On the Spirituality of Ordinary Life
by Chuck Burton
1990 General Conference Snowmass, Colorado
Back in March, I watched a made-for-TV version of The Phantom of the Opera broadcast on NBC. Not having seen the Broadway rendition--but planning to--I was curious about the story-line. I had seen clips of the old Lon Chaney horror flick and was expecting the usual run-of-the-mill, fright-night special. What I experienced was very different and, as a matter of fact, most inspirational. Instead of an evil monster who delighted in cruel and unusual murders, the Phantom turned out to be quite the opposite. Sure, there were some murders--an opera custodian and few pursuing policemen, and there was the incident when the chandelier crashed on the audience.
But, all in all, the Phantom possessed many noble human qualities. In fact, the Phantom was not inherently evil or even immoral. Due to a birth defect which deformed his face, he finds the world to be very cruel and intolerant--thus he wears a mask and hides from the world by living beneath the opera house. It is only after he hears the angelic voice of Christine that he decides to risk his cover and attempts to win her love. The Phantom gives her voice lessons and rescues her from an angry audience and eventually allows her to unmask him. The sight of his face causes her to faint and this crushes the poor Phantom. Nevertheless, the Phantom, at the close of the story actually triumphs, as it is Christine who realizes that it is her misconceptions about the nature of true beauty, her intolerance of a significant divergence from the norm, which is at the root of the problem. She and the Phantom sing a moving duet to the delight of the audience before the police eventually corner the Phantom and he is shot by a merciful father.
Hope none of you were waiting to see it the second time around!
Shortly after I saw this movie, I came across this quotation on page 597 of The Urantia Book:
"Only ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule."
I don't want to dwell on a discussion of either ethical or moral consciousness, but I do want to focus on the subjects of human intolerance and spiritual insight, because I feel that they relate to the subject of this afternoon's segment, "Sharing One's Spiritual Life with One's Fellows."
When I first volunteered for this presentation, I said to myself, "Sure, I know something about the spiritual life." In my mind the spiritual life consists of one's sovereign relationship with the fragment of God within. One's outer life or his relationship with others is a direct reflection of this inner life. The more one loves God the Father, the more spiritual fruit will that person bear, although the outward expression will be as varied as the configuration of snowflakes. It gets scary on the mansion worlds, as the morontia form will actually be visible and will reveal the inner self for all to see--sort of like a spiritual nudist colony--no masks allowed.
"Sharing One's Spiritual Life with One's Fellows" After a month of mulling this subject over, I realized that I would hardly be able to pass myself off as any type of an expert on the subject. I got scared. So I went to a study group consisting of a number of long-time readers of The Urantia Book for help. I sort of wanted to get them to unmask and I stated that I felt that the essence of the teachings dealt with this subject. Casting aside the lofty philosophy, cosmology and theology contained within 2097 pages, the rubber truly meets the road in our interactions with others--or so I stated. I asked each member present to explain briefly how they attempted to share their spiritual life. I thought you might find some of the responses interesting.
One study group member stated that sharing one's spirituality "required a new way of living and a brand new change in perspective." This response conjured up in my mind Jesus' injunction that those who are to enter the kingdom must first be reborn of the spirit.
Another person emphasized the value of listening in order to detect the needs of the person before her. This made me think of the quote, "To those Jesus taught the most, he said the least."
A third member stated that he took on service projects such as library placement of Urantia Books and visiting those who were ill or in hospitals. My first thought was that Jesus' whole bestowal mission was a sort of service project, as much of his time was spent ministering to the sick and the downtrodden.
Still another reader discussed the importance of all interpersonal relationships. Having first approached the teachings from a more or less intellectual standpoint and later having pursued organizational experience in the former Urantia Brotherhood, she felt that just getting to know and trying to understand one's fellows was paramount. I couldn't help thinking that indeed it is our relationships which are our only true ends--everything else is scaffolding.
A fifth reader explained quite simply that he concentrated on just trying to be a good friend to those who would accept his friendship. This made me recall how each apostle considered the Master to be his best friend.
Finally, the last person said that he simply tried to always be happy and thankful for the gift of life and the assurance of sonship.
In all these accounts, it was my perception that not one person would have claimed that they had achieved any special expertise in this area of sharing one's spirituality.
I think they all would acknowledge some sort of tadpole station and admit that it required persistence to be successful. Interestingly enough, not one person attempted to equate sharing The Urantia Book with sharing one's spirituality. Nonetheless, it is from The Urantia Book, the most authoritative guide that I have ever known, that I derive my concept of spirituality. Furthermore, it is its teachings which help to provide me with a philosophical framework to interpret experience.
Now, if you will allow me--and I guess if you don't walk out, you're allowing me--I would like to tell you about three people that I have known.
Jim Bennington is an easygoing bricklayer with not more than a high school education--sort of an average Joe (or an average Jim, in this case). I've known Jim for about four years. He attends an Evangelical Free Church. He's a caring husband and an involved father. I met him through a YMCA program called "Indian Princesses," which is a program for fathers and daughters. He and I revived a tribe that was on the brink of extinction. As chief, Jim was like a big kid. He liked wearing Indian clothes; he attended long house meetings, representing our tribe, where he planned and coordinated events--camp-outs, roller-skating parties, sock-hops and pet shows--for a nation of 14 tribes consisting of over 200 dads and daughters. He likes to make Indian gear and spends a lot of his free time making head-dresses for nation officers and mendellas, or leather insignias, for each of the other tribes. This YMCA program was better because of him, yet Jim never sought any personal recognition. He made his contribution quietly without fanfare.
As I got to know Jim better, I found that he had other outlets for social service. He did volunteer work for the Iwanas, the name of his church's youth association. One Saturday he applied his bricklaying skills to constructing an elevated brick retaining wall for a flower bed, which anchored an announcement marquee. In addition, Jim assists the local grade school in a Market-Day Program and delivers food to those parents who ordered it. Jim finds time to do this while running a growing business that employs over one hundred workers. Also, he has a retarded son who requires a regular dosage of ritalin to curb hyperactivity. Never complains quite a guy, Jim Bennington!
During my senior year in college, I was accepted for an overseas seminar at the University of Copenhagen. Instead of dormitories, American students were placed with Danish families, and that is where I met Sigrid Hansen--my "Danish mother." My roommate and I were told immediately upon arrival that we were to call her "Mor" and her husband "Far"--Danish for Mother and Father. The second day in Denmark was my birthday, and Mor threw a special party for me by inviting her children and a few of the neighbors.
While in Denmark for four months, we literally became part of the Hansen's family. She cooked breakfasts in the morning, packed sack lunches and served dinner in the evenings. We said prayers at dinner and had moments of silence. Every evening at 8:00, each member of the family stopped whatever they were doing and, according to Danish custom, sat down together again for tea and a pastry. Unlike American families, this was a special time set aside for all of us to share our day--laugh, exchange ideas, get help in navigating Copenhagen, or hear about the history and culture of Denmark. Most of our conversations were with Mor, who spoke French and German, as well as English. Far, Ludwig Hansen, spoke no English (although he knew German). We smiled a lot and I spoke on occasion with him in broken German.
In the spring we took a family vacation for a weekend at a place called MonsKlint, kind of a White Cliffs of Denmark. It wasn't long before Gerry, my roommate, and I discovered that we were Mor's seventeenth and eighteenth American sons. She was a woman of about sixty and had been doing this sort of thing for eight years. The last time I heard from her was about seven years ago when she was on numbers forty-one and forty-two. She was truly an amazing person, and she enriched my overseas experience immeasurably.
One other thing worthy of note: Our rooms were in a finished attic--complete with kitchenette and bathroom. It was about a week before we left Denmark that we learned over tea that when the Nazis occupied Denmark, Sigrid and Ludwig and their three children lived up there for over three years. The occupying Nazi officers lived in the house proper. One of the most joyous days of their lives was when the Allied troops liberated Denmark. Maybe her interest in American students initially was motivated by a desire to repay the U.S. for this effortbut I'm only speculating.
I want to relate one more experience I had during my college years. I had the good fortune to work as a deck-hand on a brigantine in the Caribbean. Does anyone know what a brigantine is? Well, it's like an old pirate ship--square sails on the front mast and a gaff rig on the aftermast. It's about 120 feet long, carries about 18 passengers, has 12 different sails and a jillion ropes. During the four-plus months I was on the ship, we sailed and motored from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad, went into dry dock for the worst month of the hurricane season, and spent the last three months island-hopping up the Lesser Antilles. This story is about the man who owned and ran the ship, Captain Arthur Kimberly.
The Captain was about 50-plus, short, crewcut, weighed about 150 pounds with an average build and was strong as an ox for his size. He had an archaic Masters of the Seas degree (nobody gets these any more) from some nautical school in Mystic, Connecticut. If there ever was a guy in the world who knew everything there was to know about sailing, it was he. He knew about the harbors in the Gallapagos and the sunken reefs in Tahiti and how to navigate Cape Horn; he knew the names of all the woodhulled ships still in existence; he knew about the wrecks of the Spanish galleys and exploits of Drake, Hawkins and other sea dogs. It seemed he had read every novel ever written about the sea from Treasure Island to Wolf Larson. He was highly defensive of Captain Bly and scorned Mr. Christian for his treacherous actions. He enjoyed his rum in the evening, and he enjoyed telling off-color stories to the crew. But most of all, he loved the sea, which had been his life since dropping out of high school, and he loved his ship. He had been married on it, and he sailed around the world twice on it in the ten years or so that he had owned it. The Brigantine Romance was his child; he had no other.
As for his crew, he seemed to hold the attitude that it was their good fortune to be even allowed to set foot on it. We were paid $3.00 plus room and board per day. We worked from 6:00 a.m. sometimes until 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. We night-sailed and we had to come to at 2:00 a.m. to take our turn at the wheel. You had to call each rope and each part of the ship by its proper and correct name or get chewed out. You couldn't call the focs'l of the ship the "bedroom" or the bulwark the "wall," and all hell would break loose if you called the head the "bathroom." There were different knots for different situations, and you had to learn them all. Sometimes the Captain would climb up the eighty-foot mast to check the royal or top square sail. If he ever found a granny, you'd be on KP for a week.
After the first month, just like a kid at camp, I counted the days until I got off the ship. I worked hard and did as I was told (with a few exceptions), but I longed for a McDonald's and couldn't wait to drive a land ship, which didn't require the effort or the maintenance of this remnant of 1830.
But, you know, when I did get off that ship, I knew that I had had an experience that few have had. I had seen a part of the world and a way of life which were unique. When I got off that ship, I was stronger physically than I had ever been.
One more thing about Captain Giles, the Captain had one bad eye. He didn't wear a patch or anything, but wherever he looked, the pupil and the iris sort of just pointed down and in. I had heard from his wife that he lost it about ten years earlier, when a taut rope snapped because the crew member tied a granny instead of a clove hitch. You know, Captain had his own ships for some 25 years and he had never had a major accident at sea. I don't know where he is now, but I do know that if he had been at the helm of the Exxon Valdez, there would have been no oil spill. Arthur Kimberly wasn't what one would call a warm, gentle person, yet he possessed a unique passion for life and a quest for perfection in his arena and he actively sought to share those traits, as well as his knowledge of the sea, with all who stepped aboard.
I share my personal experiences of these people with you because the experience of knowing them enriched my life. All three are of ordinary intelligence with varied levels of education and religious background, yet all, I feel, are in their own way spiritual. None of them knows a darned thing about reflectivity, fusion, Orvonton or the absonite level of reality. None of them in their wildest dreams (or nightmares) would ever imagine or expect I would praise their contributions to my life. Yet, in their own way, each has given me a gift which was both inspirational and experientially priceless.
In no way am I trying to denigrate readers of The Urantia Book. I could just as easily recall episodes about how my association with a number of Urantia Book students has added to my personal growth and enhanced my life. What I am attempting to illustrate is that the Spirit of God is active in all of us and is able to find expression in a multitude of ways.
The Urantia Book on page 2059 lists eleven ways to gauge spirituality--"By their fruits shall you know them." I have known many other people who, in my opinion, were way ahead of me, yet they would either take no interest in or have any use for The Urantia Book or would wholeheartedly reject it. What is the difference? What does this say? To me it underscores what has often been said: The Urantia Book is a means, a tool, a guide to an end, and not an end in itself; that differences among religionists largely stem from differences in theology and philosophy. The intellectual realm, the domain of the mind, is quite different from that of the spirit.
There once was a charismatic, ecumenical teacher shortly after the turn of the century, who had an interest in science--specifically the speed of electricity. So he asked twenty-five of his students, representing most of the religions of the world, to line up on a damp cellar floor and join hands. He then proceeded to wire the first and turn the switch releasing the current. There were three lessons which could be drawn from the experiment: (1) the teacher obviously was either very persuasive or very powerful; (2) electricity did indeed travel quickly; and (3) the unity exhibited by the diversity of those religionists at that particular moment in time has never before or since been seen on this planet.
One thing The Urantia Book does as a tool is to expand the concepts about the nature of God the Father and the functioning of Deity. Said Jesus at Jotapata, "Worship makes one increasingly like the being who is worshiped." (*1641) Thus the better one's understanding and knowledge about the Creator, the First Source and Center, the Heavenly Father, the better will one be able to discern his will and become more God-like and hence more spiritual. C.S. Lewis has a story about this which I will share in my closing.
And where better than an epochal revelation presented in this century does one find a more unified, comprehensive or a more authoritative presentation about the nature of God? If we indeed believe this, that we possess the highest truth about Deity, how are we to avoid the chosen people syndrome and its accompanying intolerance and arrogance? Have you ever observed a child after he gets his hands on a flashlight for the first time? I think that his first act, and this is universal, is to point the flashlight directly into your eyes so that you become temporarily blinded by the light.
The history books are filled with examples of religious groups who felt that they alone knew the truth. Of course, The Urantia Book authors speak frequently about the chosen people attitude of the Jewish people at the time of Jesus. The story about the Good Samaritan focused on this attitude as did the arrogant Hebrew belief in a special Messiah who would oust the Romans for them. Later in history we get to the revolt against the Roman Catholic Church, known as the Reformation. It was the belief of such reformers as Martin Luther that the individual could read the Scriptures to discover truth--not be dependent upon an ecclesiastical hierarchy who believed themselves to be the special ambassadors of God and who alone could interpret and determine truth. The Inquisition epitomizes the intolerance of this era.
The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay are a strange phenomenon. Because their desire to cleanse the Anglican Church of its vestiges of Roman Catholicism apparently failed, many left for the New World. And low and behold, before long, in their attempt to establish a Zion in the wilderness, as God's chosen people, they instead established a theocracy. Free thinkers like Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson and Thomas Hooker fled or were expelled, and they initiated their own ways of worshiping. Instead of unifying religionists, the strict interpretation of truth and rigid social requirements backfired on their leaders. The witch-hunts of Salem marked the apex of intolerance and the beginning of the end of Puritan control.
The Mormons of the mid-nineteenth century are one last illustration. These people believed that they were the special recipients of divine truth, The Book of Mormon. Their special book was taken from gold tablets discovered by Joseph Smith in 1830, and thousands of converts soon after joined this new faith. However, each time they tried to establish their own "ideal society," they were persecuted and driven off. In Kirkland, Ohio; in Independence, Missouri; in Navoo, Illinois. It wasn't just the practice of polygamy but rather their exclusivity and chosen-people attitude that brought on conflict and forced most to migrate westward to Utah.
Jesus spoke to Nathaniel (*1768) regarding the authority of the Scriptures, and the proclaimed authority of religious leaders to interpret them. "Nathaniel, never forget, the Father does not limit the revelation of truth to any one generation or to any one people. Many earnest seekers after the truth have been, and will continue to be, confused and disheartened by these doctrines of the perfection of the Scriptures.
"The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations, and not the dead words of the less illuminated and supposedly inspired men of another generation. And even if these holy men of old lived inspired and spirit-filled lives, that does not mean that their words were similarly spiritually inspired. Today we make no record of the teachings of this gospel of the kingdom lest, when I have gone, you speedily become divided up into sundry groups of truth contenders as a result of the diversity of your interpretation of my teachings. For this generation it is best that we live these truths while we shun the making of records.
"Mark you well my words, Nathaniel, nothing which human nature has touched can be regarded as infallible. Through the mind of man divine truth may indeed shine forth, but always of relative purity and partial divinity. The creature may crave infallibility, but only the Creators possess it.
"But the greatest error of the teaching about the Scriptures is the doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance."
I believe that often ignorance is a cause of intolerance. Sometimes the desire for power is the culprit. But why do intelligent, unselfish and sincere people desirous for the greatest good become intolerant? I believe that this often stems from elevating one truth to an absolute--or to a level higher than it merits. I believe that in the human desire to simplify life, to make sense out of it, man tends to embrace easy and simple formulas for living. "Actions speak louder than words" was and still is one of my formulas I use to determine if someone is being sincere and genuine. But this adage was taught to me before I was ten. Sometimes words and actions are one and the same. Obviously, the tool is simplistic and has its limitations.
If you take any virtue to its extreme, it ceases to be a virtue. For example, one can over-love someone to the point of smothering them. One can be overly sincere and hence tactless. One can be too meek and thus become a weakling. Being overly courageous can result in foolhardiness. In fact, if you take any fruit of the spirit to its extreme it becomes overly ripe or rotten fruit.
In the writing of "The Acme of Religious Living," every virtue, every fruit exhibited by the Master is qualified or tempered: "enthusiastic, not fanatical"; "emotionally active, not flights"; "imaginative but practical"; "frank, but unerringly fair"; "courageous, not reckless"; "prudent, not cowardly"; "sympathetic, not sentimental"; "unique, not eccentric"; "pious, not sanctimonious"; "cheerful, not blindly optimistic"; "generous, not wasteful"; "candid, but kind."
When I was a kid, I was constantly being told that I didn't know when to quit. Whether it was asking for something or teasing or just trying to get my way. You know, I still don't know when to quit--either when speaking before a group or determining the limits of virtues--and I don't think any of us really knows. I guess this is where the Adjuster comes in to assist each of us to become more balanced, more unified and more symmetrical, sort of like a butterfly.
But when I'm not quite sure what's coming from within, I believe the best refuge is to fall back on simple sincerity. Sincerity, more sincerity and more sincerity are indeed "the keys to the kingdom." It doesn't always work and often failure may result, but if one sincerely attempts to learn from his mistakes, he will grow and the quality of his decisions will improve and he will better align his will to that of the Father's.
There is an old Chinese tale about the woman whose only son died. In her grief, she went to the holy man and said, "What prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?" Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, "Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We will use it to drive the sorrow out of your life." The woman set off at once to sincerely search for that magical mustard seed. She came first to a splendid mansion, knocked at the door, and said, "I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow. Is this such a place? It is very important to me." They told her, "You've certainly come to the wrong place," and began to describe all the tragic things that had recently befallen them. The woman said to herself, "Who is better able to help these poor unfortunate people than I, who have had misfortune of my own?" She stayed to comfort them, then went on in her search for a home that had never known sorrow. But wherever she turned, in hovels and palaces, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. Ultimately, she became so involved in ministering to other people's grief that she forgot about her quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had in fact driven the sorrow out of her life.
I found it interesting to recently read Winston Churchill's physician biographer, Lord Moran, and what he wrote about why a proud nation followed this man through the long crisis of World War II.
"He was not, I think, a sage. He does not seem to have been a soldier of genius. He was not, perhaps, a born administrator. What is the ultimate secret of Winston Churchill's mastery over men?Sincerity is the one quality I would have chosen as most typical of him. He was indeed the most truthful of politicians."
At Ramah, Jesus spoke to an old Greek philosopher (*1641): "For more than an hour Jesus taught this Greek the saving truths of the gospel of the kingdom. The old philosopher was susceptible to the Master's mode of approach, and being sincerely honest of heart, he quickly believed this gospel of salvation."
Jesus response to the apostles after this teaching episode was:
"My children, marvel not that I was tolerant of the Greek's philosophy. True and genuine inward certainty does not in the least fear outward analysis, nor does truth resent honest criticism. You should never forget that intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret doubts as to the trueness of one's belief. No man is at any time disturbed by his neighbor's attitude when he has perfect confidence in the truth of that which he wholeheartedly believes. Courage is the confidence of thoroughgoing honesty about those things which one professes to believe. Sincere men are unafraid of the critical examination of their true conviction and noble ideals."
All of this simply points us to a consideration of the spirituality of ordinary life.
A service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship