Tidings – March 2024
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In This Issue
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Enrique Traver, Brazil
Following Jesus
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This world is only a bridge; you may pass over it, but you should not think to build a dwelling place upon it. 156:2.1 (1735.5)
He told them they could not stand still; they must go forward in righteousness or retrogress into evil and sin. He admonished them to “forget those things which are in the past while you push forward to embrace the greater realities of the kingdom." 156:2.6 (1736.3)
This world is an arena where we develop and conquer the first steps to reach the morontia worlds, followed later by the steps to the spirit level. As Jesus said: just a bridge to cross. Reaching the end of that worldly bridge allows us to reach another shore, to reach a new reality of eternity, of the birth of the spirit, of drawing closer to the presence of our Father. Passing across this bridge implies a continuous straightforward movement with no stops for whatever reason. We must move ahead. When we keep moving forward, we free up the flow and attract other people to the journey. We produce the fruits of the spirit.
All down through the ages men have not been unable to comprehend Jesus; they have been afraid to. 156:2.4 (1736.1)
Jesus' message is clear and most of us understand it, but people are often afraid to follow Jesus because it implies a great effort, a lot of work, and achieving self-control. It implies continually advancing across the bridge of mortal experience and serving those who are lost or have forgotten or are unaware of its main purpose, which is to cross over to a spiritual domain. This service demands love, patience, tolerance, respect, righteousness, and service.
So, are we afraid to follow Jesus and practice his gospel? Have we managed to experience God within us, to experience an inner relationship with him, to feel the loving presence of our Father within us and to develop an unswerving faith in him? This faith will guide us, strengthen us and give us the necessary motivation for a service of love to our brothers and sisters and ourselves. It will build true righteousness.
We often confuse the meaning of faith with beliefs, certainties, and convictions. The revelators tell us a lot about this:
Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more. 101:8.1 (1114.5)
The key point lies in the way we live. A belief or a conviction is not enough for us to live by that belief or conviction—we will keep making the same mistakes and circling the drain. Faith is a force that sets us on a path of righteousness to fulfill our Father's will. Faith in the goodness of God prevents us from even thinking about betraying our Father's love and following a path that is not his will.
This is exactly the path that Jesus walked while on Urantia. He didn't allow himself to be influenced or sold out by easy money, fame, worldly glories, and other selfish indulgences. He fulfilled all his earthly obligations to family and community and observed the laws of men. He embraced the Father's will in a conscious, lucid way, in the certainty that his mission here was to cross the bridge, serving people and clearing the congestion created by those who were unaware or had forgotten the supreme objective. Yes, following Jesus gives fear to all those who have not succeeded in developing their faith in the truth, goodness, and beauty of God.
Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. … living religious faith … is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. … faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist. 101:8.2 (1114.6)
Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees’ assumed knowledge. … Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance. 101:8.3 (1114.7)
Our mission is to disseminate the teachings of The Urantia Book to all people on earth. Urantia Association International, and each one of us, has precisely this purpose—to seek to walk the path of Jesus, to serve people as he did, to help our fellow human beings connect with our Father—and we do all this by lighting the way across the bridge with the teachings of this revelation and, above all, by allowing the Light of our Father to permeate us and illuminate those who are in darkness.
A big hug to everyone, and a happy Easter.
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Michael Zehr, USA 
Nature and Nurture of the Soul
Baltimore, USA. March 28 - 31, 2024
Urantia Association International and Urantia Association of the United States are hosting the 12th International Conference in Baltimore, USA. Sponsored by Urantia Foundation and Truthbook, the conference has been organized and coordinated by a host of worldwide volunteers to provide a spiritual learning experience for the global Urantia Book reader community.
The theme of the conference is The Nature and Nurture of the Soul.
To establish a framework for the study, all references to the soul from The Urantia Book were gathered and sorted into eight subtopics – four on the Nature of the Soul, and four on Nurture of the Soul.
This is an educational conference with a focus on shared learning. We’re trying to follow the model of individual truth discovery as revealed in the book, an experience that we hope will be augmented and enhanced by group discussion and sharing. The reading material, categorized by topic, can be downloaded from the event page.
The conference begins Thursday, March 28 and concludes Sunday, March 31 (Easter Sunday in Western tradition). Check-in begins at 3pm on Thursday, but you can book your stay earlier if you wish. Many people are arriving on Wednesday. Dinner begins at 5pm on Thursday followed by welcoming speeches and announcements.
Other events in the area:
As mentioned, March 31 is Easter Sunday. The annual Washington DC Cherry Blossom Festival occurs March 20-April 14 during which thousands of cherry trees in Washington and Baltimore are expected to be in full bloom. And there is a total solar eclipse passing over North America on April 8. Some of you may wish to extend your vacation to see it.
The conference takes place at the Maritime Conference Center (MCC) near Baltimore, only a few minutes from the International Airport (BWI). The Center has a wide range of amenities to make your stay a pleasant one. (https://www.mccbwi.org/)
In addition, Baltimore has the National Aquarium, Fort McHenry, several museums, a science center, and a zoo. Washington, DC with its countless attractions is 40 miles away and reachable by train.
Registration
For more information and to register, please visit the conference event page.
You must register separately for the conference and for lodging. Information and links are provided on the event page. Please read carefully what is included with the lodging and what is included with the conference registration, especially regarding meals. The simple version is, if you stay at the conference center and are registered for the conference, your meals are included.
There is a children and teen program with age-appropriate events planned throughout the conference. More information is on the event website. Children do not pay a conference fee, but we do need to know the names and ages of everyone attending.
Non-participating partners are welcome to stay with participants, to socialize and eat meals together (MCC charges a fee for lunch if you are not a paid participant of the conference).
Reversion
In addition to the many local attractions, there will be entertainment and music, and a chance to socialize each evening. There will also be a meditation and worship room available.
Sunday morning there will be a brief sunrise gathering before breakfast (weather permitting). The conference culminates with worship and remembrance.
Live Streaming
We hope to see you in Baltimore but we understand that travel can be difficult, therefore portions of the conference proceedings will be live streamed. Details will be emailed and added to the event page mid-March.
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Governance Committee
Last year, Sue Seccombe, president of Urantia Book Fellowship, created a petition and sent if far and wide across our Urantia community. The petition was focused on unity and it garnered over 600 responses, almost all in the affirmative for setting our sights on true spiritual unity, and even organizational unity.
Due to that positive response, the General Council of the Fellowship passed a resolution creating a small team to engage with Urantia Association to discuss unity. Their resolution included terminology about the possibility of seeking unity between the two fraternal organizations. The resolution tasked their Unity Committee with: "Exploring the details and options of organizational cooperation and steps toward unity between the two social organizations that will best benefit the growth, understanding, and credibility of the Urantia revelation and presenting these recommendations to the General Council.” Such an executive action passed by the Fellowship’s General Council, signals an openness to resolve the historic schism.
Urantia Association’s response, led by the International Service Board (ISB), was the formation of a Special Unity Committee to meet with the Fellowship’s team. And further, the ISB also tasked the Governance Committee about creating a survey to determine if leaders and grassroots members of the Association were in favor of engaging with the Fellowship to discuss eliminating competition and unifying our organizations. The survey also sought commentary regarding issues that may pose as stumbling blocks during the discussions. Survey respondents remained anonymous so they could be fully candid in expressing their comments. That survey has now been closed.
The Governance Committee will nominate committee members for ISB consideration. This process is nearly complete. The survey responses are being tabulated and will soon be presented to the ISB. The results will guide our team in the coming discussions.
As devoted workers for the Urantia revelation, we welcome the opportunity to honestly confront our differences and seek the best way forward. Please pray for all the dedicated participants in this initiative for an outcome that will best serve God, the dissemination of the teachings, and the human relationships so valuable and necessary for the mission of the fifth epochal revelation.
Your communications team will be sending updates on important developments.
Below is the resolution as approved by your Association representatives.
ISB/RC Resolution 2024:02: Establish Special Unity Committee
- Whereas, the Fellowship’s General Council has approved a resolution to form a Unity Committee tasked to explore and make recommendations regarding “details and options … of steps toward unity between (our) two organizations,” and
- Whereas, this is the first time the General Council has granted authority to pursue unity between our organizations, and
- Whereas, the president of the Fellowship has contacted the Association with a request to move forward with unity discussions as soon as possible, and
- Whereas, RC Resolution 2018-288: Policy for Collaboration with Other Organizations/Groups stipulates the Association is open to collaboration as long as “the collaboration is in full alignment with the statement of purpose, mission and goals of the Association,” and “does not compromise the integrity, business operations, database, volunteer or financial resources, of the Association.” and
- Whereas, it is in the interests of the Association and the revelation to pursue this opportunity,
Be it Resolved, the ISB approves the formation of a Special Unity Committee and ISB oversight by the Association President.
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James Woodward, USA
Going out on a limb of faith requires faith.
Faith is a holy paradox: It’s a grab-hold thing on spirit levels and a let-go thing on material levels. With the affirmation of faith, we acknowledge a spirit reality and the divine beings who inhabit that reality—without seeing it, or them. With living faith, we invest implicit trust that those realities and beings are friendly to us, even love us. With the exercise of faith, we snuggle up to those realities and beings like we do our beloved family and our nurturing natural environment. With the perfection of faith, we fully share the will of God, living the Perfect Plan. For mortals that’s a plan in progress.
“Perfecting is of God. To wish for perfection is of man.”
If you were told there was a perfect plan, one designed uniquely for you and your maximum benefit, would you be willing to upgrade from your imperfect plan? Lest our cultural baggage about being perfect or imperfect color the question, it’s helpful to frame our general life plan as incomplete. We need more input to develop a complete life plan, more spirit input. Our faith in divinity truly brings it into existence for us; amazingly, it frees God within us.
Faith acts to release the superhuman activities of the divine spark, the immortal germ, that lives within the mind of man, and which is the potential of eternal survival. 132.3 (1459.6)
Our faith and our thoughts are like Supreme Tools we use to realize God in our personal experience, to release God within and make the Father real to us—and thus begin our journey into eternity. Going out on a limb of faith is to faith / think God into our everyday lives, even though we disobediently resist.
The success of your Adjuster in the enterprise of piloting you through the mortal life and bringing about your survival depends not so much on the theories of your beliefs as upon your decisions, determinations, and steadfast faith. All these movements of personality growth become powerful influences aiding in your advancement because they help you to co-operate with the Adjuster; they assist you in ceasing to resist. 110.3 (1205.6)
There is a simple self-test to evaluate one’s current mind / spirit status: “Am I overflowing with love?” Yes, it’s a lofty benchmark and most would say it’s difficult or impossible to achieve. Nevertheless, all of us have experienced an overflow of love. It might have been for your mom and dad after a Christmas present you longed for; perhaps the romantic swoon of a courtship with a loved one; maybe holding your newborn. True worship is an overflow of love going up wonderfully woven with an overflow of love coming down. The overflow is possible for us; it’s the way we become more God-like.
The Perfect Plan of God enlivens natural possibilities with unlimited and never-ending power; our faith in supernatural possibilities is what transforms us. Here is truth: we faith God into our personal experience; we have a choice to faith / think divinity into existence, for ourselves. This is not a wishful theory; it’s how the revelators define it for us: "Is faith—the supreme assertion of human thought—desirable?" 3.5 (51.8)
I’m thinking of co-operating with my divine fragment; thinking I will cease to resist. I’m thinking I am in the presence of God. I’m thinking my faith increases my faith and adjusts my mind into a supreme assertion of faith in my birthright as a beloved child of our heavenly Father.
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PIRT Volunteers 
The Prison Inmate Response Team (PIRT) for Canada was formed in 2016 by Chris Gravel, who was inspired by a PIRT Tidings article. Chris started by seeding 46 prison libraries. Then the wait for a first inmate letter began… and two years later, in November 2018, the first request for a book arrived. Another arrived the following year. And then, in 2021, a woman requested a book and began to spread the word, resulting in three more referrals. And later, two more book requests arrived, one from a prison chaplain.
Chris’ experience mirrors the slow start that PIRT USA experienced, similar to the initial spread of The Urantia Book after its first publication in 1955. Since its slow start, nearly seventy years later, The Urantia Book has been translated into 26 languages and more than a million copies have been sold, donated, or downloaded.
It took two years for the first inmate letter to arrive at Urantia Foundation after about 300 prisons were seeded in the US. Twenty-four years later, PIRT’s program has gained steam, receiving a steady flow of letters monthly. To date, over 9,000 letters have been answered and more than 5,000 books have been shipped to inmates.
PIRT is hoping to expand and support more efforts like Chris’ around the world. Chris stands ready to provide advice and wisdom from his and others' experience to those who are likewise inspired to spread the teachings into some of the darkest corners of Urantia—its prisons. If this good service appeals to you, you can reach out to PIRT to learn more.
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Alice Wood, USA
Urantia University Institute – Now Accepting Applications
Following several years of development and testing by a team of curriculum developers and experienced students from the major Urantia organizations, The Urantia Book Teacher Education Program (TEP) is now accepting applications for the 2024 - 2025 academic year.
The hybrid one-year training program features a five-day, in-person orientation and training session at Urantia Foundation, followed by three trimesters of online study and weekly training and discussion sessions on Zoom. It is designed for people who are serious students of the Urantia revelation with a track record of participation in study groups and Urantia Book education programs.
- Do you feel called to teach or minister to the spiritual family of God in light of the Urantia revelation and the teachings of Jesus?
- Do you have a strong inner prompting to share advanced teachings regarding God, the cosmos, our planetary history, and our eternal destiny?
- Would you like to hone the skills that would make you a more effective teacher, leader, and ambassador of the revelation?
- Do you think you would benefit from a thorough review and integration of the major themes and concepts of The Urantia Book that would enable you to better articulate the revelation?
Your participation in the Teacher Education Program will give you space to address all of these desires in the company of knowledgeable and experienced instructors, and alongside similarly motivated students.
This program. . .
- Offers a comprehensive review of the major themes and concepts of The Urantia Book.
- Provides a useful blend of content knowledge and skill-building practices.
- Prepares motivated students from around the world to effectively present the ideas and ideals of the Urantia revelation to their native cultures.
- Emphasizes the importance of personal worship practice.
Teachers from around the world and from all walks of life are needed to espouse the essential values of The Urantia Book. Learn more about the program and how to apply on our website and ask yourself if you feel called to this focused training that will prepare you to more effectively bring the teachings to your community.
Applications are due March 31. Space permitting, we will consider late applications.
This program is supported, in part, by a Mustard Seed Grant from Urantia Foundation.
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The Tidings newsletter is a quarterly on-line publication that serves as Urantia Association International’s primary communication tool for reaching out to the Association’s membership, supporters, donors, volunteers, and general readership friends. It provides news and information on the many activities and events of the National or Affiliate Urantia Associations around the globe as well as information and announcements from Central Office, the International Service Board (ISB), and the International Representative Council (IRC). It serves to keep members in touch with one another and gives readers a sense of belonging—of being an integral part of a truly international movement that is designed to promote the Urantia revelation to all corners of the world.
Note: Tidings also occasionally provides news of other Urantia-related activities and events that may be of interest to our supporters and friends. Please note that any interpretations, opinions, conclusions, or artistic representations, whether stated or implied, are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Urantia Association International, the National or Affiliate Urantia Associations, or the editorial team of the Association’s Tidings.
Grass Roots Level
The number of National or Affiliate Urantia Associations scattered throughout the world is steadily growing and collectively they undertake service activities that have the ability to inspire and motivate others; activities such as study conferences, regional gatherings, study groups, dissemination programs, educational programs, outreach projects, and the development of study aids and newsletters. These Associations are the lifeblood of Urantia Association International—they function at the grass roots level where effective service and dissemination of the revelation takes place.
Share Your Stories
There are thousands of readers with unique personal stories about how they found The Urantia Book and how it has changed their lives. There are hundreds of study groups all over the world that can share stories and encourage readers to either create a study group of their own or participate in one. These stories need to be told and Tidings provides an effective platform for the sharing of such activities.
If you would like to share your stories please submit your material to the Chief Editor. Topics may include:
- How you found The Urantia Book
- Special projects such as Book Fairs, Library Placement, Outreach
- New or established study groups—how you got started—what keeps you going?
- Your annual meetings, picnics, or other social gatherings
- Send pictures
Tidings Team
- Chief Editor: Myra Hight
- Co-editors: Mark Blackham, James Woodward, Richard Jernigan
- Online and hard-copy English newsletters: Mark Blackham
- Spanish translator an online Spanish newsletter: Olga Lopez
- French translator: Alain Cyr and collaborators
- French online newsletter: Alain Cyr
Submissions:
Submit articles to the Chief Editor and please understand that they may be subject to revision. Please limit them to approximately 1 to 1½ pages (700 to 1400 words) plus one or two photos.
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