Urantia Foundation's News Online |
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Dear friends, While the autumnal equinox has cast lengthening shadows over Chicago, we trust our new issue of News Online will brighten your day! Within these pages you will read about the long awaited Android app, a way of bringing the light of revealed truth to millions of people across the globe. You may appreciate the timing of this new modality even more, once you read about the precarious and uncertain state of economic supply chains. Two articles about teachers, two from one reader's relatively short lifetime, and another from 4,000 years ago, will serve to show how individuals can leave an inspiring and enduring legacy. Those of us who embrace the three concentric circles will enjoy tracing their provenance on the pottery of ancient cultures. Personal stories about the quality control process of the new Spanish revision, the best and the worst ways of sharing the revelation, and another heartfelt testimony about What The Urantia Book Means to Me round out our latest edition. As always, we include some important announcements and a summary from the July board of trustees meeting. This issue also contains two invitations from Urantia Foundation. One is to visit the collection of artifacts encased in the basement library at 533 Diversey. The other is to submit your own story about how you shared The Urantia Book and it's teachings, both the best and the worst.
Sincerely, Cece Forrester, Marilynn Kulieke, Joanne Strobel, and Tamara Strumfeld Editors of Urantia Foundation's News Online |
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~ Maximizing Outreach ~ with an Android App |
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~ By Ashley Parratore ~ Urantia Foundation staff, North Carolina, United States
When it comes to electronics, many people say it’s an Apple world. That may be true in the United States and other industrialized nations, but the fact is, 72% of the world’s population use an Android. That is a lot of phones and tablets!
There has been a successful Urantia Book app for Apple users since 2009, thanks to Dandelion Applications. Offering 13 languages of the book, it has averaged nearly 32,000 downloads per year over the past decade. We now have an opportunity to reach the other 72%.
Urantia Foundation has been developing an app that will give... Read More |
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~ Updates from the July 2021 Trustee Meeting ~ |
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~ By Judy Van Cleave ~ secretary, Urantia Foundation, Idaho, United States
Operations Overview: Highlights of second-quarter operations include: 1) securing printing bids and paper supply (paper shortage due to COVID-19) to print 30,000 English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish books, and preparing text files for this printing; 2) finishing the 2020 audit and annual report; 3) fine-tuning the new Android app that will be available this fall; 4) customizing our internal donor management system; 5) concluding a successful April trimester at UBIS; 6) starting a board study on the interface of evolution and revelation; 7) growing social media on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn; and 8) continuing the necessary steps for launching the fifth revision of the Russian translation... Read More |
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~ A Decade of Quality and Dedication ~ the Revision of El libro de Urantia |
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~ By Gaétan Charland ~ associate trustee, Québec, Canada
Several years ago, I was invited to serve on a new committee tasked with organizing and managing the rollout of the new revision of El libro de Urantia. This service opportunity gave me the privilege of meeting the team of readers who dedicated 10 years of their lives to this revision project. It also gave me an inside look at, and appreciation of, the processes put in place by Urantia Foundation that guarantee the highest-quality revision of a translation of The Urantia Book.
As an outsider looking in, I share my observations of what I have seen, witnessed, and appreciated. While I am not an expert on either translating or revising, I do have firsthand experience... Read More |
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~ The Effect of Supply Chains ~ on Book Printing and Distribution |
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~ By Henk Mylanus ~ Trustee Emeritus and European Sales Manager, Bretagne (Brittany), France
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Europe, it quickly became apparent that large manufacturing companies depending on fast supplies from Asia would have difficulties satisfying their needs for components.
On an international scale, the most obvious example was the breakdown of the supply chain for microprocessors being used in large quantities in the automobile industry. The various lockdowns in Asia, for example in Singapore and Taiwan, created a production shortfall of 22% to 30%. As a result, United States automotive plants like... Read More |
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~ The Enduring Legacy of Two Great Teachers ~ |
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~ By Claire Mylanus ~ associate trustee emeritus, Bretagne (Brittany), France
What is a great teacher? The Urantia Book tells us that Jesus was “a wise, patient, understanding, and effective teacher.” 124:5.6 (1373.6) This description of Jesus could apply to my teachers as well—Henk and Baukje Begemann.
They were Dutch, and we met in 1978. I studied with them both until 1987, and then continued with Baukje after Henk passed away. This was a blessing that lasted more than 15 years.
I was living in the Netherlands in 1976 when I discovered The Urantia Book. I came across a book called... Read More |
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~ A Quadrimillennial Appreciation ~ of Machiventa Melchizedek |
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~ By Krystyna Wardega-Piasecka ~ Sandnes, Norway
Have you ever wondered, dear readers of The Urantia Book, why Machiventa Melchizedek is called “one of the most unique of all characters ever to become connected with the history of Urantia"? 93:10.11 (1026.1) If not, that moment may have just arrived. For this year, we mark the fourth millennium since his incarnation in the flesh on our planet.
Melchizedeks are the highest class of local universe sons created by Michael, the Creative Mother Spirit, and the Father Melchizedek. The Melchizedeks are the highest sons who can approach living beings. Because of the range of practical tasks and capabilities... Read More |
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~ Three Concentric Circles ~ Our Michael Son’s Banner |
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~ By Gard Jameson ~ treasurer, Urantia Foundation, Nevada, United States
In 1973, while living in Berkeley, California, I visited the library at the Pacific School of Religion and observed a display case with archaic pottery from Israel with three concentric circles. There were several pieces with the same design. I was impressed.
In 1985, I took my new wife to Israel for our honeymoon. While there, we befriended a Catholic monk, a Palestinian art dealer, and the curator of the Israeli Museum, Raffi Brown. They were friends with one another—a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew. As an advocate of interfaith relations, I found it delightful to... Read More |
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~ Sharing The Urantia Book ~ |
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~ By Geri Johnson ~ associate trustee, Hawaii, United States
As students of The Urantia Book, we know it is our great privilege to share truth, to further the understanding of God to this confused world, and to live the message of God’s love for all his children. It is not a question of do we spread the fifth epochal revelation. It is only a matter of how we do it.
Collectively we hold a treasury of valuable lessons in how to share The Urantia Book, which we will offer as a new series in the newsletter. Many of us learned how to talk to others about this revelation by first learning what not to do. The good news is that we benefit from... Read More |
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~ What The Urantia Book Means to Me ~ |
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~ By Michelle Heulot ~ Chinon, France
We are all pilgrims on the path of life and truth. My path was illuminated when I discovered The Urantia Book, or rather when it found me! I was then in the midst of a religious and spiritual upheaval, my scientific, archaeological, and historical research having shaken my convictions based on a literal interpretation of the Bible.
For decades, I had put blind trust in a religious institution, the sole holder of “the truth,” but which in fact distorted the truth by adding... Read More |
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~ There is still time to submit ~ a proposal for Science Symposium III |
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“Science: The Interface of Evolution and Revelation”
Thursday, June 16, to Sunday, June 19, 2022
Since the last Urantia Foundation Science Symposium in November 2019, scientific discoveries have continued to expand and excite public consciousness. A worldwide pandemic and its aftermath propelled mRNA, CRISPR-Cas9, and the benefits of genetic research into the mainstream. A recent study published by a Smithsonian anthropologist used ancient DNA to trace modern South Asian ancestry back to early hunter-gatherers of Iran. Scientists released the... Read More |
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