North Idaho Teaching Mission Group

Longing for Connection,

Value Fellowship Teachers

June 6, 2004

* Elyon (Jonathan TR): Greetings, my students. This is your teacher Elyon. It is impressive, your dedication to our instruction. I find your abilities to apply the meanings you reflect upon, that you derive from our contact, to your daily lives. It is our intention to enhance your lives through such contact. While you have come to understand that our influence upon you does not prevent difficulty in your lives, we have been assured ourselves that you are effectively transferring your understanding into practical application and joining us as coworkers in this planetary mission. All too often many look to our Sovereign Son for ease, to be alleviated from challenges.

You are those who recognize that it is your participation in the challenges and difficulties that brings you spiritual strength, that uncovers greater depths in insight, that makes you more able to endure. Within mankind there is an inherent longing for community, to be associated and trusted with and by others. This sense of connection, while it can be viewed as simply an instinct of the animal herd, it is in reality a spiritual, social mechanism within the personality. It is rooted in the Father's desire to be ever in communion with all His children. This thread of connectivity from God to you naturally continues from you towards others. Those in your life who seek truth and those who recognize truth and are ever watching for new juxtapositions of truth events to create an enlarged spiritual vista are ever willing to make connection with you as they recognize your standing in spirit. These are your natural brothers and sisters.

No formality is required; an exchange of concepts is easy and fluid, for you both recognize the divine presence and your spiritual allegiance. Others, however, stumble over the conceptual framework that presents a truth moment, a spirit reality, and they may recede from you in caution as they protect their viewpoints. However, deeper within they understand the spirit of the connection, the love transfer and the acceptance. Time and maturity will give them the courage to risk their mental constructs in order to enjoy the soundness of spiritual communion with a fellow. Ever in your ministry pour forth this love; allow your energy to be warming and accepting. This is the magnetism that brings another to the level of trust that you have attained wherein they may enjoy encountering a viewpoint that is different, that is new and challenging. Repeated episodes like this will prove to them how rewarding it is to be adventurous philosophically, how much broader the vision becomes when many perceptions are enfolded into a grand view. This perspective is attained by the very important initial experience of love from a fellow, of acceptance, of connection. Even one who dislikes association, withdraws, seeks privacy, does so with the same longings for connection. Such an orientation can be beneficial to the soul, as one draws into oneself for reflection and even an encounter with the divine.

However, some recoil from others in fear or through damage in the past. They long for that touch but seek to safeguard themselves. These are the difficult souls to reach; these are the ones your master longs for. You are the means for his contact by your gentleness, by your understanding, and by your patience, allowing time for trust to build, for healing to occur.

You are gathered here today with me because you recognize your bond in spirit brotherhood, and it recharges your souls and strengthens you for the work in the days ahead. Hold in your minds the knowledge that all seek this bond, the fellowship. Develop your skills and be ever ready to touch another. Learn to recognize the degree of their ability to make such an embrace, and then apply yourself according to their spirit standing. Address them as they need, always infused with love, always accepting. I have concluded my remarks. I will remain with you. Ginny: I'm reminded of Jesus saying never to take anything away from another, but give them something positive.

* Elyon: Yes, the master was an expert at ministry to the soul of a fellow.

Evelyn: I have a reclusive streak, so you are addressing me, too, with the idea that we all need connection with each  other as well as with spirit. You say a contributing factor to isolation is fear. Seeking solitude might not be a personality trait so much as a coping mechanism.

* Elyon: Isolation can be and often is the result of fear. However, it is not necessarily due to negativity that strictly hurt. It can also be due to a cherishing of an ideal of peace, of an ideal for a tranquillity in relationship that is often disrupted when engaged with others. When this disruption occurs, the desire arises to just remove oneself and not have to contend with the social noise, so to speak. While this is preserving of the tranquillity of self, it hinders fellowship. It may be an act of preservation, of peace, just as much as it could be out of fear of engagement.

Evelyn: In The Urantia Book it says that a pleasure enjoyed alone can border on evil, or something like that. That sometimes bothers me because I'm often alone, and I do enjoy things going on around me that I'm not sharing. I wonder, is that bordering on evil? Maybe that's not what they were driving at.

* Elyon: The intent of that phrase may be likened to your approaching a bluff to experience the beauty of a waterfall below. Others within an experience of pleasure provide the personality with social norms, with cautionary feedback, that give the personality some structure in which it is expected to behave, much like the guardrails at the edge of the bluff and the cautionary signs of the danger of crossing over that barrier. Socialization in pleasure creates a feedback loop which guides the soul towards healthful pleasure, free of disregard for others. It is through combined experiences that one refines pleasurable pursuits for better well-being. It is not such that it is evil to be experiencing pleasure alone as it is dangerous to only seek pleasure without another or others input and stabilizing influence. Evelyn: That makes sense.

Ginny: I experience sometimes in conversation with others that my viewpoint is expanded; I don't stay in the little framework of my own mind and opinions. Whether I agree or not I have a chance to see and experience a variety of thinking and being.

* Elyon: My sister, it is a joy to hear you express this view. If all your fellows on this world were to approach every engagement in this manner there would be Light and Life on Urantia. Ginny: I'm trying not to be so guarded. Seeing that I'm not being threatened changes that around to a learning situation.

* Mark T.: Could it be said that another's opposing viewpoint completes our own?

* Elyon: Indeed, it does, for the stance of viewpoint in itself limits perspective. It must by definition eliminate that which does not contribute to that perspective. However, in order to expand consciousness, to awaken the mind to higher realities, each viewpoint, all viewpoints, are interwoven. This cosmic perspective brings enlightenment and wisdom. When that is applied to each specific perspective, that viewpoint is further enriched. It is the frailty of the human mind to consider opposing perspectives as enemies rather than as elements of the grander view of the cosmic perspective.

* Aaron (Ginny): Greetings, my friends, this is Aaron. I am enjoying your conversation this morning, and I have a brief contribution to make to the subject, and that is to value the precious aspect of fellowship. We who are engaged in such high spiritual pursuits sometimes forget to engage in common, everyday niceties and amenities such as listening, being interested in another's life and doings, to not necessarily feel that each meeting has to be an engagement of high spiritual thoughts and ideals, that truly being present to another is also a great gift. Remember someone saying, when necessary use words, but words are not always necessary. Our great teacher Michael always was able to engage himself into the arena of another's life; this is one thing about him that made him so attractive. So, as you journey here in your efforts to simply be there to engage in everyday conversation, to take an interest in another's life, to inquire about everyday things, these are also necessary and helpful to another's upliftment. It is a pleasure to engage with you today. I hope that you all will continue to bring peace and joy to others by simply paying attention. Thank you all.

Jonathan: Thank you, Aaron. I appreciate your comments. I sell at a farmers' market. There's always a tension of having an agenda of wanting to make a sale and a customer not wanting to feel coerced into buying.  I'm aware of the feeling of being grabbed by the collar by someone who doesn't want to let you go, so I try to make a friendly contact without pressure. Quite a few repeat customers I acknowledge with a wave or chat about mushroom hunting or something. I'm learning to make that human-to-human connection, and so I appreciate your comment that it's okay to just be with one another without an agenda.

* Aaron: Yes, you who are immersed in this material world do have the challenge to deal with that element of your lives. It is necessary and important. I guess it would depend upon your intentions. Everyone is attracted to friendliness and openness and sincerity. That will attract your customers.

Jonathan: It's that element that even on a cold rainy day it's fun because of the shiny faces who come by and smile and comment.

* Aaron: Yes, indeed, and see what that does, that always opens up another, makes another feel better, and this indeed is a great ministry.

* Elyon: This is Elyon, I will draw a close to our communion. I encourage you all to walk in the manner of Michael, to be the light and to express love ever and always, for in that manifestation is another soul touched by spirit and awakened and encouraged to grow toward the very God that you have come to recognize and that Michael came to reveal. I take my leave.

* Aaron: I thank you all, I take my leave.

END