The Perspective Of Cosmic Citizenship
Ever since I was a little child I realized that truth was slippery, that it meant different things to different people. An event in kindergarten Catechism stands out to this day as a turning point in my life. The good sister was teaching us about Jesus and she said that people living in deepest, darkest Africa wouldn’t go to heaven if they didn’t know about Jesus. This was very alarming to my child mind because I already knew that our heavenly Father would not punish us for our ignorance. I sensed that the nuns were trying to tell me something really important, but that they had somehow gotten it wrong.
As I grew up I suspected that The Bible contained more than the truth. The idea that the heavenly Father would require his Son to die on the cross for our sins was an insult to the Father himself, and evidence to me that The Bible had been rewritten too many times. While I did not throw the baby out with the bathwater I began to take my Catholic education with a grain of salt.
Throughout my angst-ridden teenage years, I sought answers from many sources. I read voraciously, sampling from the world’s religions, psychology, philosophy, and parapsychology I was aflame with questions. I wrote poetry, did LSD, received a mantra, and was rolfed and rebirthed. I checked out the Buddhists, the Rosicrucians and Esalen Institute. I looked for goodness and nobility and graciousness in the world and found little. I looked inside and found a lower and a higher self and recognized that I needed Jesus in order to master myself.
In the winter of 1973 I was living in a log cabin on the beach in Lincoln City, Oregon, experiencing the mystic, hippie dream. I still had many questions and some sorrows but I also had the solace of the sea and the beauty of nature. Into my life came four musicians from Chicago: Billy, Al, Jim and Brian. They were members of a jazz band on a road trip out West. They turned me on to jazz, and after those boys expanded my musical palette they changed my life by introducing me to The Urantia Book. They said they had been studying the book with a Dr. Brown and his wife at their summer place somewhere in Illinois.
The Urantia Book had come to me after an extensive search, and I devoured it. In page after page, it provided answers, insights, and affirmations that I had been seeking for years. It gave me the perspective of cosmic citizenship. As others have reported, I knew immediately what it was and I was overwhelmed by the importance of such a document. I felt honored and humbled and deeply grateful for receiving such a gift.
Most dear to me is Part IV, “The Life and Teachings of Jesus”; I never tire of studying the Master’s life. It so beautifully fleshes out the biblical account, filling in the holes and correcting mistakes by relating the rest of the story.
My entire life has been tremendously blessed and uplifted by The Urantia Book. I am able to look at the world and see meaning in the struggle, see my fellows as beloved children of the divine Father, and visualize the outworking of the divine plan. I look forward to the ongoing ascension adventure in service and in love.
