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<P>DATE:</B> December 11, 2005<BR><B>LOCATION: </B>Rio Rancho, NM,
USA<BR><B>T/R:</B> Gerdean</P><B>
<P>TEACHER MERIUM<BR>Literary Selections</P>
<P>Prayer:</B> Let us begin by inviting the Spirit into our heart and Jesus into
our presence.</P><B>
<P></B><I>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. </P>
<P>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.</I><B> </P></B><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> 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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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?</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah:</B> Yes.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Oh, I am so glad to hear it! Are we going to have a recital?
</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah:</B> 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. </P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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.
</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> "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. </P>
<P>(It reminds Gerdean of a joke she keeps tossing in my direction, thinking I
am amused. It's that one about the poor fool who is in dire straits and who
keeps asking God for a sign but rejecting all the signs He sends -- as if
waiting for the booming baritone from On High to break the sound barrier and
trumpet His will, rather than in and through the harmony of nature and life
itself.) </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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?</P><B>
<P>Gerdean:</B> 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, about "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 … </P>
<P>"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.</P>
<P>"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.
</P>
<P>"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."</P>
<P>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.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM: </B>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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." </P>
<P>What else have we today?</P><B>
<P>Renault:</B> 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 -- <I>chastising </I>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
later books, more recent books, are very well written.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> 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.</P><B>
<P>Renault:</B> 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.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> 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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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? </P><B>
<P>Thoroah:</B> 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
<I>every</I>thing. 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.
</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> 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
-- </P>
<P>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 --</P>
<P>… 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.</P>
<P>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.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> 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" [Ed. Paula and Men-O-Pah] </P>
<P>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.
</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>Jules, have you read anything lately you would like to share with us?</P><B>
<P>Jules: </B>Of a spiritual nature, don't think I can quite verbalize what I've
read which was a little bit ago, but I do enjoy reading. </P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Find us a paragraph from that book there at your elbow and share
it. Any paragraph will do.</P><B>
<P>Jules:</B> [Reading from Page 230 of the Urantia Book, Paper 20, Paradise
Sons of God on "The Trinity Teacher Sons.]<B> </P></B>
<P>"<B>The Trinity Teacher Sons</B>. 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.</P>
<P>"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.</P>
<P>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."</P><B>
<P>MERIUM: </B>Well, how charming! You are reading about me and my relatives!
</P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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 Carl 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. </P>
<P>I look forward to seeing you next time. By then the sugarplum fairies will
have passed through. Enjoy the season. Bye-bye!</P><B>
<P>Group:</B> Bye! Thank you. </P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>