A Season of Gratitude and a Time for Generosity

   

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By Mo Siegel, President, Urantia Foundation, Boulder, Colorado, USA

“Urantia is now quivering on the very brink of one of its most amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment.” (2082.7) 195:9.2

During certain years or decades of the twentieth century, wars and economic turmoil made it feel as though retrograde evolution had set in. Yet, if you look at the trends over the last 50 to 100 year, progress is observable on virtually every front. The glorious and progressive hand of the Supreme can be seen uplifting our planet. We are not going backwards! On the contrary, we are moving forward at an unprecedented speed compared to the million-year history of humankind.

Consider the following material changes since 1955. In “2005, compared with 1955, the average human being on Planet Earth earned nearly three times as much money (corrected for inflation), ate one-third more calories of food, buried one-third as many of her children and could expect to live one-third longer. She is less likely to die as a result of war, murder, childbirth, accidents, tornadoes, flooding, famine, whooping cough, tuberculosis, malaria, diphtheria, typhus, typhoid, measles, smallpox, scurvy or polio. She was less likely, at any given age, to get cancer, heart disease, or stroke. She was more likely to be literate and have finished school. She was more likely to own a telephone, a flush toilet, a refrigerator, and a bike. All this during a half-century when the world population more than doubled…” (Matt Ridley in his book The Rational Optimist)

The number of countries functioning as a democracy has grown from 30 countries in 1974 to 117 countries in 2011. World literacy has doubled between 1970 and 2010. At the end of November 2011, there were 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that's over 77 percent of the world’s population) using cell phones. We are living in the most abundant and technologically advanced society ever seen on Urantia.

Of all the spectacular advances in the twentieth century, the biggest jump forward was when the universe government, for the fifth epochal time in world history, stepped into the affairs of humankind. The world needed a new spiritual vision commensurate with the unprecedented advances in living standards and scientific discoveries. A new morality, based on recognition of our heavenly Father and the corresponding responsibilities toward the family of man, needed to emerge. The revelators knew that positive material changes were on their way, and that society required enhanced spiritual values and ethics to cope with the dramatic changes. “The higher a civilization climbs, the more necessitous becomes the duty to ‘seek first the realities of heaven,’ in all of man’s efforts to stabilize society and facilitate the solution of its material problems.” (2075:4) 195:5.1 Thus our unseen friends planned and created The Urantia Book anticipating that science would, in many ways, free humankind. They also understood that the scientific secularist revolt could crumble ecclesiastical authority while materially enslaving humankind if we lost sight of a personal God. So they provided us a book filled with God, hope, love, truth, beauty, goodness, and a better way of living.

You and I are some of the first people to read and treasure this new revelation. We are blessed to have the teachings of The Urantia Book in our minds and souls. Imagine your life if you didn't know about Thought Adjusters and the mansion worlds. However it happened, be it good luck or the reward of a long, diligent search, you discovered a book that explains Paradise; a friendly and inhabited cosmos; eternal life; and so much more! You found a book that answered questions about inhabited planets and dinosaurs within the same text that tells the thrilling story of our Creator Son coming to earth and living as Jesus of Nazareth. Plain and simple, you won the truth lottery. Future generations will look back at you with longing curiosity about what it must have been like being the first people on Urantia to discover this revelation.

Much has been given to us and much shall be expected. The saving truths in the book are the pearls of great price, worth every bit of love and energy we can muster for this cause. The saving power of The Urantia Book is like a life jacket tossed to a struggling swimmer. In this case and at this moment, we are holding the life jacket. These are thrilling times; these are the days to remember. “The call to the adventure of building a new and transformed human society by means of the spiritual rebirth of Jesus’ brotherhood of the kingdom should thrill all who believe in him as men have not been stirred since the days when they walked about on earth as his companions in the flesh.” (2084:6) 195:10.6

So please, in this holiday season, dig deep and give all you can to this revelation. Be big hearted to the various groups moving this spiritual project forward. At Urantia Foundation, we need your financial help to publish, translate, and distribute the book, and to educate people about its teachings. Your generous gift makes a difference in advancing the spiritual life on this world. When you get to the mansion worlds you won't miss the money and you'll be mighty grateful you gave while on earth. So please join us in seeding The Urantia Book and its teachings throughout the world.

May your holiday season be filled with the joy of selfless giving to those around you. As expressed so eloquently by Mother Teresa, “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”