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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">DATE:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>April 7, 1999</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">LOCATION:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Butler, PA, USA</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">T/R:</B> Gerdean O’Dell ©</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">TEACHER:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Gorman</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">TOPIC:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Creativity is FUN<?xml:namespace prefix
= o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></B></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">GORMAN:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You seem weary.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It would seem exhaustion is a part of
your day.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, it is an exhausting
life you live.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is so much to
go against the grain. Existing in this world with its density is a constant
struggle.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I have some advantage,
inasmuch as I am not encumbered with the material density of you in the flesh
but I, too, am affected by the down-pull of the many factors that go against the
grain of a more upward trend.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even
so, let us see if there is anything we can accomplish.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If you are too tired, I can come back
another time</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>You have all born my assignment
with a keen sense of responsibility. You have all delighted in this project and
have all come forth with some ideas. Let’s get those on the table first.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Rachel, your list is the smallest.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Rachel:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All I could think about was books.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I had a dream about a beautiful,
beautiful fern gracing a book jacket.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I only had that lovely painting.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">GORMAN:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>To the contrary, your book jacket is
quite appropriate and in keeping with your decorative flair.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It would not do to have a product that
was undecorated, and so you are keeping true to form here.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Let’s see what else we have on these
scraps of paper.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Are you ready,
Angus?</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Angus:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve been wanting to put something of
the Urantia Book together for public use.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>There’s never enough outreach into the market.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But the UB covers a lot of important
things that people are concerned about these days:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>love, marriage, heaven and hell, and so
on, and it would be neat to put together some things, basically, under the topic
of ‘What does the UB say about… this, this, or this.’<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Perhaps even juxtaposing it with what
other philosophies have to say, and that could draw the correlations and the
conflicts also together.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"></SPAN> </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>We are working on getting the
Fruits of the Spirit put together for hard copy publication and recording it;
that’s another idea.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And I have a
work or two that I have started that I haven’t finished; I’m thinking maybe I’ll
revisit that and other projects that were initiated from my perspective and, as
Rachel said, we’re trying to pool our resources here out of the Serendipity shop
and somewhere along the line I’m sure that our projects will comingle, and if
they do, we could be of help to one another and maybe find some talents,
abilities, we didn’t know we had.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Gerdean:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I seem to have lost my notes!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The one thing in my creative mind was
very profound, and that was -- two nights in a row I went to sleep thinking
“Believe in me.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I suppose this was
a result of your talk with us about asking what do people want, and I think that
people want people to believe in them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Angus and I talked about this.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>When you believe in someone, it adds a dimension of reality.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s like investing in the person.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I was reminded that Jesus got so much
result from people because he believed in them.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And it seemed noteworthy somehow, and I
go back to thinking, “It’s about believing in each other.” Effect and
product.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>I wish I hadn’t lost my notes. I
want to do a daily reflection kind of a book. I’d like to do one-liners, a One
Day at a Time, like the early Teaching Mission calendars; one sweet thing, very
much like Sonny’s work on-line. I was also looking at the structure of some of
Tomas’ sentences (which sometimes seem to be 300 words long) and thinking they
would lend themselves very well to <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">elegies</I></B>, that they would lend
themselves well to poetic form. He doesn’t portray himself as a poet, but his
words really are graceful sometimes – for a word person, anyway, I appreciate
how he lays out his sentences; even though they are long, they are musical, in a
way.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>I guess that’s it. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The fruits.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The Fruits seem to be the one that we’ve
spent the most time thinking about.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s basically done – Tomas’ Fruits of the Spirit – except Angus is
adding an introduction to it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It
would need artwork.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I don’t think
it needs to be hard cover. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think
soft cover would work; maybe even with a fern on the front.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think it should have a cornucopia of
fruits.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Anyhow, these are some of
the ideas, Gorman.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thanks for
asking.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">GORMAN:</B><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I appreciate your contributions and your
thoughts regarding what you might do. Indeed it is a challenge and I know that
you are all looking at this more critically than you are creatively. You are
very obstructionistic of your own good efforts. Your critical thinking says, “It
won’t sell. They won’t buy it. They won’t read it. It won’t work. It’s been done
before. It’s too expensive to do. I don’t have time. It’s been done already” ad
infinitum, and so that which you allow to seep through the cracks is that which
comes, generally, with a little bit of inspiration that somehow slips past the
critical thinker. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>In the art of effort there is the
creative portion and after the creative portion, then you get critical. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>There have been many good workers
in the field of artistic endeavor, such as “The Artist’s Way” and many others,
encouraging people to tap into their creative resources. When you think of work,
you don’t often think creatively, as if work and creativity could not be
harmoniously in the same room, on the same age. But all work is creative. Ask
the artisans.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>In order for you to feel creative
about your effort, your product, you truly need to stop thinking of it as work.
I am not suggesting you think of it as play, either,but allow it to bubble up
and come forth. Remember that all good effort is a creation, and good creation
comes from the Creator, even as it comes through you. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>The great part about creating is
letting the juices flow unobstructed.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>When you have let go of those constraints, the ideas tumble forth like
waterfall. Let them come forth. Don’t stop to criticize or condemn your idea
before it is even born. Allow yourself that freedom of expression on paper, on t
ape, so that it is duly notated. Allow it to come forth unobstructed, unimpeded
by your intellect and/or your ego.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Here is a good place for you to
relish the aspect of childlikeness. Revel in it without worrying about whether
you are staying within the lines. Just let it happen. Eventually you will see it
taking place, taking form.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Let me cite your friend Marty as
an example. He is gathering up creative ideas on people’s scraps of paper from
all over, and as he collects these scraps of paper, they are taking shape as a
format for a product. In due course, there will be order, harmony, and purpose
inte product because it is a creation born of the desire to serve the
Creator.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>When and what God and man alike
<I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">will</I>, will be, and as you desire to
bring about an effect / a product, it will come about, but allow the creative
aspect of yourselves to work with you and not against you. Have fun with this!
You are all exhausted from your efforts at thinking of good ideas.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Allow these good ideas to just come
forth. How out of practice you are!</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Let’s try it again, and have fun
with it this time, because no one is getting a grade. It doesn’t cost a nickel.
No one is going to be critical of your ideas or compare your ideas with someone
else’s and find one of them lesser or greater. Even the great ideas and works of
the masters are done in this way. Great novels and great compositions are
created by allowing the cream to rise to the top, but you have to have all of it
in order to discern one from another, the dregs from the elite.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Words and pictures is how the
mind grasps concepts.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>A sense of urgency is always a
part of a creative investment. It is like when you give birth to something you
need to do it at the right timer andf you begin to sense the time and feel this
urgency like, not only childbirth, but baking a cake or painting a wall or
opening a store. There is a sense of timing.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>There are almost unlimited ways
of creatively looking at life and its works, in order to appreciate what you can
do when you can do it. That is what is exciting now about having the opportunity
to be part of your team here, your unit, because we can find great joy in what
you can do today in your life, where you are and as you are, and learn to work
effectively with others in order to accomplish this valuable purpose.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>There is a great hunger for
spiritual food, yes, but they are picky eaters. They are in demand of a large
menu and some want only salads, some want only red meat, some want appetizers
only. You will find your audience and they will find you, but you must allow
yourself to experience the creative flow and not rely upon your intellect
exclusively. Your world is entirely too fickle these days to be dependable. You
can lose time and money by banking on your intellectual approach to marketing
only. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Allow the spirit to help you;
allow the Creator to become part of the project with you. invite the celestial
artisans in to tea. Since, when you are being assisted, when you are being
assisted by spirit, you are indeed having fun. You are not weighing every word
so ponderously or dissecting each concept so viciously, but allowing it to
outpour, and then you just tidy up the tide pools one at a time and present them
for their perfect harmony, symmetry, and for the life forms therein.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Get yourself a notebook if you
like because if we are effective and productive, we will begin to create
notebooks and more filled with wonderful product to feed the multitudes, whether
it be red meat, salads or appetizers.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I’ll be back when you have decided you’d like another visit. Teacher
Tomas sends his best regards and Teacher Merium says “hello.”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good night.</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>