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<P class=MsoHeader style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: .5in">SE Idaho TM</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">6-27-04</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Opening Prayer by Klarixiska (Virginia): </P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><I>Father of perfection, Father of light, Father of rainbows, we all come to You for your leadership and the color You can put into our lives, for the peace, and yes the challenge, to become like You.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Grant that the lessons tonight might bring us all closer to You.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We think of those who are not with us, especially LaReen.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We would ask that Your arms might enfold her, Your light might be within her, Your hope might give her the strength to move on in a positive way on this plane.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Give her wisdom.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Give her courage to say no to those things that might hurt her in some way.</I><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Amen</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="TEXT-TRANSFORM: uppercase">Daniel </SPAN>(Bob S):<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Greetings my friends, colleagues, and stalwart seekers of perfection as are we all.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Friends, I am greeting you this evening, but I am not the presenter.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There are others who have that responsibility this evening.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Since Bob has not had the chance to TR in awhile, I thought it would be appropriate to have him kick off tonight’s session.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your earlier discussions will be the subject of a lesson, but we will save that for the time when the culmination of your assignment is the focus of the lesson.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tonight, we have another idea to present.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So without further adieu, stand by please.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON (Nancy):<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Greetings friends and students.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am Aaron taking this opportunity to make use of PamElla’s mind.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We will see how this goes for she is mostly unfamiliar with my presence.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This subject matter—turning the other cheek—is in many ways the crux of spiritual living and is a lesson we wish to spend some time developing and revisiting to give you ample opportunity to consider its many aspects.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The lesson presented by Minearisa three weeks ago remains in place.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are asked to reread the assignment and undertake the practice suggested.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tonight we will engage in discussion.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, I am your joyful team leader in discussion-style lesson.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And so it falls to me to poke and prod.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am smiling; I hope you are.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ken:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>From ear to ear.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I do not consider myself to poke and prod, but I understand that it sometimes feels that way to you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I see myself as a cleaner with cleaning spray and a cloth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I hope to help remove layers of fog, mist, dirt and grime that clogs perception and distorts vision.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But as in teeth cleaning, the process of dirt removal can be experienced as uncomfortable.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>However, we hope you will partake of the love of the Father as a substitute for the gas that is sometimes given in the dentist’s office.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Anything that stops the pain.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am smiling and PamElla is splitting apart.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am pleased to lighten the air.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I appreciate your enjoyment and your humor.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ken:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think it was laughing gas.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am allowing PamElla the opportunity to compose herself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Now my friends, an easy question.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Last week the concept of turning the other cheek was presented from a new perspective.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>One with which you were not as familiar perhaps, but we would appreciate tonight as a way to clear out the old is a discussion of what this concept has meant to you in the past.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All of you were introduced to the concept at different times in your past and all you have formed beliefs around what this meant.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What it meant when Jesus did it?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What it meant when you were asked to emulate Him?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And so we ask that tonight you consider and share your thoughts from the past.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We will return to the present in our next edition.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I would appreciate a volunteer to begin the discussion.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, I guess I’ll start.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think my concept of turn the other cheek was that by forgiving somebody blankedly and just pretending there was no problem, that was turning the other check and as I found the Urantia Book, the idea obviously shifted and I realized I may actually have even been doing a disservice to people in some regard for holding that kind of a perspective and not responding a little differently.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It seems the Urantia concept in my mind was that you would replace evil with good and that you basically you know take whatever is happening and use it towards making it a more positive situation and seems like that was kind of the natural place to be.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I don’t think my perspective today is a whole lot different than that.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I maybe have grown more inside of me to really look at situations, to look at things in the world and issues and really sometimes to make attempts to provide some positive to that situation.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Maybe take it out of an intellectual awareness to do something sometimes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I will never forget writing; I think it was like writing the President.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I wrote him a letter because I needed to write a letter to the President.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He probably never ever read it, but just like you know I thought there was something negative to respond in a positive way regardless of what the outcome would be and so I think now I believe there is some energy that affects things when we actually try to turn things toward the positive rather than either fighting back or just ignoring and letting people use you so to speak.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is probably my commentary.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you Simeon for your remarks and sharing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Who is next?</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Virginia:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I have a thought here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Certainly we don’t return evil for evil and you try to make it good, but in trying to make it good many times you make it worse and this is my past of course.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think also that when evil happens, or when mistakes are made or whatever or relations are difficult, then I do believe that you pray for them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>According to my past where we were told, and certainly it is in the New Testament and in the Urantia Book, that you pray for your enemies, do good for them that spite you and I guess that is where I would think turning the other cheek is concerned.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are not out to get them, you are out to wish them well.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My impression is similar to Bob’s in that I am sure that I first heard that idea in church probably when I was in grade school and my feeling was I knew it was right the first time I heard it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even at that age I could see that the world was quite different than that.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Relations between people were based primarily on power. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Who was the most powerful, that is the way it was in the neighborhood, the way it was at school, that is the way the world was and that hasn’t changed much I don’t think since I was a kid.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My own view has changed somewhat.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am still convinced that is the way to go, but it’s been difficult learning how to do that because the world is so foreign to that concept.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We have really separated church and state and to that extent it is unfortunate.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s why I like where we are at in this lesson because I think in my own growth I am ready to look at that idea from a different perspective because I feel stilted in that regard.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am stuck.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I don’t see how we can go any further than we are right now in the world in which we live, so I am glad the teachers are helping us deal with that issue at this time.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you Aaron.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you my friend.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Pat:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, I think I will venture.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think early on I did not understand what turning the other cheek really meant and it was my way not to respond, but I internalized those feelings and they were either guilt or maybe resentment that I harbored.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I have struggled with that for a long time and sometime ago in one of the lessons it talked about Christ Michael and we alluded to that earlier tonight in that turning the other cheek is to provide another view and that has helped me tremendously to look in that way and since then I have tried to look at it from another point of view and it has been helpful to me.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It also, I might add, makes life easier.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How has it made your life easier?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It seems like it has made mine more difficult.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Pat:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think because you can see another way or understand a person if you really look at it or in that way I am not harboring feelings.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I still have a lot of trouble with my guilt, but I am beginning to be able to let that go.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It makes you feel better </P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Pat:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It makes me feel better that I can try to understand someone else and why they are acting the way they are and not take it so personally.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Carol, does the phrase turning the other cheek have meaning and personal experience for you?</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Carol:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think I come from the same place Pat does.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The way I was raised, turning the other cheek meant that you did not fight back is not exactly the right term, but you pretty much let it go, you didn’t argue about it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If that was the way someone treated you, then you just pretty much ignored it and went about your business.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>However, same as Pat, I always had some feelings that were difficult to handle. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am trying to grow, but I am not sure I am making a whole lot of progress.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I would refer you to a lesson from the last several lessons that was an assurance to you as well as to others here tonight that you are indeed making progress and I tonight wish to reiterate this message my friend.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You do well and thank you for commenting on the emotional reaction.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you, Pat, we desire that you understand the feelings.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D: I agree with Bob now.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think it was easier before.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think it was much easier to let it go and forget about it.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Pat:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Do you really forget about it?</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is the thing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Certainly there is some resentment harbored.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Psychology teaches us that those negative experiences, all experiences, go into your psyche and have to be dealt with at some level at some time because they are part of your experience and the psychologists call that repression.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You push all that stuff down in your brain and Freud says that it ferments down there in your subconscious and creates all these foibles--what did he call them—neuroses.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All these neuroses, they can grow into psychoses if they are not dealt with.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is the whole thing about Freud and you can see that happens sometimes in people.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Sometimes you can see how unresolved experiences create ulcers and stress you are not even aware of.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You think your life is fine.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are retired and you have no responsibilities, but I had a heart attack.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Now wait a minute now.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Why did you have a heart attack Bud, you don’t have any responsibilities, but I did anyway.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So you can see there is evidence to support that whole idea.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So, Aaron would you like to deal with that idea of what about unresolved responses.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Is that something that we need to deal with at some time?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Do you want to get in to that?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My friend, I smile at you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, indeed do these feelings have to be addressed!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They are a part of the color of the lenses through which you, all of you, experience your world and until you have addressed these feelings in context they will continue to distort your present.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is the secret isn’t it?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You have to look at them in the context they were developed, many of them, when you were a child and had very immature ideas, obviously and didn’t fully understand what was going on and so you had all these feelings that came out of childhood experiences which now need to be analyzed from an adult perspective and put into proper context at your level of maturity now.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Did I say that right?</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is one avenue.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Fortunately, the Father has provided many avenues and we explore and address several paths here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It would not be possible to go back and re-experience in context every experience that did not resolve.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>However, we desire to help you find categories of feelings such as resentment that was mentioned earlier tonight and help you find ways to practice ways of understanding, ways of acknowledging the feeling of resentment so that it can be experienced and expunged.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And maybe turn into something positive if we can learn how, and I think that is what you are trying to do in these lessons, help us to come from that perspective that was perhaps negative in our experience earlier and now when we see someone else in that negative mode, help them turn that around into a positive situation.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In terms of the lesson from last week, the help can be as simple as gentleness, understanding a nonreactive response, but it is through working through your own history that you have the ability to reach a hand backwards to a brother or sister with similar history and share what has worked for you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How you achieved a different perspective.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How you came to a different understanding.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I wish to make a distinction here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In the case of last week’s lesson, you may not have a similar history with the person with whom you are interacting and so your working through your history may not assist them directly, but your loving response provides freedom and space for them to do their own work and at some point come into understanding of their own history.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is slightly different from the gift that you are able to give from knowing yourself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Do you understand the distinction?</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Everybody agrees except Ken and he is looking at his shoes.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ken:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am looking at the tape recorder.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I was about to call on Ken.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ken:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I just ran out of tape.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Greetings Aaron.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am glad you are joyful this evening.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How could I be otherwise?</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ken:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I concur with what my wife said about turning the other cheek except that I wouldn’t always turn the other cheek.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I would try to get even or get ahead in my comments.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But I am learning now not to do that, but to take the opposite view.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I forget the word that was used when they take the positive side, but when I do take that positive side and ask Michael for the correct words, the correct expressions, the correct body language to use in response to something that I feel has irritated me and I do that, then I feel peace within me; thank you for asking, Aaron.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you for your response Ken.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Now we will ask Pat for the real response.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This guy with peace within.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ken:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I didn’t say I have it all the time.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is not so much who you are as who you are becoming.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">AARON:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My friends, I will release PamElla temporarily for I wish her to participate as well.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Nancy:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It seems to me turning the other cheek was very much about martyrdom.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was the opposite of an eye for an eye, which I knew it was dead wrong.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So you had to be a person who turned the other cheek, and there was this sense of self-righteousness in being a cheek turner.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Laughter)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And in that act of check turning there was the feeling of incredible martyrdom.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For me the example was Jesus on the cross with high blood atonement.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So it was a partnering with this blood atonement-martyrdom principle for me.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I never just let it go, even at the conceptual level.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I took it on—every nail.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Laughter.)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I don’t know that I felt resentment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For me, it was more of a self-righteous martyrdom that made me better than other people, and separate from them, and really put distance between us.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So it was just the opposite of love, because it separated me in my self-righteous superiority.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S: Created a lot of stress in friendships too, didn’t it.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Nancy: Yes, it did.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D: I think some of mine was a defense mechanism.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The dynamics of my childhood in my family was that you had to let it go.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You would be ridiculed for responding, (Comments) or you got into trouble for responding.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My family was very good at putting each other down, so the best response was no response.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Don’t even be mean.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Just act as if nothing had happened, and try to treat each other kindly, so that they will try to treat you kindly in return.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In that way you keep that barrier that you were talking about.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S: But from the guy point-of-view, don’t you feel like a wimp when you turn your cheek?</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D: Oh yeah.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You feel like a doormat.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S: I think the wimp feeling is more of a guy response…</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Nancy: The martyrdom feeling is more feminine.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Laughter.)</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D: That may have been the hardest thing for my family to accept as I changed.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m no longer the same person.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There was a big awkwardness for years after I found the Urantia Book.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was almost a feeling like, what—you don’t like us anymore? (Comments)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You’re not the same, you’re changing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Comments.)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was after I decided I didn’t what to follow the old dynamic any more.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S: The book Games People Play discusses family dynamics and suggests that when a person changes roles, it disrupts the whole family as each person seeks to find their role in this new situation.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D: Maybe that brings us to some of the positive things that change brings.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As you change, others have to examine how they will respond to this new behavior.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S: And that may encourage others to change for the better, after we look at ourselves from a different perspective, as Minearsia suggested in last week’s lesson.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S: (Tells a story about how he had planned to confront a man at a church meeting years ago, but when he began to speak, the words that came out were not negative, but warm and positive.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He now wonders if that was his personal teacher speaking.)</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Nancy: I had an experience, probably about 25-years ago now, where I heard myself saying things that I had not planned, and then contemplated them later.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I thought how power the words were.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I was studying one night in the commons when a fundamentalist came up to me.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He asked me if I had given any thought to the purpose of life. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My response was that the purpose of life is to love and to learn.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I was stunned by my words, and so was the man who asked.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He returned to his friend and shared the concept.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Laughter.)</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Virginia: People with near-death experiences say what they are motivated to do when they return is to learn as much as they can and to love.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob D: If you look at the basic message of the Urantia Book, we are to love and to learn.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Comments.)</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Virginia: I remember once as Bill was leaving the Fuller Seminary, where Billy Graham is considered liberal, to attend the Presbyterian Seminary, some friends had us over.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As we were leaving the man told Bill he would pray for him.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Bill’s response, without any guile or forethought, was, “George I really appreciate it, as long as you’re not self-righteous.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Laughter and comments.)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s the attitude of many fundamentalists, self-righteousness.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Bob S:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s not just the fundamentalists.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve been knocked off my pedestal many times by people whom I considered less Christian than I.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Comments.)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It humbled me, and I needed it at that time.</P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Closing Prayer by Daniel (Bob S): </P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><I>Oh great Trinity on High, whose lessons we seek to bring fully into our lives, send us to our homes now through the enrichment of our common experiences here tonight, to reach out to our friends and neighbors in love through learning.</I><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Amen.</P></DIV>
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