Elyon, Aaron, Sharmon 12-15-02

Today I wish to follow the lesson by adding the virtues of patience, tolerance, temperance, and forbearance, for these are immensely valuable in fostering growth and in discerning truth. When you prepare your food item yogurt, you first heat the milk, and you must not underheat it or boil it for it to be successful. Likewise is this your approach to uncovering what remains mysterious, that which you do not know and seek illumination. Combing through Jonathan’s earthly experiences I extract two illustrations of the value of temperance and patience. When you wish to extract a stubborn screw, it does not serve well to spin your screwdriver so rapidly that you strip the head. Steady forceful but slow, intent pressure and twisting will cause it to break free, and then you can increase velocity. Also driving a nail, delicate taps would take far too long and through some materials not accomplish a thing. But with forcefulness you can drive it; too much force you bend it over. While the force progressed the action, when you reach near the end you pause, pick up a nailset, and gently tap it home. These mundane functions and processes also apply to your spiritual pursuits and your accumulation of wisdom and grasp of truth.

I observe your discussions of health and healing, the spiritual as well as material methods. It is in your discussion that you demonstrate your intention to acquire the best method, the proper perspective, for reaching your goal. Skill does not develop merely by undergoing an action once, but rather undergoing that action repeatedly and, still more significantly, undergoing that action and taking note of, remembering, and applying our observations from each action. One who has skill has patience. Patience is not the result of the attainment of skill; it is the contributor to the attainment of skill. One who does something well acquired traits and techniques before mastery which allowed mastery.

Jesus would minister to a hungry soul what they needed, no more and no less. While this is a skill worthy of acquirement by everyone, there is a significant contributing factor to aid you. Not only are you able to better treat your fellows in times of trouble or ailment by including in your actions patience, forbearance, and appropriate timing, there is the additional vitality of living spirit. Jesus, knowing of this presence, could rest confidently that the extent to which he approached and ministered to another’s need was all that needed to occur, for that vital spirit presence that continually monitors each one of you and each one of his followers applies further ministry, further healing.

Human beings will weigh the merit of their tasks, of their intentions, based upon the finished result. Something is not accomplished until all points of the process have been undertaken. But you who are demanding of yourselves greater spirit attunement are realizing that you are one of the many steps in a process to a desired result, that the service you provide another may seem to be a simple, mundane human action of kindness to another. However, from the perspective of your angelic attendants, they view the intricacies of the interworkings of many events in individuals’ lives that compound to create what may take years to come to fruition: the realization of a significant spiritual truth or alignment.

* Aaron: Greetings to you, this is Aaron. I step in here with Elyon to acknowledge you all, to relish all the times we have spent together, to assure you of my continued interest in this group. It is enjoyable reminiscing over the many years we have spent together in this undertaking. You are able to assess the benefits that have come to you through this faith adventure, and you have also experienced episodes wherein you have been able to bestow upon another the necessary ingredient in their struggles such that they may be a little better relieved or a little better prepared to face their struggles. I wish that I could print out a report for you of what the melchizedeks have to say, for they are able to grasp within a universe context the significance of your advancements. Though ten years have transpired since our initial contacts, and it may seem that you have made adjustments and realizations, you have undertaken service projects, outreach ministries, and that they may not amount to much on a page of credentials, if you could but see the applications not only for the remainder of your lives here but the adventures and enterprises you will engage in in the mansion world experiences, you would then realize what great wealth you have acquired. As Elyon said, even this faith grasp must be coupled with your ability to wait out the time that transpires before your talents are in need.

Years ago I mentioned to you that a good gardener does not pull up a seedling to see how well it’s growing. So, while you may not be able to view the extent of the reach of your roots into spiritual matter, the melchizedeks are fully aware, and they are able to assess nutrients you may need. They then notify us, and we apply ourselves to giving you those nutrients. I am capable of making some assessments myself. But like you I am an ascending mortal creature, and like you I do not hale from the headquarters of Nebadon. I am heading toward Salvington as you are. We who come from the periphery, while we gain a perspective through the accumulation of experience, have not the same viewpoint as one who is born a master teacher as are the melchizedeks. Therefore we rely heavily upon their counsel and advice and direction.

We of the midwayers are sensitive to your worries regarding the affairs in the kingdoms of men. know (note?) to your concerns and ours equally disturbed by the unrest, by the confrontations, and by the attempts to escalate confrontations, conflict. Mankind and we midwayers share a tendency that we may not necessarily brag about, and that is to be a bit overzealous for cause, to become so motivated to the degree that we will decrease the breadth of our vision. The midwayers present during the fall of the planetary headquarters succumbed to this tendency, and your history is peppered with such engagements wherein one is viewed as enemy or foe, not necessarily because you are in conflict in ideology, but because your zeal has narrowed your vision. So if there were any advice I could send to all mankind today it would be to assess the breadth of your viewpoint, to grasp more fully and holistically the intricacies and your relationships.

Where the midwayers of centuries back followed the strong dictates of powerful personalities and also fell into rebellion, I ask you this day to assess with the Spirit of Truth bestowed upon you the merit of declarations that are broadcast about your world and to yourselves likewise take your stance through stillness and contemplation, through application of your experiences, and let be known your feelings.

Today we midwayers are a united bunch because a few within our midst were vocal enough to point out the errors and to do so with kindness and compassion to win the souls of the others back to a path of light and truth. It was not done overnight. It was not done easily, and it was not done without numerous arguments. We cherish this planet. It is ours. We extend great hope for mankind to wisely choose its future. We overlay that hope with a profound trust in the universe administrators who manage so many worlds, varied in their advancements, each one with its own difficulties and successes. With this wide range of engagements we know that they are capable of helping Urantia realize the significant values that will cause advancement toward Light and Life.

* Sharmon: I still stand by my comments, but I would add that I do not apply that view cynically. I perceive it as one who would note a blemish on a mirror and would seek to clean the blemish to restore the reflectivity. That causes me to repeat my earlier comment that you think for yourselves and make your thoughts be known, for we are not going to step in and demand alterations to the processes of your governing bodies to correct, to restore. It is up to you.

* Sharmon: Your world, which is our world, is approaching the zenith of materialism. It has not reached the summit at this point. Although I have never left this world and only receive reports of how other worlds progress, I am of the understanding that there is a great deal more in the capabilities of mankind for the development of material things in the advancement of your technologies. Let me clarify that by stating that materialism is a value system; it is not simply the advancement of technologies and the development of material objects for your use. So enters my hope for the culmination of this era because I witness throughout the world a shifting in values. Though you may not have advanced technologically to the apex of what is potential, you are beginning to reevaluate the philosophical foundation of these pursuits. With this adjustment you will refine the appropriateness of these material advancements. Materialism philosophically will begin to change before the external manifestations reach the fruition of their beneficial contributions to mankind alongside the detriments of the overmuch development of things of transient value at the expense of the resource wealth of future generations.

You speak in your history of the Dark Ages. They weren’t all that dark. The sun rose and set with the same brilliance as this day. The darkness had more to do with the shifting of general consciousness away from advancement. It did not so much retreat into the ages past but simply sat idle. Today, while there is much that is the cause of strife and terror on you world, there is not the darkness of idleness. All over societies are astir evaluating and considering global actions being undertaken economically, industrially, politically, and environmentally. This is that light that precedes the change from a materialistic bent to a spiritual lifestyle or orientation.

There are religions upon this world who value the removal of material possessions in order to better detect the lasting worth of spirit values. This is a worthy undertaking and an initial stage of spiritual growth, for you cannot hear the birds sing if you are always talking. To quiet down, to simplify, increases the sensitivity of the awareness of the song all about you. However, Light and Life includes a certain degree of prosperity on a material level, not a prosperity of riches and wealth, but one of technologies that aid mankind in many fields, that frees the human being to better acquire those spiritual character traits. The shift is beginning. The effects of a materialistic mindset are exposing themselves such that you are better able to evaluate the merit of the orientation. As the orientation shifts the material progress will follow appropriate paths.

(I am) unable to predict the course of mankind. It is possible that your entire world structure may be disrupted if you don’t make the progress necessary to infuse spiritual orientation into your material matters. This will not be done by celestial agencies. It will be the result of the folly of mankind. But the administrations in place upon this world will do everything possible to illuminate the spiritual significance of any dark times and to bring to the surface those individuals who are pivotal in presenting the long view of the future and potential of Urantia. While such an event may never occur, for I do hold great hope that mankind is progressing well, it may fall to some of you even in this room to step forward to be noticed and to call others to take note of what is worthy and valuable for the future progress of the planet.

Kirk: You must be aware of the technologies available on the planet today that are secret from the public. We have technologies that could save the planet for the benefit of everyone. Is that the balance you are trying to say here? Will those secret technologies come out, or will they stay hidden to benefit the few? I hear you say not to get on the bandwagon because it may hurt others’ progress. Then I hear you say if you get on, then enlighten people of what we have on the planet today. Could you clarify that?

* Sharmon: Yes, I will. You said it well, but I will add to your perspective. The context you speak of is the context of value, that a technology is neither right nor wrong, simply a process of physical functions. It is the application and more importantly the choosing of application that brings the right or the wrong to the technology. You know that a forest fire is a frightening experience, for it is a power beyond one single individual’s ability to control and requires the rallying of many people to counter-force a fire’s energy. Yet long ago you discovered how to harness fire to make it useful to a tribe. Today you have altered that fire you harnessed into numerous energy applications. These have radically transformed the activities of humankind. I encourage you to acclaim the worth of beneficial technologies, and I would not discourage you from standing up against the evil applications of technologies. But I would ask you to transcend both undertakings by educating all you have a chance to with the perspective of planetary advancement, of the pattern of progress that overlays each critical juncture in the unfoldment of the development of your technologies, for this is what the world lacks today, that overview.

Today the human races speak of progress in terms of accumulation of wealth and of objects, of the discovery of things. These are merely parts of the progress that makes up the whole of what is to be Light and Life. By bandstanding the overview you create a context for many others to make choices regarding the merit of the technology, whether it ought to be or not, or how it’s to be applied and how it ought not to be.

* Sharmon: Yes. I speak as a united midwayer, for this was our decision to get on the bandwagon for Michael, to stand up against the Lucifer Rebellion. The undertaking of Lucifer and Caligastia was attractive in the early stages of the campaign, for it signaled advancement; it gratified many with the tangible results immediately. Yet throughout the process we were unable to discern the damages being wrought upon the structure that was ordained by Michael. When it became apparent to a few that mistakes were being made, it required those few to stand up and be heard. It was this bold action that began the turn around for the corps of midwayers. It signaled to the higher universe intelligences that Urantia indeed was going to survive this campaign of Lucifer.

I will draw close to this meeting today for Elyon and Aaron. As I look about me I see the presence of many wonderful personal teachers who enjoy ministering to you. By closing I would say that the patience that Elyon speaks of, temperance, forbearance, does not equate to complacency. You must always be keenly aware of the significance of each event that crosses your life and the greater events that cross the path of mankind, to discern, to choose and to act in light of the greatest truth you can grasp and the goodness you can manifest. Do so with confidence trusting that the Divine Spirit bestowed upon you will always adjust your intentions to refine them. Even if you discerned wrongly you have given the potential for the adjustment to occur and for you to change course. If you have chosen rightly you have the forces of the universe behind you to empower your efforts, to sustain you in conflict, to assure you.