The Cosmic Citizen

An Inspiring Story Shared by a gentleman coping with had a tragic family loss Dave Graves from Ottowa, Canada, shares a startling experience connected with the tragic accidental death of his wife and grown son, in a freak accident.  Local media were on site at the time when Dave experienced this event, and as a result, it was covered on a television news program. This along with a personal visit with a reporter, gave Dave some unexpected help with publicizing his profound experience.  As a result, many people contacted him, wrote and called him to hear about his faith and religious beliefs.  Please tune in to hear more about his story and his interest in sharing this with others.

Last week we featured the amazing and inspiring Dr. Margaret Paul. Her emphasis on Inner Bonding & Self Healing has taught countless souls to turn inward to find peace and comfort from the divine and perfect parent within. This week we will focus on developing a personal life philosophy based on the art of living and the lures of maturity. We will focus on the wisdom of Rodan, the Greek philosopher. He stated that meditation and relaxation help make possible the contact of mind with spirit and that strength-giving, worshipful and contemplative habits eventually formulate a mature and spiritual personality. That while difficult and time-consuming at first, regular prayer and meditation become habitual, restful and timesaving. Certainly, the more complex and stressful our lives become the more we will all need to conserve and augment our spiritual energies. We want to make our families, lives and world better, but that requires work, and work requires energy. Modern life can leave us wondering where we will find the power to accomplish these lofty goals. Even if we possess a normal body and reasonably good health, we must call forth the slumbering spiritual forces within us.  Surely, the power of God is within us, but how do we release our soul-bound powers of divinity and infinity? How can we unleash the power of  the inner-divine to refresh our own souls and serve to enlighten, uplift, and bless countless other souls? How best can we awaken these latent powers for good which lie dormant within us? These are the topics we will be exploring tomorrow on the Cosmic Citizen. Please join us.

Margaret Paul holds a Ph.D. in psychology and is a celebrated author, relationship expert, public speaker, seminar leader, consultant, facilitator, and artist. She has appeared on many radio and TV shows, including the Oprah show. She has successfully worked with thousands of individuals, couples and business associates and taught classes and seminars for over 42 years. Her books have been distributed around the world and have been translated into many languages. After practicing traditional psychotherapy for 17 years, Margaret was discouraged by the results – both for her clients and herself. She had spent years trying to heal from her own dysfunctional and abusive background, but found herself still suffering with anxiety and relationship problems. She started to seek a process that works fast, deep, creates permanent change, loving relationships, inner peace, and joy. In 1984, a partnership with Dr. Erika Chopich resulted in an incredibly powerful healing process, Inner Bonding. Margaret works with individuals and couples throughout the world via phone, workshops and intensives. She relies on spiritual guidance during her sessions, enabling her to work with people where and as they are. Dr. Margaret has just completed a 12 year project called SelfQuest®, which is a transformational self-healing/conflict resolution software program. SelfQuest® is being donated to prisons and schools and sold to individuals, families, and businesses. You can read about SelfQuest® and see a short video of it at http:/selfquest.com. In her spare time, Margaret loves to paint, make pottery, take photos, watch birds, read, ride and play with her horses, and spend time with her children and grandchildren.

As is so eloquently emphasized by Sir Ken Robinson, “We make very poor use of our talents,” the majority of people out there go through their whole lives never knowing what their talents may be.  So many people don’t really think they are good at anything, don’t enjoy their work and spend their lives spinning their wheels and wasting their talents. Others spend their lives doing what they love and can’t imagine doing anything else, because their work is their life. Reform won't work, it simply improves a broken model. What we need is a Revolution in Education.  Innovation has to change what we take for granted in education. Abe Lincoln once said, " “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion.” Our guest for tomorrow is H. Joseph Menton who has also researched educational reform extensively. He writes: "The idea is that we need to get everyone to college or into industrial ‘working class’ jobs. The status of public education in America is contentious, often misunderstood and very disappointing, not to mention ineffective.  A cursory scan of the rankings, funding, and satisfaction levels with status quo often leaves one aghast:  We are failing in our responsibility to properly educate our children.  This problem shifts into crystal clear focus once we accurately identify the origins of public education in America and see how the divisive attitudes and ideas which drove the first efforts at schooling in this country are still at work under the policies and administrative systemization which these ideas initiated.  Human flourishing is not a mechanical process, life it’s a natural organic process, and must be nurtured to do what a humans were designed to do, to develop their own solutions.

Marriage and Family Life, Paper 84, as well as Papers 82 & 83 on marriage are “presented by the Chief of Seraphim” on our beloved world—“a volunteer supernaphim of the primary order serving on Urantia as the successor of the onetime chief of the angelic hosts of the planet who defaulted” who “preside[s] over th[e] council of seraphic chiefs.”  [TUB ] Marriage and our families, which are undergoing such dramatic testing worldwide, are important to our planet or the authors would not have devoted three papers and more to them. We invite you to call in with quotes for discussion or discoveries in your application of these truths to your own life.  We’ll make it a study group discussion on what The Urantia Book says about marriage and family and your experiences with these vital institutions! To whet your appetite for this discussion, consider some of what a superangel of Paradise says: “[H]ome building should be the center and essence of all educational effort.” [84:0.1] “[O]nly families are continuing agencies in social evolution. The family is the channel through which the river of culture and knowledge flows from one generation to another.” [84:0.2] “A man and a woman, co-operating, even aside from family and offspring, are vastly superior in most ways to either two men or two women. This pairing of the sexes enhanced survival and was the very beginning of human society.” [84:1.9] “[A]ny attempt to shift parental responsibility to state or church will prove suicidal to the welfare and advancement of civilization.” [84:7.27] Call in with your reflections and heartfelt expression on these and other aspects of the significance of marriage and family life.

The UThe  ??The Urantia Book tells us that in order to fall in love with someone you have to have a thorough understanding of their motives and sentiments. In that vein, we've invited two of our favorite people persons, Michelle Klimesh and Lee Loots, to discuss how the Enneagram and Myers Briggs have helped them achieve a better personal and professional understanding of the people they meet. Michelle Klemish has owned and managed a large gymnastics school near Oakland, CA, for over twenty years. She incorporates both Myers Briggs and the Enneagram as useful tools to help her coaches know and understand their students and colleagues. Lee Loots (pronounced Lotes) discovered the Enneagram while in Seminary at the Pacific School of Religion. She attended a workshop on the Enneagram while enrolled in a hospital chaplaincy unit. This led her to take training with the enneagram institute based in New York. Lee considers Enneagram work to be a practical and creative hobby that has inspired her passion for understanding people.  There is a wealth of online information about Myers Briggs and the Enneagram as well as tests that will reveal your own personality type.

WellWEWeWsksks ?Well, it's almost 2013 and while some predicted the end of the world, we are still here. It appears we still have some work to do to ensure a better future for the next generation. It's fitting that our last show of 2012 is the third and final installment on family as the master civilizer. A listener reminded us that Jesus said that "it is the divine will that men and women should find their highest service and consequent joy in the establishment of homes for the reception and training of children." He speculated that this statement seems to be one of the very few places where God’s divine will is specifically stated as it applies to us. This comment left us asking if later-life partnerships and marriages without children are handicapped relationships? What makes a family strong? Does rearing children make a family strong? Do families grow close because of blood or because of a spiritual bond? A man and a woman who join in marriage, have no blood bond between them, and yet they can become bound on a level much deeper than blood. Why do two relative strangers come together and create a family? How do they stay strong when children leave? We'll explore these matters relating to family life, including non-traditional families, so please join us.

We posed the question last week:  In these troubled times how can we maintain strong families?   We dug deeply into The Urantia Book’s teachings on the family and civilization and spoke on the family’s significance and what constitutes a “good” family creating worthy adult children and world citizens. This week we address Michael of Nebadon’s inspiration of tens of thousands of trillions of human beings throughout his realm by his inspiring portrayal of fatherhood and brotherhood in the life he lived as Joshua ben Joseph (Jesus); eldest brother and acting father of those eight brothers and sisters after his human father Joseph’s untimely death. Did Jesus regard the family as important?  Consider this statement to John Mark, the originator of the first New Testament gospel, regarding his and his friend’s personal family life: 177:2.2   “I know you will prove loyal to the gospel of the kingdom because I can depend upon your present faith and love when these qualities are grounded upon such an early training as has been your portion at home. You are the product of a home where the parents bear each other a sincere affection, and therefore you have not been overloved so as injuriously to exalt your concept of self-importance. Neither has your personality suffered distortion in consequence of your parents’ loveless maneuvering for your confidence and loyalty, the one against the other." Just that one little quote is rich with implications for better family and interpersonal management. Please join us Saturday at 10 AM MST on Cosmic Citizen!

WThe Urantia Book says, "While religious, social, and educational institutions are all essential to the survival of cultural civilization, the family is the master civilizer. A child learns most of the essentials of life from his family and the neighbors. It further says, "The family is the fundamental unit of fraternity in which parents and children learn those lessons of patience, altruism, tolerance, and forbearance which are so essential to the realization of brotherhood among all men." And that, "Almost everything of lasting value in civilization has its roots in the family."  If says unequivocally, "The family as an educational institution must be maintained." But then, it gives us a stark warning: "....self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home—man's supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization's only hope of survival." In these troubled times how can we maintain strong families? How, for instance, do the fruits of the spirit influence a functional family life on a broader spectrum?  What can we do if we haven’t learned interpersonal relationship skills in our family of origin?  What can we add to our own knowledge base that will allow us to create strong, stable and healthy families now and in the future? What tools are available to us for this purpose? Perhaps you have some practical ideas or family experiences that can help to answer these questions in insightful and meaningful ways. We invite you to call in and explore this important topic with us on The Cosmic Citizen.

This week we are delighted to have one of our favorite guests, PHYLLIS TICKLE. In celebration of her new book, Emergence Christianity-What It Is, Phyllis has arranged a national conversation on the emergence of our faith, January 11-12 in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee and she'll tell us all about it. Phyllis, is the founding editor of the Religion Department of PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, the international journal of the book industry, and is frequently quoted in print sources, electronic media, and innumerable blogs and web sites. She is an authority on religion in America and a much sought after lecturer on the subject. In addition to lectures and numerous essays, articles, and interviews, Tickle is the author of over two dozen books in religion and spirituality, such as Emergence Christianity-What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters, The Great Emergence, How Christianity is Changing and Why and The Words of Jesus. Tickle began her career as a college teacher and served as Academic Dean to the Memphis College of Art before writing and publishing full time. She has received the Mays Award, a prestigious award for lifetime achievement in writing and publishing, a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Christy Awards, an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the Berkeley School of Divinity at Yale University, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from North Park University. She is a founding member of The Canterbury Roundtable, and serves on a number of advisory and corporate boards. A lay Eucharistic minister and lector in the Episcopal Church, the mother of seven children and, with her physician-husband, makes her home on a small farm in Lucy, Tennessee.