© 1990 David Elders, Steve Dreier, Dan Massey, Mary Daly, Nancy Johnson, Carol Hay, John Lange, Jeffrey Wattles, Melissa Wells, Gard Jameson & Florence Jameson, Satu Sihvo, Bob Slagle, Chuck Burton
© 1990 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
FIFTH EPOCHAL FELLOWSHIP for readers of The Urantia Book>
SPECIAL CONFERENCE ISSUE I
1990 GENERAL CONFERENCE
WALKING WITH GOD
SNOWMASS/ASPEN, COLORADO U.S.A.
JUNE 30-JULY 5, 1990
The JOURNAL
Published Quarterly by
FIFTH EPOCHAL FELLOWSHIP
529 Wrightwood Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60614Special Issue Price; $5.00 per copy (includes postage)
* All quotations within this Journal, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Urantia Book, © 1955 by URANTIIA Foundation, all rights reserved.
Inasmuch as there is no official interpretation of the teachings of The Urantia Book, the views expressed herein are based wholly upon each author’s understanding and personal religious experience.
Copyright © 1990 by Fifth Epochal Fellowship Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
¶ About This Issue…
This is the first of two planned special conference editions of The Journal to include some of the talks presented in the second half of the 1990 International Conference held at Snowmass/Aspen, Colorado from June 30 -July 5, 1990. The next issue of The Journal will include talks from the second half of the conference.
The opinions, views, and/or conclusions presented in these talks are based wholly upon each author’s understanding and personal religious experience. Therefore, the Fellowship is unable to respond to questions or comments received from readers on any of the talks presented. However, upon written request, the Fellowship will forward invitations for exchange of information or further dialogue on any of the topics contained in this issue of The Journal directly to the author(s) concerned.
¶ 1990 International Conference “Walking With God” — Table Of Contents
SUNDAY
- Plenary Session
- Welcome Address, David N. Elders
- “Walking with God”, Steve Dreier
- Theme: “Cultivated Sensitivity to Divine Values”
- “Cooperation with the Supreme — The Role of Conscious Choice in Value Development”, Dan Massey
- Theme: “Refusal to Presume on Divine Mercy”
- “Reconciliation and Growth”, Mary Daly
- “In Search of the Error So Great…”, Nancy Johnson
MONDAY
- Plenary Session
- “The Art of Sharing”, Carol Hay
- Theme: “Recognition of Religious Living in Others”
- “Individual Ministry: Community Service”, John Lange, M.D.
- “Walking with Children Walking with God”, Sara L. Blackstock
- “True Worship: A Commentary on Paper 5, Section 3”, Jeffrey Wattles
- “Spiritual Sharing-A Pathway to God”, Melissa Wells
- Theme: “Sharing One’s Spiritual Life with One’s Fellows”
- “Fellowship with God, Now & Forever”, Gard Jameson & Florence Jameson, M.D.
- “Sharing One’s Spiritual Life with One’s Fellows”, Satu Sihvo
- “Returning to Family-Council Practices”, Bob Slagle, Ph.D.
- “Tadpoles, Butterflies and Lightosity”, Chuck Burton
¶ Welcome Address at Fifth Epochal Fellowship’s 1990 Urantia Conference
Aspen, Colorado — June 30, 1990
by David Elders, President
Jo Ann Brummett made a comment yesterday at the social which struck me as particularly powerful and inspirational. She observed that each of the details you see around here from the signs and decorations down to each individual cookie that was homemade for the social, is an expression of love…that it is an expression from a person who wants to serve other people. I was moved deeply by that powerful statement!
This is, as John Hay said, the largest gathering of Urantia Book readers that we have ever had come together for a conference. Think for just a moment about the number of Adjusters in this room…one thousand! Think of the number of angels and other beings that are here with us just outside the range of our vision. Think about the souls that are developing minute by minute. Think of the Supreme who is coming into existence by virtue of the work each of us is doing internally and externally. Think about what it means in particular to be conscious of these realities, to actually know what is going on, to be a conscious participant in that process. As we sit here we can literally sense these things, we can sense the meaning and value of the other people sitting around us.
¶ Walking with God
by Steve Dreier, Keynote Speaker
Each of us is involved in a dual relationship to God in the inner — life and in the outer-life. The walk with God in the inner-life concerns the personal relationship with God; the walk with God in the outer-life involves everything else.
Let us begin by considering the inner-life. The possibility of the inner walk with God is founded on the presence of two cosmic realities. One is the Thought Adjuster; the other is personality. The concept of the personal walk with God requires that both we and God are present together. Unless this condition is satisfied the concept of walking with God would be a beautiful poetic sentiment, but would have no basis in fact.
As we know, both of these realities are present with and within every normal human being. Each of us is a person; each of us has received the gift of personality from the Universal Father. Also, for the last two thousand years, every personality on this planet has received from the same Universal Father the gift of the divine Thought Adjuster — the literal and factual presence of God within us. It is on the presence of these two cosmic realities that everything else rests. Each of us is present, and God is present with each of us. The inner walk with God involves the evolution of the relationship between the two.
Thank you for your very kind attention. Have a wonderful week.
¶ Cooperation with the Supreme The Role of Conscious Choice in Value Development
by Dan Massey
About sixteen years ago I received and began seriously to study The Urantia Book. In the passing years, I have often spoken to groups of readers, both large and small, about my understanding of certain parts and teachings of the book. Since presenting a talk at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, twelve years ago on “Science and The Urantia Book”, I have frequently been asked to review and extend my ideas in public. Although I have often expressed my feelings on the philosophical and cultural aspects of the relationship of science and religion, I have never directly addressed the exact role which scientific and rationalist thought plays in unifying my personal religious experience around the teachings of The Urantia Book.
There are several reasons for this omission. I know that sincere statements of personal religious faith by one person, when expressed to another, often seem superficial or unpersuasive. I anticipate that many of the things I will say to you this afternoon will seem quite strange. Although I find my viewpoint of these matters wholly persuasive, I accept that, because of differing viewpoints, experiences, and patterns of thought, not everyone will find my views convincing. In spite of these natural reservations about opening my personal spiritual attitudes and thoughts to public examination, I know that the time has come for me to express these ideas plainly and clearly to receptive persons.
¶ Reconciliation and Growth
by Mary Daly
Let’s begin by asking the Holy Spirit to make us triumphant over the sophistry of presumption.
Lord, we ask you to reveal your presence in a deeper way here. We’re to talk over some matters of spiritual growth; help us to put aside any other concerns and be open to you. If there’s an experience of your touch that we need to understand better or a question that needs to be answered, give us a quiet and gentle spirit to hear your word in wisdom. I do truly praise you that you continue to call each one of us so faithfully.
I’d like to begin with a delightful story from a nun named Sister Briege McKenna. Briege entered the convent at age fifteen and was a first grade teacher with crippling arthritis in her early twenties. After seeing many doctors both in Ireland and in America, she expected to be in a wheelchair within months and all the doctors hoped for was to be able to control the pain. One day, in one split second, as she was seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus, she was completely healed. Some months later when Jesus was calling her to a deeper work of faith, she had this little vision of her life. In this image, Jesus came to visit her, and knocked on the door of her house. She opened and was delighted to welcome him in and invite him to make himself at home. So he did, and he went from room to room until he came to a room marked with a big sign:
¶ In Search of the Error So Great…
by Nancy Johnson
…Forms are valueless when lessons are learned. No chick may be had without the shell, and no shell is of any worth after the chick is hatched. But sometimes error is so great that its rectification by revelation would be fatal to those slowly emerging truths which are essential to its experiential overthrow.… (UB 48:6.32)
No doubt we have all paid attention service to this provocative statement by an archangel from Nebadon, and surely this archangel intended to pique our curiosity and stimulate us to examine our conceptual environment — our belief system — to recognize an error that’s so out of sync with true reality that they couldn’t tell us what it was. What truth could have had such a traumatic impact on us at that time? Did they give us any clues?
Consider for a moment the nature of the following conceptual errors, presented in arbitrary order, which the revelators of truth did not hesitate to correct:
¶ The Art of Sharing
by Carol Hay
Today I want to talk to you about sharing your spiritual life with others. When I use the term “spiritual life,” what I am referring to is the inner relationship that you have with God. In my personal experience, one of the main ways that God relates to me is through the love that he gives me, So when I share my spiritual life with other people, I’m mainly passing the love that God gives me along to other people. The Urantia Book tells us that love is the desire to do good to others, so spiritual sharing is a very action-oriented, creative approach to life that involves a desire to share the love that we receive from God with others. And — if you’re like me — you’ve had some very wonderful experiences sharing your spiritual life with other people and you’ve also had some really awful experiences with it.
So we’re going to talk about ways to share our spiritual lives so that we consistently get the results that we want when we share spiritually, so we can make a difference in the lives of those around us, and so we can make a difference in the relationship that we have with God as well. I’d like you to help me answer three questions in regard to spiritual sharing. The first question is: What is the purpose of sharing our spiritual life with others? The next question is: When do we share it; when is it appropriate? And last: What sort of skills do we need to more effectively share our spiritual life with others?
¶ Individual Ministry: Community Service
by John Lange
Introduction
As devotees of the Urantia revelation we have chosen to explore new spiritual realities. As we each pursue our own spiritual growth through religious experience, The Urantia Book on UB 100:1.8 lists habits to discipline this process. The discipline I shall focus upon is “the recognition of religious living in others.” What is religious living and how do we recognize it? On page 66 we are given a simple and inspiring answer: “…it [religion] is a living and dynamic experience of divinity attainment predicated on humanity service.” Therefore the recognition of religious living is an appreciation of this service dynamic as manifested in others.
Through service we gain status as universe citizens, and this is emphasized in every section of The Urantia Book. In our universe career we are told on UB 28:6.17, “Service…is the goal of time and the destiny of space.” In the Thought Adjuster papers at the bottom of UB 110:3.8 we are instructed that we can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by “loving God and desiring to be like him” and by “loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him.”
¶ Walking with Children Walking with God
by Sara L. Blackstock
As director of a school-age day care center for the last four years, I have been blessed with a human laboratory. I work with about 180 children in grades kindergarten through fifth grade. One of the greatjoys of this job is the intense and real relationship which the staff and I have with the children. We live with almost 100 children daily. It is very close to a family feeling in many ways, and it is definitely a community.
Even though I am an accredited California teacher with about 25 years of teaching experience behind me, it was not until working here that I really began to experience the joys of working with children. I have come to explain the difference, to myself anyway, like this: as a teacher I had to impose a system on the children which had been orchestrated by a removed bureaucratic hierarchy. “Educating children,” in such a context, almost seems to mean taking them out of their real life, relative frameworks and putting information into them.
¶ True Worship: A Commentary on Paper 5, Section 3
by Jeffrey Wattles
Let us listen again to the Divine Counselor of Uversa, whose account of “True Worship” may be found in The Urantia Book in section 3 of Paper 5, “Cod’s Relation to the Individual.” Our commentary cannot properly be a monologue, but I have not marked, in the present text, the pauses for discussion that punctuated it. This discussion follows one on the prayer process (Paper 91 #9) and anticipates one on service. The commentary here is a step toward holographic study — finding the whole of the book in the part.
Worship is both simple and complex. The simplicity of worship is reflected in the fun of the word for worship among the Quicatec Indians of Mexico; it means, etymologically, “to wag one’s tail before God.” One of the wisest teachings I ever heard on worship was Vern Grimsley’s remark, “The secret of worship is to do it.” One great message of The Urantia Book is that WE CAN worship. We are in the Father’s personality circuit. Our minds enjoy the adjutant mind-spirit of worship. We are built to worship. However complex or mysterious worship may seem when discussed, and however elusive it may be at times in our practice, we can and do worship the Universal Father. The section on True Worship articulates the concept of worship. When we read this highly articulated account, we may be led to remark, “Easier said than done.” But if we keep in tune with the worship experience itself, then we may say, “Easier done than said.” Let us take a moment to do just that before proceeding…
¶ Spiritual Sharing-A Pathway to God
by Melissa Wells
I’m Melissa Wells, and I’m from Tampa, Florida, where I work as a journalist. I am raising a 12-year-old son named Grayson and my 10-year-old daughter, Rebecca, who just might be lucky enough to make it to age eleven.
Besides being a long-time student of The Urantia Book, I have spent the past couple of years working the twelve steps from Alcoholics Anonymous.
At the time that I was offered the opportunity to speak at this meeting on the subject of the recognition of religious living in others, I had just recently committed to attending 90 meetings at AA in 90 days. Obviously, I wish to share with you the fact that I am an alcoholic. I do this without reservation, because it is only since realizing the stern nature of this disease and seeking help from my Higher Power in overcoming it that I have come to find a real measure of lasting peace within myself and harmony with my fellows.
The significance of attending 90 consecutive days of AA meetings is in the fact that it has given me the rich experience of sharing with others how God has provided spiritual solutions to life-threatening material difficulties. This has been an astounding quarter-year of my life. I have grown tremendously as a result of this spiritual experience. An increasing awareness of God at work in my own life has come during this investigation of the AA way of life.
¶ Fellowship with God, Now & Forever
by Gard Jameson & Florence Jameson, M.D.
In telling his followers the essence of his message to the planet, Jesus stated that the cardinal features of the gospel were:
- The pre-eminence of the individual.
- The will as the determining factor in man’s experience,
- Spiritual fellowship with God the Father.
- The supreme satisfactions of the loving service of man.
- The transcendency of the spiritual over the material in human personality.
The midwayer author goes on to say that “this world has never seriously or sincerely or honestly tried out these dynamic ideas and divine ideals…” (UB 170:4.14) Why not? Why do we resist fellowship with God? To a group of Greek believers in Jerusalem, Jesus said, “My Father sent me to the world to reveal his loving-kindness to the children of men, but those to whom I first came have refused to receive me…I have told them of sonship with joy, liberty, and life more abundant in the spirit…the leaders of my people deliberately blinded their eyes that they see not, and hardened their hearts…All these years have I sought to heal them of their unbelief that they might be recipients of the Father’s eternal salvation.” (UB 174:5.3)
¶ Sharing One’s Spiritual Life with One’s Fellows
by Satu Sihvo
The Summing Up
The gospel of the kingdom is founded on the personal religious experience of the Jesus of Galilea. It was not the only way he shared his spiritual life. He showed forth the fruits of the spirit wherever he passed by. The secret of his unbroken communion with our Father was prayer and worship.
In other words Jesus was open inwards and outwards at the same time. His life is a unique and inspiring example of strong inner life with courageous outer life manifestations. Isn’t that THE way we are called to go?
We need transforming inner life but we also need striving, conscious personal efforts to have it adjusted to the cosmic co-work in the middle of our everyday activities. Different small groups offer interesting possibilities for this. Groups can be well used for learning and spreading loving attitudes.
One example is the group started in Finland in August, 1989. The guidelines and principles come from the Center for Attitudinal Healing, Tiburon, CA. They are modified by the teachings of The Urantia Book and they are now carried out within a Lutheran parish. The group has weekly meetings.
¶ Returning to Family-Council Practices
by Bob Slagle, Ph.D.
“…[T]He family is the master civilizer.” (UB 82:0.2)
It was a joy to have about seventy people attend our workshop on Family Meetings. A fair number of parents represented families which had attempted family meetings in years past but had faltered for one reason or another, temporarily given them up, then returned to family-council practices with subsequent success. To me this is often the story of family meeting experiments and one strong reason for my claim that family meetings are never a failure, although some families may give them up for a shorter or longer duration. From my experience as a family counselor, even holding just one family meeting is worthwhile and much better than having none at all.
But what do I mean by a “Family Meeting”? Simply getting together to gripe at one another or have Dad or Mom lay down the law like the T.V. Cosbys or Simpsons do is not likely a family meeting in the best sense of the name. Family meetings are appointed gatherings of all family members who live under one roof in order to make decisions by family consensus. Historically, consensus in a town meeting hall meant that everyone gave a unified voice vote of “yea” or “nay” and no written vote or record was counted. In family meetings, consensus means that every person, child or adult, has equal veto power over any decision and that for a decision to count everyone must give their voluntary, uncoerced and informed consent to that decision. Not necessarily an easy process, but amazingly powerful.
¶ Tadpoles, Butterflies and Lightosity
by Chuck Burton
Back in March, I watched a made-for-TV version of The Phantom of the Opera broadcast on NBC. Not having seen the Broadway rendition — but planning to — I was curious about the story-line. I had seen clips of the old Lon Chaney horror flick and was expecting the usual run-of-the-mill, fright-night special. What I experienced was very different and, as a matter of fact, most inspirational. Instead of an evil monster who delighted in cruel and unusual murders, the Phantom turned out to be quite the opposite. Sure, there were some murders — an opera custodian and few pursuing policemen, and there was the incident when the chandelier crashed on the audience.
But, all in all, the Phantom possessed many noble human qualities. In fact, the Phantom was not inherently evil or even immoral. Due to a birth defect which deformed his face, he finds the world to be very cruel and intolerant — thus he wears a mask and hides from the world by living beneath the opera house. It is only after he hears the angelic voice of Christine that he decides to risk his cover and attempts to win her love. The Phantom gives her voice lessons and rescues her from an angry audience and eventually allows her to unmask him. The sight of his face causes her to faint and this crushes the poor Phantom. Nevertheless, the Phantom, at the close of the story actually triumphs, as it is Christine who realizes that it is her misconceptions about the nature of true beauty, her intolerance of a significant divergence from the norm, which is at the root of the problem. She and the Phantom sing a moving duet to the delight of the audience before the police eventually comer the Phantom and he is shot by a merciful father.