t authorized to reveal that information, but they told us much about the creatures of Michael’s bestowals. They know we have active imaginations, and they themselves engage in much speculation, so maybe that’s what they expected us to do.
Hunter and Jarek Guevara, young sons of Debra and Rick Guevara, pleased everyone by demonstrating their animated computer production of Michael morphing through the seven bestowals. The animation was especially effective in giving us more insight into the mystery. We wish all of you could have been here to enjoy it with us.
Ann Garner, who has for many years been active in the interfaith community, attended a different faith service each day of the Bestowals celebration, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jewish, Christian, Islam, Sikhism, and Zoroastrian. She brought gifts of special prayers and blessings for our new celebration from each faith. There was even a gift of highly nutritious food from the Sikhs, a gold nugget from the Hindus, and frankincense from the Zoroastrians.
Ann had asked each of us in advance to pour a small amount of water from our homes into a little container each day that we celebrated one of the bestowals and bring it to the gathering. At the gathering, she produced water collected from around the United States and poured all of these together into a decorated bowl. To this, she added a few drops of Egyptian oil and a vial of rare water sent to her by Don Estes, of Santa Monica, California.
Ann talked about religious traditions regarding the healing and purification powers of water as well as the fact that water has significance in all world religions. We were then given back a small container of the mixed waters to take home as a reminder of Jesus’ life and his reference to himself as the “living water” and also to the Spirit of Truth which he poured out upon all flesh.
While we’re still wandering the universe in these descriptions of our celebration, we’d like to thank Gary Tonge for providing us with his artwork of “The Grand Universe,” without which we may never have found our way back to the celebration at Rod’s house.
After our return trip to planet Urantia, Kaye Cooper shared a variety of ideas she and Bill came up with and used during their personal celebration. She and her husband Bill tried to focalize each one of the bestowals into two qualities they could hold in mind for each day, and created this chart. (See below.) They associated each bestowal with a color of the rainbow, and suggested that children could participate by drawing with color markers, or shopping for votive candles in various colors to construct their own focal point for meditation.
Overall, we were very pleased with the soul-satisfying pleasure of this new adventure in spiritual celebration. All who knew about it gave their nodding consent to the appropriateness of this new opportunity to reflect on Michael’s bestowals perfection. As the word quickly spread, we enjoyed increasing participation from coast to coast … and received mild disappointment from several others that they had not been given sufficient notice of this inaugural celebration.
With this meaningful Bestowals celebration experience now registered in the universe records, we are confident that increasing numbers of participants will join with us in this uplifting planetary consciousness: the annual celebration of the seven bestowals of Christ Michael.
| Bestowal | Qualities Portrayed | Being |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matchless wisdom Supreme love Superb devotion to duty |
Loving and wise |
| 2 | Just and merciful administrator | Just and merciful |
| 3 | Patience, fortitude and skill in trying situations | Patient and brave |
| 4 | Humility and service | Humble and helping |
| 5 | Worthy of trust by superiors and respect by peers | Reliable and dependable |
| 6 | A friendly and sympathetic helper | Friendly and sympathetic |
| 7 | Risking all he is and has | Giving and wholehearted |
| All | Our relation to the Supreme | Like God |
| You Be The Book | Volume 9, Number 1, 2008 (Summer) — Index | The Significance of the Sevenfold Bestowal Career |