JenellYB

But were we ever to leave darkness entirely behind, would light even be light anymore, or simply nothingness? hot-cold dry-wet teacher-pupil light-dark... All words for concepts or states of being, that alone, without their opposite, have no meaning at all, becoming non-being. Jenell

Rivanna posted: superficial freedom to wander aimlessly, to make a choice of distractions (like Martha) evades the basic task of discovering who it is that chooses….finding who we are on the deepest level. Matt Ch 13:44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. 45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: 46 Who, when he had found one PEARL of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. Jenell

One of the things new to me I was introduced to while attending college, through the Religious Studies dept, was just how much interfaith dialog is taking place between Christian, not just Catholic but Protestant, Reformed, and Orthodox as well, and the Islamic community. Within the Religious center building where I attended college, there were almost daily interfaith gatherings in various commons areas, participation by those of any faith welcomed, in which speakers may be Muslim, Christian, Hindi, or any other. I witnessed beautiful mutual respect and bonding through common love in exploring how much we all have in common when we stop focusing on differences. An interesting personal relationship within my personal community is a couple, the husband is Arab, raised as a second generation American, by a Muslim family, but who himself converted to Catholicism at a very young age, and the wife, who is "casually" Baptist, raised in a staunchly fundamentalist Christian family and community, though herself not "churched" or much into relgion at all. It is the husband that handles and makes the decisions related to religion and faith with their 2 children, which he takes very seriously, and she is comfortable with leaving that to him. Interestingly, he is much more tradtionally conservative than she, and being around him, I can see how that is rooted both in his Arab/Muslim roots as well as his Catholicism. Interesting, too, is that his conversion to Catholicism doesn't seem to have seriously damaged his relationship with his still predominantly Musliim family. I think this is where real change is taking place in our culture, at the personal, "grass-roots" level of personal experience in the lives of people of faith, more so than even in the public efforts toward and expressions of interfaith dialog and integrated community. Jenell

Oh, my! That can be VERY serious! Even fatal! I'm glad they've discovered this! Jenell

Janet, yes the words, it is very much for me the words in his songs, as well as his incredible voice, that have made his music so meaningful for me. When I used 'transcendant' in my post to describe it, I didn't add, his cds are among the few in my music collection I make use of when I do want to meditate deeply, enter a deep prayerful, or connnected state....the affect me so quickly and deeply, I cannot play them at all simply for easy listening while doing other things...I wind up not caring whether dishes get done or not! Lol!

Bless you, Myron, and I too thank you for telliing us about it...it does help in understanding.... It is also of benefit to me personally, because I also for medical reasons often feel realy bad physically,and become cranky and irritable, and feel hurt when others seem impatient with me ...and too often then the hurt ball just starts getting passed back and forth. You help me realize, I need to explain my conndition, why I am sometimes that way, to others better, so they don't take it personally offensive. Jenell

Myron Jenell

One artist whose music is very special to me is Dwain Briggs...I first encountered him by chance when he was a guest at services I attended at St. John's Retreat in Montgomery, Tx, some years ago...this man's voice is incredible, and his "presence" in person is absolutely "luminous", that's the only word I can find that comes even close...if you EVER have a chance to see him in live performance, don't miss it, it will be a deeply moving spiritual experience. I have several of his CD's, among the most deeply spiritually moving--dare I say transcendant? music I have in my collection...However, he has kept his music under very tight control, I've never found a place on the web where you can just listen to it..no UTube videos on this one! I am going to share a website where you can listen to "samples" of 4 of his songs, not the complete songs, but enough to perhaps get a sense of what he is about... Jenell http://carmeltemple.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=113:briggs-dwain&catid=39:speaker-bios&Itemid=73 However, he keeps his music under very tight control, and I've never been abletofind any place on the web you can listen to it..no UTube video'son thiis guy!

For me, Progressive Christianity provides me a paradigm for something I've been seeking all my life...a context, a framework, for constructing a personal religous/faith beliefs system within which I can work to bring that which is above down into that which is below, to make the outer consistent with the inner, to faciliate the doing of God's will on Earth as it is in Heaven. A most frustrating and painful irony for me has been that the very most basic underlying cause of me having rejected so much of the Christian religious traditions of the circumstances of my time and place of birth and life has been and still is the core values instilled within me by that very same religious tradition! As surely as Christ was my cornerstone for the foundation of my system of values and beliefs, so has that been the foundation upon which my objections to and rejections of so much within Christian religious traditions, dogmas, beliefs, and practices as I encounter them in real life, and interpersonal relationships. This has been especially so in my attempt to align my social positions in my outer reality with my inner core values, rooted in my faith, that inform them. Jenell

To take up the study of mysticism with thought to become a mystic is as for a man to take up women's studies with thought to becoming a woman. (not sure if I read that somewhere I can't recall, or if I made it up myself Jenell)

I must admit that my subsequent attempts at reading haven't fared any better than my initial ones..I still can't get past the pantheons and heirarchies of beings and model of the cosmos and what not, to find any common point of reference from which to relate any of it to myself, my life and experience of life, my existence within and relationship to my ground of being or my environment. I guess I just can't find any place for the rubber to meet the road...Perhaps if you could get beyond all those things, into how you feel the material has helped you in any of these contexts, I can find a place to get a handle on it...As others have suggested, perhaps you could work relevant excepts from the UP into some of the various topics discussed throughout the board, so we can see it that way. I can see from your posts it is very important to you, and respect that, but just don't see any relevance to myself. Best wishes, Jenell

Tonight, AC off, windows and doors opened up, listening to the steady drumming of rain, REAL RAIN, on the metal roof of my old house, the gentle drippings upon leaves, the whoosing of wind in the trees, the chattering music of wind chimes...praising, praising, inaccurate weather predictions as the tropical storm that made land fall in eastern Lousianna defies the forecast northward track to turn and roll toward to west instead.....our fervent hopes and prayers here in parched east Texas for at least a few scattered showers off it are being generously met with much more... .....wondering what I'm to do with the giamongous (or is that humungus?) Labrador Retriever I rescued off the busy state hwy in front of my house, several days ago...with my sisters 11 yr old dog, sedate, dignified, content to lay about, I don't even have a fenced area any more...placed in the largest crate I still have from my days with Alaskan Malamutes, the poor guy is rolled up in a ball to fit, and I think he's actually still a puppy...I let him loose in here once, quickly realized every surface between 12"-36" in here has to be pre-cleared before I try that again..very well mannered fellow, but I now wonder why they don't chop the tails off these things at birth if anyone plans to allow them in a house! ....grieving, trying to find center, and let myself drift until I find course, if any is to be found, in a catastropic crisis in a close part of my family, where I nor most others would have ever thought...never, never underestimate how extent to which mental illnesses such as Bi-Polar and OCD can take someone off track, the extended damage that can result...in this, two marriages in shambles, children caught in the unimaginable chaos....knowing, but unable to do anything, that when it all settles, the affected one that has spun out of control, when she eventually comes back to reality, and what she's done.....how much she has lost....for all touched by it, just the most heart -breaking grief, a sense of helplessness.... ...but the rains are here, gentle but steady, finally, replenishing the parched plants and grounds...a gift of consolation tonight, for those other concerns? I seek within, spiritual rain, to fall cool and replenishing upon my heart and mind and spirit.... Jenell

Sometimes I think that if there are really such things as daemons or gremlins,then I have some really freaky crazy ones hanging around me! Whatever freaky wierd kind of thing that might be possible seems to happen with extraordinary regularity in my life. Water well problems again today...got my trusty voltage tester and stuff and went into diagnositic mode...I'm still repeatedly looking at what I found, convincing myself this is real.....a tiny pinhole just under the top edge cap of a 25 amp time delay fuse....and a little pile of dead ants inside...I couldn't figure out what they were or how they got in there until a still live one crawled out of the pinhole, causing me to notice it. Jenell

I will go back and try to read more of the UP....my first effort was short-lived, to be honest, when I encountered all the space alien stuff and sci-fi sounding explanations of the nature of the cosmos. I still do not understand how any of that wouuld be relevant or contribute to any value of a wisdom work. Not trying to be hyper-critical, just honest and practical. Jenell

Myron, thank you for your input, you present things I had not discovered in my own efforts to research Dr. Sadler. Brent, the material in your post is something I had already read in my internet browsings. On reading my way through Jung's works...of course his complete collected works as well as separately published works were accessable to me while I was attending UH toward my degree in recent years (2008 grad). I also had a number of occasions to spend time curled up in a library chair with various volumes as I delved through them for various references relevant to term papers and other projects, but not actually work my way through fully reading them. But as I imagine anyone that has tackled full time college studies, one thing the college experience did was utterly deprive me of much opportunity to pursue reading that I chose at will, for my own enjoyment or interests. I have long lists of books and authors I encountered during my years in college, that I hoped to be able to find time to read someday, when the grind of assigned college reading was behind me. Jenell I've decided this is my time for Jung. Many of his works can be found very cheap on auction sites like EBay, as well as used book sellers. I will also be checking the public library for some I can't get that way, but I'd prefer not having to worry about return/renewal dates as I take my time to read, think, re-read, to comprehend them. I do still have alumni access to the library at UH, but it's a round trip of well over 100 miles round trip, and right into the heart of downtown Houston. I did that trip multiple days a week for those years, looking back now, not quite sure how I actually did that!

I was away yesterday and most of today, so I guess its mostly done what its going to do to you by now, hope you came through it ok...being here on the upper Texas coast, took a direct hit by Ike and hard glancing blows from Rita and Gustov in recent years, I can sure sympathize with you, though must admit, glad its you and not me this time....Falling trees and big limbs are my greatest hurricane concern also, thought I am getting real tired of having to wander neighbor's yards and pastures to gather up what I can find of the sheet metal roofs on my sheds each time, at least Im not at risk of serious flooding due to storm times ir heavy rains. Jenell

"Fiddler on the Roof" is one I would add, perhaps someone else has already mentioned it and I missed it....I am going too copy and save some of the lists and comments... Espeically thanks to Rivanna for the resouce shared above, I went and glanced at it, its great! Jenell

It is strange how seemingly random events can shape any of our lives..... As a child, I was a voracious reader, by the end of elementary school, I had a devoured pretty much everything i both the school and local public library, at least the sections they would allow a child into those days. I've always been one of those that even have to read the cereal box in it's entirety at breakfast..I read every volume of the sets of encyclopedias for recreational pastime, if it lands in front of me, I figure I'm supposed to read it.... At some point along in there, I discovered a dusty, musty old box of books buried under the stacks of baggage of my parent's lives to that point, in a garage storage closet....and worked my way through pretty much all of them more than once.... they were Time-Life collected works of John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, and Zane Gray. No wonder I turned out a little strange, and most definitely on the liberal social-justice bent......and no doubt my early introduction to Elmer Gantry had more than a minor influence on the directions my develpment of attitudes toward organized religion would take.... Jenell

George, yes.... For some reason, the story of Hagar and Ismael has always been one that touched me deeply, in ways not always compatable with the general religious thought around me... Hagar was at the mercy of her slave masters, an obedient servant to Sarah....just as the women I mentioned in my post above, she was at their mercy, and had no choice in the matter of laying with Abram and concieving a child by him. It was at her mistresses' order....she dutifully bore Ishmael, son of Abraham.... and then suffered the jealousy and wrath of that same mistress whe circumstances having nothing to do with her or what she did, changed everything. I have always felt such compassion for Hagar, thrown ouut into the wilderness, and her son Ishamel, rejected by the father he had loved and thought loved him... But most powerful to me, about that, was that God had compassion for Hagar, showed mercy on her and her child, and most of all, in His mercy, promised her that her that He knew her faithful service, and promised to make of her son a great nation.... When I learned Hagar and Ishmael are traditionally the progentators of the Arab peoples, they too took on a special place in my estimation and my heart. Long before today's tumultous matters in the middle east, and the present prevailing hatred and despising of Arabic peoples, I read a bit about these nomadic peoples of the wilderness, their culture, their values, their ideas about God, called in the Arabic tongue, Allah, and came to feel respect and love for them. That has made events and culturaldevelopmennts of recent years difficult for me, a source of great conflict... I still feel strongly different toward those peoples, and the place they may have in God's plan, even as set forth in the bible...what kind of God would have thought it merciful to spare Hagar and Ishmael, promise to make of them a great nation, only to have it end up with millions of members of that great nation doomed to damnation and hell? I cannot, will not, accept that. I am incliined to accept that Gd did indeed send to them "the Prophet", they were a nomadic culture basically rejected and cut out from the Jewish and Christian communities by merely their incompatable nomadic lifestyle. I cannot accept that God had no special provision for them as a people. And it all began with the obedience of a simple slave girl that lat with her mistress's husband, for the purpose of bearing him a child, a matter she had no choice in, yet accepted, embracing and loving that child as a a devoted mother....I cannot but feel the deepest compassion,and respect, for such a woman. Jenell

George, my own childhood memories of experiences of the social issues here in the south seem similar to your own..."colored people" were different, separate, no equal, but also not despised of the be treated disrespectfully. And, my family was mostly a lower working class that never had hired domestc help, and many had also lived through some hard times and poverty, had worked low prestige jobs, that included chopping and picking cotton, as well as a fair number of the women having themselves worked as domestics, house cleaning, taking in laundry, and the like, though these women were all white, not black or hispanic. I've read "The Help" but not seen the movie. My one reservation about not only "The Help" but the image of this sort about the white/black social issues of the South is what I feel is a distortion that misses an important component...underyling the black/white is the power/subjegation pertaining to wealth and social class, in addition to, and apart from, racism. The routine casual acceptance of the more wealthy, powerful, socially elite, commonly using and abusing those poor and less powerful, is not just a "Southern" issue, however. Without identifying their relationships to me out of respect for privacy for any touched by such incidents in the past, desperately poor women and even young minor girls were forced to tolerate often terrible abuse, inclding sexual abuse, rape, as a condition of their jobs. Even if willing to give up the job, they knew, or learned in hard ways, no one would believe them or take their part if they reported or protested the abuse. That is one part of what I know domestics suffered back then that I found missing from the book, "The Help", and that bothered me when I read it. Honestly, the women in "The Help" were treated with much more respect and decency than I know was common at the time. The attitudes of the whites are presented as being lack of respect, but in mostly petty ways, rather than the abusive disrespect that was unfortunately common at the time. I am aware of multiple older women within just my own extended family that suffered such sexual abuse while workig as domestics, and that even gave birth to their abusers' babies..in most, and actually in all those I have personally learned of, the pregnancies were hidden, the babies surrendered for adoption at birth, and the whole nasty matter kept tightly sealed under secret. In one particularly difficult and painful occasion not all that many years ago, within my own family, such a child, by then a woman in her 50's, at last found the birth mother she had searched for so many years...she had romanticized illusions of finding her birth mother, discovering her conception and birth circumstances as the result of her mother's "young love" forbidden by old-fashioned parents...she was totally unprepared for the terrible wounds her sudden appearance would rip open. The birth mother had largely blocked the memory, and neither her husband nor her children had ever even suspected she had given birth to a child no one knew about. Or, that she was going to have to replace her romantic notions of her birth circumstances with the ugly truth, that she was the result of her young teen mother's sexual abuse by her wealthy employers, and not some socially unapproved young love affair. "The Help" is a good book, and I do want to see the movie, but I do think it signficantly softens, prettys-up, a more nasty and harsh reality of the era it represents. Jenell

Brent, I feel I need to put some percpetive to my postion here...it is not my intent to treat this topic, you, or your beleifs in a manner that is disresptful or dismissive....honestly I would NOT have expended the time or energy I have toward researching the Urantia papers and their source and orgin if that were the case. But I am a very pragmatic and logic oriented thinker, and in anything I consider upon, am definitely the "why?" kid... You've stressed it seems, that any true evaluation of the Urantia papers requires reading them entirely, and that we are talking about a pretty massive text...I know I am not alone in that I already have a pretty formidable "must read" list, and forevery bookI finish reading there are at least a dozen more pulled out of my book stores awaiting me on my desk....and I've just just now begun to formidable undertaking of aquiring and reading the works of Carl Jung as I can locate them foran affordable cost. What I'm saying is, not only myself, but others here, need some substantial reason to devote that much time and effort to reading such a hefty tome that is admittedly heavy going for even advanced readers. Can you give us that? What have the Urantia papers to offer us we can't get elswhere more easily ,or do not already have? Jenell

Just to help clarifiy a common misunderstanding....the differences and relationship between Psychiatry and Clinical or Abnormal Psychology.... Both deal primarily with the MAJOR mental illnesses and brain diseases, most of which have an ORGANIC component, such as schizophrenia, but from a different perspective. For this reason, many such patients are treated concurrently by BOTH a Psychiatrist and a Psychologist. Psychiatry is based on the medical model, thus the required training as a medical doctor. The Psychiatrist most often uses medications and medical proceedures in the treatment/management of major mental illness. A Psychologist addresses the behavioral, cognitive and psychological aspects of the patient's treatment and management...ie, helping the person deal with and adapt to the particular problems with life the illness itself presents for them. In light of this, I do not understand why Dr.Sadler, supposedly a Psychiatrist, would have been attending to SS's incidents of 'unusual state' on a regular basis...usually, a psychiatrist would have attended medical testing to attempt to discover a physical cause, personally sitting with a patient experiencing on going abnormal episodes would not usually be something a psychiatrists would consider part of his task. These are serious questions for me about this topic. Jenell

Brent wrote: "Dr. William Sadler (sometimes called the father of American psychiatry)" Brent, do you have some kind of reference that can independently document this? I will be very honest, in having turned my attention to trying to learn something about Dr. Sadler and others associated with the Urantia papers, I'm very uncomfortable with what I'm finding. Perhaps you can provide some resources for directly addressing some of these issues ofconcern to me. As for your statement above, 1st, havong recently completed a BS in psychology, with incluuded coursesin Abnormal and Clinical Psychology,(which deal with the same major mental illnesses as tradtionally addressed with Psychiiatry, I can't recall any reference to this man, and now having gone through the indices of my textbooks from those courses, in which all persons cited or referenced in those texts are catalogued, did not find even a single reference to him. Anyone considered even by some part of these fields would, I think, at least mention someone consider 'the father of american psychiatry'. As best my research has found so far, Dr. Sadler held an M.D., was a medical doctor, but no reference anywhere outside Urantia related sources to his having held any degree or been formally recognized as either a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Also of concern, far from having a background that would indiicate he was an entirely scientific and pragmatic man, his back ground was with the early Seventh Day Adventisits. with personal connection to Ellen White, a self-proclaimed "prophet", and a religious movement out of which orginated a number of fringe groups and groups of questionable "cult' nature, including the Branch Davidian cult involved in the disaster in Waco, Texas a few years ago, rasies serious questions aboutthis evaluation of his postion. Dr.Sadler aparantly became involved in this Urantia papers matter after having broken from Seventh Day Adventists and Ellen White's organization under unpleasant circumstances. In one of my Psychology/Religious Studies "cross-over" courses, examining how dysfunction canarise within relgious scultures and movements, the Branch Davidians cult,beginningwith its origins withinthe Ellen White Seventh Day Advantist movement, was actually the case we studied in depth in exploring how evenseemingly sane, rational, intellegent people can be drawn into a process in which they progressively move further and further from consensus reality and rational world view. We also looked at that analysis in context of efforts at psychological/emotional "deprogramming" involved in retrieving someone from a cult influence. Based not only on the information regarding the Seventh day Adventist movement as I encountered in school,but on a good deal of personal contact with several segments of my extended family that are involved with that group, I do think Seventh Day Adventist IS a cult, does meet theological as well as psychological criteria as a cult. Some resources to clear concerns such as these appreciated. Jenell

Seen on tv news, on a sign in front of a Houston, Tx business: "Satan called...he wants his weather back."

Paul, your timing is perfect....wander over to the tcpc.org forums, Progressive Christianity and Dialog and Debate, we been tossing that very question about recently....come read what we've shared, perhaps there is something waiting for you to find it there... Jenell