One of the many reasons I love The Urantia Book and I am continuously re-reading it is because it utilizes words which I think I understand, but then in some random paragraph in some random paper, it will define a common word in an uncommon way and suddenly I need to go back and re-read everything with this new definition in mind.
One recent example of this is “personality,” which in a book that has personality survival as one of its main plot points, I feel like I should know what personality is. And walking around in my limited vocabularic bliss I would think that “personality” would be defined as… what? … as a person’s distinctive character, perhaps? A Solitary Messenger tells us that:
…it would be presumptuous to attempt the definition of personality… [Paper 112:0.2, page 1225.2]
but then randomly in the Sojourn at Rome, a midwayer decides that it’s apparently not presumptuous, it’s just, umm… sumptuous? … for us to be told that:
The presence of goodness and evil in the world is in itself positive proof of the existence and reality of man’s moral will, the personality… [Paper 132:2.8, page 1458.5]
And there we go. Now I get to go back and re-read the entire Urantia Book from the beginning with a new definition in mind. Personality is a person’s moral will, not their distinctive character. So now when I read Paper 1 how humans can obtain “perfection of personality motivation,” I can explore it as “perfection of our moral will motivations.”
A Melchizedek tells us,
And of all forms of evil, none are more destructive of personality status than betrayal of trust and disloyalty to one’s confiding friends. [Paper 67:1.3, page 754.4]
Betrayal of trust and disloyalty to friends destroys our moral will.
Social media can be a powerful tool for sharing our growing study of these teachings. I invite everyone who is involved on those sites to share interesting definitions that might lead us to re-read the book with a new frame of reference, as well as to join me in my studies of “personality/moral will.”
It is time once again to elect new representatives for the International Service Board. Our outgoing board represents Urantia students from eight countries on five continents. I hope that you and your local Urantia community will put forward some volunteer members to serve on the next board which will convene in April 2019. We will hold elections for the positions of Vice President and Secretary, as well as the Chairs for the committees on Dissemination, Study Groups, and Communication. A new Judicial Commissioner will also be elected. Will you please join us in our global service?
I hope to meet as many students as possible in November at the upcoming conference in São Paulo, Brazil. I hope you can come too.