Summer 2000In this issue:
From the President: by Avi Dogim
A Personal View of SS2000: by Al Aldo
13 New Trademarks Sought by Urantia Foundation: by Dan Massey
Future Ambiguities: by Meredith Sprunger
Upcoming Retreat in Washington State
Fourth Annual Lone Star Roundup Conference
List of New Counselors
From The President
Avi DogimWhen I try to conjure up in my mind’s eye a vision of the perfect Urantia Book Fellowship, I see an organization that energetically, enthusiastically and with great alacrity brings the fifth epochal revelation to the peoples of the world. It does that while it also generously facilitates the work of any individual or group that endeavors to do the same. It is a humming, indefatigable organism that with precision and elegance moves through the world sowing the seeds of spiritual growth and cosmic consciousness. The workers in this group exude a fragrance that attracts truth seekers and compels them to inquire as to its source. Will that vision be realized in my lifetime? Who is to say? All I know is that I need to play my part in making it so and help others to do likewise.
How do we get there from here? We know it will take a great deal of work. We know it will require a great deal of organization, coordination and cooperation. Individual initiative and creativity, while encouraged and cultivated, will need to be harnessed to the reins of collective decision governed by group wisdom. This is the way we can make it work. This is what we need to learn if we are to succeed in our mission.
Faith, trust and a loving regard for each other are essential in our pursuit of this ideal working relationship. Yet these alone will not transform The Fellowship into the effective and efficient international organization that it must become. In order for that transformation to occur, the body of the Fellowship will require a great deal of work – our structural components will need strengthening and tuning. Each one of us who has volunteered to serve will need to exert effort as an individual and as a member of the group.
A sincere desire on the part of each of us to do the will of The Father, while a necessary element in our effort to achieve our collective goals, is not a sufficient condition to such achievement. I believe that the will of The Father applies to the individual and not to the group. In order for our group to attain its potential, it must evolve experientially to ever higher levels of functioning through the application of ethics consistent with the best that is available on the planet. We must learn to behave, as a group, at least as well as the most ethically advanced group on the face of the earth. And we must go further, stretching the highest human ideals to the borders of mota. Let us never presume that because we have the “revelation” we are automatically a step ahead of any other group. The revelation is a gift to each of us. Our attainment as a group will need to be earned through our hard work in the domain of the Supreme.
For reasons that some claim to understand well and many are very confused about, our organizational work has included in great measure and for many years issues related to our relationship with Urantia Foundation. These issues have taken a great deal of our time and energy, which could have been better used in the service of our great mission. Yet, like it or not, these issues are not about to evaporate and will require our careful attention for quite some time. In order to prevent that aspect of our work from diverting us from or primary path, the Fellowship’s General Council directed the Executive Committee to appoint a group of five individuals who will deal with Urantia Foundation related concerns. This group, comprising Steve Dreier, Marvin Gawryn, Marilynn Kulieke, Dan Massey and myself, is empowered to make decisions on behalf of the Fellowship with regard to Foundation – Fellowship issues, thus compartmentalizing this complex and time consuming process and allowing the rest of our diverse and energetic group to go about our real business.
Conflicts between the two organizations as well as efforts to resolve them have received a great deal of coverage within The Urantia Book reader community since the split in 1989. Unfortunately, if these resolution efforts falter the two organizations could wind up in court at some point in time. Surely the mind reels at the thought of such a legal battle. The drain on both organizations would be enormous, the squandering of resources appalling, the anguish incalculable. And yet it appears at times that the semi-automatic engines of institutional prerogative are inexorably moving us in that direction.
Is a court battle inevitable? Positively not! Spirit guided human ingenuity can certainly transcend organizational inertia. With the right attitude, the minds functioning within the Foundation and within The Fellowship can jointly discover a creative solution to what may appear to be an impasse. There needs to be a willingness of the two groups to meet without the encumbrance of legal counsel, to confront their differences and to embrace their common goals. The Fellowship’s Foundation Liaison Team is eager to meet with the five Foundation Trustees, without lawyers, and work toward the unity that has eluded our reader community for years. Let us eschew the legalistic encumbrances that have become a familiar “second skin” to us and move creatively in unified purpose and coordinated function.
Avi Dogim
A Personal View of
The Urantia Book Fellowship's
Year 2000 Summer Study Session
By Al AldoI recently spent a memorable week with around one hundred other readers of The Urantia Book, at Elmhurst College, just outside Chicago, Illinois. I represented the Connecticut Fellowship as their delegate to the Triennial Delegate Assembly (TDA) which preceded the Fellowship's Summer Study Session: Science, Ethics, and Religion. Since the very beginnings of the Urantia Brotherhood, now The Urantia Book Fellowship, every three years Triennial Delegates and alternates are appointed to represent the individual societies. They meet for the purpose of electing new members and filling vacancies in the 3, 6 and 9 year terms of the 36 General Councilors of The Urantia Book Fellowship. The Triennial Delegates also prepare and present resolutions on behalf of their respective societies, for consideration by the TDA. Resolutions adopted by the majority vote of the TDA are submitted for consideration and implementation by the General Council, if approved.
I wish to share with you the tremendous spirit of cooperation that was demonstrated by this group of approx. 28 delegates and alternates representing 15 Urantia societies. No mean-spiritedness was ever present as we deliberated on how to best serve the future of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. We did our best to install men and women who were clear in their understanding of The Urantia Book, practiced its teachings, and had demonstrated vision, tact, sagacity and flexibility within the context of years of prior service to the Urantia movement. We also sought to provide both geographic and gender representation amongst our choices. Long hours were spent to give fair and equal consideration to all 26 of the candidates vying for the 16 vacancies needing to be filled. When we finally presented our choices, it was with one voice.
The TDA reconvened to consider the resolutions we would forward to the General Council. Again, a spirit of cooperation dominated our deliberations. After the TDA completed its nominations and deliberations, the new General Council convened to elect officers for the Fellowship for the next three years.
With TDA business completed, I then spent three incredible days attending workshops, worship services and meeting other long time Urantia students, some of whom are legendary. A delegate from Hawaii, Bud Kagan, spent many years as a close friend of Bill Sadler, and shared many of his memories of Doc Sadler as well. Dr. Meredith Sprunger, a UCC minister for many years, found The Urantia Book late in 1955, and, among his years of service to the Urantia movement, wrote personal letters to 8000 ministers, introducing the teachings. Duane Faw, author of the original Paramony, (a cross-reference between The Urantia Book and the Bible) was the commanding officer of the US Marines landing force at the 'Bay of Pigs' invasion of Cuba in the early 1960's. Byron Belitsos, a 25 year student of The Urantia Book from California and the delegate of the Golden Gate Circle for Students of The Urantia Book, is one of the two co-editors of The Center Within: Teachings from the Heart of the Urantia Movement, which many of you have read. Paula Thompson and LuAnn Harney, who literally run the Jesusonian Foundation, were both present. Norm Ingram showed us his heart-wrenching films of his heroic voyage distributing Urantia books to spiritually desperate men, women and children throughout war-torn Africa! There were many, many other talented and dedicated readers who enriched my experience.
The worship services, workshops and musical presentations were exceptional, and the number of readers made for a very intimate experience.
So, I thank you, my Urantia friends both old and new, and my heavenly Father, for the wonderful week I just spent in Chicago.
Thirteen New Trademarks Sought by Urantia Foundation
by L. Dan MasseyOn 23 March, Urantia Foundation filed four applications with the United States Trademark Office to register the words "The Urantia Book" as a trademark for use on commercial merchandise such as pens and pencils; coffee cups and mugs; caps, hats, and shirts: and canvas tote bags. The registrations are being sought broadly for paper goods; housewares and glass; clothing; and toys and sporting goods. These applications indicate a change from the Foundation's longstanding practice of allowing any group of individuals to identify themselves freely with the name "The Urantia Book".
In an extension of this action on 2 May, Urantia Foundation filed nine additional Federal trademark registration applications. Four of these would extend the Foundation's trademark on the name of our planet, "Urantia" and four would extend the Foundation's trademark on the Nebadon symbol of the Paradise trinity to cover their various products. Ninth among these filings is #76039625, which seeks to make a quotation from The Urantia Book into a Federal trademark for toys and sporting goods, e.g., canvas tote bags. The exact words and punctuation of the Foundation's claimed trademark are:
"[T]o expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception..." [p.1., para. 2]
To obtain information about the contents and to track the registration status of Urantia Foundation's twenty-nine active and pending trademarks, go to http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/search.html and click on "New Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)". This will take you to a menu. Select "Structured Form Search". When the form is displayed, enter "urantia" as the "search term" and click on "Submit Query".
FUTURE AMBIGUITIES
by Meredith J. SprungerI believe we are in a critical period in the Urantia movement. The decisions we make in the next three years may determine our course of development for the next generation and beyond. The guiding principle underlying all of our policies and actions, I would hope, will be outreach ministry.
The results of such outreach ministry are ambiguous. I see two scenarios. If we examine history for insights to predict the future, we find that new spiritual paradigms have inspired social institutions to enculture society. Usually, a knowledge of the past is the best criterion to predict the future.
The authors of The Urantia Book appear to be interested in upstepping the various religions of the world. If this proves to be true of the teachings of the Urantia Papers, we can expect that when there is a “critical mass” of information about the Fifth Epochal Revelation in society, there will be a dynamic interface with the religions of the world and numerous new religions organizations will spring up ministering the teachings of The Urantia Book.
History, however, is not always logical and frequently is unpredictable. A second possible scenario is that the Fifth Epochal Revelation will not be organically tied to religious institutions. The authors of the Urantia Papers define religion as a relationship between the individual and God. There is a marked dissatisfaction in society with religious institutions. Many of the students of The Urantia Book have a negative attitude toward organized religion and reject any association of the Urantia Papers with organized religion. Which of these scenarios becomes dominant in the future only time will tell.
The Fifth Epochal Revelation has been launched on the troubled and turbulent seas of evolutionary struggle. Hopefully, it will be possible to achieve unity of purpose and a dynamic outreach ministry in the Urantia movement. I am confident that the spiritual vision of the Urantia Papers will eventually transform our world in spite of our internal difficulties and organizational power struggles.
Upcoming Retreat in Washington State
The Retreat Network would like to invite you to our annual gathering entitled, “Healing the Heart - Deepening Our Experience of the Father’s Love,” August 31-September 3, 2000, at the Seabeck Christian Retreat Center on the Olympic Peninsula, near Seattle, Washington.
We invite you to share with others from around the country as we seek for healing -- within ourselves, within our community and for our planet. We are planning a variety of presentations evoking the experience of truth, beauty, goodness and love: the divine realities that are capable of healing our wounds and providing strength and vision for the future. Evening sessions will feature inspirational musical performances. The setting is beautiful, the accommodations are comfortable, and the food is excellent. Plan to arrive by dinner on August 31.
Shuttle service will be provided to and from Seatac International Airport. Full details will be sent upon registration. For registration information contact Bruce Porter (503) 704-5233 or Jeanette Schafer (541) 754-0385; e-mail jeanetts@proaxis.com or write Jeanette at 3570 NW Tanager Dr., Corvallis OR 97330.