Tomas Vol VI 2004-5 - Rio Rancho, NM - May 22, 2005 thru December 11, 2005 - Part 4 of 4

This season we lost the grounding influence of our Teacher Tomas and became the wards of a cosmic babysitter, Merium. Merium had co-taught with Tomas in Butler and in Pittsburgh, and so she had plenty of teaching experience, but her youthful attitude and love of children rendered her the perfect babysitter to be with us at this stage in our development. Merium is very engaging, light-hearted, playful and entertaining but make no mistake, she knows how to deliver the goods.

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May 22, 2005 - December 11, 2005

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DATE: May 22, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho NM USA

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHERS: Tomas and Merium

Elena on Piano: "All Creatures of Our God and King"

MERIUM: This is Merium. I am trying to get Gerdean’s attention to offer a few introductory comments before our session with Teacher Tomas. I will thus play my familiar hostess role and say thank you, Elena, for your beautiful application to the creation of music suitable for soothing the soul and stimulating the spirit.

Elena: Thank you.

MERIUM: I would like to welcome our guest, Betty Moore, and offer our best wishes for an enjoyable stay in our midst, inasmuch as our theater here is another dimension of sorts, even as we know you will enjoy your stay with friends in this fair city.

I would remark that with Matthew’s departure, we have as a group here lost our anchor of prayer and I, for one, would like to see the practice resumed. We would like to see the community itself begin to exercise its will on behalf of the group itself to comport itself in a prayerful attitude and, in repose and subject to the will of God, come forth to offer prayers.

Without a volunteer from the crowd, I will be forced to assign you the job. This job of talking to God is not such an awesome job as it is humbling, and so I ask you to humble yourselves and run into the opportunity to speak for the group in prayer. Don’t trip over each other on the way to the microphone, children.

Renault: Okay, I nominate Men-O-Pah.

Elena: Yeah. Hit it, Men-O-Pah.

Men-O-Pah: Heavenly Father we thank you for this beautiful day that you have made. We thank you for the privilege of being able to walk on this good earth another day. We thank you for these dear friends and we thank you for your abiding presence here with us. Open our eyes that we may see. We ask these things in the name of our Lord Jesus, for his sake. Amen.

Group: Amen.

Elena: Thanks, Men-O-Pah.

MERIUM: Another passing from me and that is to say that a nomination is not the same as a volunteer. It is typical, however, of humans to volunteer someone else. (Group laughter) I expect you to review your motives and volunteer next time. I did not assign that job to you, Renault, but I do assign the job for all of you to consider what it means to come forth and lead group prayer.

I turn you over now to Teacher Tomas for his lesson for us today.

Group: Thank you, Merium.

TOMAS: Greetings, my beloved flock and student body. Welcome, once again, to our configuration, which is, each time, a different configuration than the one before, since each and all of you are in a constant state of growth and development. You bring with you that which you were even as you leave behind that which no longer serves. But you are constantly adapting and adjusting to the new growth that you assimilate as you experience one day at a time, as you put one foot in front of the other on what can only be regarded as your faith path.

There are many people who are on a faith path who have no conscious appreciation of what they are doing. There are many days, in fact, wherein you yourselves are walking your faith path without a consciousness of what you are doing. But this is a natural part of the divine plan, that within you our Infinite Creator abides and leads you in ways which are pleasing to Him as well as compatible to you, whether you are aware of His guidance consciously or not.

Thus, God’s will is done and the Most Highs do rule in the kingdoms of men, even while it seems to you who follow politics a contrary depiction. It, therefore, depends upon your perspective, and I, as well as other Teachers in this Teacher Corps am here to help you gain a new perspective. Poetically, it could be regarded as "the farther view." Let us take the farther view of "God’s Creatures Great and Small" which is rather a jumping off point from the music.

God Himself sees only that which is a reflection of Him as living love. He sees only that which seeks to do His will. Even, therefore, if and as many, even millions of mortals, allow God’s will to be manifested with or without their consciousness of His will being manifested in their lives, they are nonetheless recorded on high as a living and conscious entity in league with truth, beauty and goodness. Only that or those that consciously refuse to comply with the divine will are outside God’s illumination.

It could be said, therefore, that God sees roses because in their fulfillment of their own potential, they are doing God’s will. Anything that is fulfilling its purpose for being is a part of God, a part of the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent deity. In this way, the hairs on their heads are numbered.

Those who have not chosen evil, sin or iniquity as a conscious choice are in His grace, for they hold within the seed of potential. At this point in your experiential evolution, all around you is potential. And the faith path of the ages has been to lead you forth into greater awareness of His presence, greater consciousness of His leading, and greater cooperation on the part of your free will to abide by the divine will, which seeks to fulfil itself perfectly in and through you, even as you are relatively imperfect, as you follow your faith path into greater and more refined perfection through improved techniques of communion with the divine and greater appreciation of the task at hand in revealing this benign virus of love which is infused into you and which you are able to infuse into your arena as sons of God and daughters of divinity through testifying I AM a son of I AM. I AM a daughter of All That Is.

The Mother Spirit -- Divine Minister, Bride of Christ -- nurtures the unconscious, even the beasts of the realm, and the many manifestations of life implantation on the worlds of time and space. As a support for and in furtherance of the cradle of the material worlds which nurture the growth and development of the living organism of men and women which are allowed to develop through the course of evolution to the point where the reach for God has been consciously attained, celebrated, and given unto, such that all the world is altered. All things pass away as all things become new in Him.

It is a long and often tedious process, this evolution of the worlds of time and space. And seen from this farther view, from this perspective, it might seem that your lives are swallowed up in the vastness of the march of ages toward universe perfection, but your lives are as precious and unique to God as your children are precious and unique to you. His creations are as nurtured and protected as your many creations are nurtured and protected by you.

You share many God-like qualities by being mindful of your godlike qualities, you naturally find yourself in awe of Him and His ways, and this adds a dimension of truth, beauty and goodness to your life that allows you to see from this farther perspective, thus allowing you to truly cherish that which is divine and its potential, even as you are able to relatively easily disregard that which has no real life or substance to it, for these things will fall away by design into the abyss of eternal darkness as it refuses to act upon the light of truth.

Focus your eye on the light. Let that which is darkness go. Let the dead bury the dead. Rejoice in the light.

I have concluded my sermonette for the day. It pleases me now to open our floor to camaraderie that we share as students in this Melchizedek University classroom that can enable us to share our inner life. It is in sharing our inner life that we most closely share our real life, our godlike aspects, our light.

In the nursery rhyme, it asks, "How does your garden grow?" In this configuration, I ask, "How does your light shine?"

Renault: Tomas, hopefully that means that Gerdean and I will have a little bit of celestial help in our new job aspirations. Anything the invisible world can do to help us out here in the material would be greatly appreciated. Looking beyond what we can do ourselves.

TOMAS: We are all in favor of your advancement and, of course, as elder brothers and sisters, as wizened counselors, we would hope for the most auspicious environment in which for you to grow and to be about the Father’s business. But while we may enjoy the prospect of your future with you, we are unable to manipulate the course of destiny as there is free will -- are free wills involved, over which we have no authority or control.

The reach, however, for better things and circumstances for you and for your loved ones is always something to which we can and do lend support. I must, on behalf of other agencies in the universe, add that there are those who do not seek your ease but seek the challenges which will force you to ponder and consider new realms of possibility and new methods of dealing with, for example, troublesome fellows and difficult situations.

There are those who like to put you into positions that challenge you rather than bring you satisfaction, and so while I can support your desire for a new plateau upon which to work, it is also true that concurrently there are those who would wish you well for the reason that you would have more difficulty than you know now, if merely to enhance your capacity to depend upon that in you which can do that which you, perhaps cannot.

Thus, God grows. Thus God is able to influence areas in the evolving spheres which illuminate the darkness and the relative haze of indirection or indecision. His will be done.

Renault: Yes. Hopefully.

Elena: You know, this week there’s actually much that you were saying in that answer that applies to me, too, so I benefited from your answer as well. And I’m kind of curious about just kind of understanding about "those" who would be interested in more challenging situations. I understand the free will combination and then kind of the support, actually, from you and then others who would like to see her have challenging situations. I’m not confused about, you know, in a person’s life having places where one has challenges and then kind of has a section where you can absorb what you learned and kind of get a rest and go on to something else. That kind of cycle makes sense to me. But what did not quite make sense to me were – there are "those who" … Could you elaborate on that please?

TOMAS: I can be quite specific, in fact, and say that your own indwelling Adjuster is interested in presenting you with the challenges that would awaken your potential.

Elena: Okay. Got it. Thanks.

TOMAS: Do you see how that is?

Elena: Um-hum. Yes, I do. I just-- I got kind of lost there for a minute.

TOMAS: You thought there were enemy agents…

Elena: There was an A team and a B team. (Chuckling) And frankly, if the B team could kind of let up a little bit, it would be really nice. Yeah, let’s hear it for the A team!

TOMAS: Remember that while your Adjuster is interested in presenting you with challenges that will augment your soul growth (for its own interests, I might add, for as you depend upon God more, you secure your immortality through aligning with the divine instead of depending upon your own wit and cunning), it is also that same entity which resides within and that leads you to that peace which passes all understanding.

It is like the mother who attempts its children how to behave in society, even as it cuddles and nurtures and spoils the child in other avenues. Or like the father who wants his son toughened up so as not to be called "a momma’s boy" in school, but who will hold him on his lap and wipe his tears as any nurturing parent, offering nothing but love and consolation to the wounded boy who is only growing.

It is like you who disciplines Barney [the dog], even scolding him on occasion in order to reinforce your boundaries and his, but also speaking words of love and offering doggie biscuits to manifest your affection and approval of him regardless of how it is that he is a "bad dog!"

Evolution takes care of much of this, because the god within is advancing with or without your help, but it will advance eternally and effectively if it has your cooperation. Is this helpful?

Elena: Yes, it is, and actually it was my understanding of her question, but I have one of my own, as I usually do.

This week has been a better week for me, actually, at least in some respects. I wanted … I mean, it’s really been challenging in other ways but I feel like I am turning a little bit of a corner and I can see the light. You said to look at the light. Well, I think I can see a glimmer there. But what impresses me is that everyone life – Everyone’s life that I encounter -- is in almost total chaos and total stress and total anxiety and almost, if not totally, out of control. And practically without exception!

And it’s almost to where … I was at choir practice mentioning something, feeling I was a little bit of a … complaining, and maybe I was … you used the phrase "momma’s boy." Maybe I was a "momma’s girl" or maybe I was being weak or inadequate or something in kind of expressing something about what had been going on in the week, but I’m coming to realize that practically everybody is that way!

And, like I said, I’m getting to the point where I can see where it is forcing me into being more reliant on God, and it’s an absolute nudge and prod and it’s a very strong prod! And, I think I’m starting to see, or at least kind of going into, maybe ending a chapter and having learned a little bit of that. And so, do you have any comment on how pervasive this is? I mean, it could be—this is a rock and the world is nuts!

TOMAS: Yes, Daughter. I am well aware of the condition of your world. It is because of these transitional difficulties that we are here. We have been sent here as a part of Machiventa’s emergency mission to help stabilize the spirit of truth in a very rocky period in Urantia history.

The transition you are undergoing as a planetary growth throe is one of those stages which rocks the boat and runs the risk of all that you have gained being lost. This would be a temporary loss because the scheme is to advance and eventually arrive at a stage of light and life, as is the goal of all the inhabited worlds throughout the superuniverses of time and space. But in the interest of this particular planet that has suffered so many setbacks already, it would be rather devastating and a bit of a hardship for, particularly, the midwayers, who have already served here for such a long time, to undergo yet another setback of your spiritual development.

This is one of our major focuses: to help you affiliate yourself with the very personal divine aspects of yours in and through your own indwelling God Fragment that will enable you to be the calm in the storm, the solid foundation in the trembling, the eye in the hurricane. The transition from the material age to the more mindal age ahead is in effect.

It is inevitable at one time or another that the material worlds relinquish their need for and dependence on the material reality as their focus, in order to ascend to a higher level of intelligence for the betterment of humanity than mere material goods and services can provide. It is to say that we here on this world -- and I include myself now since I will be here for some time -- our focus will be to ultimately pave the way for the dominance of spirit reality. But this is some ways off yet.

Your planet is still very barbaric in many ways, and so we are at this point in planetary evolution and in this next step forward it falls upon the conscious and consecrated sons and daughters of the living God to provide stability for those who have not yet found the intellectual poise, emotional satisfaction, mental peace of mind, and spiritual security to know that all things are in divine order, that even as things earthly crumble, His will will prevail.

Thus, child, as a fellow mortal of the realm, you are in the same maelstrom as your fellow men and women and you share the same difficulties and problems as all are experiencing. In discussing with them the details of your chaos, as compared to the specifics of their chaotic situation, you are enjoying the camaraderie of humanity; you are one with humanity in the sense of the hoard, the collective consciousness.

But as a personal piece of God, devoted to the survival of that infinite aspect of yourself in conjunction with the divine will, you have a window of opportunity to rest in the faith of your presence as an able adjunct and provide that stable table of nourishment, at which people may sit and enjoy the stability of nurturance you have to provide – as we talked about before. In time you will be able to sympathize and empathize with your fellows without becoming emotionally embroiled to such an extent as you find yourself rendered ineffective, as is in your potential.

The glimpse of which you made reference to needing God is a clear-cut indication that you realize He is the ultimate eye, the stable, infinite, eternal power at the central and eternal Isle of Paradise, out from which all evolving worlds are placed. As you identify more and more with this stable place, that citadel of the spirit that is within you, where you can go and feel that connection, that stability, that value, that eternal goodness, that supreme security, that infinite love for you and all the potential of creation.

That is where you will want to be. And as you are there more and more, it will be reflected in your environment and your peers will seek to know you, to ascertain what it is that you have that enables you to feel this peace in the face of crushing defeat, untold disappointment and vicissitudes often too much to bear.

Renault: Why should it get so bad? In order for us to learn our lessons or have our experiences grow?

TOMAS: Well, baby girl, it does not have to be, but the child mind thinks so. Listen to the infant squall. Listen as it wears itself out wanting its bottle immediately, without appreciation of the fact that mother is warming it even now. But to see that child with its face all red, its fists clenched into a ball, its little body tightly wound like a spring, you would think that it had been sorely abused. But watch: the instant the nipple touches its lips, it relaxes in a sign of contentment. And this is how the immature human also functions. And it is also true that this state of alarm and urgency is a habit that develops over the years which is hard to relinquish, especially as the unknown and fear presses upon it from every angle.

It is for this reason also that we urge you to set yourself apart from these problems, these wars and rumors of war, that you focus as often and more often on the beauty and the goodness and the truth of what is already relatively perfect, even perfect, for this brings about a soul refreshment that vivifies and strengthens you such that when the vicissitudes of the human existence come along, they need not be more than little gnats of irritation flying in your face.

What an amazing thing this perspective is. It is all in the eye of the beholder, as they say, and so I invite you to enlarge your eye’s capacity from the visage of observing white spots of goodness on a black background to little black dots of irritation and imperfection on a universe panorama of divine perfection and beauty. And order! There is tremendous order in the universe.

Connect yourself as a citizen of the universe, not merely a victim of your planetary existence, and you will begin to take part in the movement of the spheres, which, like the merry-go-round, is controlled and on course, evolving around the central Isle of Paradise, and like the calliope, provides harmony all the way to Paradise and beyond.

Elena: Tomas, this has been an absolutely wonderful lesson. The imagery you have used has just been – you’ve literally taken me out and given the farther perspective. It’s just really refreshing. It’s like, I guess I was that little baby who was screaming and wrenching and just, you know, tight as a drum, and I’ve had my bottle now and it’s really great. Thank you!

TOMAS: You are very welcome. This is my purpose in being here. Let me call to your attention that our work is not yet finished. I intend to bear with you until such time as you relinquish your infancy and rise up to full adulthood as the noble daughter of God that you are. It requires effort on everyone’s part to become perfect and even more perfect, but it is, as we have said before, the only goal worth aspiring toward.

Elena: It’s comforting to know that you will be there, too, but thank you for that as well.

Esmeralda: Yes, it is comforting. We always like to have you with us, Tomas.

TOMAS: It is gracious of you to receive me and to receive us. You know there are many in attendance, observing and nurturing your myriad paths as you venture forth into the arena of life in blind faith of tomorrow, in unconscious joy of being, and in synch with all creatures great and small.

I leave you now to your own good company and look forward to our next gathering. Blessings upon you, now and forever. Amen.

Group: Thank you.

TOMAS: Farewell.

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DATE: June 12, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER TOMAS

Music: "Under His Wings"

Prayer: (Elena)

"Dear Heavenly Father,

"Please help us pray and help us place ourselves in a position that we can listen to you, that we can hear your words and the words of your helpers, that can help us understand all of those things around us, and help us position ourselves to do the best thing that we can at any given moment. Help us to align ourselves ever and foremost closer to you. We ask these things in Jesus sweet, precious name. Amen."

TOMAS: Good afternoon. I am Tomas, your teacher and friend, moved by your sweetness and affection for one another as has been evidenced in your sharing and in anticipation of the abundance of affection in you that is even now making its way into the circuitry of the spirit which consumes us in these soirees into the dimension of communication intercourse between the spirit realm and the finite.

This overriding paradigm that we enjoy, and in which we take such comfort, even gaining strength by the faith which we invest in the process, strengthens our resolve to go forth into the life, the arena, as it is lived in the material world, there to nobly comport yourselves as a child of God in service to humanity, all the while understanding the need to take care of oneself in the physical sense, and to curtail the depletion of the strength which spirit provides by disconnecting from this connection we have sought and found within this Teacher Mission.

The text points to the fact that while the spirit is a goal, the flesh is a fact. And what a joy to hear you refer to the text in the philosophy of Rodan, who discusses the nature of problem solving as a means of making this life easier and more readily manageable -- for certainly your problems are not all material; they are not all mechanical -- but also bridge the emotional realm, as well, and abut the morontia level.

Having one foot in the material world and one foot in divine awareness is helpful toward your integration of the human and divine nature inherent in you and contributes to your ability to solve the problems of the realm, including emotional ones, because you are connected to the spirit, and disallows your tendency to put all your eggs in the material basket and exclude the spirit reality as something which you have not got yet, as if it were truly off in the future somewhere, unattainable and impractical, for all intents and purposes.

While it is true that your full fledged spirit existence is in ages to come, it would be foolhardy of you to deny the power of the spirit that works in and with you even now as you go about your affairs and grapple with problem-solving as it is understood by humanity.

Prayer is a tool in this process. You have a problem. You want to pray about it. Many people put their problem on the table and pray about it as if disowning the problem. Facing problems and dealing with them is the responsibility of the finite being in the finite world. Even though they may seem overwhelming, or not your problem, even though you may deny a problem exists, it only gets worse if you don’t deal with it; it does not go away. And so to pray about it would be to seek the solution within yourself and within the framework of your life, to seek the strength to follow through, to seek the humility that would ask for information or help in addressing the problem.

Prayer would perhaps allow you to think in new terms of how to go about handling the problem rather than, as is so often the case, doing the same thing expecting different results, denying the problem exists, or passing the buck to someone else to fix it. This is true whether it is your personal problem/challenge or whether it is a group situation, or even now, as you are beginning to perceive, a global problem. The same truth holds. Rather than allow fear to paralyze you, pray for the fortitude and honesty it takes to discern precisely what the problem is.

Now, in terms of politics, we have a lot of finger-wagging at this point, and make no mistake, all of you are political animals, and so even in your personal problem-solving it is not unheard of for mortals to blame it on someone else. But blame is not a solution. Blame is a diversion. If it is your problem, how are you going to fix it? Many times an attitude adjustment will fix it. Simply by saying, "I’ll deal with it," and assuming the responsibility of that which you find justly or unjustly has become ‘your problem’ and that by assuming the responsibility for the problem, regardless of how it got there, you are strengthened in your resolve to fix it, to follow through, to succeed, to forge ahead, to seek satisfaction therein and a sense of accomplishment therefrom. This is a part of the power of prayer.

Part of the power of prayer in approaching the problem allows you to give up your own prejudicial attitudes by allowing them to be set aside. In prayer, it is well to put forth your concerns but then to sit in silent receptivity to hear that still, small voice, which will help to clarify what the problem is precisely, if indeed there is a problem at all. Many fears are born of vain imaginings, which can be dissolved in the light of divine love, but not all. Yet by taking your problems to God in prayer, or to Jesus, or to Mary, or to Allah, or to the Great Spirit, or to any number of icons of illustrious and divine power, you subjugate your will and your "you" to that greater perspective that will allow your biases and emotional boulders to be reduced to grains of sand that can be swept away through the living waters, or by the breath of fresh air that comes from turning over ones problems to that power, as you know from the scriptures.

But you must have been industrious.¹ And so the realm of philosophy does indeed play a role in dealing with the mortal conundrums, thinking things through and discussing these complexities of the mind is a way of sifting the chaff from the wheat, filtering out that which does not serve, does not relate, has no bearing, and focusing on the nugget of truth and value which remains. That is the issue on which to focus, to seek solution, and this is what group council is about. It is what world council would be about. It is what universe council is about and it all takes time. All these matters are dealt with as a part of time, as a part of the material worlds, and it takes place on all the worlds throughout all the super universes. \

There is no place in the material worlds that has not got one kind of problem or other to deal with, one challenge or another on the table to look at and reckon with. No matter how high you go on the scale of evolution, you will always have this pattern of truth seeking and finding available to you. How you could simplify your lives if you utilized this as a daily, hourly practice. What is truly important? What truly matters? Granted, there are many things in the life of every being that matters a great deal, but in terms of universe economy, how important are they to the overall betterment of the individual, the community, the country, and the cosmos?

Ultimately, it is discovered that no matter what your problems, you are all "Under His Wing" and there is no problem too big that cannot be solved by and through your relationship with the Divine. He sees you all, sees your struggles. That God that lives within you often works with you, as you allow it to, and rejoices to work with you more consciously than not.

The practice of consciously working with your divine Indweller gives you the reassurance that you are not alone and, even when you are not supported by your peers, you have that assurance of sonship which allows you to be confident of yourself even when and as it is necessary for the bigger picture for you to compromise or adapt to pursue the greater good, in league with those others who would find the solution to the problems inherent in an evolving world.

Even while your problems here on Urantia are somewhat unique because of the fact of your being a decimal planet and its peppered history, you are still under the umbrella of all the universe powers and personalities which oversee and nurture the growth of the universe, and so in the highest sense, you are and we are under his wing. Knowing this, and knowing we have a choice, a choice to be a conscious part of this process – forever – is, for many, enough to allow individual preferences to be put aside in furtherance of that which benefits the needs of the next step in the growth of the Supreme, the Ultimate and the Almighty.

Had you any idea that any of these various vexations that you enjoy ascribing to Murphy, had you any idea that Murphy is a natural instigator of the gods, you might look differently at the opportunities offered to engage in successful problem-solving instead of cursing Murphy, to say, "All right, Murphy. What do you want me to see here? What am I to focus on? What am I overlooking? What do you want to call to my attention? What am I to learn? In what way may I be of service to the greater good by having to deal with this ‘rinky-dink’ mortal vicissitude?"

It is too, too easy to toss Murphy over into the ‘devil made me do it’ pile, and I urge you to take the tact that God is all there is, and therefore all that is presented is presented for you to glean the truth of His being and discard the rest. The rest, which may have appeared to be boulders in your path, become beaten down by your application and through prayer, beaten into sand – whispering, shifting sand.

What a joy it is to come here at the Father’s table and feast with you and drink of His cup, savoring the flavor of His wine and chewing on the food from His garden, drawing strength, nourishment from the moment we spent together in placid and joyous companionship, reinforcing with our very being, our divine nature, and the nature of the universe. The order, harmony, clarity and peace which prevails here in this moment and which is a respite from the vicissitudes of the mortal existence, is available to you at any time in the stillness. And yet, what a joy it is to share it in a group! And eventually this peace will prevail throughout this planet, even throughout this universe. But now, fed and refreshed, focused and filled with the joy of sonship, it is possible for us to return to our rigors with renewed courage and resolve. Are there questions?

Men-O-Pah: What is meant by "a decimal planet"?

Elena: Yeah, I was curious about that, too.

TOMAS: The idea of decimal planet is based on the structure of how the universes are set up, that every tenth inhabited world is an experimental life station. The other nine planets - those which are not a decimal planet – are controlled; they have a pattern established that is not veered from, in terms of possibility of moving away from the divine plan. This decimal planet has in it a number of possible variables that may be undertaken as a result of the flexibility that is allowed on a decimal planet to verge into "uncontrolled" or "unstructured" byways.

The decimal planets have a great deal more liberty and latitude to make mistakes, but the up side of such is that often they are able to bring about certain discoveries, by accident if you will, that are then incorporated into the construction of other controlled worlds. The unfortunate analogy that has been given, and yet which is most readily understood, is that you are like a laboratory experiment on decimal worlds, but be advised that even while these life experimental stations such as Urantia are indeed able to ‘stretch the envelope’ as you say, and which naturally provide for new and different cosmic problem-solving situations, they cannot go too far.

That is to say: the acts of humanity, which are experimental, are never going to be outside that realm which we called "under his wing." It will never be out of control. It would appear to many that the world is out of control, but it is not, and you may take comfort in that knowledge, for although there are opportunities to go far afield of what one might expect to take place on a world devised, designed and created by the divine Creator Sons of God, they are not all this way. Nine-tenths of them are following an orderly path of progression.

And while their path may, in many ways, be easier, they are not the beneficiaries, as you are, of the tremendous education and actualizing that comes from those of you who have, as agondonters, suffered through the many and peculiar vagaries of life on a decimal planet. Nor have they had as much fun. (Group giggles.) And so once again you can consider yourself fortunate for having this unique experience, not only of being an ascending son but also of being one who comes from a decimal world. Does this help to clarify?

Men-O-Pah: Yes.

Thoroah: I’m curious. Of the nearly three dozen planets affected by the Lucifer Rebellion, how many … or were there an inordinate number of … decimal planets were involved in that?

TOMAS: There are not an inordinate number of decimal planets in that cluster of worlds, which were "led astray and quarantined," no.

Thoroah: Interesting. It would almost seem like it would have been more unlikely for a highly organized world to resist, but of course that’s perhaps an unfair perspective.

TOMAS: You are thinking of it from your perspective which, of course, would be natural, about civilized behavior and uncivilized behavior, as if comparing the middle class, suburban neighborhood with gang activity. While there is some basis to the fact that a controlled environment has less trouble than an environment which is allowed to experiment, those experiments are not always unfortunate or productive of chaos, such as you see here on Urantia today.

Renault: Was the area that was quarantined restricted to a part of our galaxy or was our galaxy simply a part of a larger area of quarantine, since we're just one tiny speck of dust in a huge galaxy? I'm looking for perspective.

TOMAS: Then let us look at it as if your fair city were to have a power failure in one grid, and all the lights went out on your block and the next block over, but the rest of the city was unaffected. Let us say that on your block and the next block over, there are 36 homes, and of the 36 homes, 32 of them are sedate, quiet, orderly, wholesome households where everyone is asleep, unaware the power failure is going on until they wake up, late, in the morning, to discover they are late for work and the coffee pot did not go on. (Chuckles) … But those others who were of a different lifestyle, who perhaps were up rabble-rousing late at night, doing odd jobs or various and sundry creative or pleasureful activities were fully inconvenienced by the blackout and thus had to scramble for ways to see in the dark.

Renault: Is that us?

Thoroah: Agondonters.

TOMAS: You are certainly scrambling in what you imagine to be the dark.

Elena: Good analogy! That's great!

TOMAS: But if you would be patient and rest easy, in time the sun comes up, the power will come on, and life proceeds as a natural course in the universe -- if this helps convey how it is that other planets besides decimal planets were involved in the rebellion. You yourself did not rebel. Nor did the other planets. The rebellion was on a higher grid than human or humanoid.

Renault: Although it affected us.

TOMAS: Although you were all affected. And in order to assure that the power failure did not connect and spread to other neighborhoods, it was simply quarantined. And you may be assured that the controlled worlds may not even notice they have been quarantined. They are plodding along, as usual, on their natural course of evolution. The truth is you yourself would not be aware that you had been under quarantine were it not for the Urantia Book that told you so. And so, even here and now, as the quarantine is lifting, you have myriad theories as to what this world is all about, how it relates to its cosmic neighbors, where there are cosmic neighbors, ad infinitum.

Renault: I think we’re seeing the light of the neighborhood and wondering what happened.

TOMAS: And you are also seeing the lights that were on before they went out and your eyes are adjusting to the light. You had simply become accustomed to sitting around in the dark. And this reflects on your theory, Thoroah, that "we are remembering."

Thoroah: I was just thinking about that. We’re trying to find our history so that we can find out where we are. We can’t – I mean, it’s almost like our history is as ambiguous as our future and that seems … as the kids would say, "That’s not right."

TOMAS: It is important for those of you who are trying to attempting to get your planet back on track from the Lucifer Rebellion and pick yourself up by the bootstraps from the Adamic Default, that you should know as much as possible about your planetary circumstances, so as to have an understanding of what went on before, so that you can anticipate what might come after. For this enables you to begin to focus on some of your fears and put them on the table to be examined, so as to find individual, group, national and global solutions to the many problems that your world has undergone – many of which are simply because you are an experimental planet.

But the Rebellion and the Default were not part of the experiment. Those were betrayals to Michael as well as betrayals to Urantia’s inhabitants. It was not woven into the pattern of your potential here, your possibilities, that such a thing automatically occur, but since it did occur, and due to the fact that you are an experimental planet, it was allowed to run its course.

But I want you to take a look also at the greatness inherent in such a decision, for obviously Michael and Nebadonia had designed their universe, including Urantia, carefully and confidently, that it would and could survive such a betrayal if one should come about. You are hardier, far hardier -- even with the increased physical debilities because of the default and the plasma upstepping going awry -- than you give yourself credit for. This is why we say, so many of us look at you and say, how proud we are of you. How amazed we are. How astounding we find it that your courage and your conviction is so great in the face of terrible vicissitudes. It is because it is inbred in you, as sons and daughters of God, through Michael and Nebadonia as your universe parents, implanted in you through the Life Carriers to withstand these kinds of vicissitudes.

Renault: We didn’t know any better.

TOMAS: This is reason enough for pausing a moment with Rodan of Alexandria to see his philosophy on problem solving [Urantia Book, P.1773 - §4]:

"Successful living is nothing more or less than the art of the mastery of dependable techniques for solving common problems. The first step in the solution of any problem is to locate the difficulty, to isolate the problem, and frankly to recognize its nature and gravity. The great mistake is that, when life problems excite our profound fears, we refuse to recognize them. Likewise, when the acknowledgment of our difficulties entails the reduction of our long-cherished conceit, the admission of envy, or the abandonment of deep-seated prejudices, the average person prefers to cling to the old illusions of safety and to the long-cherished false feelings of security. Only a brave person is willing honestly to admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers."

To say Urantia has no problem is to be in total denial of the opportunities at hand. Perhaps you did succeed because you didn’t know any better, and for this reason there are many who still choose to remain ignorant of the truth, but it is only because of their own fears and prejudices, otherwise they would run open arms into the living love of the universe, and appreciate the adventures possible and the accomplishments and actualities available, the riches inherent in your potential, and the joy yours for the taking.

If you could but see how wealthy you are and how invaluable these little peccadillo problems are that present themselves as irritations in your daily life, you would regard them as pretty stones or seashells found along the path, to admire, to study, and to cast aside as you make your way home to the Father.

Allowing for the fact of the time constraints of the human existence, I will close for the day, with your permission. Is there something compelling that needs addressing before we go?

Elena: Well, other than I am compelled to tell you what a wonderful lesson this has been, and thank you.

Esmeralda: It was a great lesson, Tomas. Thanks for being with us again.

Thoroah: I have one little compelling-- (Group laughter) It may be something for discussion at another time, but you talked about how the vicissitudes, the problem solving goes on in all the worlds through evolution. Are we talking material world, morontia world, mansion world? I’m curious what world … what type of world you are based in. What are you operating out of now?

TOMAS: My world now, for this time period, is rather like residency. I am "in residency" here; therefore, my circumstances, my architectural sphere if you will, is somewhat like a university campus, as a good analogy, and accurate. And I find my problems are related to my work, which is you. Not to say you are my problems!

Thoroah: Of course not. (Group laughter)

TOMAS: But my problems are around how best to reach and teach you, so as to bring forth from you that which is latent within you so that it may be brought forth to your betterment and to the betterment of humanity and to the glory of God. Those are tidy phrases to describe my problems, but that’s what my assignment is and thus I work therein. I want to assure you that I have a higher view, having had a great deal of experience in my many eons of existence, but even so, my problems are as important to me to solve as yours are, and I am vulnerable to being … back-sided?

Thoroah: Blind-sided?

TOMAS: Blind-sided, by my desire to see what I want to see, rather than what is.

Renault: Um-hum.

TOMAS: And this is one of the foibles, perhaps, of faith. For while I want to have great faith in you, I don’t want to be foolish about that, either. Nor do I want you to be foolish where it is not necessary. And, of course, I certainly do not want to send you into a situation where you will be made a fool of without having the appropriate "ammunition" and the ability to see what it is you are going in there after, and in fact what you brought back with you when you come back from your experiential learning.

For believe it! -- There is a tremendous responsibility in being a teacher in this way, for as you prayed in your prayer, Elena, to have your hearts and minds opened, it is my heartfelt prayer that what I transmit to you is as close to the Voice of the Master as I can convey. He is my Teacher, and our Teacher, and yet all of us are assigned these various and sundry roles to play throughout eternity, so that we may be of service.

And when I am not sitting around pondering my problems as far as teaching you, I am sharing these experiences with my peers in the Teacher Corps and in this Melchizedekian University, that we might better understand the complexities of such a life on such a planet, and thereby help to find ways in which to direct your thoughts and feelings, so that we can all join together in solving the problems of this world -- which are many! – without presuming to take on more than we have been given or going far afield of the path we see before us. Which is why I cannot get too cocky about my role as your Teacher, for I am merely a step ahead of you, but learning, as you do, the art of living.

Renault: I have a compelling metaphor.

TOMAS: Please share.

Renault: Earlier you were talking about each of our problems being a shiny stone – vicissitudes that we should simply look at and then discard. And I have the feeling that many of us pick up our stones of vicissitudes and throw them in the pack on our back and keep them and continue to walk around with an ever heavier pack of vicissitudes and life problems and struggles and oh "Poor me" this and "That happened" and I can see where your advice to look at them and then discard them is very good advice.

Elena: Yes. That’s good. I’m glad you mentioned that.

Renault: Because we carry around a lot of extra baggage. Stones.

TOMAS: That is certainly a liberated way to look at it, yes, and I appreciate your metaphor. I would like to extend that further to say that there are many who walk along the beach collecting these stones and shells and who bring them home and put them on a shelf, where they somehow begin to represent the vicissitude itself. And this, while no longer carrying it on the back, can create a bit of a museum or an Akashic record of what experience you have had, so as to share your findings with other young students and visitors. When they come by with something they are carrying that they don’t know what to do with, you can go to your shelf and point to your stone or your similar shell and recall how you dealt with it, and thus help relieve them of the burden of having to carry that albatross around their neck much farther. This is how it is that experience serves.

Renault: Thank you, Tomas.

Thoroah: Yes, thanks.

TOMAS: Thank you all for your presence here today in this classroom and for your listening ear, and for your help as students to enable my job as a teacher to be more effective. Blessed be art thou, beloved children of God and students of Tomas. Amen and farewell.

Group: See you, Tomas. Thank you.

*****

DATE: June 26, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM

Q&A: Necessity for Prayer; Purpose of Nomenclature; Bridging the Chasm Regarding Free Will; Response to Suffering; Discussion on Capacities; Influence of Rituals

TOMAS: This is Tomas. Good afternoon.

Group: Greetings, Tomas

TOMAS: There is need today, as no other, for prayer. We have had this discussion before and it is so easy for you to forget such elementals. It is as if some of you were to regard such an act as a ritual and a part of a service or custom rather than an opportunity to invite the Spirit of the Father into your conscious environment. Without Father, it is impossible for any of us to do anything. None of us exist without the Father. It is also true than none of us can function without His infinite grace and upholding power.

The problem as I see it is that you forget the Father, the personal Creator of all that is. He becomes diffused somehow, as if He were rendered impotent by spreading Himself so thin as to invade space and live within the hearts and minds of humankind, not excluding the heavenly hosts throughout the vast universes of time and space. But God is bigger than that! He is able to be all places at once and still remain a powerful king, an infinite upholder of the universe and all that is therein. And he is also a personal experience to those of you and us who chose to align ourselves with an appreciation of his presence in our lives.

By our association with this magnificent power, we are happy to assume our humble place at His feet in that, from such a place of humility, He will lift us up to be all that we can be … in time, and in accordance with His will. Therefore, I will call upon the Father today in prayer and offer thanksgiving to that great Being Who shares Himself so generously with so many throughout the known world and implants His potential even in the unformed regions.

"Knowing that You, infinite Father, know the end from the beginning and have us all in the palm of Your hand, we relinquish our hold on our perceptions long enough to seek Your counsel, to ask Your blessing, and to avail ourselves of Your guidance. Help us to remember that guidance from You, Father, is not inherently a part of the ways of the world, but is a part inherently of the ways of the Spirit."

I see such strife and contention among you. And it is a sorrow that you experience this; however, it is like the labor pains of delivery that give birth to a new life. The entire planet is undergoing horrific stress as it attempts to birth a new dispensation. It is bigger than national politics, you see, although national politics certainly contribute mightily to the discordance. Even religious differences, as destructive as they are inclined to be in these early stages of planetary development, are not the problem, nor are they a reflection on the growth that is coming about. But they, like the nations, will be heavily impacted by this rebirth of the spirit on Urantia.

Which is why we have come, which is why we remain, which is why we continue to pursue the path of our assignment, which is to offer stability in these times of tremendous change -- to remind you that your relationship with God is that priceless soul connection that will enable you to feel calm even as everything around you crumbles. But to say that it can crumble without having an effect on you is to insult your intelligence and your sensitivity. Even Jesus was able to feel compassion for the people who spurned him.

There is a great deal of vying for position … in the kingdom, at the table, or through whatever analogy you like to perceive the sundry separations that occur, as you each seek to find your footing in the quicksand all around you. You have a desire to cling to that which has served you in the past only to discover that it is sinking; you cling to other people, those of like-mind, in the hope that together you can withstand the effects of the seismic wave overtaking you, but this is only a temporary insurance against the effects of preceding causes that must be allowed to work themselves out fully and completely.

This is why such things as nomenclature can become an issue for embattlement. Identity is not subject to nomenclature, but nomenclature is a tool for recognizing certain personality configurations that more often than not in the universe are designated by number and not by name at all because On High there is not the crying need for individualization as there is on such a world as Urantia, in particular among those who have sought and found their identity in the Lord, and this priceless treasure is enough to exalt in their mind the idea of nomenclature as sacrosanct when it is not, it is merely a designation assigned to entities, including yourselves, for assigning certain possibilities and expectations based on purpose, personality and prior experience.

The essential personality that you have been given will hold up through many metamorphoses, many mortal changes and many morontial lives, but the names may change. If you are secured in the spirit, it will not matter, but in terms of your ability to perceive personality in your life in the flesh as a creature of time and space, names are given and appreciated.

No, On High my name is not "Tomas," but "Tomas" as a name serves to identify me as your teacher, as a celestial helper – but if, and only if, your consciousness allows such, and if not, it matters not what I am called. It is my hope nonetheless that the value(s) that I convey to you, to the degree that you listen with ears to hear, will provide you some sustenance in these troublesome processes of growing and adapting from one paradigm of reality to another.

And believe me, in letting go of the legacy of Lucifer and embracing the will of Our Father, we will encounter yet more seeming tribulations, as there is natural turbulence in the psyche of any man, woman or child who grapples with universe reality in an attempt to break from the egg shell and emerge into the fledgling new life that is promised in the divine design.

It is not difficult for those who live completely in the material world to find comfort and common sense therein. Nor is it difficult for those who live fully within the realm of the spirit. But for those of you who are attempting to bridge this chasm of living in the material world while holding fast to the spiritual ideals and reaching for the fulfillment of your destiny, confusion is bound to be a natural result.

Temporary disassociation may occur. But as long as you know your Source, you return to your Source. Depend upon that Infinite Upholder to nurture you through. As long as you remain humble before this great Reality, you will not be lost but rather will be found in Him. Therefore, keep close to Our Father, the Universal Father of us all, whose eternal dwelling place resides within the Central Isle of Paradise, from where he upholds all the worlds and all therein.

We worship you, Eternal Parent, and appreciate the many gifts you give in the life we life and the dignity you give us through your gift of free will. Help us to use that gift wisely and well, for Your glory, not ours. Thy will be done. Amen.

Group: Amen.

TOMAS: Are there questions this afternoon, dear ones?

Thoroah: Yes, I have a question. I don’t very often ask a question, but I had an observation and there are some questions involved so… First, what you said about the free will thing, I was thinking about that the other day and wrote a note to myself to consider what it would be like not to have free will, because I think we can’t quite conceive of what it would be like not to have free will. It is so innate, so much a part of us that if we didn’t have free will, what it would be like? And I think that is worth a lot of consideration for all of us, to give us a feeling of what it is like to have this power to choose! I mean, that is what life is all about!

And you said in there, too, that Jesus found … or that Jesus was able to find compassion, and that sounds simple enough. I think that we think that Jesus automatically had compassion, but you said he had to find compassion, and that meant to me he had to find that compassion within him. That he had to accomplish that feat of having compassion like we have to. There is a question in there someplace. I think that of all the things I’ve studied in belief systems, no matter what you come down to, this is a litmus test. Making it not so dramatic as they want to make it, as far as heaven and hell, but it is a litmus test of some sort, and no matter what you believe in, it’s how you live that is really the litmus test. It’s not what you believe but basically how you live it.

TOMAS: To illustrate free will, within the parameters of your understanding, then put yourself in a position of being a prisoner where you have no say over your life except to obey the regimen established. You are told when to eat, when to sleep, when to get up, what to wear, how to spend your day. Add to that, who you would associate with or what you would say.

The human will rails against such interment. The human spirit is creative. It yearns to express itself in ways unique unto itself. All of the creatures are like this, and this contributes to the myriad wonders of the natural world. And within that reality paradigm, there falls natural boundaries that keep its denizens from going too far outside their realm of capability and venturing into the realm of others.

I am thinking/speaking of the species I find on this planet such as fish – the various forms of fish that behave in certain ways, different kinds of sea life, with their individual patterns, as well as the many kinds of birds, each having their own peculiar way that they are allowed to express themselves freely within. They do this naturally, even without free will, because it is a part of their pattern.

Humans also have a pattern within which they can function, and they, too, naturally gravitate toward those things with which they are more comfortable. Thus, even as individuals neglect to appreciate the potential within their free will, they are able to live a docile and productive life.

The gift of free will is most evident, most critical in deciding – often times many times a day – which way to go – as the Spirit of Truth points. Which way shall I follow? To do this way is not to go to hell, but it may not be the wisest decision. To go the other way may be less comfortable, but more in keeping with the divine pattern for you – not the animal pattern, but the divine pattern.

If you see what I am saying, this touches on my lesson for the day, that if you live within the realm of natural human consciousness, which is largely animal in nature, your will is not stretched too far, because you have self-limited your options. But by opening the door to another dimension, that of spirit, it has put you in a position of risk as you choose that which falls outside the norm.

There is much alienation involved in the life of those who opt not to follow the norm. But this free will choice to act in accordance with a higher purpose than the simplistic and yet duly honorable purpose of merely living and dying, reproducing and so forth, is how civilization and humanity advances. It is evolution.

The pinnacle of free will is to live so well within the spirit that creativity and expression is uncurtailed, and if and as an individual who has attained such a degree of freedom and appreciation for free will they can benefit the divine, that is a happy life indeed, for it incorporates the values of the life of the human animal as well as the son of God. Essentially, the gift of will – free will – finds its crux in whether you choose to do the divine will or your own will.

Certainly no one wants his will usurped by another. No thinking man or woman wants to be told what to do when it curtails their expression. But, of course, this leads to the lesson of sovereignty, that even personal sovereignty must step aside to provide for the sovereignty of the whole, which is in the best interests of the whole, a solution which most people acquiesce to willingly. It is the subjugation of the masses by those in power, which calls for rising up against that misuse of power.

When you see people engaged in battle and it is apparent that neither side is winning, when sorrow abounds and confusion reigns, when self-will runs rampant on all fronts, those who are victims of such Luciferian tactics, those who are hurt (physically, mindally, psychically) in the process, are even so, worthy of compassion for their suffering. A loving being does not take delight in the suffering of others, even those whom logic would portray as being deserving of punishment.

The spirit weeps with you when you suffer, and stands by you when you weep for others who suffer for the effects of foregone causes, which were not in accordance with the highest and best interest of all of mankind. God is interested in all of mankind. He is interested in the potential inherent in every normal mind. And it behooves us, as well, to be patient and forbearing with those who have not yet learned. And certainly to appropriately feel compassion for those who fall.

I don’t know if this has addressed your concern, my friend.

Thoroah: It did. Thank you.

TOMAS: Thank you for asking.

It is all well and good to listen to these lessons and allow the seeds to be planted deep in your mind, even to allow these truths to be fertilized by human experience and watered by living love, but we forget – you forget! you who are so often subsumed by the material existence -- and so we review these things as time goes by since it is also true that as evolving beings, as you reach for the spirit, you can assimilate more information as you grow and as your capacity is enlarged.

Yes, I have heard you say "I know my capacities" and yet I encourage you to think beyond your own understanding in terms of what those capacities are, for with God, many things are possible that would not be possible were you to attempt to manage them on your own will. Human will is a powerful tool. Powerful! But it is a mere shadow of the power of God. And if and as you submit freely your will to the will of God, He enlarges your capacity even while -- as in "Footsteps" -- He can carry you if and when you are unable to go on. He has such compassion for you.

Elena: You know, Tomas, I don’t think we do know our capacities, at all! I mean, I think it’s kind of – I’m often frustrated but I don’t know what I’m capable of doing and I feel a lot of times that I’m tethering myself unnecessarily. I mean like just … even before the lesson, I didn’t forget about the prayer. But, I was reluctant to step forward, thinking that somebody else might want to do that. And not wanting to always step out into … you know, doing something. So that’s kind of frustrating, too, this free will combination of wanting to allow for other people’s free will, too. And that’s kind of a little tricky balance, I think. And not knowing exactly how to, when to step in, or when to take action and when to allow someone else their ability to use and take advantage of their free will. Any guidance about that?

TOMAS: A response.

You do well to question, knowing what you are dealing with, who you are dealing with, and the history of this group. You feel you are one of those who step up to the plate more often than others. You often have a question before the others and you are mindful of the others, considerate that you not always be in the forefront, allowing others to have the opportunity to speak up if they will. You are manifesting consideration for the will of others.

And yet, if you are sensitive to the divine Indweller, who is intimate with the Indweller of each one present, you will be able to "read" the energy in the room and you will be able to discern if there is another who is gathering himself in order to step forth. If they – those who are still gathering themselves – do not step forth, there is that concern that they will say, "Well, why should I when Elena will do it? Those who are more aggressive and more experienced are doing fine. I don’t need to." That is above and beyond basic courtesy/decency and not your concern; it is their issue to deal with as to whether they want someone else to do their work for them.

Perhaps they don’t feel called to pray. Perhaps they feel their service is in another capacity. Perhaps they dream of being able to lead group prayer but have not yet mustered the courage. However, there are so many possibilities in the human psyche that it could be your stepping up to the plate that just irritates them sufficiently (giggles) that they will step up to the plate …

Elena: The next time. (laughter)

TOMAS: … the next time. (laughter)

Elena: Okay, thank you, Tomas.

Renault: Au contraire! Elena gives me good ideas sometimes. She asks questions and that gets my mind to thinking, too, about things, so … she helps formulate things for us.

Esmeralda: You know, also, one of the things that we missed today, that we did not have, was that moment of silence when we are listening to the music that Elena provides. And I think that helps get our minds focused and usually what she plays has a message in itself and helps us get our minds on a more open plane and yet a quieter, more spiritual level. So we missed that today. And that is probably why we didn’t think about the ritual of the prayer, or the sequence that we usually follow. So, we missed your playing today.

Group: Yes, we did.

TOMAS: These well-formed rituals do indeed help put you in a proper frame of mind for the group’s purpose. But it must be able to convene even without its patterns, for God is no respecter of rituals. He does not care if you bow your head or close your eyes or sing a song, as long as you are open to receive His love. It is also fair to remind yourselves that without a piano here, it is virtually impossible for Elena to play. And yet, would you forego your session because it did not have the preliminary opening?

Group: No, no.

TOMAS: No. There are definite trends in all creatures of habit, which you are, and good habits do help promote the spirit. Stepping out on behalf of the spirit or your own perception of the spirit is not to be discouraged. We are here to in part enable you to come forth and be all that you can be. Not so that you can swing your free will like a saber, but so that you can learn to lead the fellowship in ways of the spirit. This strengthens you as you begin to realize the power of God works with and through you. You are lifted up in your perception of self. And such self-respect is a gift of God also, since that which is respectable about you is born of the spirit, and supplies the spirit reality and potential of all.

I believe we are reaching the saturation point for this afternoon, and I let you go, knowing you are doing well individually in your faith path, even as you needs grapple with many uncomfortable changes and circumstances of the current paradigm of life on your planet. Turn your countenance to the divine Upholder who truly holds you in the palm of His hand, and be at peace within your own soul. Be of good cheer. Amen. Farewell.

Group: Thank you, Tomas.

*****

DATE: July 17, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER: TOMAS

TOPIC:

MUSIC: "It Is Well With My Soul"

OPENING PRAYER: (Esmeralda)

TOMAS: Good afternoon, my beautiful friends and students, and co-teachers in the work of bringing about the Kingdom of God in the realms of humankind.

There are so many gifts of giving that hail from the Almighty God! The gift of life is the beginning of an abundance of gifts given throughout your existence, not only on this earth plane, but in many worlds to come, as you ascend into the presence of the Father, from whence you came, including the gift of free will, which has become your birthright.

Having evolved as a species up from the life implantation way back before the age of fishes, and in the interim … between the implanting of life and today … the gifts you have been given are too many to count: your history, your growth, your governments, your mountains, your music, fine arts, philosophy, rainbows, rain and sunshine – all of these are gifts that have been made possible by the goodness of God.

In the short time we have together this afternoon, I would like to stress how much goodness you are surrounded by and how much goodness you each contribute to the march of ages, simply because you carry the seed of God within you. And to the extent that you co-operate harmoniously with the divine, as much as is humanly possible at the time, you are the deliverer of yet more goodness to those you meet.

Yet, there is some peculiar perception that goodness precludes truth and beauty. There are many kinds of abstract beauty, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, just as truth is a matter of your individual comprehension; goodness is also an individual reflection of goodness as it is known and perceived by the individual.

The good grace of your company warms my heart. The good news of life’s adventures and challenges enriches your experiential depths. The goodness with which you look upon your dire circumstances as perhaps provident of the divine will and the goodness with which you perceive your fellows as children of God is, again, a reflection of God through your lives.

Jesus was admired for his goodness, and yet when it was brought to his attention, he said, "Why do you call me good?" for he was unaware of how his goodness reflected. He could ask, "Why do you call me good? Why do you say?" because he was not mindful to be good, he just was. He had no agenda. He had no sense of political correctness, even while he was well aware of the climate of the conditions of the world in which he lived, the times in which he lived.

Greeting one another with a holy kiss is good. Understanding goodness in your soul sets you aright with all that is – yourself and others. From this place of goodness in which you reside with Him and He with you, fear not the troubles of the day or the challenges therein. As the song said, "It is well with my soul." I wake with the goodness of God in the morning and sleep at night knowing I am in the hands of the goodness of God, and that makes it well with my soul.

Oftentimes the mind can be troubled, transition and change create insecurity, and growth sometimes requires conflict in the mind, but the soul itself, enshrouded and secure in God’s goodness, is at rest. Likewise, the body and its sundry parts can be undergoing changes to which your mind must make adjustments and your spirit compensate, but again, understanding the vehicle which has served you throughout this mortal incarnation, you can know how good it has been to use these parts and to live this life.

Like the vehicle that serves and which needs maintained for optimum service, but whose parts may need replaced or may need retired to the auto bone yard, the goodness of God is a part of all your comings and goings, in charge of all these mechanical parts and mental appurtenances. And so from the understanding of God’s goodness, you can know that they will be dealt with in the manner which all flesh is heir to, and that the mind which serves in this life will be replaced by higher mind when and as it evolves to such a state.

Ultimately, all goodness is God’s, and we grow in goodness as we become more God’s and less our own, less a product of our environment and more a product of divine guidance. It is well with my soul, knowing that all things serve for those who love the Lord.

It is so wonderful to feel your presence once again, all of you here in this solidarity of spirit. My heart overflows with the goodness I know as a result of this moment. It is a gift, indeed, that you give to me, and that I help provide to you, through the ultimate goodness of our Universal Father who gives and keeps on giving from the goodness of his heart. In contemplating the matters of your heart, are there questions or comments?

Elena: Tomas, you were talking about the goodness earlier, about being a good person, and truth and beauty, and that was kind of addressing some points, actually, about my new position. I’ve tried to be a good person in this last position, and I don’t know; some of it just hasn’t worked. But your comments about other people’s perceptions, too, that comes into it, so that helped on that. But if you have any other pointers for me as I go into this new position, I’d be really grateful to have them.

TOMAS: Only to say that the situation, as well as other workers, is to love what you do, and to the extent that you do not like what you do, you will not find happiness therein. And many times it is necessary to change what you do or modify the circumstances of your doing to find the right niche for yourself, wherein you can function fully, harmoniously, effectively, happily, and so on.

Some people find it right away. Some people spend their life looking. Some people just get bored more easily than others and require more variety in their life. And there are those who like to find something and stay with it for the security it provides, regardless of whether they are happy or not because their happiness is in the security. Or so they perceive. And so that is what we must deal with.

What you need to do when you find yourself in a position of not finding yourself fulfilled is find within yourself the reason you continue to stay unhappy or unfulfilled. Sometimes it is necessary to do that temporarily for pre-established purposes; thus you make a contract with yourself to do this which you don’t enjoy doing for a certain period of time in order to accomplish a certain goal.

There are other contracts you make with yourself and others that influence greatly how you relate to what you do. And so it comes back to: Know Yourself. You can not expect a polar bear to be happy at the equator. No matter how hard one species may want to be something they are not, it cannot be unless you are. Be as real as possible and follow that aspect of you that is your soul that will lead you into those fields that will be good for you and to you, for that is the arena wherein you will derive the most good and thus provide the most good for others as you pass by.

Elena: Thank you.

TOMAS: There is no failure in advancing or transferring or making changes. Just because you feel like it, is good enough. It is not necessary for you to rationalize and justify your actions because those who follow the divine, who seek for God in all they do, in every place and in every action, are not limited to understanding according to their own mind, but allow the divine mind to contribute to their walk, giving way to God to lead you into those pastures which may be greener and which may serve you better, at least for a time, until such time as you know what it is you love. And there you will stick with it until such time as the divine will nurtures you along to move to yet something better suited for that which you need to know next in your eternal career.

Elena: Thank you, Tomas. That helps a lot. I feel better now. I felt pretty good about the change anyway, but I appreciate your comments, too.

TOMAS: And naturally I appreciate your enjoying my input and sharing our rapport with friends and neighbors. It is often the case that as we work through our problems and others see how we do it, they will be able to learn from our example, and thereby save themselves much trouble experientially, trial and error being a good teacher but often brutal.

I hear the rain!

Group: Yes! Isn’t that amazing? Tell Father thank you for us. We sure do appreciate it.

TOMAS: Why don’t YOU tell him?

Group: Thank you! Thank you, Father. Thank you, God. Thank you.

TOMAS: Thank you, God, for the goodness of rain, for the life that comes with these abundant waters -- the cool and nourishing gift of life in a raindrop, as Your children are cool gifts of God in sonship.

Renault: It’s interesting how works of nature fill our hearts and sustain us and make us feel better, just looking at green trees, and green lawns, and flowers and feeling rain and sun and shade gives a healing thing to our minds and our bodies. Thank you, God, so much for those.

TOMAS: Yes. That is your cradle.

Renault: Nothing man-made can do that, for nothing man-made works as well as God-made.

TOMAS: But what man can contribute is the discipline and orderliness that maintenance and landscaping provide, to some extent at least, to hold back the floods and fires that without being constrained can be dangerous. Thus, humans are called upon to augment what God has provided.

Esmeralda: But he provided that ability in us to do that, too. He’s provided everything.

TOMAS: Indeed, he has. And yet how quickly, how often he is forgotten or overlooked in the task at hand. I don’t say that to inject shame or to chide you, but simply to state that at this point in your planetary evolution. It is only recently that God has been making such a comeback into consciousness that could be considered acceptable, socially acceptable.

Even so, there are politics of godly people that require some cultural sensitivity so as to not insult the spiritual sensibilities of your neighbors. The goodness of God encompasses all of these interpretations, and God will have more to say about the situation when all these factions are able to come to God in harmony and in peace and in appreciation of the differences in beliefs and opinions, and yet with a respect for the other’s perspective.

And so the culture is assimilated and we are one step closer to the family of man – the brotherhood of human beings. Goodness.

Goodness that comes from the heart is the kind of goodness that has a permanent and powerful affect on everyone and all that is, because it is so much like God. In spite of appearances to the contrary with hurricanes and tsunamis, forest fires and earthquakes, disease and death, error and accident, it is nevertheless true that God is good.

And you, too, who are his children, as you learn to be more like him, are more and more learning to recognize the value of goodness, how it is reflected, how it is assimilated, how it is utilized and how it is expressed. And thus we bring the goodness of God into the heart of our culture, into the mainstream of living experience.

Jesus went about doing good. Go about your lives, then, doing good because it pleases you. – not to brown nose or to manipulate, but to establish who you are in your association with others. I am a good man. I am a good woman. I have goodness within me. I am of God and God is good, even as He is also truth, and beauty. Are there any other questions?

All is well with your soul. I can feel it. I can feel the peace and harmony that reigns. I know there are questions that lie within you, but the music of my voice, the presence of our Master Teacher, and the comfort of the rain – not to mention the feast which you enjoyed together in remembrance of him – has given you a sense of contentment, and well being.

I urge you now to go forth, carrying this sense of well being into the world. And come back when possible to sit again in this place which we enjoy this moment, to once again draw strength and sustenance from that which is good, which is resident within you, that which is God’s, you.

See you again next time. Farewell.

*****

DATE: July 31, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho TeaM

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER: TOMAS

Coping Mechanisms

MUSIC: Elena on Piano: "Learning to Walk" and

PRAYER: "Oh Master Let Me Walk With Thee"

Renault: Two walking songs! [An acknowledging of group member's recent knee replacement surgery and subsequent learning to walk again]

Group: That was lovely. Amen.

TOMAS: Good afternoon, lovely friends. I am Tomas, a teacher in the Teacher Corps.

Group: Welcome! Hi, Tomas.

TOMAS: I present my credentials as a reminder of our task. But before we commence our walk, I would like to sit with you in a moment of repose, along with the Master who joins us in our moment’s soliloquy with him, in peaceful appreciation of the richness of the moment -- the peace and placidity of your love is these circumstances which we enjoy when we come together. [Long pause]

I call your attention the fact that I am a Teacher of the Teacher Corps under Machiventa Melchizedek, our Prince, and make our lessons manifest as we can, in and through you who are willing learners. We have talked about learning to walk. We have used the analogy of how it is that when you are reborn, born of the spirit, you are dependent, naturally dependent, on the Father to provide your every need, to feed you that which will nourish you and help you grow, to counsel you and coddle you, comfort you and correct you as you grow, eventually to crawl … as if you were really going somewhere! … and eventually stand and go from one piece of furniture to the other as support, before you have finally gotten your bearings in the spiritual life you are beginning to lead. With your feet on the ground and adventures ahead, you begin to walk, indeed. And walk with the Master.

We have a lot of walkers in the mission today, a lot of walking in other missions as well, that together are heading in the direction of a new world. While one value system falls away, the other is coming into being – not just in your spirit, and not just in your feelings, but in your mind and in time this will be realized in your way of life. Industries and institutions will modify and adapt to accommodate the values and ideals that are emerging in your efforts to learn to walk with the Master. As you proceed, taking his hand -- and in many ways being his hands and feet and mouthpiece in the world – you join with others, and soon there is a large throng, becoming as a mighty river of living water, forging its way through the dry earth, to bring renewed life, revivification through the living waters that you are in concert with others of like mind.

You are, to expand the theme of the river, like the bosque -- you who stay close to the river, who are related to the living water, who have your feet planted firmly in this fertile ground -- and like the trees and cottonwoods of the bosque, your leaves and branches reach high into the sky where you take in your source of energy and sustenance, shading your younger brothers and sisters as they grow, and providing a haven for the many creatures who live in your precious bosque -- the bosque provided by you who are believers – not of mere monuments to religion, but as a part of the living, flowing, moving way of life we know when we walk with God.

The difference between living in the bosque with God and living on the streets and boulevards of the concrete jungle or the inner city, is the difference between day and night. It is in the cities, in this analogy, this parable, where you would go to serve those who have not yet met the peace and tranquility of the bosque way of life. Entering into the city fold is radical, loud, jarring and unsafe. And yet, if you go there with a mission, with a purpose, you go there with God's guidance and protection. You have a reason for being there, and so you can go and minister in confidence of your safe journey and you can return to the riverbank at night to sit around the campfire as we do here, and relish the repose of those who seek to instill the peace on earth that we know is possible if we but set aside our strife.

All of us are dependent on the river, on the living water that flows from on high. All of us take our nourishment from its life-blood, and while as a body of people we can resemble the river, as individuals it is our lot to walk alongside the river and appreciate its beauty, its truth, its goodness, its ways, even its occasional treachery in the business of being a river, as God does in being a creator. (Pause)

How have you been? (No response) Are there stories to tell? Or questions to ask? (No response) Then I will talk more. I had been pondering earlier about how it is that you cope. How, as you go into the cities, as you in fact reside in the cities, as you may longingly look to the bosque as a place to be, but it is not so, you then need to adapt and adjust to the circumstances and situations wherein you find yourself. For certainly you are conscious of survival and the needs that must be met at the same time you seek to serve and build a brave new world based on your highest and best ideals for humanity.

Coping mechanisms are tied into your social consciousness as mores, and they stem from your mind -- your mind, which is the first arena you must master in your walk, in your work. If you have not self-mastery, you cannot expect to hold up under the swell and flow of the asphalt jungle (as it is called). And so, many of you have spent much time developing ways to make life work for you … without God. And while these coping mechanisms may have served you as a mortal of the realm, they have short-circuited your ability to go beyond your own mind into the regions of the divine mind, which you have access to through your relationship with Our Father.

It is not necessary for the child of God to cope, as it is necessary for the human animal to cope. No doubt Jesus had to cope with many situations in his life. He was certainly tried and tested in life's normal course of events, by his relationships and business dealings, and so the man coped. But when the time came for him to put down his apron and to be about the Father's business, it was not a question of coping with humanity, it was a matter of pouring out upon humanity the living water that was possible to come forth from him because he let down his coping mechanisms and allowed the Father to pour freely from him.

The same is possible for all of you. There are times when you must cope, when you must endure, when you need be long-suffering and tolerant, patient, forbearing, forgiving in your dealings with men and even with yourself. But there are times in which you are able to liberate yourself from that mental constraint and allow the spirit to flow from you freely. This is like what I enjoy when I get to speak with you. I am not coping. I am doing what I am here to do and loving what I do.

Elena: That's good to know. You're not coping with us.

Renault: Is there anything in your "life" that you do have to "cope with" in between your joys of serving?

TOMAS: Let me express my response this way: When I am with you, I am in the bosque.

Group: Awww. Okay. Thanks, Tomas.

TOMAS: When I am with my peers, I am also in a safe place. But as ascending sons and daughters, and not yet perfect, it is sometimes my lot to experience the necessity to cope as I enjoin my peers arguing about interpretations or approaches. These are short-lived, for the most part, because by now we have pretty much learned to go to Machiventa or other (Melchizedek) Receivers for guidance, for there is always someone who has greater wisdom and experience - always. And where we find you fiercely independent and self-determinative, we have relinquished those clutches long ago in order to be about the Father's business in ways for which we are experientially qualified.

I have expressed on occasion that I do grow weary. But having such a feeling does not require of me that I develop a coping mechanism to continue with my assignment. It is not necessary for me to promise myself a reward if I can get through this. It is not necessary that I blame someone for the effort I must expend. (These are common coping mechanisms.) I withdraw. I return to the river. I refresh myself in the living waters. I return to the city renewed, reinvigorated, as the sap returns each year to the maple tree in order for maple syrup to come into being.

Esmeralda: But Tomas, would we be able to cope as well if we did not know that the river and the bosque were there for us?

TOMAS: Now there is a good question. For the more you know about the living water, the more you know how to relinquish your dependency on coping techniques. They become like wool clothing in the springtime. But there are still many, many people who have not the frame of reference of the divine life they live, the divine life that lives within them. They look to God as if he were still in some far off place, a city behind pearly gates, and they short-change themselves. They cannot possibly know what you know. Their whole life becomes a series of coping mechanisms in which there is no surcease.

Is there any wonder there is strife in the world? Is there any wonder there is deception, and manipulation? It is from not knowing about the river of life of which we are a part, a living part, that makes them feel they need to control their own destiny. I know you also have times when you feel you must control your own destiny and be masters of your fate. I know how important it is to the human being to feel as if he is in control of his life and that his life is manageable. No one likes to feel tossed about on the winds of change like some fragile leaf. And yet, in life there are times when you lose your bearings. You are cut adrift from your moorings. And you have a moment or two of insecurity. But as time passes and you continue your journey, you realize that this too shall pass and that you are always brought back to your Source because you know how it feels, what it sounds like. You have a built-in compass that will lead you home.

Elena: Actually, Tomas, I had two or three things that I was going to ask you, but right there, that pretty well provides the answers to all of them. What came to mind was, you know, maybe seeing what your comments on my new position would be, or there was also a deal about, I don't know, selling my condo, and the way to do that, and then just expressing gratitude over actually having a greater sense of well-being than I had. But really, your comments right there just have actually answered all of those. Minus the specifics, of course, but …

Esmeralda: You know, Tomas always takes care of what I need to know without my really asking. But last night I was watching Bill Mahr and he was doing one of his one-man stand-up things, and I really enjoyed it, but he was talking about the religious right and he made one comment that made me sad for him. He was talking about what the religious right says so many times, and one was, he said, They say "Jesus is always with me." He said, Jesus isn't-- He said, "You know, you can believe in fairy tales and myths when you're a child but when you're an adult, you know, fairy tales and myths aren't necessary." And I thought, you know, we all have a Thought Adjuster and our Father Fragment and they are always with us. And if you aren't aware, that's sad. And I felt sad for him. So, I enjoy him. I think he's funny and he's entertaining, but that, I thought, was a very sad statement.

Renault: Just a different perspective of who Jesus is, that would be with you every moment, you see. Bill Mahr has a different perspective than what we do.

Esmeralda: Yeah. But that struck me as a sad note.

TOMAS: This is very sad indeed, and it is something that cuts through much of humanity. It is as if in their desire to learn how to live the life -- that is to say in developing coping mechanisms -- they need to set aside those props and crutches which will hinder their getting where they need to go or doing what is expected of them. This is a problem of evolution that will one day be eliminated as people recognize that Jesus is not Tinkerbell. He is a very valid reality that can make life more meaningful.

The Chinese had a saying that religion was an opiate for the masses, and that theory tends to invade all the races and civilizations at some point in time, but it is only a temporary stage in the onward march of humanity and it will pass. But it is sad, because it brings great sadness to those who have been taught they cannot have faith in that which would make their lives so much richer.

There is a scripture to the effect that 'when I was a child I thought as a child and when I became a man I put away childish things.' Jesus is not a childish thing. Faith and belief are not childish things. Both faith and belief contribute mightily to the forward movement of the river of humanity in search for God. This is the ultimate destiny of the evolving worlds -- to attain God-knowingness and God-responsiveness. And so yes, it is sad, but it is temporary.

Those who can be turned around to see the merit of having a man like Jesus as an inspiration and the spirit of Christ-consciousness to add that dimension to life experience, they become co-workers and peers in the bosque neighborhood. This is why we tend to encourage you to trumpet the good news. There are so many errors that need corrected, many of them errors of childlike faith that tend to do more harm than good, over time.

Let’s take the example of "God told me!" "I was talking to God the other day and he told me!" "In my prayers the other day, I was talking to God and he told me."

Renault: Are those Bush-isms?

TOMAS: Those are believer-isms. They may be because of the adjutant mind spirits. They may be because of organized religion. They may be because of superstition. But for whatever reason, when "God told me" something and it came to pass that it was a stretch of imagination and not God at all, it tends to undermine the initial enthusiasm of the faith child. And the backlash is to undermine what God said. And so over generations the errors of evolution must eventually give way to the need to know spiritual substance and so when God tells you something, it is that still, small voice. It is the assurance of things unseen. It is the security of knowing you are in God’s hands regardless of temporal circumstances.

Much of what humanity says must be allowed to go in one ear and out the other, for much of what humanity says is an echo of some noise made long, long ago. If you could train your ear to hear the river itself, focus your ear on the sound of the living water. Become a true listener.

Your comments, Elena, Esmeralda, as to having your questions, your concerns addressed by me in my lesson, is a result of my being able to listen to your soul. Not, perhaps, to you, the mortal, but to your indwelling Adjuster, who knows you better than you know yourself, and who confers with me, or with the Adjuster of the T/R. And so the higher level communicates among itself, and you are the recipients of their wisdom.

This is what it is to allow God to lead, to be in control, to uphold the universe and manage all things therein. I am fully dependent on Spirit to be able to teach you what you need to hear, as you need to be fully dependent on Spirit to allow you to teach what you must teach those who come to you as you pass by. But as you depend upon your own coping mechanism, you rule out the opportunity for this Spirit to prevail. You put yourself in the position, like the fellow you mentioned, of taking up all the space for yourself and discounting the precious presence of the Master Son himself -- who does and will and would walk with all of us if we so allowed.

Jesus is not a crutch. He is the staff of life. It is all in the perspective, then, isn’t it?

Group: Mm-hum. That’s true.

Esmeralda: Tomas, at one of our conferences, the first one I attended, in Boulder, Michael was being T/R’d to us and this was, what, six or eight years ago, but in this, Michael said, "My arm is around your shoulder and I am whispering in your ear," and I just simply thought that was beautiful, and have never forgotten it, and I remind myself of that frequently. Probably not as frequently as I should, but it was just something you couldn’t forget.

TOMAS: You did not forget it because your heart was open to the reality. I encourage you to realize that often, that he is beside you, and confer with him often. Allow him, indeed, to whisper in your ear that which you long to hear. Let me also suggest that as a faith exercise you even now, all of you, I challenge you to raise your right hand as if to see his. Extend your hand now. Extend your hand into the ethers and ask Jesus to take your hand.

TOMAS: Take my hand, Jesus, and lead me home.

Group: Take my hand, Jesus, and lead me home.

TOMAS: Walk with me in our journey to the Father.

Group: Walk with me in our journey to the Father.

TOMAS: Experience the bliss of knowing he has hold of you, hold of your hand, has your being in the palm of his hand, indeed, and will not let you go.

All right then, Children, are we replete?

Group: Um-hum. I think so.

TOMAS: We have been skinny-dipping in the river.

Group: (Laughter) That’s one way to put it! Tomas, you’re just a joy.

TOMAS: How clean it feels to frolic with you, my friends, on the beach on this bright summer day. Clothed in the raiment of our Sonship, let us go forth into the arena of the asphalt jungle, in order to, like the shaggy dog, spray our wetness everywhere.

Group: (Laughter) Thank you, Tomas! What a way to put it! Farewell. Bye.

*****

DATE: August 21, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM

T/R: Gerdean

Music: Elena on Piano: "Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts"

Prayer: Esmeralda:

"Michael, we are happy to be together today to help celebrate your birthday. Our group is small but our hearts are large with love for you. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having always been with us. And thank for all you did for us when you were on this earth. Your birthday was certainly a joyous one to remember. We are very grateful for you. Amen.

MICHAEL: "To him who has been given much, much will be expected."

TEACHER HAM: Tomas has been reassigned; Merium will be our new Teacher

TEACHER MERIUM: Introduces herself and her background. There follows a discussion of the theme: "To him who has been given much, much is expected."

MICHAEL: Blessed guests, I am your Host, Michael, whom you remember as Jesus, my guests indeed, with whom I am glad to share my gifts -- those gifts you bring and that Our Father has given to me to share with you in honor of Him and to His glory. Let us rejoice in Our Family relationship, learning to play together and work together and live together in constructive harmony.

I am here with you today, and in many other places as well, because of the remembrance of my life lived as a man among men on your world and the appreciation for such a noteworthy event occurring on your humble orb, that your Creator Son should choose this world on which to experience a seventh and final bestowal.

You will not know in total all the reasons for my choosing to come here or the advantages you receive as a result of my having been here until many eons have passed, but it delights me when you celebrate this world as one on which you shared experiential living with the creator of the universe of Nebadon.

To those of you whom much has been given, much will be expected. And so to those of you who pause to reflect on my incarnation as a mortal on your world, and who consider what that means in terms of your planetary evolution, in the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth and the up-front-and-personal affection I have for this world of my birth, let us rejoice together in sonship of the experience of beginning as a wee babe and being raised in the flesh and in the spirit to stand before the god of our creation, Our Father in Paradise, on whom we focus as our goal and on whom we bestow our thanksgiving, our heartfelt appreciation for life itself.

Gather round then and enjoy the guests, the invited guests that attend to you in the affairs of the Kingdom. Blessed be art thou, my children. And peace be upon you.

Group: Thank you. Happy birthday! Thank you, Michael. Happy birthday.

TEACHER HAM: I am Ham. I am here in an official capacity as an administrator in the Teacher Corps and as a celebrant of the memorial you enjoy. Thus we warm ourselves before the hearth of the divine plan and in company with the divine Family. I am here to assure you of the overcare that we are all given, we are all provided, but to allow, too, for the furtherance of His plans and the growth of His Kingdom. Tomas is reassigned.

Elena: What?

HAM: I am here in my official capacity to advise you that Tomas has been reassigned, and you will be receiving another Teacher …

Group: (Murmuring)

HAM: … one with far less experience and with whom you may grow in accordance with your interests and capacities as a group. Tomas is in Minnesota, and has been working with the Andover Group for some time and has made an impression. In that, we will let him stay there and serve because it is his delight to serve and the transmitter/ receiver there is comfortable with his energy.

Gerdean is an experienced T/R and can handle the influx of a new and less experienced Teacher who would benefit from the engagement with you and hopefully you will benefit from her association also. You have met her before. Merium is her name. M-e-r-i-u-m. Merium served extensively with Tomas when they sojourned in Pennsylvania, but she has languished without a bullhorn, so perhaps we can provide her a platform upon which to be heard.

I will be keeping my eye on you and on the development of this new configuration, for the doings of these teacher bases is our heart's delight.

Elena: But Ham, did we foul up or something? Is that why there's been a reassignment?

HAM: No, you have done nothing wrong. This is simply change. You will remember my first words to you were "Welcome to Change." Tomas has been a part of Gerdean's life for so long it is difficult for her to detach her thinking from his. This is fine, but it also puts her in a position of feeling as if she is a broken record, for while a Teacher may find a thousand and one different ways to say something, the human perception sees it as if this has been said before, and so the human perspective perhaps despairs that the message must be repeated and repeated and repeated, but the Teacher never tires of finding new ways to apply its wisdom, its lessons to the learners, the students. This also keeps the Teachers fresh, for they have the opportunity to work with other minds.

You have done nothing wrong. You are not being punished. You are not being set back nor are you being advanced. You are simply being given another personality on which to lean as you grow. It being a female teacher, you may all learn to respond to other energies than those of Tomas who, delightful as he is and remains and will for a long time be, somewhat formal and staid. Merium is ebullient, vivacious, young and spontaneous, and this will give all of you an opportunity to experience new energy, and I anticipate all of you will benefit from this change. Tomas is not fired, nor is he removed from you. He remains a vital part of the Teacher Corps and is, of course, interested in your further growth and development and will continue to be an occasional visitor, guest teacher and friend. Are there other questions?

Elena: I wonder if I might be so bold as to indulge and say, "While you're here, Ham, do you happen to-- there are only four of us-- so, I mean -- do you have any messages for us, Ham?" You know, like it used to be when … I mean when Mother and I were in your group? I know I'm being selfish.

HAM: You are not being selfish, child. You are being presumptuous.

Elena: That's it! (Laughter) Sorry.

HAM: But … I know you well and I know your heart is in the right place. You presume upon those you love and trust. If I did not love you in return, you would not feel free to ask. You would like a lesson. It will take only a moment because Merium is waiting impatiently in the wings.

Elena: Oh!

HAM: I want to say only that this birthday party celebration idea that your childlike minds delight to light upon is a starting point for my analogy that the soul is in a constant state of striving, and when it attains a certain level of accomplishment, it is appropriate that everyone stop and celebrate this new plateau. It is my joy today to see how many groups there are across the nation and across the world that have stopped in their many rigorous efforts to search their own souls and to plant seeds within their fellows, who have put down their weapons and their arguments, who have set aside the struggle for ethics and principles, who have put aside their pursuit of accomplishment and productivity in order to simply look to the Master for the love that he gives, the support he provides, the future that he promises, and to celebrate the gift of knowing him as a co-worker in this advancing reality yes, but even more so, as children -- HIS children -- who, as our Father and the Divine Minister as our Mother, show us the way, set forth the ideal and preside at the table.

We understand, as a result of his having walked among you and is walking among us today, tomorrow and next week, Thursday afternoon, Tuesday morning, November, and 2006 and beyond, into the next epoch and into infinity, it is also true that he will be with us and showing the way. And at every point along the way where growth has been attained, and where wisdom has been acquired, and where mastery has been reached, there will be an opportunity for celebration, a putting down our arms and instead, reaching out our arms in an embrace of friendship, fellowship and affection in the spirit. And so, here's to tomorrow, and those future tomorrows when we will walk with Michael (and Jesus, as you understand Deity incarnate, even as you are learning to become God in man). I leave you now.

Elena: Thank you, Ham.

Esmeralda: Thank you for coming.

Elena: But it's so good to have you here.

MERIUM: This is Merium and I am so thrilled to see the doors and windows are open! You know me well enough to know that I am one who likes to come in after having heard a stodgy lecture and open the doors and windows of the mind and soul and psyche to allow the ventilation to flow through, to fluff up the pillows so that your comfort is assured, and to allow you to stretch into that which you are becoming -- to let go of that which is stiff and outmoded in order to embrace that which is fresh and young and new.

All of you are fresh and young and new! And I know you will love me just for saying that because all of you perceive of yourselves as being so mature and so settled in your approach. Indeed, one of our number here is, I believe, 86 years young, and none of you are under half a century, and so for some reason you seem to think you have all the answers and all the problems sewn up, and that it's just a matter of endurance until you are released from the fetters of the flesh in order to fly away like a helium balloon into the heights of Havona, there to celebrate ever and anon a new youth as a morontia personality.

But I want to get you reoriented and set the record straight. You are not getting older. You are getting younger, and that will be our exercise. That will be the physical therapy, emotional therapy, mental therapy, even spiritual therapy that I intend to undertake with you, that we are not looking forward to a gracious translation to the other side, no, but to a vital new life in the flesh as you are enabled to do through your re-invigorated approach to life itself.

I will tell you about myself only briefly, since I will be babysitting you (giggle) for awhile. I was a young woman on my native world when I was untimely removed from my mortal tabernacle. You might think of me as an 18-year old blonde, pony-tailed, bobby-soxer, the high school student who is called upon to babysit all the neighborhood kids because all the kids love her so much. Indeed, I did live in much of that kind of environment and was much that kind of person. I was often surrounded by children, and while I did have a couple of gentlemen admirers, I was not focused on romance, nor was I focused on academics. I really enjoyed being a young woman -- a girl, actually -- and having the opportunity to spend most of my time with younger children.

You now will be my younger children, and so you will not get any of this mature stuff from me. I will not expect you to be philosophic or wizened. I will expect you to be youngsters, curious about life and adventurous in your approach to it. I anticipate your thinking, "Oh, Merium, I don't have the energy," but I promise you, the energy will be forthcoming, for it does not come from your old chromosomes; it comes from the divine Source of your being, and there is no want where that is concerned.

In fact, you are all just now reaching the point where you can be truly useful, and so you will not be allowed to sit on your duffs and watch the PGA tournament while the rest of the world is floundering in what may be regarded as stodgy air when I am here to teach you how to open the windows and allow the sunshine and fresh air to come through, enlivening your life and theirs. Let us introduce light and life to this planet. Let us be children in our consciousness -- not as you perceive little ones in this world, perhaps, but as the divine eye sees the young from a spirit perspective.

I am not as gabby as Tomas. I am already bored with the sound of my voice. But I will play games and tell stories as the opportunity presents. And yet you are the child; you are the one I have come to focus on. Therefore, this is your time to bask in the limelight of my love. Let's hear it from you, then. Learn to step out and into that light that we may all see your delights.

Elena: Merium, I'll ask a question and maybe it'll be-- I am looking forward to kind of having you here and having the benefit of having a different approach, as much as I have loved and cherished each one of the personalities that we have had the opportunity to deal with, so I'm glad you're here, and thank you. But you know when Michael said, "To those who have been given much, much will be asked." Well, sometimes, as a child, you think, "Well, gee, maybe I'm not doing enough." So I was kind of wanting your spin or a comment on that perhaps, because that sometimes makes me feel burdened and like I have not done enough and I don't know what actually to do more or how can I do more kind of thing.

MERIUM: Well, let's be childlike about it then. Not childish, but childlike, and put yourself in a position of being a child and in a situation as a child wherein you want to show your appreciation for your parents for what they have done for you. Generally speaking, a child does not sit around night and day trying to find ways to please its parents. Only a child who is insecure in the parents' love would feel the need to be constantly finding ways to please the parents and get their attention (approval). Most healthy children are busy being about their lives, playing with their friends, going to school, doing their lessons, learning to play a musical instrument, or whatever it is that is appropriate for children.

Therefore, see, if you will, that it is absurd to expect from yourself that you should be fretting about what you could do for your parents, but rather think about what you can do to make your life richer. It is like a child who sits around saying, "I'm bored!" and the parent will say, "Well, find something to do or I'll find something for you to do," and naturally this means you'd better scurry and get creative fast, otherwise you will end up having to do some dumb chore.

Group: (Chuckles and chortles)

MERIUM: Well, I'm telling you, only the boring are bored. Don't be bored. Find something to do. You don't need to feel compelled to be doing something all the time, either. It is only when you are under foot and asking for guidance and direction that you would say, "I'm bored" in the first place, for usually children, being adventurous, are doing that -- being adventurous: building a tree house; floating up and down the river on a makeshift raft; poking around in a hole for something to come out at you. There are all kinds of ways that children amuse themselves, even academically and through their studies, for learning is a joy for most children.

And that is the business that you need to be about in your life now. Being a child. Finding things that interest you and pursuing it, so that you find joy and satisfaction in your life experience.

Elena: Thanks!

Thoroah: I was thinking about that same phrase. "To those who have been given much, much will be expected" or whatever, but how is one to know that they have been given a lot? Sometimes I feel like I've been given a lot but then sometimes I think how presumptuous of me to think that I've been given a lot. Just a little mind game there.

MERIUM: Well, it is, in fact, a mind game. But what else have you got but your mind to keep you constant company?

Thoroah: Just trying to make sense out of what's being said, Merium.

MERIUM: Sometimes you can feel sorry for yourself and say you haven't got anything -- you have got nothing that you really wanted to get. Everybody else got it but you didn't. And that is a state of mind that many children go through. They sulk and pout. They did not get the pony. They did not get the bicycle. They did not get the dolly. But the neighbor did, and so the mind says, "I didn't get anything." Naturally, in that state of mind, you will not be wanting to do something for somebody who already has it all, as far as your concerned. That would be martyr-ous of you to try to twist it around to make some sense of it.

And yet there are times when everything feels right and good. When the sun is shining and the shadows are falling magically, the breeze is blowing refreshingly, your tummy is full and you feel good about life, you get the giggles, you want to do something fun for someone else. In these times when your sense of feeling good mounts up in you like a wave and you get the idea that you really probably ought to ask little Jimmy Rogers to play with you once in a while, that's the time to go over to little Jimmy Rogers' house and say, "Hey, you wanna do somethin'?" even though many other times you would just as soon not be bothered with him, for there are things about him that you don't like.

Perhaps his family is not the right kind of people, or his nose runs, or something that is distasteful or culturally antithetical, but when you are feeling magnanimous, you can let go of those restraints and prejudices and just go with being a kid and say, "Ah, so what! Come on, Jimmy. Let's go play." And that's when "my cup runneth over. I have got a lot to be grateful for. I may not have the pony. I may not have the bicycle. I may not have gotten the doll, but I have so much to offer and so much to share and so much to learn, I'd like some company."

Including someone else in your life plan is taking responsibility for something outside of yourself. It's one of those selfless things that inspires and stimulates your indwelling Adjuster, for it is thinking of someone other than yourself incessantly. That is not to say that thinking of yourself is erroneous; it is that including others in your concerns and considerations enlarges your room, opens the windows and lets the air through, and only you can tell, only you know in your heart if you have been given much. Only you know the size of your heart and the extent of your gratitude.

Some may find your gratitude capacities to be miserly and mean, and some may be overwhelmed at the size of your intent, but limit yourself not according to others' values. Just be yourself, and be true to yourself in this regard and you will know when and as you have been given much. And chances are, if you allow yourself to do (as Gerdean likes to say) "your own thinking for you," you will probably find yourself so favorably enriched, you will not know where to begin to include humanity in the abundance you have at heart.

"To he who has much, more will be expected -- by whom?" is the question! You are accustomed to that authority which says "Shame on you! You have 14 marbles! And you're keeping them all to yourself! Why don't you give 7 of them to Jimmy Rogers?" Whereas, the admonition is rather for you yourself to say, "My God! I've got 14 marbles! I only need two! How many can I give away?" And this is who makes the determination. Does that help?

Esmeralda: I think it's helpful.

Elena: I do.

MERIUM: Does that make sense?

Elena: Yes.

Esmeralda: It does.

MERIUM: Then why am I not hearing anything from this young fellow in the class?

Elena: I don't know.

Thoroah: Oh, I think it all makes sense. I still think it's one of those admonitions that gets tossed around that has a guilt edge to it.

MERIUM: Yes. Yes, it has a guilt overtone to it.

Thoroah: Yes, it does.

MERIUM: But that is because of your approach to religious authority on this world. It colors everything, including your perception of our presence among you.

Thoroah: Yeah, I have no problem with the analogy and I understand the difference between feeling like I don't have anything in my cup and I'm ready to admit that my cup runneth over most of the time … whether I perceive it or not! … but you know, it's still -- the question is "to those who have been given much…." You know. Much what? And much will be expected. It's still…. That's like trying to pin down what love means.

MERIUM: Yes, it is, and it is also a paradox, and these paradoxes are games people play and there are no hard and fast rules, but you know the common laws of the universe, such as "attract and repel" or "cause and effect" and so the same thing can be said for this one. Only you can determine how that law affects you and how you affect that law. That way, you take it out of the hands of those who would presume to sit in judgment over you and your goodness or your riches and you then are in a position of wielding your free will toward acting on your own perception of that universe law.

If someone else is telling you much is expected of you, that is guilt-promoting. If you tell yourself much is expected of you, you are challenging yourself. If you simply see in yourself that you have abundance and want to share, you will share, and your cup will be replenished. It is in knowing this that you allow yourself to have many, many more opportunities for sharing, and thus, you reinforce the universal law by having a part in it, by being a participant in the abundance of being. Those who cannot feel their abundance, the joy of living, the love of life, the sense of adventure, have nothing to give, have no sense of responsibility for others. Right?

Thoroah: Um-hum.

Esmeralda: Well, I think much has been given. To probably all of us. And that doesn't mean necessarily much good has been given, because I think we're given some little challenges along with it, and maybe some things we would rather not be given at times, but the important thing is that the things that we were given that what we deemed as not ideal, has actually made us better people, and a better understanding, more wisdom, and … like my stroke was a blessing, because it led the way to other things, so that was-- I think sometimes we are given some eye-awakening things too, and hard awakenings.

MERIUM: But, my dear, you were not given a stroke.

Esmeralda: No, I wasn't given it.

MERIUM: You invited that yourself.

Esmeralda: But, nevertheless, it was a blessing, in a way.

MERIUM: This is your mind allowing for it to be a blessing. This is your adaptability.

Thoroah: Making it a gift.

MERIUM: Making it a gift.

Esmeralda: Well, I certainly consider that it was one.

Thoroah: You made it that way, too.

Esmeralda: But another thing, I think, rather than fretting about what is expected, we are told in our lessons that service is a very important thing, and if we simply just open our eyes or breathe, there are all kinds of things around us that are ways that we can be of service. So I don't think we need to feel guilty about it.

Thoroah: That's right.

Esmeralda: If we only open our eyes! There's all kinds of ways to be of service, and I think we enjoy it, when there are ways, but I don't think that we're to feel guilty about what is expected of us, unless we absolutely … as you said, are sitting on our duffs watching the PGA tournament. Which I do, I have to admit

MERIUM: But this is a part of the privilege of being a child.

Esmeralda: Well, you also said to have fun.

MERIUM: Absolutely.

Thoroah: Be of good cheer!

MERIUM: This is a part of the understanding that your cup runneth over and thus you have something as a result to give to someone else. It is those who have a feeling that there is nothing good in life, that are needy, that provide the myriad opportunities, the many empty cups or half-empty cups that are sitting around waiting to be filled and have no idea how to invite the Living Water in.

Esmeralda: I think what Thoroah said expresses it quite well: Our cups runneth over.

MERIUM: And finding the right way to bestow our joy in service is another challenge, and another adventure. And so I urge you this week to look for opportunities to share your adventures in living in such a way as will help fill another's cup. And I'll be back. And we'll play more games and have more parties. And have more fun in this family gathering.

Esmeralda: We're glad to have you, Merium, and it has been fun. You're very energetic and spirited and I think we're going to enjoy you and learn from you, a lot. Though it was rather startling and unexpected to hear that Tomas was reassigned. And we will miss him.

MERIUM: It was abrupt. But remember, people can be taken away without warning. And we are fortunate that Tomas is not "taken away" from us, but merely busy elsewhere.

Esmeralda: Yes, that is good.

Elena: Because we really care about him, too.

Esmeralda: Oh, we do. We love him! We care about Ham. We care about Abraham. And we will love you too, Merium.

Thoroah: Yeah, we didn't mean that we were being punished because they sent us you, Merium.

Esmeralda: No, we're glad. It's already been a good lesson.

MERIAM: I didn't think anything untoward from any of you and I adore you all. I'll be glad to be back. Bye.

Group: (Laughter) Bye!

*****

DATE: September 11, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM USA

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER: MERIUM

Doing God's Will "On-the-Job"

A New Look at Enlightenment

Merium's Character Sketches

MUSIC: Elena on Piano (1) "Abide With Me" with Chopin’s Etude Opus 10 #3; and (2) "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" with Mozart’s Alleluia, from Exultation Jubilate (Music Arrangements by Marilyn Ham)

PRAYER: (Elena)

"Dear Heavenly Father and Mother and all of the spiritual beings who grace us with your presence and your help in our lives. We greet you and welcome you to this place, this afternoon of beauty, the sky and the clouds and the good weather and the wonderful friends around us. We gather together to hear what you have to say to us. We seek to do your will in all things and we seek the guidance that we need to do that better. We are here in gratitude for one another and for you all, so thank you for your being and help each one of us to prepare our hearts, our minds and our ears to what you have for us today. Thank you. Amen."

Group: Amen.

MERIUM: Alleluia! I have died and gone to heaven! (Laughter) This is your friend, Merium, a teacher and baby sitter of some repute. You may not know me well here but I have garnered myself somewhat of a reputation in my experiential trek by the attitude I have bestowed upon those I meet as a result of my mortal conditioning.

*****

DATE: October 16, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, New Mexico, USA

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER: MERIUM

Invitation to a party; Discussion on PTSD]

"Our Father, we thank you for this day that you have made and we rejoice in it and we praise your holy name. We remember your words where you said if two or three are gathered together in your name, there shall you be, and so we pray that you come and sit with us and guide our thoughts. We ask these things in the name of our Lord, Jesus. Amen."

Group: Amen. Thank you, Men-O-Pah.

MERIUM: This is Merium, your friend, coming in to visit, as well as being a spokesperson for many others who also are here, and who enjoy your light shining -- the pilot light of your soul, well lit and burning brightly. There have been many days pass since we last met. It is almost as if I need to refresh my memory of who you are and you of me, unlike Tomas, who you knew so well. It was almost as if you could anticipate him and this familiarity is a wonderful thing to develop and establish and work from, but it is also true that variety is the spice of life and one must be careful not to become so fashioned as to overlook the opportunities for variation.

Indeed, this is what I wanted to talk to you about today, and it has to do with anticipation of what others are going to say and do, based on what they have said and done before. It has to do with expectations of what one will do, based on what they have done before, or what they have said, including you who become creatures of habit to the extent that you say you will do something, you feel you need to follow through with it even if turns out that you see it is not a good idea, but to change your mind in mid-stream may be disheartening for those who expected you to behave in the way you said you would.

Not to get tangled up in expectations, but to continue my focus on stepping lively on your faith path, I want to address you now as children -- youngsters on the path set out before you that is as animated as a Walt Disney cartoon, that is delightfully enlivened by variety instead of consistency and sameness. There are those of you who dislike surprises because they have often been unpleasant surprises, or because you are anticipating the way things will be, based on the way they have been, and this is … finally … coming to the point of my dissertation, because it really boils down to what is acceptable to you in terms of change.

"Welcome to Change" were the first words uttered to you in the official announcement of the inception of the Correcting Time. Since that time, many, many changes have come about -- in your lives individually and in your lives globally. Advancement is upon us. And while there are those who feel that much of the changes are old news recycled, nonetheless it is true that there are many changes upon us here. And the yearning to return to familiarity of that which you have known is a part of all those who retain vestiges of the human condition, which, of course, includes everyone.

The most significant change for you is that which goes on within your own soul. And so it is understood why one may want to determine in their intellect what will impact them and what will not, discernment, being the key, since many changes are merely disruptive and lead nowhere but merely keep the waters stirred such that stillness is virtually impossible, peace of mind is virtually unattainable.

This has been discussed by other teachers in other groups -- Abraham remarking recently about how many people are having emotional responses to what is going on in the world today and those emotional energies having the nature of emotions are irrational and unreasonable or illogical, perhaps, but nonetheless a part and parcel of the human condition. And thus the effort is in your court as to what you will open your heart to, your mind to, and your spirit to.

If you were walking on landmines, you would have good reason to be cautious, but you who walk in faith are indeed as little children. Father will not put landmines in your path. You may frolic and play and enjoy yourselves in this heavenly kingdom. You are grownups having a childlike experience.

Thus you can see where and how and why play, reversion, diversion, humor and light-heartedness is an essential part of your being, and one which is granted to you for your enjoyment, while you also understand that we have much work to do on Urantia and the workload does not get any lighter as these troubled times roll on.

It seems we have been apart for so long you have forgotten what I've given you as an assignment. Gerdean, go read the assignment. I will put you on pause.

Elena: I did forget! Ooh. Caught.

Gerdean: Well, we may have done it! Let's see what it is.

Elena: Well, okay, that's true!

Gerdean: Well, I can see here (referring to the transcript) … we should all go play! Outdoors, in the fresh air, as children. "Don't fall out of the tree and stay out from under the bluebird of happiness." Okay.

Elena: You know, I have done things that are more fun, and … put a little bit more effort in that. And it's been great!

Gerdean: I guess that's what the assignment was.

Elena: Well, yahoo! (Laughter) [Letting the dog out.]

MERIUM: It is not an easy assignment to those of you who are in the mindset that you must be adult, you must be responsible, that people look to you as an example of maturity and stability. In fact, it is a very difficult assignment for those of you who feel that being childlike is somehow antithetical to being a spiritual person.

This puppy reminds me of the nature of the beast. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Elena: [Letting the dog in.] Sorry.

MERIUM: I like pets, myself. I have never had any trouble stopping in the middle of a chat to play with the animals.

Elena: Thank you, Merium.

MERIUM: Jesus did the same thing with children, and I find any opportunity -- almost any opportunity -- to divert from that which is serious to that which is supportive of the playful nature. It is appropriate, if it is done in love and not merely as an irresponsible indulgence. But that is an assessment we can undertake at some other time.

Again, I have no intention of coming in and talking all day. It is you and your growth and your amusement that I am here to cultivate, and so I need to know from you how you are doing. Tell me stories.

Elena: Well, as usual, I'll start. I have been so grateful and so appreciative of the many blessings that I have in my life: all the people; my home; my dog; my cat; my family -- and not necessarily in that order by any means, but I just have really been enjoying where I am … to the extent that I … I don't feel guilty about it, with all the Iraq and everything. Pakistan and all those things going on. But just really wonderfully enjoying it, and really liking taking some time on the weekends to do some things that are fun, too, so I really think that's a wonderful thing, and it was something that I really needed to do, so I'm grateful. But I also … when you were saying, "step lively on your spiritual path," I don't know -- I guess just hoping those two are in concert.

MERIUM: I am seeing a picture in this filing cabinet of Lucille Ball or some other amusing character, who finds her niche and it feels so good, she begins to have a good time in it and gives up thinking about all the considerations surrounding her in the delight of the moment, only to discover that perhaps she has danced off the cliff, or into the rain, and only after the fact discovers that conditions have changed.

This is back to my message about stepping lively. Have a good time, by all means, but allow the adult to keep an eye out for danger zones or landmines or lummoxes or Se or Murphy, for just as soon as you begin to scamper around mindlessly enjoying yourself, is when the path turns to the left or the right and you need to bring yourself back into focus. All this is my way of suggesting mindfulness.

Play is exhilarating to the spirit. It is essential to the human. I cannot help but notice that your new employment may have contributed to your sense of well being.

Elena: I like that job a lot better than the one I had before, that's for darned sure. And I'm starting to feel a little bit more comfortable with it, too, which is really nice, and feel that I have some purpose and some value and that there's something that I can contribute to it, rather than just being affected by all the other elements. So that's a really good thing for me.

MERIUM: Indeed, it's a wonderful thing. I feel you becoming your own conductor of your own orchestra, making music with the pieces that are your disposal. Making music is a great deal of fun, as you know, since you play, even though there are times when you find your fingers on the wrong keys.

Elena: Yeah. True.

MERIUM: But by enjoying the game, by loving to play, by valuing the experience of making music, you would not think to stop and give up. No. You would forge ahead with your enthusiastic application to making music and triumph over those obstacles of learning to play that everyone runs into when they set out to master a new task.

"Be of good cheer," the Master said. And it is a great testimony to His loving nature when you are of good cheer, for there is a great difference between appreciating your life, appropriately loving yourself and enjoying your existence, than feeling smug or superior and finding some sort of odd and aberrated enjoyment in submerging others in your own glow.

And what of you, Esmeralda? What have you been doing that has been fun?

Esmeralda: I've been thoroughly enjoying the play-offs in baseball. And last weekend also the golf championship was really good. Also, one thing this week, I met a nice lady who was visiting her son and daughter-in-law across the street, and came over to borrow some powdered sugar, which I had none, and so I took her to the grocery store and she was just a lovely lady from Texas, New Braunfels, -- it's close to San Antonio, Texas -- and she was visiting her son and daughter-in-law, friends of mine who live across the street, and I really enjoyed meeting a new person and visiting with her. But it's always nice to meet a new person and to visit with and hear things that the new person says.

MERIUM: Oh, yes, indeed! This variety is the spice of life -- learning to love new persons. And this is a vital part of socializing your religion, by learning to love another person, for you share the joy of living, and this is where the rubber meets the road. Not in the cosmologies or the philosophies, but in the actual loving and appreciating life and its players. Good job!

Esmeralda: Thank you. I'm sorry I missed the last meeting, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you a lot better.

MERIUM: Oh, yes, you missed getting an assessment!

Esmeralda: That's true! I did miss that.

Elena: Oh, yeah!

MERIUM: I will get around to it.

Esmeralda: Oh, good. I do value that, and it's very good to have an assessment every once in a while.

MERIUM: I was assessing you in a style appropriate for one such as myself, rather fantasia-like, and hardly of the order of Abraham, but valuable none-the-less for my youthful approach. What of you, two? The tree and the nest of robins?

Men-O-Pah: Well, as you know, I was supposed to be away from here working but when it came time to go, I was physically unable to do it. So I suppose I'm chomping at the bit a little bit, but I look upon those things as 'that's the way it's supposed to be' and anyway, I've enjoyed not being there. I've talked with them several times now on the telephone, but Paula and I have been enjoying a lot of time together. Every day is precious with us because we know that we don't have a lot of it yet.

Paula: We're getting old, that's what we are!

Men-O-Pah: Well,… but we don't care.

Paula: We don't?

Men-O-Pah: No. I don't.

MERIUM: You have the right attitude.

Men-O-Pah: I don't feel like I'm old and even though -- you've heard that old, "my mind is making contracts that my body can't keep" so … anyway. This has been a good time. And that job goes on without me; it's just as well and perhaps better.

MERIUM: This is one of the wonderful things about having a childhood as an adult -- to enjoy knowing that there are responsible persons taking care of the important things as you lollygag and play. It is very comforting to know that the universe goes on … with our without our help, and to recognize that we have a right to play and rest and take our turn at the many aspects of life that are given. In this way you can enjoy work when you work, enjoy play when you play, enjoy sleep when you sleep, enjoy company when you have company and enjoy yourself when you are alone. Thus there is joy in all you do.

Those who are afraid of life, afraid of living, afraid of dying, have no idea how that feels. You are indeed blessed. And to have each other to share these precious days is a treasure you will enjoy remembering throughout eternity. These moments of sublime friendship and growing old together … the best is yet to be. And what of you, Songbird?

Paula: Which bird are you talking about?

Group: You! You! You!

Paula: Well, I go on from day to day and I enjoy life and it's very full and I have good friends and we just have a happy life together and I'm grateful for it.

MERIUM: You have earned this leisure. In a society that stresses the importance of striving incessantly, it is refreshing to see those who have the peace of mind to put their feet up and relax, who have taken time to remember and to savor and to trust, to appreciate that things come and go but that which is real remains.

Gerdean, what have you been doing? Have you been having fun?

Gerdean: Well, yes, I did have fun putting the-- Well, I didn't do it physically, but I oversaw putting down the new flagstone threshold at the front gate, and I did physically pot the new tree, and the rubber tree plant in the new pot, so I have had fun.

And I have had a world of fun watching my website come to life. I would like to say I was creating it myself but it's being created for me. Again, I haven't physically done it, but it's been wonderful to see my ideas come to light through the skilled hand of Imara, who has been very generous with her creativity and time to help, so yes, I have been having fun. I think the weather cooling has something to do with our attitudes, as well.

MERIUM: Yes, well, you think too much. Feeling that the weather change has enlivened you is evident in your behaviors and in your demeanors. Thinking is a propensity that comes from being mature and sober and adult, and I am here to teach you how to be a child. So I urge you not to think overmuch, but rather sense and intuit your way. I will in fact give you that as an assignment until the next time we meet -- to ponder what it means to intuit your way on your faith path, so that you can step lively and proceed in good faith, even making good time, but allowing yourself the opportunity to lollygag when appropriate and veer to the left or to the right as intuition directs.

It will be interesting to see if and as your faith paths lead you into areas of experience that had not occurred to you. If you can remember your assignment. I have planted the seed. Let us review it when we meet again and see if we are making any progress.

I point out here that there is an opportunity for a party. The Canossian Retreat has been rescheduled again this year for the last weekend in February, and I will be there! I would love for everyone else to come and play with me. For this is what it is to retreat from the world and the seriousness of the world's conditions and the intensity of your own integrity, and the faith struggles that you individually and collectively enjoin. This is not an official announcement but it is certainly an invitation to come and play with me and others in the celestial realm in the South Valley of Albuquerque. You know I wouldn't miss a party!

Esmeralda: Well, we'll try not to either.

Elena: Well, the last one went pretty well, so I think that this one will be a good party, too.

Esmeralda: And I like the play idea, as well. It sounds if Merium is going to be there, she sounds like she would enliven it.

Elena: Kick up our heels.

MERIUM: It was rumored that no other group in the history of Canossian's existence laughed as much as our group.

Elena: Oh, really?

MERIUM: "Are you always this happy?" was the remark from Sister Antoinette. This is a testimony to the joy of sonship. This is my message that I have been sent to teach. Do you have questions?

Group: Not really, no.

I can't think of any right now.

No, I'm actually at a good point, I think.

Of course, being mindful of landmines.

Ooh. Landmines! Oh, okay.

MERIUM: Let me point out to you, though, dear heart, that as your intuition is enlivened, it is easy to see them coming.

Elena: Okay.

MERIUM: You can assume there will be difficulties because if for no other reason the imperfection of the world you live in, but they need not be fatal or even painful if you are simply mindful. There are those who do blunder into minefields all the time, who have a propensity, as if they gravitated toward them on purpose! Perhaps they do, for the sympathy they receive, and the charity forthcoming.

Elena: Well, you know, now that you speak of that … I'd ask you … actually, you know, just to comment … my neighbor is going to move and man, she seems to … you know, the people that she encounters and everything else. It just … the stories that surround her are pretty bleak, it seems like. So I don't know. I just try to do what I can for her and I do care about how she does and I just kind of leave it at that. But it does seem that there are those and she is one that started off rather abysmally but, you know, she just seems to kind of …

Esmeralda: Hit a minefield.

Elena: There are a lot of minefields in her path.

MERIUM: She is experiencing and recreating what you call PTSD.

Elena: What's that? Perpetual something?

MERIUM: No. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Group: Oh!

MERIUM: It is where you relive the experience again and again and again and again until you get it right. And if you don't get it right, you just continue to recycle the same pattern.

Yes, you have heard of warriors who win the battle but come home to experience nightmares for the rest of their life, waking up screaming and whatnot.

Elena: Yeah.

MERIUM: This is one dramatic example of a PTSD experience. On a world such as this, full of landmines, it is not uncommon to run across many who have blundered onto such a mine and been damaged. They need not return again and again and again to the "scene of the crime" but many do because they are fixated on the pain and trauma of that event. It is an aberration, certainly, but it is a psychic result of experiences that one would not expect to happen in one's life.

These can be serious or they can be ordinary, but if they have a profound impact on the experiencer, it can affect their development. When these traumas occur earlier in life, when they have not developed the ability to reason wisely as to the cause and effect of such trauma, it will be more difficult for them to re-experience the trauma as an adult since they are fixated at the age of the child, and to go back from the consciousness of adulthood to the childhood is virtually impossible for those who have not been born of the spirit.

Elena: Well, I don't think there's anything-- I think I have done everything I can do to help her, so I just have to leave it at that. I mean, do you agree?

MERIUM: I am sure you have done all you can and probably more than was required. However much or little that may have been, unless and until she chooses to move on…

Elena: Yeah.

MERIUM: … she will not.

Elena: True.

MERIUM: And unfortunately, this is one of the casualties of such a life on such a planet. The travesty for those of you who are of good cheer and living relatively wholesome, happy lives, is to disremember an attitude for compassion for those who suffer. Whether they suffer at their own hand or at the hand of others is really irrelevant. Whether it seems people suffer because they like it or not, is nothing you can fix. But when someone wants help badly enough, they will get help. When the child seeks, God listens. When the child knocks, the door will be opened.

The idea that such experiences such as war, concentration camp, rape, fatal traffic accidents, AIDS and other tragedies are simply going to dissolve and not affect a person is unrealistic. It is a part of the education and this is one reason why a lot of us are so impressed with all the opportunities available to serve on a world such as this, and for the experience you get as a result of living here! You might wonder what on earth would anyone want to experience hardship for, but there is true heroism in those who triumph over great odds. Isn't that what agondonters do?

Elena: When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

MERIUM: You will -- I know you have been told this and perhaps you don't understand it, but you will in time be glad of your afflictions, if you aren't already. Those of you who have mastered the effects of those experiences, who have assimilated the wisdom that came from that experience, and who are in a position to now teach others or minister to those who still suffer but who would like to come forth -- you provide a rich service. If there were no troubles, how would you serve? You would simply be at a party all the time and where would you develop character? Where would you learn to withstand defeat? How would you be able to forestall rebellion? What good could you be in the formulation of eternity? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Elena: (Laughter) That's a different party! One that we haven't gotten to yet.

MERIUM: No, but the lessons you learn here are assimilated into your consciousness and that which has lasting value will serve throughout eternity. Thus, the work you do today and the play you enjoy today is a part of the developing process of your eternal and immortal soul -- the experience of becoming one with your Indwelling Adjuster, who has reached down from Paradise to join with you in the momentous task of conjoining wills in order for destiny to unfurl as we have been promised from our Eternal Parents in Paradise.

Being a child in this world is a full time job, so go on out there and have fun. That's an order!

Elena: Well, we're glad that you're here ordering us around, Merium.

Paula: It helps.

MERIUM: See ya!

Group: See ya!

DATE: October 30, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM USA

T/R: Gerdean

Welcome Carol; Canossian Retreat; Spiritual Tutoring; Roland Translated

"The Lord, My Shepherd" (Brother James’ Air) with a Shubert sonata

"Father, thank you for being with us today. We thank you for providing us such a teacher as Merium. It is always good to have her. We look forward to hearing her lesson. Thank you, also, and we are appreciative to have Carol join us. It’s nice to have someone to join us. Be with us today and may our hearts be open to the lesson and may we be helped through the week by the lesson today. Amen."

Group: amen

MERIUM: Hello, kiddies, how are you this afternoon? This is Merium, your baby-sitter.

Paula: How about that!

MERIUM: I am happy to come in and refer to you as babies, inasmuch as I have overheard your talking about these senior moments and elder considerations that are peculiar to your human condition, but in the perspective of our eternal career, you have barely gotten off the floor.

Come up here into my lap, little ones. I will be today like the storyteller in your Native American culture, the one that has all the babies hanging from her many breasts. The place where I love the most to have you delightful creatures clamoring over me and over each other in joy of contact and affection.

The gift of touch is appropriate not only for you in the material realms but for us in the morontia estate and beyond, although the idea of touch is heightened somewhat by the enlarged appreciation for touch in that it is not merely physical in the tactile sense, but is embracing and encompassing in the sense of your being.

We embrace fully in the spirit, and the warm fuzzies you feel in your hugging here is compatible to that which we feel even as we have left our (meow) mortal estate behind. I see Cricket has something to say about it all, and this too is one of the joys of the life you live. You have the advantage of the beasts of the realm … and I mean this in the most favored sense. The animal kingdom, in the main, is fairly docile and contained. You have put the fierce ones in the zoo and have kept the companions for yourselves – not counting the birds, which freely flock overhead and in your trees, (purring) and insects and other creatures like butterflies and frogs that amuse you and bring you joy. You forget these little wonders of creation as you become more sophisticated and adult. (purring)

I want you to go back into your own childhood (meow) and recall the wonder of seeing something for the first time, some four legged or many legged creature that captured your imagination and your fancy, such that you had to call someone to come look, come see what you had found. Remember lightening bugs? Remember earth worms? Remember all the wonders of nature that we tend to forget as time goes by. I call your attention to these joys today. (purring)

Also today in your consciousness is the beauty of the autumn season, another splendiferous method of appreciating your mortal estate. The leaves turning and the season advancing, ripe beyond belief, yet still taut and pluckable. Tomatoes and cucumbers and pumpkins still on the vine. What a glorious world you live in. And who enjoys it more than children? It therefore delights me to remind you of these things which you will remember into infinity (purring) as having brought you along from one architectural sphere to the other, for in the Father’s house there are many mansions. (Meow!)

There is no reason why you cannot begin to perceive of the mansion worlds now, today, in the environment (meow) you are in tune to in your consciousness, with its many vibrant senses and offerings. (Pause) Don’t let me forget to add such things as pumpkin pie and warm apple cider, for these, too, are part of the delights of childhood and autumn that we celebrate and honor today.

I have a room full of elders who have come to observe my work with you and your childlike reach into realms above and beyond your habitual range. We welcome them and ask their guidance and counsel on our myriad attempts to construe greater realities in the childlike mind of mortal living. I thought we could bounce around on the bed for awhile and wear ourselves out but you seem to have acquiesced at once to my storytelling method, and so I will invite someone in to tell us a story. One moment.

VISITOR: Yes, someone is here. You don’t know me. I’ve not visited you before. (Welcome!) Thank you. (Howdy do.) Howdy do to you, too. I have come today to talk about magic. I realize that you who are adult and serious have an understanding that magic is a trick, such as you find in cards or when the man saws the woman in half and pulls rabbits out of the hat. This kind of activity delights children, for they are not established in their mental framework such that they cannot imagine these things happening. The magic I talk of today is not in terms of tricks.

Come with me, children, to the woods. We’re going to walk quietly down into the woods where the brilliant autumn sky overhead peeks through the trees, making mysterious marks on the forest floor. The many leaves, from those trees, which have fallen cover the ground and crackle as we walk. Listen for the sounds of Mother Nature. Hear the birds chirp overhead. Hear the ground as small forest creatures scamper away from the sound of children encroaching. Look around and see the many things growing, taking seed. Smell the woods – the deep dark brown of soil, the crisp snap of the fallen leaves, the deep green of the moss and the rich golden brown and umber of the fallen logs. Let all these colors, smells and sounds intermingle and compel you to set yourself aside in the magic of the moment.

See in the clearing, there with you in the woods, not 20 feet away, a young deer … looking at you -- its spots, its tawny color, blended in completely with the browns and golds of autumn; its long legs looking like the saplings; its ears alert, not unlike the leaves themselves; its large brown eyes looking deep into you as if they were the eyes of God smiling upon you, at peace in the quiet natural state of your life experience. Look long and deep at this scene and tell me it isn’t magic. If you can’t see it as magic, if you see it only as fact, you have indeed lost the essence of childhood. If you don’t see the divine reflected in this scene, you have become immune to childlike wonder.

Now that we are all here in the woods, let your hand -- your spirit hand – reach out quietly to the boy or girl nearest you and let their spirit reach out to touch the hand of yours, so that your invisible-ness, your own magic, makes contact with each other, forming a circle of friends in the stillness of this woods … with the deer, with the birds, with the frogs and with the magic of this afternoon.

Naturally, you will want to play and feel the invigoration of your own delight and the delight of those with whom you share this experience. And so I invite you to romp and play laughingly with and among one another, knowing the deer will meander off into the woods and the birds will fly away, even as eventually the seasons will change. But in the heart of the child, forevermore you can return to this place of trust and truth, for no matter where you are in the universe, there is a place for you … appropriate for your stage of development. All you need to do is remember how to be a child.

Let me give you back to Merium, who has been graciously spellbound by my story. It is not the kind of story, perhaps, that you think of, but it is diversion for your mind and we do live happily ever after. Bye-bye. (Bye! Thank you!)

MERIUM: You have been treated to a vision, but I feel you have more in you than to spend the afternoon with Bambi. I invite you to investigate your mind and your imagination and wonder about those things which come into your mind that you may wonder about but would never think to investigate because you are supposed to be adult now and you are supposed to know better. Are there things in your mind that you neglected to ask when you were a child that you would like to ask today?

Gerdean: Why does she have yellow hair and I have brown hair?

Renault: Why is the sky blue?

Paula: You’re just born that way.

MERIUM: Such is the faith of the child. "That’s just the way it is!" But the inquiring mind wants to know. And thus science is born and we step out of magic into the mysterious. (Chimes) This is how you have stepped out of alchemy into medicine and out of astrology into astronomy. This is an evolution of the simple into the sophisticated (Chimes), always knowing that the simple is our Source, alchemy is a part of our creative nature (Chimes) and magic is a part of the childlike mind that enjoys not knowing, that doesn’t mind being tricked, that knows that even though it may be "scary" it will all come out in the end.

There are a number of things that might be regarded as more grown up that I’d like to touch upon while you’re all together here, one of which is to welcome our guest, Carol, today, to our group. It is always wonderful to meet a new friend. It is such a nice opportunity that we meet a new friend today, as we are being so childlike and that she is accepting of our childishness and our childlikeness at the same time -- without cynicism or sarcasm. She knows God knows we have many moments behind each of us that conspire to constitute us as mature and wizened people, but how refreshing to put all that aside for awhile in the delight of feeling young, in giving yourself permission to be a child, to think openly and to ponder in faith the possibilities ahead.

We are going to have a party! We’re having a party in February, and so it would behoove us, as a group, to ponder the party we are planning for our many friends. This is something we can take up after our transmission, but I want to be a part of your planning and so leave me some time on the Program -- lots of time for play and storytelling. Perhaps you might want to add an option where people can sit around and color pictures or play games, for this is good family fun. It is not required that you be scholastic and mature all the time. The whole point of a retreat is to give your systems a break. The mind grows weary, and even the spirit needs time for renewal.

There is another thing I’d like to address and then we can have questions, and that is I would enjoy having some tutoring in this group, not that it should overpower our play, but because it is a discipline and children enjoy discipline. I am not going to limit you to the Urantia Papers, but I would like for our studies to be on the nature of something spiritual so that we can give appropriate credence to the distance we have come, in particular the distance you have come in your consciousness of deity.

This certainly applies to the music you bring every time we gather, the hymns you are familiar with, and the many possible sounds and sights of the divine such as we heard about from our visitor when he talked about the architectural sphere of the forest where all the colors blend, all the sights and sounds merge, and we hold hands around the big brown eyes of a loving presence. Perhaps you would like to play show and tell. Perhaps you would like to take turns. Perhaps you would like to have a format and perhaps you would not. But I would appreciate it if you would help me help you relate yourselves and thus your friends with these opportunities to incorporate the spirit into the game plan of your lives.

Is there anything I’ve forgotten that I’ve overlooked that you can think of that we need to be mindful as we’ve come together here?

Men-o-Pah: I especially enjoyed our little romp through the woods. I lived in the woods most all my life as the poet who said, "Blessed land that lies between the two great rivers in the heart of the Great Shawnee." The Shawnee Forest has the great oat trees, the hickory, the beechnut, the walnut. We gathered those nuts and salted them away for the winter and I’m remembering now the words of a poem that I learned when I was a boy. I can’t remember who the author is … Joyce Kilmer, I think.

"I think that I shall never see

a poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree that may in summer wear

a nest of robins in her hair.

A tree that looks at God all day

and lifts her leafy arms to pray.

Poems are made by fools like me,

but only God can make a tree."

MERIUM: Bravo!

Paula: I remember that from when I was a little girl.

Men-O-Pah: Who’s the author?

Paula: It was Joyce Kilmer who wrote that.

Men-O-Pah: I thought so, but I was not sure about that.

Paula: Yep.

MERIUM: Let’s play a game, then! What kind of tree are you? Who goes first?

Men-O-Pah: I’m descended from the Wolf Clan, the land of the Cherokee, and the clan tree is hickory. The old folks made their bows out of those saplings. The hickory can stand a great deal of stress and not break.

MERIUM: Welcome.

Renault: Are you a hickory, then?

Men-O-Pah: I am.

MERIUM: -- who can bend, and not break. What an invaluable quality! Who else?

Paula: Well, I grew up with the horse chestnut tree right outside our kitchen window, and that used to fascinate me. And, of course, it had those nuts on it that had the sticky hard shell around it, and my dad used to take something, some tool he had, and he’d break them and the chestnut was inside, and we kids used to throw them at each other and we had a ball with those things, and he said, "Well, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make you a necklace," so he took – What kind of a thing is it that goes like that? -- You make holes.

Men-O-Pah: A drill.

Paula: A drill. Okay. I knew it had a name. But anyway, he took a whole bunch of them and he put the drill through them, and then he used something … I don’t know if they were shoelaces or what … and he made a necklace so I could wear it to school and let the kids see it. And sure enough, the teacher wanted to know if I wouldn’t get up and tell the class what the tree looked like and all of this kind of stuff, and I was a little nervous, because I was there in front of all these kids and they listened and they were fascinated and they all came over and they all wanted to touch the necklace, and the other girls wanted to try it on and I just never forgot that. I thought that was wonderful. I was belle of the ball that day.

MERIUM: Everyone should be the "belle of the ball" everyday! What a lovely adventure and what a great daddy.

Paula: Oh, he was. He was terrific. All my little friends liked him and he liked them and we’d go to each other’s houses and if it was after dark, he’d get the car out and take us all and then come and pick us up and take us home. He did that until I became a teenager and I belonged to a bridge club and he didn’t want me waiting for the bus in the middle of the night so he’d take me and pick up all my girlfriends and we’d go wherever we were going to play that night, and then he’d come and get us.

MERIUM: What kind of a tree do you think he was?

Paula: Somebody strong! But he wasn’t built like my Men-O-Pah. He was a small man. He wasn’t big. You know who he was built like? That … what’s his name that teaches Sunday school.

Men-O-Pah: Roy.

Paula: Yeah! He was built just about like that, and all the kids just loved him, and when he got killed in the accident, I never saw a funeral with so many people. Every kid I ever grew up with was there, and their parents or their kids -- just everybody was there, because they all loved Daddy.

MERIUM: You reminded me of something I want to say to the Teaching Mission at large, and that is to acknowledge the passing of Brother Roland, who was a man among men and a son of God who has opted to advance into Mansonia. His translation was made this past week and while many of you are mourning the loss of his life on the material plane, be of good cheer and undying hope of the resurrection and the life that you will see one another on high.

He was an oak. A great one. And it is always difficult to see the great ones fall, but it happens. And so we have the tremendous need to know the love of the Father and the mercy of the Son, which forgives us our trespasses and overlooks our human failings to discover the heart of the divine within, the soul that yearns to advance, to know the Father, to find the pearl of great price. We welcome Roland to the mansion worlds and look forward to helping him pick up here where he left off there.

Renault: What kind of a tree was he?

Paula: Oak.

MERIUM: Yes, we give him oak stature. Not only because he was great, but because he was hard. He was a hard wood, unlike the hickory. How about you ladies?

Esmeralda: Well, you know, I grew up in West Texas and any tree – any tree – was wonderful. (Chuckles)

Paula: There were not very many?

Esmeralda: There were not any around where I lived. There were some caster beans, which was the closest thing to a tree when I grew up, and I think they’re supposed to be poisonous but . ..

Elena: You’re not a caster bean.

Esmeralda: No, I don’t think I’m a caster bean. I would be any kind of tree. Any and all trees were glorious and I dreamed of trees when I was a little girl. I just thought that would be wonderful to climb—I always had this picture of me climbing up and sitting on a big strong branch of a tree. I must’ve seen a picture of that. But I like all kinds of tree. I love the mulberry that’s in my back yard. It gives lots of shade.

MERIUM: Is it a male mulberry or a female mulberry?

Esmeralda: You know, I don’t know. It’s not fruit bearing. It’s just a huge tree. It covers a lot of space. It is – when it is raining, you can almost stand under it and be dry.

MERIUM: It sounds a lot like you, Esmeralda.

Esmeralda: Oh, thank you.

MERIUM: I think you’d make a great mulberry tree.

Esmeralda: It has gorgeous big leaves and it has some strange characteristics that are most interesting.

MERIUM: You could sit on its branches.

Esmeralda: Yes. The strange part about it is that the leaves all stay green in the fall until … usually after a pretty good hard freeze, and they all fall in one day, and all at once. It’s just like – it’s fascinating to watch them fall and by the time they all finish falling, my back yard is about knee deep in these big leaves.

MERIUM: This sounds like you as well, for you, too, are efficient. (Laughter)

Paula: She is! There’s nothing that girl doesn’t know, as far as cooking and decorating. All of those things.

Esmeralda: Oh, but I have a lot of help. My daughters out-shine me on that.

Elena: Well, I have to say what comes to my mind about being – is one of those trees on the … I envision a tree on the cliff of the ocean where the wind kind of beats on it. And, you know, it’s bent, it’s kind of bare on one side but yet has somewhat, I mean, still some life in it yet, and some bursts of greenery. That’s what I feel I am now.

Renault: Perseverance.

MERIUM: You will enjoy the transcript Gerdean has recently prepared for distribution from when Teacher Daniel visited Teacher Tomas’ base of operations in Pittsburgh and gave the lesson about the parable of the bent tree, which describes that tree specifically. I believe it was initially delivered before that by one of the elders in the movement. But the fact remains, the tree that grows along the side of the cliff on the rocks, that is pummeled by the weather, and which reaches deep into the earth for its nourishment, is a tree that will endure. And to assume such a tree as your totem is a testimony to your strength, Elena, and your faith.

Elena: I don’t feel very strong.

Esmeralda: But you are.

MERIUM: It’s okay for you to not be strong all the time. You are not a tree. You are a child, and all children grow weary. All children whimper and long for their mother to nurture them. All children appreciate sitting on their daddy’s lap and being reassured [that] there is no bogeyman and [that] all things will work out fine. In the face of the winds of time, the storms and the summer heat, the strength you have grown is deep within you, in your sinews, and not necessarily intended for your tender branches that bud anew each spring; thus, be patient with yourself, understanding where you are gentle and where you are strong; where you are tough and where you are weak; where you give up and where you hold fast. Such is the way it is when you know yourself.

Gerdean has always thought of herself as a Bonsai tree, (chuckles) even though she is hardly Oriental. It was intended that she be a pine tree (laughter), but she became warped and twisted (laughter) and rather than being deformed, she has been made beautiful by the way she holds herself and the grace that has allowed her to grow and become a work of art in spite of the trials and tribulations of the mortal existence.

The problem with being a Bonsai tree is that they are so small. I think I am going to urge her to become a Manzanita tree instead.

Paula: What’s that?

MERIUM: They are bigger.

Paula: Oh. That answered my question.

Renault: They are not held back and constrained like a Bonsai. Whenever a Bonsai tries to grow a little branch, it’s cut back. When it puts out a feeler, it’s dissuaded.

Esmeralda: Nobody has mentioned the sycamore tree, like Zacchias climbed up into and I think we need some sycamore trees around here.

Elena: Pine trees.

MERIUM: Would you like to volunteer?

Esmeralda: When Jesus is passing by, yes.

MERIUM: So you want to be a sycamore when Jesus is nearby and a mulberry the rest of the time?

Esmeralda: I was just reminded of the little song that the girls sing, a little about Zacchias climbing up the sycamore tree, and the sycamore is a beautiful tree.

MERIUM: Then you must keep your eye out for one. It might be a good compliment for you. What of our company from Santa Fe? Do they grow trees there?

Renault: I wrote a story about a tree one time. It’s called "The Tree" and it just sort of was me and then I just sort of turned into a tree and kind of grew up on the spot by this little lake, and just sort of the feeling of what a tree feels like to grow and like you said in the poem "to gaze at God all day" and to feel the sun on his face and the raindrops and the drops make rainbows and then the fruit. How all the fruit gets ripe and full and how it eases the trees burdens to dispel its fruits, when they’re all filled and full and juicy, and when they come along and pick the fruit it feels good because the branches can lift up and take the extra weight off and then how the wind blows through the trees and shakes the leaves and the dust off, and you know.

And then in my story, then, the tree is certainly enjoying herself being there and man comes down below and says, "Hey, you up there in the tree. Stop hiding in the tree. Come on down and join humanity down here. Move around and frolic through the flowers," so it’s sort of – a tree is constrained in its spot. It can never move. It sits there for an eternity, at the same spot, you know. As the years go by and things change and it deals with the weather …

MERIUM: You are becoming way too adult! Let’s go back to being a child. (Laughter) What kind of fruit are you growing in your branches?

Renault: I don’t know, it was just big juicy fruit, heavily laden.

MERIUM: You are a fruit tree, then.

Renault: Yeah, I’m a fruit tree.

MERIUM: Any fruit in particular you would like to identify with?

Renault: Sweet and juicy.

MERIUM: Peaches?

Renault: Peaches. Probably my favorite fruit is peaches.

MERIUM: Then we have a peach tree among us. Carol, what stories can you tell us today?

Carol: What came to my mind – I grew up on the east coast. I remember making those chestnut necklaces, too!

Paula: What part of the east coast?

Carol: Um, the southern tier of New York State. South of Buffalo.

Paula: Yeah, I was from Buffalo.

Carol: Fruit and dairy farms. Fredonia.

Paula: Oh! Of course!

Carol: My father came to mind when we started talking about trees, and the chestnuts. And he was a hunter, who provided for us from the woods; he was a conservationist. But what– So he came very dearly into my mind when we talked about trees. He gave me a respect for the woods. But what came to my mind was the birch tree – the beautiful white birch tree from back east that does become just as golden as the aspens do out here. And the birch tree that has so many uses for mankind. I have recollections of the birch tree; the native peoples back east use the birch trees to make canoes and to do many things with – to write on. The bark is stripped to write on, and to make different vessels. And it’s a very beautiful tree that is from my childhood. I tried to envision a tree out here half my life, but the birch tree just kept coming in, and it was a … a friend, I guess. It was very useful.

MERIUM: Yes, a useful, utilitarian tree, but not without dazzling beauty. The white truck with its peeling, curling black designs are like a leopard with spots or a Dalmatian and the yellow against the blue sky is enough to require sunglasses. Such a pleasant recollection and personification of who you are, Carol. They grow here as well, and you are welcome to grow with us in this odd assortment of trees.

Is anyone having any concerns or growing pains that you would like to share with your friends? Or ask of your teacher?

Elena: Well, I’m really concerned about my friend Shirley, who just found out that she has breast cancer so… Shirley has been my best friend since fourth grade, and so …

Esmeralda: They have met her. Paula and Men-O-Pah.

Elena: Oh, yeah, that’s right!

Esmeralda: And Gerdean and Renault!

Elena: That's right. At the retreat. So I’m concerned about her, and if there is any guidance about that, then I’m all ears. Well, I am anyway, but …

MERIUM: There is nothing I can do to "fix" her, but I can certainly counsel you on how to fix your worries, and that is to allow the soul of your friend to be that breast that seeks to nurture. The soul of a woman is nurturance, as it comes from the Mother Spirit. My remark is not intended to be sexist, but to be expressive of the nature of the nurturer and to limit its fruit to the symbol of nurturing (the breast) is to limit the effectiveness of the whole being, which yearns to give love.

Allow this woman to love, freely and fully. Be tolerant of her love. Encourage her expressions of love. Allow her to love in ways she has not allowed herself to love before – freely, openly, without constraint, without restriction, disallowing the mores to interfere or the restraints of convention to enter in. Allow the woman to be all that she was meant to be. I am not saying that a woman is a breast, but I am saying that both are born to nurture. It is the way of the woman. Allow her to be everything she has ever hoped to be.

And I know that in this culture, this society "such a life on such a planet," it is very hard for people to be all that they can be, for it is hard to find the time, the energy and the avenues in which to operate that garner you that soul satisfaction that would feed your own need to nurture your own soul. This is the twist of fate that the woman is undergoing in the cancer that invades her. If she can see to learn to love and nurture others [at the same time] as she loves and nurtures herself, she may be able to get control of the situation. That is to say, her cells may be able to get control of the situation. But regardless, do not mourn for her, but celebrate her, for she is love.

Elena: Thank you.

MERIUM: Encouraging humanity is somehow such a difficult thing for Urantians to do. And yet encouragement is the balm that soothes all wounds. It is the inner essence of survivors (such as you all are on this planet) to develop that fierceness and that tenacity that will enable you to endure, but it seems that to nurture to each other, to minister to each other, to encourage each other is like accepting that you are weak and so you refuse to do it, you refuse to accept it. And this is anathema to your wellbeing.

Surround yourself with that forest of love, with the dappled sights and sounds of the perfect architectural sphere, and if there is something in your eye that displeases you, pluck it out, rather than mar the perfection of that which you hold dear and in which you reside. And above all, be merciful and gracious to yourself, for the way is often set with traps and deception; therefore be as wise as serpents and as peaceful as doves, holding your eyes steady on the big brown eyes of a loving Deity – such as the deer, around whom we gather in love and in companionability.

And now I release you children, to frolic and play in the woods, enjoying the sights and sounds, smells and tastes of the mortal realm in which you reside, with the loving brothers and sisters you know. Bye-bye!

Paula: Well, does everybody want a piece of apple pie with some ice cream?

Group: You bet!

*****

DATE: November 27, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM, USA

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER: Merium

Elena on Piano: "Let all Mortal Flesh Keep Silent"

Esmeralda’s Prayer:

"Father, we’re thankful today to gather here and be closer and warm and have cozy, warm feelings, even in spite of the blustery day outside.

"Thank you, Father, for always providing us will good lessons, through Merium and others. We are always very appreciative and find them extremely helpful. We all look forward to having the lessons and sharing with each other and with Merium and the other beings who are around us that we cannot see.

"Be with us today. Help us through the week with your always good guidance. Let us be opening for listening for your guidance. All these things we ask in your name. Amen."

MERIUM: I am Merium. Don’t get up! Please, stay there in your chairs. You are so comfortable already, I needn’t even fluff your pillows. It is such a lovely day, as Esmeralda has said already, so cozy. It would be as if you were seated around a roaring fire with your cup of hot cocoa and storybooks in your laps. I’ve come to remind you of our assignment, first off, that being to find something we might study and I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts you’ve all forgotten--

Group: Yes, I forgot. Me, too.

MERIUM: -- so I have an alternate route to take. I will begin with the most elemental lessons in appreciation of your childlike natures. And, in keeping too with the cozy atmosphere of today, isn’t it exciting how the wind is blowing? Such an electrical charge is in the air! It makes our coziness all the more precious.

I am going to involve you all today and I’d like for you to participate. I realize some of you grown-ups will have to take a leap into your childhood, but I am sure you can rally to the occasion. I would like to discuss/study/ find value in literature, as I indicated, and since we haven’t got anything to study, we shall study children’s stories. And so I would like for each of you to call to your own mind one of your favorite stories from your youth and share it with the group so that we can begin to recognize the value in all things, just as Aesop found in his many fables. Anyone have a story they’d like to tell?

Elena: I have one that’s really appropriate. It’s not exactly from my childhood, but it’s one of my favorite stories, and it was a story by George McDonald called … I don’t remember the title exactly, but it’s about the North Wind, and it tells the story about a little boy who loses his parents, an orphan, and has a very difficult time. At first he battles with the wind and it makes him cold, and he … I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I read the book. It would warrant reading again. But he goes through different things and befriends some people, but the North Wind is his biggest friend, and it actually … in my mind, is like God. At the end of the story, it eventually takes him, so the boy dies. The wind finally carries him away to a happier place, and I may not be remembering it exactly but it’s a wonderful book and I loved it, and that’s at least the gist of it.

MERIUM: So we have the story and the interpretation. There are perhaps other interpretations, but let’s hear another story!

Men-O-Pah: I’m always reminded that the wind is our brother, and it’s part of the whole prayer which says, "Great Spirit, whose voice I hear singing in the wind, wind that gives the breath of life to all the world, hear my prayer, and find my little medicine song acceptable. I seek your wisdom and your power, not that I may be wiser or stronger than my brothers, but that I might win the battle over my most formidable enemy: myself."

MERIUM: Now that one is laden with symbolism and may be regarded as quite the fable. But we need not limit our imaginations to the wind. What of those of us indoors? Like Little Miss Muffet on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey? Many childhood stories, such as The Ugly Duckling, or later stories such as Oliver Twist or Little Women. Tell me stories!

Esmeralda: Well, when I was growing up, from a very, very, very early age, my mother taught me all of the Little Miss Muffet … you know, all of the nursery rhymes. I could go through all of those when I was about three, so I enjoyed every one of them. You just mentioned Little Women, and that is one of the books that I thoroughly just loved. I don’t know how many times I read that.

Paula: Oh, you too? I’ll bet I read it 13, 14 times.

Esmeralda: And "Eight Cousins" was good, too, that she wrote. And it was mainly, as I recall, telling about the lives of the youngsters, the cousins, as they grew up and the different paths they took and the choices they made and I was really fascinated by that, too.

MERIUM: What did you like about it, Paula?

Paula: I loved "Little Women"! All the way through! I just … I couldn’t tell you how many times I read it, and then I read "Little Men." Of course, that was just an off-shoot of that, and that was interesting, but it wasn’t nearly as good as "Little Women." It was just different and I liked it, but I could go back and read "Little Women" over again now. I just loved it.

Elena: What did you—she asked what did you like about it, though?

Paula: Well, the mother and the father valued – just the things that they could learn about life and how you go about things and try to find the proper passage as you go along and do the right thing and, sure enough, if you do it right there is a reward for you, and if you do it wrong you are probably going to get punished, and they lived by that.

And they had a woman that was, I guess, a housekeeper. And how they could afford to pay her I don’t know because they were supposed to be pretty poor but she lived right there with them and they were good to her, too. And it was just … just the morals in the thing.

Of course the father was a minister, and the mother was just an all-around good woman; she could do anything, and was always helping out. And they didn’t have much of anything themselves, but she was down there taking care of the poor family where the mother was sick and there were children who had to be taken care of and sure enough she’s down there doing it, and it was just … that sort of thing.

And then the father – it was during the Civil War and he was injured and was in the hospital and with the help of their neighbors next door who were well-to-do—and of course one of the girls married the son – and they helped him so that she could afford and stay with her husband while he was getting better.

But the whole thing, it was just beautiful the whole way through. Of course they all fall in love and get married. All except little Beth, that was always sick anyhow, and she died before the end of the book, but the other girls got married and it was just great.

Esmeralda: Their ability to cope with not the best of circumstances, to make the most out of whatever it was and appreciate what they had was a good thing in that, too, I thought.

Elena: And there was still fun there, too. There was the snow and the ice. And then the humor, of the sharing of that one glove. You know, and the burned dress and her back to the wall and just dying to dance, and still something working out with that.

Paula: Oh, yeah, she had something wrong with the back of her dress.

Elena: It was singed.

Esmeralda: She had backed up to the fire.

Paula: Oh, yeah, and burned the back of her dress.

Esmeralda: But she didn’t have another dress, so she had to wear that. But they coped and they were happy and they were loving.

Elena: Very close.

Esmeralda: Very close. And that was a very good thing.

Men-O-Pah: I think I was in the second or third grade and my teacher thought that book was so important and so good that she read it aloud to us.

Paula: She did?!

Men-O-Pah: Yeah, we had a few minutes every day where she read to us from one book or another and she read that… she read that book to us.

Elena: Did you like it, too?

Men-O-Pah: Yeah, I did. I did. I sure did.

Esmeralda: You know, another one that was good, too. The teachers did used to read for a period of time. My own mother was my teacher, at school. Another was "Robin Hood" and she read that book aloud to us and that was very fascinating and it was robbing the rich to help the poor but it had good morals to it, too.

MERIUM: Thoroah? What is your mind telling you?

Thoroah: I never read "Little Women." If I did, I don’t remember it. How did I go through life without reading "Little Women"? (Group laughter) I’ve heard about it my whole life, and may well have had a reading assignment at some time or another to read it, but I don’t recollect it.

Of all those things that… the longer stories and the short stories … the biggest factor in my life was "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and the dog with the bone looking at himself in the water, from Aesop. Those two things … I have been in both places and I didn’t have to go to looking at myself and dropping the imaginary bone. I had no problem with that most of my life because I don’t covet … and that might’ve been one of the reasons why I don’t covet!

… but the other one hit me full blast when I scared my mother and my great-grandmother half out of their wits one time by yelling "Help!" and, you know, it was out at the farm and I did that and they came out and as soon as I saw the panic in their eye, coming out to see what was wrong with me and there wasn’t anything wrong with me, I just Boom! It was like a dagger. I put my own dagger in my own self. So I learned that lesson, but those are the two I remember from my childhood.

MERIUM: And Gerdean, what are your favorites? Or your favorite?

Gerdean: Well that was well put, Merium, because I would be hard-pressed to have a favorite, but I do like the story of "The Ugly Duckling" because it … well, I don’t need to interpret that I guess, huh?

Esmeralda: That was a good story.

Gerdean: That was a good story. And of course I liked "Little Women" too. I like the gentility of "Little Women." I think little girls always fantasize that they are cultured and gracious and, like "The Waltons," you want to be around people who are good-hearted and laughing and loving and sticking in there through thick and thin. But my favorite is "The Ugly Ducking."

MERIUM: And why is it "The Ugly Duckling"?

Gerdean: All right. Because – because of the sense of belonging that it represents. The ugly… it wasn’t ugly, it just didn’t fit anywhere until it blundered onto its own kind and then it realized it was in its element and it just happened that it was a swan and it was very beautiful. That’s symbolic, because we all recognize that swan are very beautiful but all animals are beautiful. I don’t object to that. I mean I don’t have to be a beautiful swan. I just appreciate the value of finding your own kind. Finding people that you feel are your kindred spirits. And in there you can be beautiful because you can be yourself.

MERIUM: I too have favorite stories from my childhood, but I’m not sure I would remember them unless someone pointed them out to me in conversation, similar to how you do when you gather round the fire as you have this afternoon, to share your appreciation of sundry literature. I admire Men-O-Pah’s ability to recite. It used to be on your world and on mine, that we learned by memorizing, and so the mind was quickened and found much delight in repeating phrases and refrains that were remembered long ago but that still stay fresh.

The same can be said for songs such as Thoroah and Gerdean enjoy. A simple phrase prompts remembrance and they might launch into song then and there, as if on cue. This again is a form of literature, only it is sung or recited instead of read. Reading together is, alas, a lost art in your culture it would seem. There are some times when folk gather together to read great books, but for the most part they are only interested in books as far as studies are concerned and not for enjoyment.

It would seem in your culture this has to do with the rapid pace of the material age, where everything is happening so fast it is almost an unacceptable indulgence to simply sit back and become lost in a good book, in a good escapist literature, or an adventurous story. But as we have talked about today, almost every story has a moral, has value, and if it does not, it is the nature of the curious mind to manufacture some, so as to validate its investment in time, as if to say it was time well spent because thus-and-such was obtained from the experience.

As you develop your refinements and your tastes in this life and to a great extent in the lives to come, you will be more selective about what you focus your mind on, but always will there be room for diversion, reversion and entertainment. And always will it have a moral, as the parables that Jesus used to give had a grain of truth inside an otherwise simple rendition of life’s mysteries.

Is it any wonder that adults still enjoy telling stories! I think women are perhaps more gifted at telling stories than men, but that is a cultural thing and not an innate tendency. Women seem to have had more time to sit around and tell stories. They also enjoy the details, while men seem to want to get to the point and not dally over descriptive adjectives. However, there are men whose lives are made successful because of those adjectives and they use them in their business to sell or convince, and so they tell stories in their own way.

This is part of the adjutants, the adjutant of counsel that loves stories, telling them and responding to them, for it is the voice of humanity, the voice of intelligence, the voice of consciousness. And yet, I loved the music you played, Elena, that salutes the silence, that allows us to go into the stillness wherein we may sit in repose and enjoy the still small voice within which speaks to us of adventures and provides comfort and quells our fears even as it excites our sense of adventure.

How wonderful are our Eternal Parents, that they have provided so well for us and given us this hearth in front of which we may sit in gentle company with one another, companioning one another on a blustery late November day on Planet Urantia.

Are there any questions from anyone, in terms of your life experience or in terms of your studies that we can address while we are here together?

Paula: Well, it isn’t a question. Can I tell you something?

MERIUM: Please.

Paula: Well, you all would have loved my father. I know you would. Everybody did. Daddy was a very unusual man and he went his own way. He was supposed to go to college like his brother and his sisters did, and instead he said to his mother one day when he was a senior in high school, he said, "Well, I’m going to be an actor, on the stage." Well, they about threw a fit, I guess, and grandma, it’s a wonder she didn’t have a heart attack right then because she thought that was a terrible waste. Well, it turned out that he had ten really good years on stage, traveling all over. But the idea was, when he came back home and he married mom and they managed to have me, and he was a really devoted father and very good over at church and always keeping somebody’s spirits up. This was Depression days. You young people don’t know about that, but I do. All we old ladies and old men know about the Depression.

Esmeralda: I know about the Depression. I’m with you.

Paula: And over in church they were just about ready to hang themselves on the nearest rope because they couldn’t support their families and they were all blue, so every Wednesday night we all had dinner together. Every lady brought something, a dish. And it was the best meal some of them had all week, including us! And daddy would get telling jokes and laughing and before the evening was over they had forgotten how upset they were. They were having a great time.

This is all very well and good, then along came my teenage years and I got to be 14 and I was pledged to a sorority. Well, I was younger than the other girls; they were 16, 17 … I was 14. And you don’t know what that does to a teenage girl. I looked at those girls and I thought, "Oh, if I could only be like them. If I could only be so grownup!" And of course I was always a little shrimp, anyhow, and people thought of me as a baby on account of that and I hated it!

So the girls are all sitting around at the sorority meeting. Everybody is puffing away on a cigarette, like this, you know, and it looked so sophisticated to me and I thought, "Oh, boy, I wish I could smoke." I was telling my parents about it and my dad said, "Oh, you want to smoke, huh?" I said, "Well, I wish I could because then I could be like the other girls." He said, "Well, you get an allowance (fifty cents a week) and if you want to waste it on cigarettes, that’s your business. Go ahead."

Well, he could have forbidden me. He could have said, "Don’t you ever dare do anything like that or I’ll have you over my knee," but instead, "Go ahead! Experiment!" so I’m choking down the cigarette and catching the smoke in my throat and everything, so I wanted to go to the next meeting and I tried awful hard to sit with my cigarette out (like "I do this all the time at home") and I thought I was doing pretty well, too.

Then we had the sorority dance and the boy that I thought I was terrific was going to be at that dance and I thought, "Well, he’ll never pay attention to a 14-year-old girl," but lo and behold during the evening he asked me to dance. We danced, and all of a sudden he started to chuckle. I said, "What’s so funny?" He said "Nothing" and I said, "What?" and he said, "Usually when I dance with a girl she smells like smoke and you smell like perfume."

That was the last cigarette I ever smoked in my life. I thought, "Oh, boy, men don’t like that! They like to have things smell nice." So my father was pretty smart that way. He could have forbidden it, and then that would have been my way of saying, "I’m going to do it anyhow!" but I didn’t have to, because he was a smart cookie and he was a good man, and he had his own way of raising his daughter, and I was rambunctious, like all teenagers, and he kept me in line that way, so he was quite a man.

Elena: That was quite a story!

MERIUM: Indeed, he was, quite a man, and it is no wonder you still adore your daddy. He was wise to allow you to make your own way, learn your own lessons, overseeing your mistakes and praising that in you which was appropriate. It is the positive way of teaching, which is how Jesus taught his brothers and sisters. The positive injunction, as compared to "Thou Shalt Not" which, in many young people who are discovering their own limitations, "Thou Shalt Not" is an invitation to extend themselves into realms that will only get them into trouble.

Elena: I guess I have a question, if you … You asked if we had questions. I have this deal going on about my plumbing, and I found that-- I mean, I’m fine with my own plumbing, that I find now that I’m sitting here listening to my mother’s house, and worrying about her! And so, I’m-- It’s-- I have a little worry streak that I’ve tried to control during my life and sometimes I’m better at it than others at controlling it, but it seems that one event will happen to you and then you consider yourself a little bit vulnerable and you look for that same topic.

Is that a good enough..? I may not be expressing this very well.

MERIUM: You already know the answer to your question. You are telling me that you are a creature of habit and if you feel something and it is confirmed, you have at once established a habit. And since you are currently worrying about your plumbing, it’s quite easy then to worry about your mother’s and, if you give yourself permission, you can worry about the plumbing of the entire Sandoval County! (Laughter)

Esmeralda: That’s probably true!

MERIUM: You could take this worry all the way to the point where you decide to run for office and be of service to your community. But if you are not going to do something affirmative and constructive with your worry, you are only indulging anxiety and there are many more productive and pleasing methods of amusement.

Elena: True enough. Thank you, Merium, for the reminder. I needed that.

MERIUM: Your mother needs to tend to her own plumbing. This is not to say you cannot share concerns. But each of you have your own responsibilities. Again, this is not to say that you don’t concern yourself about others’ challenges. This is the nature of empathy. And yet, as you interject yourself into the lives of others, to the extent that you need to fix their problems for them, you have overstepped the boundary of good sense and become a rescuer or an enabler, which is dysfunction.

It could be that misery loves company and so you want your mother to have bad plumbing to companion you!

Elena: No! No, no, no! Knock on wood.

MERIUM: Then don’t worry about it.

Elena: Okay. But thanks for the reminder about that. That was good advice, too, in other areas as well, so I appreciate that.

MERIUM: You are welcome. And I must say this sentiment has a lot of bearing on why you enjoy Louisa May Alcott’s "Little Women." It represents an age in culture that is no more, but is presented as romantic and so it appeals to that in you which nurtures freely and receives same from others, without being dysfunctional. It is the true representation of family, wherein each one enjoys carrying the other's burdens, and enjoying the truth that your burdens are also carried by those who care.

In today's culture (in the main), it is very much "I'll take care of myself; you take care of yourself." And so this interdependence factor is unappreciated. This is a current but temporary cultural reflection of your evolution as a species.

You were talking earlier about the depression and how people pooled together to make a banquet once a week, rather like stone soup, but the fact remains, you all pitched in and helped each other. This remains an experience of value, no matter what trying times you may be experiencing. But you are now enjoying a time of plenty, a time of abundance, and so everyone is quite smug about their self-sufficiency. If and as circumstances are changed to force people to learn to depend upon one another once again, as happens in times of disaster or emergency, you will again see that tendency to bond together to be helpful to one another as an aspect of your goodness.

Elena: Merium, is that independence…is that truly evolution? Is that progress? I forget the word you used, but . .. um, is that a forward direction?

Esmeralda: "I can take care of myself; you can take care of yourself."

Elena: Yeah.

MERIUM: It is necessary for the child, the toddler, to pull back from the mother's breast and from holding onto the coffee table, (in order) to walk across the room. And in this regard, it is necessary for individuals to say, "No! Let me do it! I can do it!" And thus they learn to walk. They can run and play with others who also walk and run. However, in the end, it is necessary that teamwork be learned, sharing, and the like. And these are cyclic. But in the cycle of your age now, independence has reached its peak in certain areas, even though there are many who are completely dependent yet on artificial realities, other people, places and things, including work, wealth, drugs, alcohol, ("sex, drugs and rock-and-roll"), and so as we evolve up and away from the dependency on these lesser realities and become more sure-footed in selfhood, selfhood will reveal itself as to whether it is out for itself or if it is able to, willing to, be of service to others and the greater good.

Here is where Tomas would say, "By your fruits you shall be known," and you will know, as in "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," who is genuine and who is just a lot of talk, or, like the North Wind, if it is change for the sake of change, or if it is purposively moving the seasons along.

Speaking of seasons moving along, we have observed your Thanksgiving Day activities, and heard your heart's song as to that for which you are grateful, and [we] are now in our theater seats observing the approach of the Yuletide season and all its many diversions and feelings. I invite you to join me in observing as humanity approaches the holiday that is named after the Christ child and how that affects the world, He who created the world!

Anything else before we call it a day?

Elena: Well, do you have any suggestions about our assignment? I mean, would you like us still to look, I mean, maybe with the idea of reading it aloud, perhaps, or selecting a book that we all read and then discuss here, or . .. do you care about what format takes … or what?

MERIUM: I have no preference as to how it emerges; however, I would very much enjoy and appreciate our ability to apply ourselves to some form of mental stimuli, in terms of study or absorption. It is not only amusing, it is also mental exercise.

Elena: Like on a daily basis, or just during this lesson?

MERIUM: If you find something during the course of time, between now and when we next meet, that you enjoy . .. if it has value to you . .. that you would like to share with someone, as a reflection of yourself, bring it along with you. And this is something all of you can do. All of you have stories from childhood you have shared. And you can all bring in something you have discovered to read with us, to us, that also will edify the group, and we can play "Little Men" and "Little Women" in company with one another. Let's see how that goes.

Group: Okay. We'll try not to forget this time. (I'd better do it right away!)

MERIUM: I look forward to the results of this exercise, as I always look forward to seeing you again, after we have been apart. Bye-bye.

Group: Bye-bye!

*****

DATE: December 11, 2005

LOCATION: Rio Rancho, NM, USA

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER: MERIUM

Prayer: Let us begin by inviting the Spirit into our heart and Jesus into our presence.

"Master Teacher, we are glad to meet with you today, knowing that you are with us as we come together in your name. We seek to know you, how you live your life, that we might live ours more effectively in being about the Father's business of spreading good cheer and of being a conduit for truth, beauty and goodness. We who know you, Master, are truly blessed. Those of us who relish the spirit life have reason to celebrate.

"Thank you for the excuse to come and be with you and to play in your field with Merium and the other teachers you show us, to help lead the way. Looking at us as your children, seeking to become wiser and happier as a result of knowing you and seeking to follow you, we ask your blessing on our gathering. Amen. "

MERIUM: Hello! This is Merium. I'm at it already. I can feel the heaviness of the room. It must be that the prayer was ponderous. Let's stretch. Wiggle your toes and lighten up.

This is Merium, your friendly cosmic babysitter, come to greet you and spend some time with you on this exciting afternoon -- exciting for the weather and for the new kid on the block. How wonderful to see you here, Jules, and you, as well, our mad Libra from Santa Fe. Isn't it fun to recognize personality and dabble with that medium as if it were an art form? How do you use your personality to create? Are you a musical instrument? Are you a pencil? Are you a brush? Are you a tool? All of you are creative offshoots of the Creator, and each of you has your own unique attributes of creativity.

Last time we met I had talked to you about reading material and we had a nice afternoon talking about what you had read that had impressed you as children or youth, and you shared your selections, even as all of you seemed to find Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" to be worthy of note. You will recall I had asked you each to participate by bringing something this week to share, to read to the group, inasmuch as all of you seem to have something to share that you enjoy from what you read that you would enjoy sharing with someone else. Has anyone done their homework?

Men-O-Pah: Yes.

MERIUM: Oh, I am so glad to hear it! Are we going to have a recital?

Men-O-Pah: Yes. For our people, this is the time of the cold moon, so called the cold moon, the time for gathering around the sacred fire and the time for storytelling. It is a custom that has been with us for many long years. The story I relay to you, however, concerns me and it's true. It happened to me when I was just a boy.

I was nine years old, and it was 1933. We were still in the Depression, but I guess on our way out. But I remember that we hadn't eaten for two days, and I had five pennies that I had saved over some period of time and I traded those pennies for five shotgun shells. At my grandfather's house there were guns laying all over the place, and we had this old 12-gauge double-barrel that he hunted with and, anyway, I had never shot a gun in my life, but I know that we hadn't eaten in two days, too, and so I traded those five pennies for five shotgun shells, and I went into the woods.

It's the first time, I think, that I ever heard the voice of God. This rabbit jumped in front of me and said, "I know that you're cold, and that you're hungry. And I've been sent here and I give you permission to take my life," and so I did, and that night we feasted on rabbit. But the thing is that we seem to have a penchant for hearing the voice of God in all sorts of things -- out of trees, and from the wind, and out of the mouths of birds and animals.

We know that we don't have the right to take the life of any living thing without, you know, asking permission from God to do so. We do that because we are hungry. When we need the food, we eat. But that, for me … I was nine years old. It's the first time, I think, that I heard the voice of God speaking to me.

MERIUM: "And he spoke unto me saying, 'I give you dominion over the animals in the field'." Indeed, God spoke to you and provided your needs.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that God is involved in your lives, although it would seem we need a few intelligent people to effectively make life more bearable for so many who suffer so needlessly.

Any other contributions? As Men-O-Pah stated, we are sitting around the fire, telling stories in the season for such, enjoying the camaraderie of a body of Christ. Gerdean, you brought something. Do you want to share it?

Gerdean: I will. I'm not sure it's literature, although Virginia Woolf certainly feels that she is, and she is given credit for being a literary person. She's telling here, in this book, "A Room of One's Own" -- which is rather famous, -- that writers, women writers need to have independent income and a room of one's own in order to create the space in their mind to have that freedom, and she talks about a time when she was paying for something with a ten-shilling note when she remembered …

"My Aunt, Mary Beton, I must tell you, died by a fall from her horse when she was riding out to take the air in Bombay. The news of my legacy reached me one night about the same time that the act was passed that gave votes to women. A solicitor's letter fell into the post box and when I opened it I found that she had left me 500 pounds a year forever! Of the two, the vote and the money, the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important. Before that I had made my living by cadging odd jobs from newspapers, by reporting a donkey show here or a wedding there. I had earned a few pounds by addressing envelopes, reading to old ladies, making artificial flowers, teaching alphabet to small children in a kindergarten, such were the chief occupations that were open to women before 1918.

"I need not, I'm afraid, describe in any detail the hardness of the work, for you know, perhaps, women who have done it. Nor the difficulty of living on the money when it was earned, for you may have tried. But what still remains with me as a worse infliction than either, was the poison of fear and bitterness which those days bred in me. To begin with, always to be doing work that one did not wish to do, and to do it like a slave, flattering and fawning, not always necessarily perhaps, but it seemed necessary and the stakes were too great to run risks. And then the thought of that one gift which it was death to hide, a small one, but dear to the possessor, … and with it, myself, my soul. All this became like a rust, eating away the bloom of the spring, destroying the tree at its heart. However, as I say, my aunt died. And whenever I change a ten-shilling note, a little of that rust and corrosion is rubbed off, fear and bitterness go.

"Indeed, I thought, slipping the silver into my purse. It is remarkable, remembering the bitterness of those days. What a change of temper a fixed income will bring about. No force in the world can take from me my 500 pounds. Food, house and clothing are mine forever. Therefore not merely do effort and labor cease, but also hatred and bitterness. I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me. So imperceptibly I found myself adopting a new attitude toward the other half of the human race. It was absurd to blame any class or any sex as a whole. Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do. They are driven by instincts, which are not within their control. They, too, the patriarchs, the professors, had endless difficulties, terrible drawbacks to contend with. Their education had been in some ways as faulty as my own. It had bred in them defects as great. True, they had money and power, but only at the cost of harboring in their breasts an eagle, a vulture, forever tearing the liver out and plucking at the lungs, the instinct for possession, the rage for acquisition which drives them to desire other people's fields and goods perpetually, to make frontiers and flags, battleships and poison gas, to offer up their own lives and their children's lives."

And so on. "These are unpleasant instincts to harbor, I reflected. They are bred of the conditions of life, of the lack of civilization," et cetera. And I thought about what … well. That's what I brought.

MERIUM: Ah, yes, you brought a testimony in literary form from one of your benefactors as one who laments the same things you lament, and she is a figure in literature, yes, so she is a hero of sorts. It is always gratifying to uncover a renowned and well-respected figure who sees things the way you do. But the point, I believe, Gerdean, is that we are here still so uncivilized, for all of our conventions and institutions, it is still a matter of application to survival, which ought, you think, by now be assured.

It is an uphill struggle, child. It is, indeed. But try to remember at the same time how far you have come … not just you and Virginia Woolf, or women in general, but humanity. Appreciating the strengths that you have acquired, the great halls of learning, the names of many who have been able to give of themselves because they could afford it, and because they did not have to scrounge and subject their minds to the niggardly application of earning a living to simply survive has benefited all mankind.

As more of humanity becomes touched by their legacy, humanity will be educated; they will be impressed to know peace. You must not give up hope, just because the world conditions today are at odds with your ideals. It is an evolutionary trek, yes, but it is advancing, even as we speak. A good friend there in Virginia Woolf -- at least as a literary companion.

I'll add, too, for your benefit and for something to think on, when you are completely in the camp of the Father, "the deliverer," "the light," you will not be left without. You will be provided for. While it may not be to the extent or degree you prefer, it will nonetheless be true that your needs are provided for -- abundantly and beyond your own expectation. If you recall the Rolling Stones, "You may not always get what you want, but you get what you need."

What else have we today?

Renault: Well, I've been reading the "Conversations With God" books and I find them very enlightening and refreshing, although a little bit -- what do I say -- chastising a bit, but you know, I think they're brilliantly written, and I think the world needs those books, too. I think they will be a big help to lead the people who can't get into the heaviness of the Urantia Book. The lightness of "Conversations With God" is certainly a help and his [Neale Donald Walsch's] later books, more recent books, are very well written.

MERIUM: What a blessing for humanity that God is becoming more popular. How necessary it was for that old image of an angry, jealous god to be set aside to make room for the God of light and life: a happy, joyous creator, upholder of the universe, generous and liberal.

Renault: Unjudging, undemanding, unconventional, not making any kind of judgments or demands in order win love, so to speak. It's time to get rid of all those negative, nasty labels that we put on the judgmental god or else kind of thing. I think the loving interpretations are much, much better.

MERIUM: And that's the one you'll follow, because that's the one you like. There are many who prefer this stern God because they choose not to trust themselves to know joy and hope, for fear they will lead themselves into some sort of foolishness. And their understanding of dignity is one based on a staid and reserved demeanor. Millions of believers prefer to stay in their minds, to keep their faith "on the books" and conserve their ebullience to keep their "shoulder to the wheel" and their "nose to the grindstone" as they were taught and as was the way when the world was younger and it was more difficult to survive.

When Men-O-Pah relates the tale of him at age nine exchanging his pennies for ammunition to put food on the table of his family, he is reciting, albeit poetically, the hardship that was known in other times. And now it is easy to scrounge up enough change to drive over to your favorite fast-food place to buy a burger before your belly growls.

There are those who honor those struggles and respect those efforts by retaining them, even in their own comportment, in much the same way, the survivors of the Holocaust remember Dachau and the way native Americans remember Wounded Knee. There are those who remember their last drunk. And these are solemn oaths that it shall never happen again. There are some elements of history that do not need to be repeated. It has been hoped by millions of mortals that war would not be necessary again. And yet, here we are. But let's not give up hope. Let's live in the light. Let's have conversations with God. Let's keep God alive in our consciousness. Let's invite Jesus to walk with us on a daily basis. Let's entertain our celestial helpers and convince ourselves, as we walk in the dark as agondonters, that there is light and life and there is good reason to have faith.

This is what I love about you, my children, my charges, that you keep your light lit. And that you make effort to light the wick on other's candles by reminding them of living faith -- not in the old ways, but in the new ways emerging en route to our final destiny. And while, of course, there are those who would question what the "final destiny" was, I will simply say, for me it will be the day the temple is lowered from On High marking the attainment of light and life on this world, thereby releasing the midwayers to advance and the angels to sing. The sentimental shrine of Nebadon will have arrived.

It is not that far away as you see how many people are yearning for "Conversations with God" and beyond. "A Course in Miracles" was necessary, and so we are now seeing miracles take place -- simple miracles, but those that light up our lives like twinkling lights on a Christmas tree. And we have yet another reader in our midst?

Thoroah: I've been reading "Seth Speaks - The Eternal Validity of the Soul" and Men-O-Pah's story made me reflect on some of the things that Seth was trying to teach, about our connection to everything, how God permeates everything. And that we in our higher self, our god-self, we know the communication's there but we just have forgotten how to communicate. Probably most of the things that we remember in our communications with God happened when we were kids, but I've really enjoyed what Seth is trying to reveal, explain, describe, much like what the Urantia Book tried to do; it's trying to describe the indescribable. It's been very, very good for me. In my humble estimation.

Paula: Well you know, years ago, people helped each other a great deal more than they do now, probably, and my grandfather and grandmother lived in the country, raised their animals and so forth, their crops, and in the fall when it was time to reap all that, the different people got together and they'd help each other. They'd go to each other's farms and all the men would get out in the field and they'd work away and the women would cook for a whole bunch of men, so --

Mom said one time (she was a teenager then), she and her cousin (who was also a teenager) they got drafted into helping with, I guess it was fried potatoes they were fixing on the stove, the coal stove, and somebody said something about you had to shake something in the stove. I don't know what that was, but you had to do something, and so they shook it, and at the time it was being shaken, her cousin Laura had the pepper in her hand and she was supposed to pepper the potatoes and so she did and at the same time the grate, I don't know, it opened up somehow, and a whole bunch of this gray ash fell down into the fried potatoes and Mother said, "Oh, what are we going to do now!" and Laura said, "Well, I did it, so I have to fix it up. She said, I'm going to stir all those ashes into the potatoes and we'll tell them that was some extra black pepper." And they all ate it and nobody got sick, but they ate ashes. And it was just fine. So --

… but they all worked together. Every farmer helped the fellow up the road and helped him to get his crops in. And that way they all managed for the winter, and it was tough those days. They really did it the hard way. But somehow they got through and when it was time to go to high school, we were lucky enough to have relatives that lived in the nearby town where there was a school, and that's what mother did. She went and stayed with her cousins from Monday through Friday and went to school, then her dad came and got her with the horse and buggy and they would come back home, and she helped her Mom all weekend but they all got through somehow. And they were poor as church mice, but they didn't know it. They were happy! They were having a great time.

So Mother was really prepared, when it was Depression Days, and we all had to tighten the belt and not eat too much, but we got through it, somehow, someway. My father had a furniture store but nobody had any money to buy furniture, so the whole thing went bust! And then he had to work for other people and he sold furniture for department stores and things of that sort, but they never lost their faith. They had that in abundance. And I grew up with that, so I was very lucky.

MERIUM: Thank you, Paula, and Thoroah. This is a double-barreled contribution! I will refer to your comments, Thoroah, if I may, and recommend Seth as a fine teacher, a part of the Advance Corps to work with mortals prior to the opening of the circuits, and indeed his thrust was opening the circuits of the brain to allow spirit entry. His contribution to consciousness will never be overlooked in the annals of your planetary development, and so to find value in his teachings is to find value indeed in those who have gone before you to show the way, as Virginia Woolf has gone before Gerdean and the Depression has gone before our "honeymooners" [Paula and Men-O-Pah]

We learn from what has been, and when we attain a degree of self-direction, we go in search of that which will provide enlightenment and consciousness. It is then that we begin to direct our own course of destiny. In the text, it speaks of the fact that the evolving mortal must go beyond merely being somebody to doing something, and so as you all reinforce your being, you search out ways in which you might do something to advance civilization or consciousness -- either/or interchangeably working -- in order to reach the goal, for there must be consciousness and there must be civilization, and they work interchangeably.

And that is why it is interesting that the two of you have given me this double-barreled expression, for Paula's recitation is about the civilization that Thoroah's studies of consciousness brings about. Knowing your needs, you will join together to create the working harmony that will accomplish that which needs done. The next step in your planetary evolution will be to find ways to occupy yourselves in peace, in ways which you can work together to enhance your civilization -- not for your own self-serving needs, but for the benefit of all.

Julie, have you read anything lately you would like to share with us?

Julie: Of a spiritual nature, I don't think I can quite verbalize what I've read which was a little bit ago, but I do enjoy reading.

MERIUM: Find us a paragraph from that book there at your elbow and share it. Any paragraph will do.

Julie: [Reading from Page 230 of the Urantia Book, Paper 20, Paradise Sons of God on "The Trinity Teacher Sons.]

"The Trinity Teacher Sons. These highly personal and highly spiritual Paradise Sons are brought into being by the Paradise Trinity. They are known in Havona as the order of Daynals. In Orvonton they are of record as Trinity Teacher Sons, so named because of their parentage. On Salvington they are sometimes denominated the Paradise Spirit Sons.

"In numbers the Teacher Sons are constantly increasing. The last universal census broadcast gave the number of these Trinity Sons functioning in the central and superuniverses as a little more than twenty-one billion, and this is exclusive of the Paradise reserves, which includes more than one third of all Trinity Teacher Sons in existence.

"The Daynal order of sonship is not an organic part of the local or superuniverse administrations. Its members are neither creators nor retrievers, neither judges nor rulers. They are not so much concerned with universe administration as with moral enlightenment and spiritual development. They are the universal educators, being dedicated to the spiritual awakening and moral guidance of all realms. Their ministry is intimately interrelated with that of the personalities of the Infinite Spirit and is closely associated with the Paradise ascension of creature beings."

MERIUM: Well, how charming! You are reading about me and my relatives!

There are few reading experiences as potent as the Urantia Papers for many reasons, but for our purposes today, I will laud the artistry of the writings, the ability of the revelators to express themselves through the English language, even as they testify to the challenge of conveying spirit concepts into the human word frame. They have done a noble job.

I appreciate its ability to touch on so many things, so many topics, which incite curiosity and whet the appetite for yet more while providing a wholesome dose of much needed spirit connection that gives the reader an opportunity to relate to the recognition their Indwelling Adjuster finds in the concepts set forth when they sail through the mortal intellect. This stimulation of the Adjuster in and of itself is sufficient to carry the mortal a long way toward developing his or her own self-consciousness.

Ultimately, superconsciousness will be prevalent, and those will be exciting times. We will then sit around the fire and tell stories of these days and of today's hardships, for there are plenty afoot. And while you may not realize how heroically you are living your life during this era of encroaching enlightenment, you are nonetheless noted in the annals of Urantia history as being a part of the upward sweep into a more fulfilling state of mind and being for the world and its inhabitants.

What wondrous things come from books, which come from the human experience! What great chronicles are in existence, testifying to the state of mind and being of the mortals of these times! It is so easy to step outside of yourself and get lost in the words and worlds of others who have much to offer, much compassion and sympathy and stimulation and encouragement. I invite you to gorge yourself on the feasts at hand -- for the mind -- which feed also the heart and stimulate also the spirit.

Well, this has been great fun. I am so glad to hear your responses to our assignment and glad to see how well we have conformed to a modicum of continuity, even as our members come and go and times change. Is it Robert Frost or Men-O-Pah, Sandburg or Shakespeare, or a Biblical scripture or a bump on the log that says, "The grass covers all"? Let's go play on the grass.

I look forward to seeing you next time. By then the sugarplum fairies will have passed through. Enjoy the season. Bye-bye!

Group: Bye! Thank you.

*****

[End of Vol. VI, 2004-5, Part 4 of 4]