In my opinion, on a different time line, the Foundation could have kept the Brotherhood closer to them by loosening their own control over some legal aspects of the cooperative effort. They would have seen the need to let others publish the book and would have leased the rights to do so until their copyright expired. As a team with a moderately aggressive global marketing campaign, they could have overseen the publication of 20 million copies of the UB by this same time (about 55 years after publication). In that fantasy time line there never would have been a chance for the stagnation and corruption that split those organizations apart, kept this world-transforming message (almost literally) "in the closet," and could have made the end of the 20th Century the most progressive historical human age ever seen. In that time line an enlightened UB-educated, teacher-caste would have been mobilizing and honing their lesson plans, in preparation for the coming of the next Son.
There would be little debate about whether the book was meant for the 21st Century or 1,000 years from now. It would be quite obvious to our doubles in that other time line that just as the book itself was showing its age (as it is NOW), just at that right time these teachers educated by it would then take over the FER, updating it in a VALID and heavenly-sanctioned way. But this IS only a fantasy. And the fact that the fantsy never became a reality has nothing to do with the outside world. It is only our fault - the readership.
In our 'real' world this enthusiastic global marketing promotion never took place.
So here we stand in a new century, morally, not much more advanced then we were at the beginning of LAST century. FER-wise, we have a divided Foundation and Fellowship, a confused readership devoid of true LEADERSHIP, with fringe movements gaining more presence, non-UB- science surpassing the rudimentary (but once, valid) scientific UB concepts - which MIGHT have more fully advanced 20th Century science, had the UB been in the possession of the greatest scientific minds of those years. But that didn't happen.
Frankly, instead of bringing the Fifth Epochal Revelation in for a safe landing, updated, well-distributed, organized and ready to forge forward with the coming instructions of the new Son, on time, under budget and highly improved, we are barely off the ground in a duct- tapped version of human flight, tardy, over-budget, divided and unknown.
And who can say with any confidence how soon this new Son might arrive? Who is to REALLY say that it won't be this coming year? Or maybe on the cliche date: December 21, 2012. IF (for example) that cliche date is the case we have 55 years to make up for in exactly 3 years and two weeks from this very night. And it is just as valid (or in-valid) as any other date. In fact, the essence of the expectation alone gives 2012 an actual, and more quantifiable probability of actually occuring (though slight).
On an aside, privately, I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I am coming more and more to believe that SOMETHING is going to happen in 2012 to completely and undeniably overturn our current view of reality. A Magesterial visitation (for example) would certainly accomplish that. It won't be the end of the world by any stretch, but it could be a strong redefinition of it.
It will be a thing that there will be no question about after the initial shock of its introduction has passed by. So, I guess I'm (perhaps stupidly) 'coming out' with my opinion on the subject of 2012 briefly here, because I want to share the notion that I would rather prepare my own soul for December 2012 and suffer the social (human) embarrassment if it doesn't occur (whatever "it" is), than to live like I (or "we") have another thousand years of blissful technologically advancement and cheerful consumerism to look forward to before any REAL event takes place. No. I've been saying this since I first came to UBRON. This is the time...
UB 176.2.6.2 [my bold] "But you should be wise regarding the ripening of an age; you should be alert to discern the signs of the times. You know when the fig tree shows its tender branches and puts forth its leaves that summer is near. Likewise, when the world has passed through the long winter of material-mindedness and you discern the coming of the spiritual springtime of a new dispensation, should you know that the summertime of a new visitation draws near."
There are only a few quotes in the UB that give me shivers reliably... one is 44.1.8 and another is the above quote. I simply KNOW that they refer to events in my lifetime. And when I'm in certain moods or feeling down, I think of passages like these and find much comfort in their prophetic messages.
But I digress...
No story of the slothful steward would be more appropriate than our actual situation.
Are we ready to face a Paradise Son of God as he looks us in the eyes and says, "Well, let's see how you've invested my talent?"
And we'll look up at him and say what??
"Hi Mister Divine Being... We were expecting you a little later... We've been very thrifty though... Ah... We made sure no one abused your emblem, sparing no one, even suing some of your most faithful believers... You can count on us for protection! Um... We worked really hard to make sure that public interest in the FER didn't grow too quickly or be distributed to the wrong people, in the wrong way. We knew you wouldn't want that. Let's see, we did have some minor inner- organizational disagreements, where we actually had to SPLIT the entire movement up for a while to get properly adjusted. But finally after 30 years of dealing with that, we're very optimistic about our re-newed relationship. Of course I guess that isn't all that helpful now that you're actually here, your... Mage... Magesterialness, Sir. We sold lots of books though! 500,000! If you think about it, that is about 8,000 books per year... world-wide! That's enough to supply one twelve- thousandth of the world population with books! But there's a reason we didn't publish more... the readers just don't donate enough. And we've put so much of our efforts into translations and protecting the copyright for you, that we couldn't really sell more books than we've sold. But that works out fine, because we thought you wanted us to go slowly... So... Aren't we great??"
And the Avonal Son, or maybe Michael himself, or maybe BOTH, with Machiventa standing there beside them all, will respond in unison with, "That's it?????"
"Yeah............... Aren't... we... great?"
NO, NO, NO!!!! We're not. We're not great. We're not even approaching fairly-good! :) GREATNESS is a term that should be applied either to other worlds or to the hopes for our distant future. As UB readers we are not overly special. What we are doing with the movement is just barely acceptable, it is very far from extraordinary. And even as a species on this planet we are close to failure. We're the sluff-off planet. We're the Aesop's grasshopper of the worlds, sitting around playing lazy music in the sun, while some other rebellion-stricken inhabited world somewhere out there would give every eye tooth on the planet for an opportunity to publish - without restriction - a book that would prepare it for its next great Visitation.
But we are worse than the friendly grasshopper. We sit around killing ourselves with laziness, cigarettes, alcohol, sugar, man-made hydrogenated fat products, impossible work schedules, hypertensive social-status envy, ignorance of the natural world around us and war. We rape the earth and fight each other over who gets to deplete her fossil fuels the fastest. If there is a Gaian spirit of some sort she must just wish we would extinguish ourselves somehow and completely disappear.
I wonder if somewhere in the Local Universe some being hearing about all this "Urantia Revelation Project" rediculousness is rolling their eyes and saying, "...typical mediocre Urantians...can't get anything right..." We make ouselves look like a charity case for Michael. Our only saving GRACE is that He truly does love us, and actually walked upon the world as ONE OF US. ALMOST, no matter what we do to screw up our world's history, Michael will be there to catch us - but just as some Urantians make the choices that do not allow them to survive. Some theorize that some planets probably do too. But the criticism we deserve from other worlds and realms could be justified.
They could be right. We've squandered our time, wasted our resources, divided our community, fought amongst ourselves, watched the years go by, knowing that at anytime we could CHOOSE to flood the world with this book, and never have.
HOWEVER...
I would venture to bet that heaven is not a place without contingency plans that are exquisitely precise. This was all taken account of before that first contact night session in 1911. Surely, even our bumbling efforts with the FER was projected as a possibility. Give the lemurs anything, and they will frig it up. It is for this reason more than any other that I believe the UB is not equal to the FER. Epochal Revelations are meant to give human races PHYSICALLY PRESENT, materially visible PERSONALITIES with which to interact and learn from dynamically, not to have static words in a book, open to any-old interpretation. It is SO obvious that the UB is a stop gap measure to repair our backwardness just enough to present the finale of the FER; THAT, being the arrival of the new Son. It is obvious to me anyway.
The UB was meant as a short-term maintenance scheme for the rudimentary preparation of SOME portion of the planet's population for the next large PERSONAL contact. What we think of as NOW, could have been like it was in my fantasy time line descritption above. But it is the way it is. It happened the way it happened. We can (and for a while I think should) regret it. Either success or even failure were prepared for by the revelators. Personally, I believe the probability calculations for success of the revelators' "Urantia Book Project" for this age, just before the Son arrives, fell somewhere in between our botching its distribution as we've now done and the potential for complete failure on our parts. I don't think there was ever much hope in the revelator's minds for extraordinary cultural transformation from the UB alone.
At LEAST we haven't completely failed. At least we didn't lose our Master's talent altogether. So, we aren't COMPLETE FAILURES. Wow! what a consolation! :) And if we continue to look on the "bright side," we might be able to patch up enough of our 'charge' to effectively fix the blunders of our UB history. Too bad that this is happenning now, in the final few years before we may be asked to account for our stewardship of the FER. But, there IS still time to greatly improve what we have to work with.
It would be nice if the next Son arrived and said, "Well, it looked pretty shaky for a while there, Pete, but you really pulled it off! We're proud of you!" Can you imagine how much better that would feel than a divine reprimand? Just sayin's all...
And my approach to salvaging the thing as best we can, is to promote the following three things among the well-read members of our community [I include a lot of capitalization in the following to emphasize, not to yell]...
ONE - Continue NOT to promote the UB itself inter-personally, unless asked, specifically about the book, itself. Basically I'm saying that not proselytizing with friends and family is a good idea. The UB is NOT A RELIGIOUS TEXT. BUT, in every sense, the proselytizing of it TURNS IT INTO ONE in the eyes of a non-UB reader. When you are teaching other non-UB readers about the reality which the UB reveals, do it without using exclusive UB terms, especially the word, “URANTIA”. There are plenty of ways to quote the book, and describe any of its concepts without special terminology. The terms are for UB readers NOT non-UB readers. But the CONCEPTS are for EVERYONE right now.
TWO – Pour yourself into printing and high volume book and Internet distribution efforts. So even though you are not recommending the book to friends and family and being a pest to them, you are PHYSICALLY (and electronically) filling the world with UB's. People say that their needs to be sales. NOT TRUE! MOST people are given the book. And why should the Foundation and Uversa Press be counting ONLY on well-read Urantians to buy the books and then give them away. What kind of sales strategy is that? We can't rely on sale to dictate production. This is NOT a capitalist venture, even in the slightest way. Instead, I challenge EVERY ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO READ THIS POST to give a UB book away by New Year's day. If you don't own a paper book, send out the UB as an attachment to emails. Burn data discs with the book on it and leave them around town for people to find (your cost: $1.00 ea). If you have actual extra books, it is every one of our obligations to make sure that book is in our local library— EVERY ONE OF US. But just leaving them in strategic places can be very effective. Leave them at a local laundromats, bus stations, Dr's offices, taxi depots, anywhere where magazines or waiting rooms are provided. Try to be anonymous. People will not throw out a book like the UB. But they certainly will steal it from a public place (which is EXACTLY what we want). And if my suspicions about the celestials guiding people to the UB are correct NONE will be thrown away? :) Also, people will forevermore believe that they were MEANT to find the UB that way.
THREE – UB readers like myself, who spend any amount of time in a public way (writers, artists, musicians, actors, politicians, prominent scientists, ministers) have a EXTRA responsibility to work the UB's concepts into their productions and creativity. Give people the concepts plain and simple. This makes for a fertile mind- soil, for the UB, when they finally find it. And (conveniently) you are also following number TWO above (leaving the UB where it can be found). I've heard prominent people (some VERY prominent) say that they won't talk about the book or refer to it or won't even admit to reading it when asked directly. I think that is wrong, pure and simple. You should NOT be afraid to associate yourself publically with the revelation. It stands on its own. But never let yourself be a salesman for it. ALWAYS only give SPECIFIC UB info when it is asked for.
If you sit and actually think about the three things above. All are wholly counter-intuitive. YET, the idea that you being associated with the UB but not PUSHING it into people's faces will be seen as PROFOUNDLY noble restraint on your part (almost Christlike), when your friends and family finally catch the popular wave that will eventually sweep over the world. While, at the same time, you can make sure that anyone is able to get a UB by giving them away anonymously in public places, plus you are supporting the publishers of the UB.
Frankly it would be really nice if more people published the UB. The Foundation is more suited to a role of officially “certifying” any public domain publishing as “authentic” than scraping together enough money to supply a comparatively tiny amount books while also doing translations, etc. If more people were buying books and the Foundation was paid for its certification of authentic texts published by non-Foundation publishers, it would have much more in the way of resources to do its other (I think) more important duties (other than publishing). As I understand it, the only REAL commandment left to them was to “preserve the text inviolate.” It wasn't to preserve EVERY text as inviolate (as they once thought their mission was), but certifying another's UB text as inviolate IS a profitable fulfilling of their mandate. Just an idea. They should no longer consider themselves the leaders of the movement. And after nearly 60 years of non-leadership, I think it is safe to assume that no one considers them to be the leaders.
The leadership of the UB community needs to come (in a completely non- religious way) from the Fellowship. Unfortunately, as long as group prayer is encouraged along with such intense focus about Jesus papers over the other others, this leadership will be moot.
Perhaps there needs to be a third party? Some extremely simple organization, elected by readers in a grand online poll of some sort – maybe through UBRON. Still – and I'm serious about this – leadership of the movement CAN NOT BE RELIGIOUS AT ALL. The “mankind religion” mentioned in the UB is a phenomenon that really MAY be 1,000 years away.
So, to sum up...
We don't HAVE to pull our act together. We can just go along in our half-assed way doing whatever until the next Son arrives. Or we could utilize every possible way getting the FER, along with its concepts and teachings spread across the entire planet – just in a primitive way – to do as much as we can to prepare the way for this Son. This will mean doing counter-intuitive things like the three I mentioned above, but what we are doing NOW, doesn't work effectively. Period.
We also need to find either one or several REAL leaders for the movement, perhaps through some third party process (other than through the Fellowship or Foundation).
As READERS (strictly), we can be united without having to be the “Unity” that Maria and I tried so hard to initiate a couple years ago. We need a “UNITED URANTIA BOOK READERS” of some kind who come from ALL the various sub-movements and belief systems; having only ONE thing in common: reading the UB. It could have a staff of 12 or so people who work ONLY for all of the readership (through representative voting). People would have no choice in membership... If you are a reader you're in. It is like that already. Readers are readers. :) It can't be any simpler than that. Like being a US citizen simply by being born here, you are allowed to vote in US elections. Readers wouldn't have to do anything at all in the community. But if you wanted to, you WOULD have a voice in the direction in the cultural leadership of the movement through simple majority vote.
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