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Building Spiritual Communities
There are many definitions and experiences of community.
Communities in the past tended to be what could be called
functional communities. Their primary purpose was to support the
physical and social well being of the group. Another way of
being community is what is called conscious communities. They
differ from the functional type in that they also emphasize the
member’s needs for personal expression, growth, and
transformation. In this talk, I will like to focus on what I
call spiritual communities, especially in the context of the
teachings of the Urantia Book. These are service oriented
spiritually based communities that go beyond the two large
traditional organizations of the Urantia movement, the
Foundation and the Fellowship.
There is a powerful quote from Rhea Miller in her book, Cloud
hand, Clenched Fist: Chaos, Crisis and Emergence of Community.
“When a community can draw on and trust its own inner resources
to discover the validity of a new paradigm, the community is
then able to embrace the creativity of chaos, the possibilities
of dreams. People are empowered to imagine new ways of being, to
problem solve on a deeper level. In this way a community can
soar with their dreams, weep over their losses, and be free to
gather together beyond differences of opinion.”1
The ‘cloud hand’ is a symbol of communities that are open,
creative and who give the freedom to their members to come up
with new ideas. The ‘clenched fist’ types of communities are
those who hold on to old ways and power and are not open to
change.
I feel that there is a connection to what has happened within
our movement. A wonderful by-product has grown out of the pain
and the disillusionment over the battles within these two major
organizations Individuals and small groups began to seek new
ways of being and belonging. There has been a definite shift.
Before we used to attend our local study groups, social
gatherings, maybe national conferences and send in our annual
contribution check. Our focus was mainly reading the Urantia
book and attending some social functions. But now there are new
paradigms and a variety of creative ways to come together as
community to minister in service, in outreach and spiritual
growth. These communities are laying the foundation for future
groups and new creative ways to serve.
There are many Urantia Book related organizations, such as, The
Association for Light and Life, The Retreat Network, TheoQuest,
and one of the newest, The Service Outreach Action Project.
There are many more, but because of the time limits, I will
focus on these four groups. Pay attention to the mission
statements of these organizations.
1. “The Association for Light and Life is a spiritual
association of men and women who, in our seeking for spiritual
awareness, have found common association with the Divine and
seek now to experience our commitment to the Divine through
service.”
2. The Retreat Network:
“To support one another in facilitating and enhancing the
individual’s relationship with the indwelling spirit through the
retreat experience, that all may be better equipped to serve the
family of humankind.”
3. Service Outreach Action Project:
“The high purpose and aim of SOAP is to design training programs
for youth and young adults that empowers them as dynamic
spiritually motivated and powerful evangels for the positive
change on our planet.
4. “TheoQuest was created to assist individuals in their search
for spiritual truth, for God…The vision is to create an online
portal where the exploration of greater truth leads to an
understanding that we are children of a loving Creator, live in
a friendly universe, and have an unending universal adventure of
growth in front of us.”
Building communities takes time and work, they just don’t
happen. People have to have a shared vision for the community
and work together to bring about its creation and ongoing growth
and development. In their book, Creating Community Anywhere,
Carolyn Shaffer and Kristin Anundsen identify the following
qualities that enable a community to develop and thrive:
a. a common mission that aligns with the members’ personal
values
b. teamwork
c. open communications
d. mutual support
e. respect for individuality
f. permeable boundaries
g. group renewal 2
Rabbi Lawrence Kushenr writes in Invisible Lines of Connection,
“We are all players in a sacred story and connected to each
other through the grace of God.”3 We as a community of readers
and students of the Fifth Epochal Revelation know this in a
special way because we have been blessed with the written form
of this sacred story.
A story from the Jewish tradition tells us that “We are all Holy
sparks, dulled by separation. But when we meet and talk and eat
and make love, when we work and play and disagree with holiness
in our eyes, then our brokenness will end.”4 What is really
interesting is that this quote is taken from the Jewish concept
of Tikkun Olan, which states that we have a responsibility to
form a partnership with God in repairing the world.
Margaret Wheatley puts it another way, “When we work for the
common good, we experience each other in new ways. We don’t
worry about differences, or status, or traditional power
relationships. We worry about whether we’ll succeed in
accomplishing what needs to be done. We focus on the work, not
on each other. We learn what trust is.”5
I use to wonder why so many readers found the book in the 70s.
There are legions of us in the movement that were in our 20s and
30s when we found the book or the book found us. Fast forward 30
years later and you find a very large readership in our 50s and
60s. What have we spent the last 30 plus years preparing for?
The Urantia Book gives a few clues. On page 2082 we find,
“Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who
will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable
teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual
mission while it continues to busy itself with social and
material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the
coming of these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be
exclusively devoted to spiritual regeneration of men. And then
will these spirit born souls quickly supply the leadership and
inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and
political reorganization of the world.”6
Another quote that is worth paying attention to is:
“The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and
forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare
to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the
enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic
truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and
righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in
the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human
soul.” 7
We have been given the challenge. Are we ready? Let us stop for
a few moments and review the prerequisites:
• Spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on
Jesus and his incomparable teachings.
• New teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be exclusively
devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men
• Spirit born souls
• Far seeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual
insight
Did you notice that the word spirit or spiritual was mentioned
in each one of these lines?
The Urantia Book also tells us that “the Spirit of Truth is ever
leading the children of light into new realms of spiritual
reality and divine service.” 8
In the last paper of the Urantia Book, the Faith of Jesus, we
find these quotes that set us in the right direction:
1. “Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing
the will of God and serving the human brotherhood.”
2. “Religion is man’s supreme gesture, his magnificent reach for
final reality, his determination to find God and to be like
Him.”
3. “Some men’s lives are too great and noble to descend to the
low level of being merely successful. The animal must adapt
itself to the environment, but the religious man transcends his
environment and in this way escapes the limitations of the
present material world through this insight of divine love. This
concept of love generates in the soul of man that super animal
effort to find truth, beauty, and goodness, and when he does
find them, he is glorified in their embrace; he is consumed with
the desire to live them, to do righteousness.” 9
4.
There is a song titled, The Summons by John Bell and Graham
Maule that states for me the call to service that we as
followers of Jesus have had the privilege and honor to receive.
“Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be know,
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?”
“Will you love the ‘you’ you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?”
“Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.”10
The Quakers have a saying, “Let your life speak.” What is your
life saying? What are our lives as a community of believers and
recipients of the Fifth Epochal Revelation saying to the rest of
the planet?
Notes
1. Miller, Rhea, Cloudhand, Clenched Fist: Chaos, Crisis and the
emergence of Community,
Philadelphia, PA: Innisfree Press, 1994
2. Shaffer, Carolyn and Kristin Anundsen, Creating Community
Anywhere, New York: Putman
Publishers, 1993
3. Kushner, Lawrence, Invisible Lines of Connection, Woodstock,
Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998
4. _______________ Tikkum Olam, A Kabbalistic Story adapted by
Naomi Newman
5. Wheatley, Margaret, Turning to One Another, San Francisco:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002
6. The Urantia Book, Chicago, The Urantia Foundation, 1955
7. Ibid
8. Ibid
9. Ibid
10. Bell, John and Graham Maule, GIA Publication, Inc. Chicago
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