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Issue
22
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Life on Urantia at the Start of the New Millenium Leonard Ablieter |
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by Al Aldo On Sunday, December 7, in the midst of the first major northeastern blizzard, twelve of us managed to gather in Canton, Massachusetts, to discuss ways to foster and nourish study groups throughout the New England area. International Urantia Association President, Gaétan Charland, and his wife, Lynn, traveled all the way from Quebec to address the gathering. Former President of the Quebec Urantia Association, Gaétan spent several years working with his associates in Quebec to revitalize study groups in his province, with considerable success. Starting with only two study groups, Quebec now boasts 14 vibrant, active groups. The following is a synopsis of some of the advice Gaétan shared with us. The revelators told us to create thousands of study groups. Why thousands of study groups? When the new spiritual age begins, and we know not when, it is necessary for study groups to be ready for them. How individuals found The Urantia Book says a lot about that person. We were told that we were given this book ahead of its time, so we must be special people. People need to see living truth in us. We need to learn to live the teachings, to be living examples of the truths we have discovered. Our study groups should not be static, should not languish. Instead, they should be functional, exciting, and fill a personal need for each of those attending. Find out the personal need. People have different needs. Multiple study groups offer alternate environments. Form affinity groups. One person must lead, but group should decide approach to study. Quebec tried both sequential and topical approaches. Whether sequential or topical, one person would study the upcoming subject ahead of the meeting so as to lead a lively discussion of it. Quebec initiated meetings between all existing and former study group leaders and other long time readers. They concluded their study groups needed a purpose, a goal. They came to the realization that the real objective of their study groups would be to raise spiritual consciousness... to bring people up in their consciousness of God, and then they started to choose topics accordingly. Regionally, have trainers to train study group leaders. Have training and encouragement and special meetings of study group leaders. It is much easier for individuals to share personal feelings and experiences in the confines of a study group, as opposed to larger gatherings of Urantia Book readers. Attendees can speak freely, without criticism. Remember, though, that you are there to study The Urantia Book. Focus. Have members visit other study groups. Maybe just take the whole group along. Accommodate the membership. Quebec has two groups that have developed interesting presentations that they bring around the region to share with the other study groups. One of these presentations takes three consecutive meetings to complete. Set up your goal or plan, and activate it. And always remember to invite the Father and Michael to your meetings through prayer. Thank you, Gaétan and Lynn, for such commitment and useful advice.
by Pat Murnin 
After watching and supporting decades of litigation over the copyright of The Urantia Book, the loss of the case and the appeals is a great disappointment. Any time people spend so much time, energy, and money towards any effort it is bound to leave a very bitter taste in your mouth to lose in the end. But that is what has happened, and now it’s time to make something positive out of it all, or lemonade out of lemons if you will. One ramification of losing the appeal is that Mr. McMullan will continue putting out Part 4 of The Urantia Book, the Life and Teachings of Jesus. We can turn this into lemonade by praying that readers who come in contact with this book will be motivated to read the original Urantia Book to get the first three parts that give background knowledge necessary to fully understand Part 4. Anyone who reads only the Life and Teachings of Jesus is going to come away from it with a more complete understanding of Jesus and His mission on this planet. They will grow spiritually from the experience, and it will be a cool drink of lemonade in their lives. Another outcome of the loss is that the Fellowship now publishes The Urantia Book—A Revelation. Although we fought a good fight to keep it from happening, we lost. Now there are two organizations printing and selling The Urantia Book. What difference does it make what cover is on the outside and with a different format and pagination, if the truth between the covers is word for word the same. The bottom line is simple. More publishers mean more books. Getting the Revelation out there is after all what both the Foundation and the Fellowship are trying to do. At this point it is important to remember that the copyright issue is one of the main reasons we are not one united membership of readers. Maybe we can start working more closely together and uniting our resources to accomplish the goals that we share. We have been given this most important revelation, and the task of sharing it with entire human race. This is an enormous job which cannot be taken lightly. We need translations into every language printed and distributed to every corner of Urantia. We will need the concerted effort of ALL READERS to do their part in all ways financial and otherwise to make this happen. We have a chance to bring our brothers and sisters to the Father, and to take this planet a step closer to the Light and Life destiny that awaits our descendants. This is important work that can best be accomplished by hard work and unity. So much money and effort have been wasted so far. The only way we can turn this sour taste in our mouths is to add a little forgiveness and understanding, with wisdom and kindness, hard work and unity. Let’s use this as a new beginning and make some lemonade out of all these lemons we’ve been picking. 
By Maurine Baltzell I have been a seeker of truth ever since I was 10 years old, and walking across the street in downtown Portland with my family, when something on the inside of me asked, “Why am I here? Who am I? Why am I with this family?” I started reading the Bible my kind uncle had given me when I turned seven. In my early twenties I read the Bible all the way through. I continued to study the Bible and other spiritual books through the years. I first heard about The Urantia Book, when in my fifties, I was teaching a Bible class and one of the ladies started telling me about the book. She tore out pages and gave us each a page despite our protests that she does not destroy her book. And after the unselfish act she did, I made sure I read my page, front and back. But, reading such a small amount, the paper did not make much sense to me. I spent the next five years traveling around the US and living also in Mexico and learning ever more about spiritual things. I can now look back and see I had to be opened up more to accept the teachings in The Urantia Book. I feel we are at a point in our evolution where we can comprehend these detailed facts, written by spiritual beings, to prepare us not only for our present life, but as to what to expect in our eternal life after we are finished living upon Urantia.
A few changes in our little organization since we met last fall. John Zingg, who lives in Washington and has been with us since the beginning, is transferring his membership to the Washington State Urantia Association. Best wishes, John, and thanks for your many years of support. We welcome three new members: Dave Pierce of Portland and Gary and Wanda Powless of Klamath Falls. Thanks for joining us. During the March 28th meeting we will cover: election of president and secretary, the vice president vacancy, proposal to add a membership chair and adopt suggestions outlined by Meredith van Woert (see page 6), update on our Library Placement Project and other topics of interest. Looking ahead, I suggest that we change the timing of the annual Spring meeting to avoid any conflict with school spring breaks so that members with children can attend. —MC, OUA President
by Oscar Andres Morales 
Our group in Barranquilla is mainly composed of young university students. Our average age is 25 years old. We are about 15 people. We meet every Saturday afternoon in the house of one of the members. I haven’t been able to attend the last reunions since I’ve been very busy with the work in the Asociación Internacional Urantia website and because I recently got a formal job in an educational institution from the government and therefore my free time is almost nonexistent. I want to share with you some words from Franklin Marrugo, the first president of our association. These words were sent to Cathy Jones the year when we were about to become licensed as a Urantia Association. At the beginning it was just me and my Urantia Book. I initially spent like 8 months reading and reading and just reading. Through this initial experience I was able to clarify many misconceptions I had acquired during my past years as a practitioner of other religions. When I gained enough knowledge about the book and its contents, the idea of forming the first group of readers in my city came to my mind, and thus I went into action. I managed to form a little group, but then several readers had to retire because of their jobs, studies, among other reasons, and I sadly ended up alone again, this time with a lot of debts we have contracted with the owner of a place we have rented for the reunions. It was a small garage in the house of one of the members. Actually, the house and the garage belonged to the mother-in-law of one of the members. We lasted a year and a half there, time we spent studying almost 37 documents [papers] in a row. We were doing fine, but then the absence of readers was a constant, and I lost (had to sell) all the things I had bought in order for us to be comfortable in that garage. The group reduced to only 5 people from the initial 23. The 5 remaining readers were mostly students, with no jobs or incomes, who hadn’t the economical capabilities for supporting me with the rental bill, and so we had to leave the garage. After that, I tried to keep scheduling the reunions in my own house, but the readers who remained had many other priorities. They gradually dispersed and I never saw many of them again. That’s the story of the first group. Anyway, while the first group existed, I collected a lot of signatures from readers, which was one of the requirements for establishing a new association, according to the statutes here in Colombia. You have no idea of all the things I had to do by myself, with no one’s help. Just me, my willingness, and the help from God. After many months I could send the documents with the signatures to Bogotá, and via the Urantia Association in Colombia the documents reached your hands in Chicago. Cathy, nowadays I count on a group of many new people. We are approximately 15 people, and counting. Oscar is the newest addition. He is a godsend, since thanks to him I have been able to communicate with you in your language. Many of the new members are university students, which have brought a lot of enthusiasm to the group. Oscar and I are trying to consolidate them all, since they come from many different ideologies. I hope that after several reunions and with the help from God the Father, they would become stable members and total believers. —End of Franklin’s words. For myself I can say that I discovered the book in 1998 in one of my trips to Bogotá (The capital of our country). A cousin of mine was reading it, and he enthusiastically spoke to me about it, to the point he convinced me to buy it. I spent about 3 years reading it. At the beginning I was very skeptical, but with every chapter I found myself discovering so many truths that it was practically impossible not to believe. At the time I finished reading the book, the only thing I wanted to do was to share the knowledge with everyone. In June 2002, I wrote to Patricia Ramirez asking to meet other readers, as her mail address was published in the UF page. She put me in contact with Franklin, who introduced me with the rest of the readers he had managed to gather along the years in Barranquilla. They were very disorganized, so my first task was to put a little order and so I decided to lead them to our very first goal: Become an association! My language skills with the English were a blessing, and so Patricia put me in contact with Cathy Jones, and in a matter of 2 months we managed to organize and schedule Cathy’s trip to Colombia for the licensing ceremony. The ceremony was beautiful. All the heavenly angels performed their job and everything went along perfectly. Cathy’s experience in Barranquilla, and ours with her, was unique. A once-in-a-lifetime event. When Cathy came here we never expected that we were going to fall in love with her as we actually did. What an amazing woman! We all really love her. And she had the opportunity to express to all the new members how special was the time she spent here in our city. Baranquilla is a very warm city. Its temperature is around 86-90 Fahrenheit degrees (although at night it freshens up). It’s not a rainy city. On the contrary, Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, is a little rainy and its temperature is around 53-Fahrenheit degrees. At night it might decrease to 40 degrees. Despite the bad image that Colombia has around the world, we really are a very easygoing nation, and the citizens are extremely hospitable with foreign visitors. We have the same problems all nations have regarding security, so you wouldn’t notice much difference between Bogotá and Mexico City or NYC, as regards street violence. Barranquilla is a city of 1.2 million citizens. It is the main city of the northern Colombian coast. It is not a very cosmopolitan city, but all the modern facilities are present. The general atmosphere might seem a little chaotic at first, but that is because Caribbean people are very folkloric (Caribbean term that stands for “the culture of the party and the celebration”) and tend to be revelers. Bogotá is the Athens of South America. It is completely cosmopolitan, with 7 million citizens. Bogotá has everything a modern city might have or need (except a subway), without losing the atmosphere of an old colonial jewel. Well my dear friend. I guess that with this letter you can have a better idea of our group, our city, and our experience with the book.
—Matthew attends the Oregon State Penitentiary Urantia Book study.
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