Preparing for Marriage and Family
Julia K. Fenderson
Topical Studies based on the Annotated Bibliography for Parents with Selections by Julia K. Fenderson and edited by Charles R. Arterburn.
By understanding the philosophy presented in The Urantia Book regarding the place of children in the home and in society, parents will be better able to present The Urantia Book teachings to their children.
The Urantia Book was given to us with one stated purpose of improving life on this planet, and another of enhancement of personal religious experience, both of which could begin to be implemented at once by parents in the home.
The relationship of child and parent is fundamental to the essential concept of the Universal Father and his universe children. Therefore does such an experience become indispensable to the experiential training of all ascenders. 516.2
1. Introduction
See: PAPER 73
| 823.5 | The mountains surrounding the Garden abounded in precious stones and metals, though these received very little attention. The dominant idea was to be the glorification of horticulture and the exaltation of agriculture. |
| 823.7 | When the Material Sons, the biologic uplifters. begin their sojourn on an evolutionary world, their place of abode is often called the Garden of Eden. |
| 820.1 | This recital of the affairs of a neighboring planet is made by special permission with the intent of advancing civilization and augmenting governmental evolution on Urantia. Much more could be narrated that would no doubt interest and intrigue Urantians, but this disclosure covers the limits of our permissive mandate. |
| 1328.4 | (Immanuel's instructions to Michael at the time of his bestowal) "7. In all that you may perform on the world of your bestowal, bear constantly in mind that you are living a life for the instruction and edification of all your universe. You are bestowing this life of mortal incarnation upon Urantia, but you are to live such a life for the spiritual inspiration of every human and superhuman intelligence that has lived, now exists, or may yet live on every inhabited world which has formed, now forms, or may yet form a part of the vast galaxy of your administrative domain. Your earth life in the likeness of mortal flesh shall not be so lived as to constitute an example for the mortals of Urantia in the days of your earthly sojourn nor for any subsequent generation of human beings on Urantia or on any other world. Rather shall your life in the flesh on Urantia be the inspiration for all lives upon all Nebadon worlds throughout all generations in the ages to come. |
II. The Essential Experiences of Parenthood
| 516.2 | No surviving mortal, midwayer, or seraphim may ascend to Paradise, attain the Father, and be mustered into the Corps of the Finality without having passed through that sublime experience of achieving parental relationship to an evolving child of the worlds or some other experience analogous and equivalent thereto. The relationship of child and parent is fundamental to the essential concept of the Universal Father and his universe children. Therefore does such an experience become indispensable to the experiential training of all ascenders. |
| 516.4 | All mortal survivors who have not experienced parenthood on the evolutionary worlds must also obtain this necessary training while sojourning in the homes of the Jerusem Material Sons and as parental associates of these superb fathers and mothers. This is true except in so far as such mortals have been able to compensate their deficiencies on the system nursery located on the first transitional-culture world of Jerusem. |
| 516.5 | This probation nursery of Satania is maintained by certain morontia personalities on the finaliters' world, one half of the planet being devoted to this work of child rearing. Here are received and reassembled certain children of surviving mortals, such as those offspring who perished on the evolutionary worlds before acquiring spiritual status as individuals. The ascension of either of its natural parents insures that such a mortal child of the realms will be accorded repersonalization on the system finaliter planet and there be permitted to demonstrate by subsequent freewill choice whether or not it elects to follow the parental path of mortal ascension. Children here appear as on the nativity world except for the absence of sex differentiation. There is no reproduction of mortal kind after the life experience on the inhabited worlds. |
| 531.2 | On the first mansion world all survivors must pass the requirements of the parental commission from their native planets. The present Urantia commission consists of twelve parental couples recently arrived, who have had mortal experience in rearing three or more children to the pubescent age. Service on this commission is rotational and is for only ten years as a rule. All who fail to satisfy these commissioners as to their parental experience must further qualify by service in the homes of the Material Sons on Jerusem or in part in the probationary on the finaliters' world. |
| 1389.5 | On Wednesday evening, April 17, A.D. 9, Ruth, the baby of the family, was born, and to the best of his ability Jesus endeavored to take the place of his father in comforting and ministering to his mother during this trying and peculiarly sad ordeal. For almost a score of years (until he began his public ministry) no father could have loved and nurtured his daughter any more affectionately and faithfully than Jesus cared for little Ruth. And he was an equally good father to all the other members of his family. |
| 531.4, 5 |
No ascending mortal can escape the experience of rearing children--their own or others--either on the material worlds or subsequently on the finaliter world or on Jerusem. Fathers must pass through this essential experience just as certainly as mothers. It is an unfortunate and mistaken notion of modern peoples on Urantia that child culture is largely the task of mothers, Children need fathers as well as mothers, and fathers need this parental experience as much as do mothers. The infant-receiving schools of Satania are situated on the finaliter world, the first of the Jerusem transition-culture spheres. These infant-receiving schools are enterprises devoted to the nurture and training of the children of time, including those who have died on the evolutionary worlds of space before the acquirement of individual status on the universe records. In the event of the survival of either or both of such a child's parents, the guardian of destiny, deputizes her associated cherubim as the custodian of the child's potential identify charging the cherubim with the responsibility of delivering this undeveloped soul into the hands of the Mansion World Teachers in the probationary nurseries of the morontia worlds. |
| 555.1 | Law is life itself and not the rules of its conduct. Evil is a transgression of law, not a violation of the rules of conduct pertaining to life, which is the law. Falsehood is not a matter of narration technique but something premeditated as a perversion of truth. The creation of new pictures out of old facts, the restatement of parental life in the lives of offspring--these are the artistic triumphs of truth. The shadow of a hair's turning, premeditated for an untrue purpose, the slightest twisting or perversion of that which is principle--these constitute falseness. But the fetish of factualized truth, fossilized truth, the iron band of so-called unchanging truth, holds one blindly in a closed circle of cold fact. One can be technically right as to fact and everlastingly wrong in the truth. |
| 616.1 | Parents, those who have borne and reared children. are better able to understand why Michael, a Creator-father, might be slow to condemn and destroy his own Sons. Jesus' story of the prodigal son well illustrates how a loving father can long wait for the repentance of an erring child. |
| 811.2, 3 |
The home life of this people has greatly improved during the last century.
Attendance of parents, both fathers and mothers, at the parental schools
of child culture is compulsory. Even the agriculturists who reside in small
country settlements carry on this work by correspondence, going to the
near-by centers for oral instruction once in ten days--every two weeks,
for the maintain a five-day week.
The average number of children in each family is five, and they are under the full control of their parents or, in case of the demise of one or both, under that of the guardians designated by the parental courts. It is considered a great honor for any family to be awarded the guardianship of a full orphan. Competitive examinations are held among parents, and the orphan is awarded to the home of those displaying the best parental qualifications. |
| 939.6 | Sex association is natural, but marriage is social and has always been
regulated by the mores. The mores (religious, and ethical). together with
property, pride, and chivalry, stabilize the institutions of marriage and
family. Whenever the mores fluctuate, there is fluctuation in the stability
of the home-marriage institution. Marriage is now passing out of the property
stage into the personal era. Formerly man protected woman because she was
his chattel. and she obeyed for the same reason. Regardless of its merits
this system did provide stability. Now, woman is no longer regarded as
property, and new mores are emerging designed to stabilize the marriage-home
institution:
|
| 940.4 | Love of offspring is almost universal and is of distinct survival value The ancients always sacrificed the mother's interests for the welfare of the child; an Eskimo mother even Yet licks her baby in lieu of washing. But primitive mothers only nourished and cared for their children when very young: like the animals, they discarded them as soon as they grew up. Enduring and continuous human associations have never been founded on biologic affection alone. The animals love their children: man-- civilized man--loves his children's children. The higher the civilization. the greater the Joy of parents in the children's advancement and success; thus the new and higher realization of name pride comes into existence. |
| 941.3, 4 |
The olden ideas of family discipline were biologic, growing out of
the realization that parents were creators of the child's being. The advancing
ideals of family life are leading to the concept that bringing a child
into the world, instead of conferring certain parental rights, entails
the supreme responsibility of human existence.
Civilization regards the parents as assuming all duties, the child as having all the rights. Respect of the child for his parents arises, not in knowledge of the obligation implied in parental procreation, but naturally grows as a result of the care, training, and affection which are lovingly displayed in assisting the child to win the battle of life. The true parent is engaged in a continuous service-ministry which the wise child comes to recognize and appreciate. |
| 1355.4 | Because of this difference of opinion between Joseph and Mary, Nahor requested permission to lay the whole matter before Jesus. Jesus listened attentively, talked with Joseph. Mary, and a neighbor, Jacob the stonemason, whose son was his favorite playmate, and then, two days later, reported that since there was such a difference of opinion among his parents and advisers, and since he did not feel competent to assume the responsibility for such a decision, not feeling strongly one way or the other, in view of the whole situation, he had finally decided to "talk with my Father who is in heaven"; and while he was not perfectly sure about the answer, he rather felt he should remain at home "with my father and mother," adding, "they who love me so much should be able to do more for me and guide me more safely than strangers who can only view my body and observe my mind but can hardly truly know me." They all marveled, and Nahor went his way, back to Jerusalem. And it was many years before the subject of Jesus' going away from home again came up for consideration. |
| 1575.2 | 2. "Happy are the merciful! for they shall obtain mercy, " Mercy here denotes the height and depth and breadth of the truest friendship--loving-kindness. Mercy sometimes may be passive, but here it is active and dynamic--supreme fatherliness. A loving parent experiences little difficulty in forgiving his child, even many times. And in an unspoiled child the urge to relieve suffering is natural. Children are normally kind and sympathetic when old enough to appreciate actual conditions. |
| 1589.4 | Andrew was much occupied with the task of adjusting the constantly recurring misunderstandings and disagreements between the disciples of John and the newer disciples of Jesus. Serious situations would arise every few days, but Andrew, with the assistance of his apostolic associates, managed to induce the contending parties to come to some sort of agreement, at least temporarily. Jesus refused to participate in any of these conferences; neither would he give any advice about the proper adjustment of these difficulties. He never once offered a suggestion as to how the apostles should solve these perplexing problems When Andrew came to Jesus with these questions, he would always say: "It is not wise for the host to participate in the family troubles of his guests a wise parent never takes sides in the petty quarrels of his own children." |
| 1675.5 | "Intelligent children do not fear their father in order that they may receive good gifts from his hand: but having already received the abundance of good things bestowed by the dictates of the father's affection for his sons and daughters, these much loved children are led to love their father in responsive recognition and appreciation of such munificent beneficence. The goodness of God leads to repentance; the beneficence of God leads to service; the mercy of God leads to salvation while the love of God leads to intelligent and freehearted worship. |
| 1839.4 | After Jesus had talked about marriage and divorce, later on that evening his apostles privately asked many additional questions. and his answers to these inquiries relieved their minds of many misconceptions. At the conclusion of this conference Jesus said: "Marriage is honorable and is to be desired by all men, The fact that the Son of Man pursues his earth mission alone is in no way a reflection on the desirability of marriage, That I should so work is the Father's will, but this same Father has directed the creation of male and female, and it is the divine will that men and women should find their highest service and consequent joy in the establishment of homes for the reception and training of children, in the creation of whom these parents become copartners with the Makers of heaven and earth. And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall become as one." |
| 1898.2-5 | After a short silence Jesus looked significantly at all four and answered:
"My brethren, you err in your opinions because you do not comprehend
the nature of those intimate and loving relations between the creature
and the Creator, between man and God, You fail to grasp that understanding
sympathy which the wise parent entertains for his immature and sometimes
erring child, It is indeed doubtful whether intelligent and affectionate
parents are called upon to forgive an average and normal child. Understanding
relationships associated with attitudes of love effectively prevent all
those estrangements which later necessitate the readjustment of repentance
by the child with forgiveness by the parent.
"A part of every father lives in the child, The father enjoys priority and superiority of understanding in all matters connected with the child-parent relationship, The parent is able to view the immaturity of the child in the light of the more advanced parental maturity, the riper experience of the older partner, With the earthly child and the heavenly Father, the divine parent possesses infinity and divinity of sympathy and capacity for loving understanding, Divine forgiveness is inevitable; it is inherent and inalienable in God's infinite understanding, in his perfect knowledge of all that concerns the mistaken judgment and erroneous choosing of the child, Divine justice is so eternally fair that it unfailingly embodies understanding mercy. "When a wise man understands the inner impulses of his fellows, he will love them. And when you love your brother, you have already forgiven him. This capacity to understand mall's nature and forgive his apparent wrongdoing is God like. If you are wise parents, this is the way you will love and understand your children, even forgive them when transient misunderstanding has apparently separated you. The child. being immature and lacking in the fuller understanding of the depth of the child- father relationship, must frequently feel a sense of guilty separation from a father's full approval, but the true father is never conscious of any such separation. Sin is an experience of of God's consciousness, creature consciousness, it is not a part of God's consciousness. "Your inability of unwillingness to forgive your fellows is the measure of your immaturity, your failure to attain adult sympathy, understanding, and love. You hold grudges and nurse vengefulness in direct proportion to your ignorant of the inner nature and true longings of your children and your fellow beings. Love is the outworking of the divine and inner urge of life. It is founded on understanding, nurtured by unselfish service, and perfected in wisdom. |
| 2089.1 | In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the divine spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child, but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent: He had a profound confidence in the universe--just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus' wholehearted faith fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child's trust in the security of its earthly surroundings He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father's overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhabit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear. |
III. The Family and Home
| 515.2 | These Material Sons are the highest type sf sex-reproducing beings to be found on the training spheres of the evolving universes. And they are really material: even the Planetary Adams and Eves are plainly visible to the mortal races of the inhabited worlds. These Material Sons are the last. and physical link in the chain of personalities extending from divinity and perfection above down to humanity and material existence below. These Sons provide the inhabited worlds with a mutually contactable intermediary between the invisible Planetary Prince and the material creatures of the realms. |
| 515.4 | These Material Sons and Daughters are the permanent inhabitants of Jerusem and its associated world. They occupy vast estates on Jerusem and participate liberally in the local management of the capital sphere, administering practically all routine affairs with the assistance of the midwayers and the ascenders. |
| 515.7 | The Material Sons and Daughters, together with their children, present an engaging spectacle which never fails to arouse the curiosity and intrigue the attention of all ascending mortals. They are so similar to your own material sex races that you both find much of common interest to engage your thoughts and occupy your seasons of fraternal contact. |
| 532.1 | On the Nursery world, probationary creatures are grouped according to whether or not they have adjusters, for the Adjusters come to indwell these material children just as on the worlds of time. Children of pre-Adjuster ages are cared for in families of five, ranging in ages from one year and under up to approximately five years, or that age when the adjuster arrives. |
| 532.3 | The Adjuster-indwelt children and youths on the finaliter world are also reared in families of five, ranging in ages from six to fourteen; approximately, these families consist of children whose ages are six, eight, ten, twelve, and fourteen. Any time after sixteen, if final choice has been made, they translate to the first mansion world and begin their Paradise ascent. Some make a choice before this age and go on to the ascension spheres, but very few children under sixteen years of age, as reckoned by Urantia standards, will be found on the mansion worlds. |
| 618.6 | If an affectionate father of a large family chooses to show mercy to one of his children guilty of grievous wrongdoing, it may well be that the extension of mercy to this misbehaving child will work a temporary hardship upon all the other and well- behaved children. Such eventualities are inevitable; such a risk is inseparable from the reality situation of having a loving parent and of being a member of a family group. Each member of a family profits by the righteous conduct of every other member; likewise must each member suffer the immediate time-consequences of the misconduct of every other member. Families, groups, nations, races, worlds, systems, constellations? and universes are relationships of association which possess individuality: and therefore does every member of any such group, large or small, reap the benefits and suffer the consequences of the right doing and the wrongdoing of all other members of the group concerned. |
| 625.5 | On these superb worlds the childbearing period is not greatly prolonged. It is not best for too many years to intervene between the ages of a family of children. When close together in age, children are able to contribute much more to their mutual training. And on these worlds they are magnificently trained by the competitive systems of keen striving in the advanced domains and divisions of diverse achievement in the mastery of truth, beauty, and goodness. Never fear but that such glorified spheres present plenty of evil, real and potential, which is stimulative of the choosing between truth and error, good and evil, sin and righteousness. |
| 630.6 | On a normal world the biologic fitness of the mortal race was long since brought up to a high level during the post-Adamic epochs: and now, from age to age throughout the settled eras the physical evolution of man continues, Both vision and hearing are extended, By now the population has become stationary in numbers, Reproduction is regulated in accordance with planetary requirements and innate hereditary endowments: The mortals on a planet during this age are divined into from five to ten groups, and the lower groups are permitted to produce only one half as many children as the higher, The continued improvement of such a magnificent race throughout the era of light and life is largely a matter of the selective reproduction of those racial strains which exhibit, superior qualities of social, philosophic, cosmic, and spiritual nature. |
IV. The Home Life
| 811.1 | On this continent it is against the law for two families to live under the same roof. And since group dwellings have been outlawed, most of the tenement type of buildings have been demolished. But the unmarried still live in clubs, hotels, and other group dwellings. The smallest homesite permitted must provide fifty thousand square feet of land. All land and other property used for home purposes are free from taxation up to ten times the minimum homesite allotment, |
| 811.4, 5 |
These people regard the home as the basic institution of their civilization. It is expected that the most valuable part of a child's education and character training will be secured from his parents and at home, and fathers devote almost as much attention to child culture as do mothers. All sex instruction is administered in the home by parents or by legal guardians. Moral instruction is offered by teachers during the rest periods in the school shops, but not so with religious training, which is deemed to be the exclusive privilege of parents, religion being looked upon as an integral part of home life. Purely religious instruction is given publicly only in the temples of philosophy, no such exclusively religious institutions as the Urantia churches having developed among these people. In their philosophy. religion is the striving to know God and to manifest love for one's fellows through service for them, but this is not typical of the religious status of the other nations on this planet. Religion is so entirely a family matter among these people that there are no public places devoted exclusively to religious assembly. Politically, church and state, as Urantians are wont to say, are entirely separate, but there is a strange overlapping of religion and philosophy. |
| 848.6 | The observation of Abel's conduct establishes the value of environment and education as factors in character development. Abel had an ideal inheritance. and heredity lies at the bottom of all character: but the influence of an inferior environment virtually neutralized this magnificent inheritance. Abel, especially during his younger years, was greatly influenced by his unfavorable surroundings. He would have become an entirely different person had he lived to be twenty-five or thirty; his superb inheritance would then have shown itself. While a good environment cannot contribute much toward really overcoming the character handicaps of a base heredity, a bad environment can very effectively spoil an excellent inheritance, at least during the younger years of life. Good social environment and proper education are indispensable soil and atmosphere for getting the most out of a good inheritance. |
| 913.1 | Marriage--mating--grows out of bisexuality. Marriage is man's reactional adjustment to such bisexuality, while the family life is the sum total resulting from all such evolutionary and adaptative adjustments. Marriage is enduring: it is not inherent in biologic evolution, but it is the basis of all social evolution and is therefore certain of continued existence in some form. Marriage has given mankind the home, and the home is the crowning glory of the whole long and arduous evolutionary religious, social, and educational institutions are all essential to the survival of cultural civilization, the family is the master civilizer. A child learns most of the essentials of life from his family and the neighbors. |
| 913.3 | The humans of olden times did not. possess a very rich social civilization, but such as they had they faithfully and effectively passed on to the next generation. And you should recognize that most of these civilizations of the past continued to evolve with a bare minimum of other institutional influences because the home was effectively functioning. Today the human races possess a rich social and cultural heritage, and it should be wisely and effectively passed on to succeeding generations. The family as an educational institution must be maintained. |
| 913.6 | The regulation of sex in relation to marriage indicates:
|
| 914.5 | No human emotion or impulse, when unbridled and overindulged, can produce so much harm and sorrow ss this powerful sex urge. Intelligent submission of this impulse to the regulations of society is the supreme test of the actuality of any civilization. Self-control, more and more self-control, is the ever-increasing demand of advancing mankind. Secrecy, insincerity, and hypocrisy may obscure sex problems, but they do not provide solutions, nor do they advance ethics. |
| 927.8 | Monogamy is the Yardstick which measures the advance of social civilization as distinguished from purely biologic evolution. Monogamy is not necessarily biologic or natural, but it is indispensable to the immediate maintenance and further development of social civilization. It contributes to a delicacy of sentiment, a refinement of moral character, and a spiritual growth which are utterly impossible in polygamy. A woman never can become an ideal mother when she is all the while compelled to engage in rivalry for her husband's affections. |
| 928.1, 2 |
Pair marriage favors and fosters that intimate understanding and effective
co-operation which is best for parental happiness, child welfare, and social
efficiency. Marriage, which began in crude coercion, is gradually evolving
into a magnificent institution of self-culture, self-control, self-expression,
and self-perpetuation.
In the early evolution of the marital mores, marriage was a loose union which could be terminated at will, and the children always followed the mother, the mother-child bond is instinctive and has functioned regardless of the developmental stage of the mores. |
| 928.7 | The real test of marriage, all down through the ages, has been that continuous intimacy which is inescapable in all family life. Two pampered and spoiled youths, educated to expect every indulgence and full gratification of vanity and ego, can hardly hope to make a great success of marriage and home building--a life-long partnership of self-effacement, compromise, devotion, and unselfish dedication to child-culture. |
| 929.2-3 | But just so long as society fails to properly educate children and
youths, so long as the social order fails to provide adequate premarital
training, and so long as unwise and immature youthful idealism is to be
the arbiter of the entrance upon marriage, just so long will divorce remain
prevalent. And in so far as the social group falls short of providing marriage
preparation for youths, to that extent must divorce function as the social
safety valve which prevents still worse situations during the ages of the
rapid growth of the evolving mores.
The ancients seem to have regarded marriage just about as seriously as some present-day people do And it does not appear that many of the hasty and unsuccessful marriages of modern times are much of an improvement over the ancient practices of qualifying young men and women for mating. The great inconsistency of modern society is to exalt love and to idealize marriage while disapproving of the fullest examination of both. |
| 939.4 | Sex mating is instinctive. children are the natural result, and the family thus automatically comes into existence. As are the families of the race or nation, so is its society. If the families are good, the society is likewise good. The great cultural stability of the Jewish and of the Chinese peoples lies in the strength of their family groups. |
| 939.6 | Sex association is natural, but marriage is social and has always been
regulated by the mores. The mores (religious, moral, and ethical) together
with property, pride, and chivalry, stabilize the institutions of marriage
and family. Whenever the mores fluctuate, there is fluctuation in the stability
of the home-marriage institution. Marriage is now passing out of the property
stage into the personal era. Formerly man protected woman because she was
his chattel and she obeyed for the same reason. Regardless of its merits
this system did provide stability. Now. woman is no longer regarded as
property, and new mores are emerging designed to stabilize the marriage-home
institution:
|
| 940.1 | But the home as an institution, a partnership between one man and one woman, dates more specifically from the days of Dalamatia, about one-half million years ago, the monogamous practices of Andon and his immediate descendants having been abandoned long before. Family life, however, was not much to boast of before the days of the Nodites and the later Adamites. Adam and Eve exerted a lasting influence on all mankind; for the first time in the history of the world men and women were observed working side by side in the Garden The Edenic idea, the whole family as gardeners, was a new idea on Urantia. |
| 941.5, 6 |
In the present industrial and urban era the marriage institution is
evolving along new economic lines, Family life has become more and more
costly, while children, who used to be an asset, have become economic liabilities.
But the security of civilization itself still rests on the growing willingness
of one generation to invest in the welfare of the next and future generations.
And any attempt to shift parental responsibility to state or church will
prove suicidal to the welfare and advancement of civilization.
Marriage, with children and consequent family life. is stimulative of the highest potentials in human nature and simultaneously provides the ideal avenue for the expression of these quickened attributes of mortal personality. The family provides for the biologic perpetuation of the human species. The home is the natural social arena wherein the ethics of blood brotherhood may be grasped hy the growing children. The family is the fundamental unity of fraternity in which parents and children learn those lessons of patience, altruism, tolerance, and forbearance which are so essential to the realization of brotherhood among all men. |
| 942.1 | Family life is the progenitor of true morality, the ancestor of the consciousness of loyalty to duty. The enforced associations of family life stabilize personality and stimulate its growth through the compulsion of necessitous adjustment to other and diverse personalities. But even more, a true family--a good family--reveals to the parental procreators the attitude of the Creator to his children. while at the same time such true parents portray to their children the first of a long series of ascending disclosures of the love of the Paradise parent of all universe children. |
V. The Pleasure Mania
| 942.2-5 | The great threat against family life is the menacing rising tide of
self-gratification, the modern pleasure mania. The prime incentive to marriage
used to be economic; sex attraction was secondary. Marriage, founded on
self-maintenance, led to self- perpetuation and concomitantly provided
one of the most desirable forms of self-gratification. It is the only institution
of human society which embraces all three of the great incentives for living.
Originally, property was the basic institution of self- maintenance, while marriage functioned as the unique institution of self-perpetuation. Although food satisfaction. play. and humor, along with periodic sex indulgence were means of self- gratification, it remains a fact that the evolving mores have failed to build any distinct institution of self-gratification. And it is due to this failure to evolve specialized techniques of pleasurable enjoyment, that all human institutions are so completely shot through with this pleasure pursuit. Property accumulation is becoming an instrument for augmenting all forms of self-gratification. while marriage is often viewed only ss a means of pleasure. And this overindulgence, this widely spread pleasure mania, now constitutes the greatest threat that has ever been leveled at the social evolutionary institution of family life, the home. The violet race introduced a new and only imperfectly realized characteristic into the experience of humankind--the play instinct coupled with the sense of humor. It was there in measure in the Sangiks and Andonites, but the Adamic strain elevated this primitive propensity into the potential of pleasure, a new and glorified form of self-gratification. The basic type of self-gratification, aside from appeasing hunger, is sex gratification, and this form of sensual pleasure was enormously heightened by the blending of the Sangiks and the Andites. There is real danger in the combination of restlessness curiosity, adventure, and pleasure-abandon characteristic of the post-Andite races. The hunger of the soul cannot be satisfied with physical pleasures; the love of home and children is not augmented by the unwise pursuit of pleasure, Though you exhaust the resources of art, color sound, rhythm, music, and adornment of person, you cannot hope thereby to elevate the soul or to nourish the spirit. Vanity and fashion cannot minister to home building and child culture; pride and rivalry are powerless to enhance the survival qualities of succeeding generations. |
| 2076.1 | Do not try to satisfy the curiosity or gratify all the latent adventure surging within the soul in one short life in the flesh. Be patient! be not tempted to indulge in a lawless plunge into cheap and sordid adventure. Harness your energies and bridle your passions: be calm while you await the majestic unfolding of an endless career of progressive adventure and thrilling discovery. |
| 943.1 | Let man enjoy himself: let the human race find pleasure in a thousand and one ways; let evolutionary mankind explore all forms of legitimate self-gratification, the fruits of the long upward biologic struggle. Man has well earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. But look you well to the goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage; the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home--man's supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization's only hope of survival. |
| 1241.3 | The teaching about guardian angels is not a myth; certain groups of human beings in recognition of this the heavenly kingdom, of these little ones, behold the presence of do actually have personal angels. It was that Jesus, in speaking of the children of said: "Take heed that you despise not one for I say to you, their angels do always the spirit of my Father." |
| 1256.1 | 7. The angels of enlightenment. Urantia is now receiving the help of the third corps of seraphim dedicated to the fostering of planetary education, These angels are occupied with mental and moral training as it concerns individuals, families, groups, schools, communities nations, and whole races. |
| 1256.3 | 9. The home seraphim. Urantia now enjoys the services of the fifth group of angelic ministers dedicated to the preservation and advancement of the home, the basic institution of human civilization, |
| 1581.1 | The family occupied the very center sf Jesus' philosophy of life--here and hereafter. He based his teachings about God on the family, while he sought to correct the Jewish tendency to overhonor ancestors. He exalted family life as the highest human duty but made it plain that family relationships must not interfere with religious obligations. He called attention to the fact that the family is a temporal institution; that it does not survive death. Jesus did not hesitate to give up his family when the family run counter to the Father's will. He taught the new and larger brotherhood of man--the sons of God, In Jesus' time divorce practices were lax in Palestine and throughout. the Roman Empire. He repeatedly refused to lay down laws regarding marriage and divorce, but many of Jesus' early followers had strong opinions on divorce and did not hesitate to attribute them to him. All of the New Testament writers held to these more stringent and advanced ideas about divorce except John Mark. |
| 1603.6, 7 |
He next explained that. the "kingdom idea" was not the best
way to illustrate man's relation to God; that he employed such figures
of speech because the Jewish people were expecting the kingdom, and because
John had preached in terms of the coming kingdom. Jesus said: "The
people of another age will better understand the gospel of the kingdom
when it is presented in terms expressive of the family relationship--when
man understands religion as the teaching of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man, sonship with God." Then the Master discoursed
at some length on the earthly family as an illustration of the heavenly
family. restating the two fundamental laws of living: the first commandment
of love for the father, the head of the family, and the second commandment
of mutual love among the children, to love your brother as yourself. And
then he explained that such a quality of brotherly affection would invariably
manifest itself in unselfish and loving social service.
Following that, came the memorable discussion of the fundamental characteristics of family life and their application to the relationship existing between God and man. Jesus stated that a true family is founded on the following seven facts:
|
| 1604.1 | For hours the Master discussed the application of these features of family life to the relations of man, the earth child, to God, the Paradise Father. And this was his conclusion: "This entire relationship of a son to the Father, I know in perfection, for all that you must attain of sonship in the eternal future I have now already attained. The Son of Man is prepared to ascend to the right hand of the Father, so that in me is the way now open still wider for all of you to see God and, ere you have finished the glorious progression, to become perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. |
| 1839.4 | After Jesus had talked about marriage and divorce. Later on that evening his apostles privately asked many additional questions, and his answers to these inquiries relieved their minds of many misconceptions. At the conclusion of this conference .Jesus said: "Marriage is honorable and is to be desired by all men. The fact that the Son of Man pursues his earth mission alone is in no way a reflection on the desirability of marriage. That 1 should so work is the Father's will, but this same Father has directed the creation of male and female. and it is the divine will that men and women should find their highest service and consequent joy in the establishment. of homes for the reception and training of children, in the creation of whom these parents become copartners with the Makers of heaven and earth. And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall become as one." |
| 1921.5, 6 |
In the course of this day's visiting with John Mark. Jesus spent considerable
time comparing their early childhood and later boyhood experiences. Although
John's parents possessed more of this world's goods than had Jesus' parents
there was much experience in their boyhood which was very similar. Jesus
said many things which helped John better to understand his parents and
other members of his family When the lad asked the Master how he could
know that he would turn out to be a "mighty messenger of the kingdom,"
Jesus said:
I know you will prove loyal to the gospel of the kingdom because I can depend upon your present faith and love when these qualities are grounded upon such an early training as has been your portion at home You are the product of a home where the parents bear each other a sincere affection, and therefore you have not been overloved so as injuriously to exalt your concept of self-importance. Neither has your personality suffered distortion in consequence of your parents' loveless maneuvering for your confidence and loyalty. the one against the other. You have enjoyed that parental love which insures laudable self- confidence and which fosters normal feelings of security. But you have also been fortunate in that your parents possessed wisdom as well as love; and it was wisdom which led them to withhold most forms of indulgence and many luxuries which wealth can buy while they sent you to the synagogue school along with your neighborhood playfellows, and they also encourage you to learn how to live in this world by permitting you to have original experience. You came over to the Jordan, where we preached and John's disciples baptized, with your young friend Amos. Both of you desired to go with us. When you returned to Jerusalem, your parents consented: Amos's parents refused: they loved their son so much that they denied him the blessed experience which you have had, even such as you this day enjoy. By running away from home, Amos could have joined us, but in so doing he would have wounded love and sacrificed loyalty. Even if such a course had been wise, it would have been a terrible price to pay for experience, independence, and liberty. Wise parents, such as yours, see to it that their children do not have to wound love or stifle loyalty in order to develop independence and enjoy invigorating liberty when they have grown up to your age. |
| 1922.2 | "Your young friend Amos believes this gospel of the kingdom Just, as much as you. but I cannot fully depend upon him; I am not certain about. what he will do in the years to come. His early home life was not. such as would produce a wholly dependable person. Amos is much like one of the apostles who failed to enjoy a normal, loving, and wise home training. Your whole afterlife will be more happy and dependable because you spent your first eight years in a normal and well-regulated home. You possess a strong and well-knit character because you grew up in a home where love prevailed and wisdom reigned. Such a childhood training produces a type of loyalty which assures me that you will go through with the course you have begun." |
| 1922.4 | It is our sincere belief that. the gospel of Jesus' teaching, founded as it is on the father-child relationship, can hardly enjoy a world-wide acceptance until such a time as the home life of the modern civilized peoples embraces more of love and more of wisdom. Notwithstanding that parents of the twentieth century possess great. knowledge and increased truth for improving the home and ennobling the home life, it remains a fact. that very few modern homes are such good places in which to nurture boys and girls as Jesus' home in Galilee and John Mark's home in Judea, albeit. the acceptance of Jesus' gospel will result in the immediate improvement of home life. The love life of a wise home and the loyal devotion of true religion exert a profound reciprocal influence upon each other. Such a home life enhances religion, and genuine religion always glorifies the home. |
| "The relationship of child and parent is fundamental to the essential concept of the Universal Father and his universe children. Therefore does such an experience become indispensable to the experiential training of all ascenders." 516.2 |
