Trail Tales, Third Quarter, 2008

IC08 Presentation

7/15/08:  There’s nothing like a room filled to capacity! July 4th, the “light” day of the IC08 conference, brought heavy turnout to the 2nd UBtheNEWS event.  The now totally revamped slide presentation focuses more on the project rather than the corroborations. I’m happy to report that UB readers find learning about the successes of the outreach activities more exciting than learning about the corroborations. And besides, a slide presentation about the corroborations is going to be posted on the website. Soon, everyone will be able to get that experience whenever they want!

Halbert & John Callahan

John Callahan, after seeing the new presentation on the 3rd, was herding people in for the repeat performance on the 4th. Thanks, John! That’s his wife, Elizabeth, front and center in the picture above. They hosted a presentation last fall when I was passing through southern California. I’m happy to report that John’s very positive experience of the new presentation is related to a larger and more general phenomenon. Now eighteen months into this project, there are starting to be more and more people who have seen more than one UBtheNEWS presentation. This allows for an experience of the growth and development of the project. It is hard to convey this in the context of a first experience. As John can now tell you, UBtheNEWS is all about the pace of the progress!

By the end of this month, the thirteenth report will be prepared. This project is quickly emerging into its “teenage” years, its adolescence, its young adulthood. I expect by the time we’re up to about eighteen to twenty-four reports, it will exhibit “full grown” maturity and begin enjoy a new level of opportunity in society at large and on university campuses in particular. And then, when the number starts to reach around forty, we will have established a consistent track record of progressive accomplishment that will naturally earn the respect of the majority of people who become aware of such a well documented pattern of corroborations.

Some of you may have noticed, that I did not post a Trail Tale at the end of June. Oops. Sorry about that! I know some of you really enjoy the regular updates. Of course, once the conference got started July 1st, I soon forgot about writing Trail Tales. Yep. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew it was July 15th.  So this one will just have to cover the last month.

Barbara & Don

Coming out of Colorado in late June, I headed down to Tucson on my way out to the Urantia Fellowship’s international conference. Barbara Palmer and Don Poore host a study group that now boasts being the only study group in the country to have had three UBtheNEWS presentations. I tried out a slightly revamped presentation that I thought would be good for IC08. After receiving their excellent feedback, I scrapped the whole thing and began the process of totally redoing the whole presentation, top to bottom. And judging from the buzz at IC08 about UBtheNEWS, it seems an early version of something new is a lot more interesting than an enhabced version of something old.

From Tucson I slowly headed across the southwest, rarely venturing over 55mph so as to not overheat the engine. The temperature was up around 108 degrees. I had to constantly keep my eye on the thermostat but got through without incident. Larry and Barbie Londo invited me to spend a night at their place in Desert Hot Springs on my way out to LA, so I took them up on that. Unfortunately, Barbie was working most of the time that I was there, but Larry and I got to enjoy a couple good soaks in the Hot Springs before I took off the next day for Larry and Donna Whelan’s home in Temple City, just about twenty-five miles east of where the conference was being held at UCLA. Sometimes life is all about the Larry’s along the way.

Mike DiMattia

I arrived a few days early so that I could get some recording time in with Mike DiMattia. Mike is the Multimedia Engineer for UBtheNEWS. Before the conference, he did an audio recording of the presentation I put together about the corroborations. He’s in the process of editing that down. When he’s done, we’ll get this synced up with the slides and posted on UBtheNEWS and YouTube. Then, people will be able to see and hear it anytime they want. And, it will also be downloadable with or without the sound. So anyone who wants to host an event in their area can either deliver it live with presenter notes or simply play the recording!

Mike is also working on a few other special treats. Stay tuned. Which reminds me to say, if you are not yet on the UBtheNEWS email list, this is where I publish more forward looking statements and other things that are not suited for posting in the Trail Tales. The Trail Tales are really for the road that’s been covered, not the road that lies ahead. So, if you are not already on the list, send me an email saying you want to be on it. Now would be a good time!

Halbert & Pato

Naturally, IC08 was a fabulous event and many great contacts were made. I still have a lot of people I need to follow up with. If you are waiting to hear from me based on a connection we made at the conference, let me suggest being more impatient. Do not wait for me to contact you, take the initiative! The squeaky wheel gets the grease. He who hesitates is lost. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. (says the guy who totally forgot to a recent Trail Tale installment). Because I know there are a number of sites and lists that cover IC08, I’m not going to go into too many details, except to state the obvious, Pato rocks!

Larry and Donna Whelan, who are extraordinary champions for the cause when it comes to UBtheNEWS, have generously allowed me to housesit for them while they are in Europe. So I have had a very smooth post-conference landing right here in the LA area. This is allowing me to follow up with Mike on upcoming videos, get some extra time in with Victoria Clark, visit an old friend from college, help an old friend from Boulder, write another report (the Foxhall peoples), post a couple more Star Power entries (in case you haven’t already noticed, Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra have been added), take the Unity Church outreach to a whole new level, and make final preparations for a new and major campaign encouraging World Religion professors around the country to include the UB in their syllabus.

Never a dull moment.

Halbert, Kailas & Rachel

Let me close off my saying that the UBtheNEWS project is well into that phase where it can really make good use of any one who’s got a couple extra hours to contribute. There are many activities that can be done at this point to help move things forward that most anyone can do. If I have to do them all, then I do not have as much time to do those things that only I can do. Please consider contributing a little time to the project. This would be very much appreciated and help to unleash the inherent potentials of this GROUP project. Don’t let my spearheading it fool you. This is increasingly becoming the group project it was always intended to be. Just ask webmaster, Joe DiMaggio; he’ll tell you. Being a groupie has never been such a cool thing to be!

Thanks.

Namaste,
Halbert

Larry & Donna Whelan

7/31/08:  It simply can’t be said enough, “Larry and Donna Whelan are champions for the cause!” Being able to stay at their place for two and a half weeks after the conference, while they were out of town, was a real Godsend. One result of this fortuitous graciousness is now published as the Early Occupation of Britain Report, a name that everyone can relate to. For those of us on the “inside,” it is perfectly okay to affectionately refer to this as the Foxhall Report.

Aside from marking the UBtheNEWS project’s entrance into the “teenage years,” a wonderful development in its own rite, this report is also the fourth report directly related to the historical migration of human populations. This set of reports spans a time period from 700,000 to 1,000 years ago, relating to pre-colored races, Native Americans, Adamites, and northern Europeans. As well, several of the other reports are also fundamentally based on The Urantia Book’s statements about history, like the Garden of Eden, Sierras, Pangaea to Plate Tectonics, and Tycho’s Nova reports. For a book that claims that its history “will stand on the records of the ages to come,” this, obviously, is excellent support for the bold assertion.

Sometimes we are tempted to think that because some statements require significant advances in the sciences to corroborate or because the subject matter is itself very “scientific” in nature that the assertions are not historical in nature. Sometimes we are tempted to focus more on the issue of science catching up to the science in The Urantia Book than science catching up to the history in The Urantia Book. But the larger part of credibility for the book that comes from this project is really a matter of verifying the history. For instance, take the Tycho’s Nova Report as an example, which on the surface looks like a very scientific report because it is about corroborating the double star origins of that supernova. Stating that this particular supernova had a double star origin is a statement of historical fact, notwithstanding all astronomical/scientific aspects of the assertion.

Being able to stay in the LA area after the conference also gave me time to get together with Mike DiMattia so that we could make a twelve-minute video from presentation given to the World Religions class at Denison University this spring. This will be posted soon. It has taken Mike well over a full day’s worth of work to create this and he deserves a lot of appreciation for his efforts! Now that this is pretty much finished up (except for determining technically the best way to get it posted), he will be able to focus on putting together the recording of the slide presentation that we did before the conference. Rumor has it he also has a clip of me juggling blindfolded on a rope that is being cleaned up and enhanced in preparation for publication. Yes, that is a literal statement.

Barrie Bedell

I left Larry and Donna’s to go directly to John and Elizabeth Callahan’s study group. You may recall for the last Trail Tale that John was herding people into my second presentation at IC08, bless his heart. The study group turned into a powerful session of informal conversation focused on advancing the UBtheNEWS project. John and Maureen are both board members of the UB Historical Society. This led to some good brainstorming about how to synergize and coordinate our activities. Barrie Bedell also attends that group. He and I wanted to talk at the conference but never got the chance. That got remedied by spending the night at his place. We enjoyed a long talk into the wee hours of the night and followed it up the next day with several more hours of discussion.

Eric Levine

From Barrie’s I headed to Simi Valley to visit one of my two best friends from college, Eric Levine. This is my third visit with him since this adventure started. Visits with Eric, among other things, are an excellent way of measuring time because I saw him at the very beginning when I headed to the southwest to visit with Phil Calabrese about working together on this effort. After a nice weekend visit and getting extremely well fed, I headed up to the Bay Area and met with my other best friend from college, Theo Forbath. Theo travels extensively to do high-level computer consulting.

Conveniently, he was spending several days in Los Altos. So while he went off to work, I got to stay put and use the Marriott Residence Inn’s very nice Internet service. These places are all set up with little kitchens and small, but full size refrigerators. Naturally, these refrigerators are empty which means the freezers have plenty of room for growing Halbertcicles! And grow they did. This was the first time that they grew in some containers that Jack Miller from Florida gave me to try. Check out the Photo Gallery for more extraordinary pictures.

Reach Out & Touch

Namaste,
Halbert

8/15/08  Claire Miller was my most excellent host for the first week of August. From her beautiful hill top abode in Mill Valley, California, great strides were made in the progress and development of the UBtheNEWS project. One of these developments was the honor of being a guest on the new BlogTalkRadio program, Cosmic Citizen, co-hosted by Andre Traversa and Paula Thompson. The segment focused on Part III of The Urantia Book. Naturally, UBtheNEWS reports most often involve passages from this section on the history of our world.

Claire and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner one evening with Byron Belitos at which we discussed various topics that might help move the Urantia revelation forward. I encouraged him to publish a Halbertcicles coffee table book. Perhaps I’m a bit biased on the subject, but I think a book called The Lost Art of Making Ice Cubes: The Wisdom Is in the Questions would do quite well in the commercial market. Everyone should feel free to encourage him in this direction. ;-) The idea, already being expressed on the halbercicles.com website, is to have a paragraph of just questions accompanying pictures of Halbertcicles. Of course, there would be some topical overlap with the UBtheNEWS project because it is my belief that one of the reasons this phenomenon was given to me was to help me develop skills in talking to people about mysterious subjects that have both a scientific and spiritual aspect to them.

I got to enjoy some fantastic bear meat for dinner, when Claire and I went to visit John MacDonald in Oakland. I rented a room from John back in 2001, when I was working for Landmark Education at their world headquarters in San Francisco. John is simply hands-down one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. He is now married and is raising two children that exhibit the extraordinary characteristics associated with the “indigo children.”. Of course, he shot the bear himself in northern California and sent Claire and home with some spicy bear-meat sausage that I’m not even going to try to describe with words.

Multimedia Engineer, Mike DiMattia, led an extraordinary effort with the assistance of webmaster, Joe DiMaggio, to get the video posted that has highlights of the World Religions presentation that I did at Denison University this spring. If you have not checked out this twelve-minute clip, I think you will enjoy it very much. The completion of this project led to the creation of the “Presentation Information” page in the calendar section of the home page, all part of the effort to ramp up the direct outreach initiative.

When I came south from the great northwest last fall, I only had about twenty minutes to get out of the RV and appreciate the redwoods. I promised myself that this would not happen again. So I left myself enough time to spend a night at a campground in Humboldt Redwood National Forest on the ride up to Redding, where Halisha Hayworth had scheduled an outreach event. This was the second time in the last twenty months that I spent a night at a campground. The UBtheNEWS project is now totally funded by contributions from the UB community and has been since about February of this year. Naturally, I am most grateful to the community for stepping up in this manner to ensure the survival of the project and hope no one considers the twenty dollars spent at the National Parks campground too much of an extravagance.

Hats off to Halisha, who learned about the UBtheNEWS project at the Mind, Body & Spirit Retreat last February in Florida. She heard me say that one of the most valuable things you can do to support the outreach efforts of the UBtheNEWS project is to schedule an event in your area. This is exactly what she did. She advertised in local circulars, covered the cost of the room, and handled all the logistics; she rose to the occasion. And because she did this, I met a woman who personally had experiences with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead back in the late sixties and early seventies. This woman, Liv, who runs the Celestine Center where the event was hosted, said she would provide me a testimonial that I can use for putting Jerry in the Star Power section of UBtheNEWS. I can’t wait to get this one posted! I’ve loved their music since my college days. Okay, I guess by some definitions I could be considered a Deadhead. I have, after all, seen about thirty-five concerts.

After spending a night at Halisha’s beautiful home south of Redding, I headed out the next morning to the Kindred Spirits Retreat Center just outside of Eugene, Oregon. Bruce Porter is the fearless leader of this glorious project and has been a great supporter of the UBtheNEWS project. If you saw a UBtheNEWS presentation in the last year, you watched on a screen donated by Bruce. Susan and Bob also live at Kindred Spirits. Susan prepares wonderful meals for us and was responsible for the feast that brought everyone together in the picture. Bruce organized a work party to try to get some improvements done before the retreat that takes place at the end of August.

The last thing I want to mention is that two new categories have been added to the Reports section of the website. A Class D category was added to include all those topics that are quite intriguing or noteworthy for one reason or another, but are not especially corroborative. The Shroud of Turin Report, which had previously been in a “Uniquely Classified” category got moved into this section and the Mercury’s Rotation Report, which just got a major overhaul, was downgraded into this new class. You may also notice that the Magnetic Sensitivity Report was downgraded from Class A to Class B as part of this new scheme. The Magnetic Sensitivity Report is as impressive as ever, but keep in mind that the strategy for this project is to undersell and thus avoided needless criticism. I felt broadening the categories was an opportunity to not only to honor this approach, but also to better highlight the extraordinary aspects of the Adam and Eve Report and the Garden of Eden Report.

Stay tuned and tuned up!

Namaste,

Halbert

8/31/08  Boasting that he is the only dog to reincarnate directly from the flesh (or fur, as the case may be) into an ascended, yet corporeal, form, formerly known as Mr. Jingles, Master Jingles is now still with us in a more glorious, but just as furry, state of existence. Having acceptably traversed and transcended past-future states of consciousness, Master Jingles graduates to his new status as “Master of the ever-present NOW.” Joining Eckhart Tolle in a detached effort to lead all sentient beings into the exquisite bliss and power of the NOW, Master Jingles heads up the newly established NOW-for-quadrupeds movement at the Kindred Spirits Retreat Center.

Why is this man smiling? Is he celebrating Master Jingles’ ascension but embarrassed about performing the new tongue-out ritual? Could he be caught in the paradox of wanting to plan for the next Kindred Spirits Retreat but overly attached to his new experience of the NOW? No, it’s nothing like that. He’s just excited that the couple years I spent installing flooring came in so handy. The trim around the doors and floor of the sanctuary were installed by “your truly” in preparation for the Personal Transformation retreat that capped off the summer’s events at Kindred Spirits. Further evidence that everything in my entire life has been to prepare me for the UBtheNEWS project.

An incredible collection of presenters showed up to lead about twenty-five of us on a journey through the simplicity of the circle to the complexity of the Enneagram. David Banner (no relation to the Incredible Hulk) and Gard Jameson were the Enneagram specialists. Brad Hansen-Smith showed us the magic of the circle. You simply must check out www.wholemovement.com to see what I’m talking about. It is truly mind-blowing stuff that he’s doing. Personally I have never had so much fun with a paper plate and hadn’t laughed so hard in I-can’t-remember-when. Fortunately, Gard was sitting next to me and kept me tethered to earth; otherwise, I might have just floated off on this Magic Paper Plate ride, never to be heard from again. Dolores Nice, Sheila Keene-Lund, and Guy Perron also gave wonderful presentations that integrated The Urantia Book with the wholeness of our hearts and minds.

On Jesus’ Birthday I was heading up to Washington for the annual gathering of the Washington Urantia Association (WAUA). My odometer turned over to mark the occasion. Kevin Goodman, their new president, hosted me at his place before we headed out the next morning to Orondo to enjoy the outrageous accommodations that were secured for the celebration. Complete with Jacuzzi and pinball machine and situated along the shores of the Columbia River, the huge vacation home provided a beautiful backdrop for the weekend’s festivities. It was a pleasure to get to know the folks in this area and the place was alive with spirit activity as is well evidenced by the most excellent Halbertcicle growth that occurred. Significant growth in three different containers all at once; must be some mysterious manifestation of the Trinity. See the Photo Gallery.

The trip north also gave me an opportunity to visit a couple friends from high school, Kevin Boileau (famous for having five different vowels in a seven-letter last name) and John Kim (famous for his two daughters, Mikala and Julia, and also for being the drummer in the band (see the “Get a Clue; then FOLLOW IT!” article found on the Adamson’s Civilization page)).

Fortunately, Jesus’ Birthday was in the middle of the week this year. So I actually got to attend two parties. The first one was in Portland at the home of Tomas Cardozo. Not to be out done, his place also comes complete with a hot tube. Mario and Carol share the champion-for-the-cause award. Mario offered to do interviews for posting on YouTube. You can see the one I did with him by clicking here.  It is very important to view this and then forward it to lots of people. This is my first presence on YouTube and already it is being listed on the first page of YouTube when one searches “urantia.” But we need to get it closer to the top. This interview is specifically oriented toward outreach. Please view it and then share it with everyone in your address book. (I know I am. It doesn’t take that long to send out a little “thought you might enjoy this” message and then fill up that BCC line with hungry souls.) Feel free to give it a five-star rating while you’re at it. Mario did a great job and took the time to superimpose text to highlight UBtheNEWS.com. Carol championed the UBtheNEWS cause by providing me an extremely beautiful and much needed quilt for the coming cold nights and for doing UBtheNEWS fundraising at the Kindred Spirits retreat. Bless her heart!

These last two weeks also witnessed (very briefly) the first time that UBtheNEWS started to appear on the first page of a Google search for “urantia.” It is very hard to maintain this status and very important to attain it. I’ve heard that 70% of us never look beyond the first page when we do a Google search. Please, please, please, start going to the site more often and sending out the e-pamphlet to people. If you would simply make UBtheNEWS the page that comes up when you first open your browser, this would make a huge difference. Even if you just do it for a month or two to help out with this effort, that would be great. UBtheNEWS is uniquely designed to give people the most powerful and positive first impression possible. Let’s make it front page news. Be part of the UBtheNEWS family by doing the little things that create big and important results!

Namaste,

9/15/08  Visiting the 500 year-old Ponderosa Pine near La Pine, Oregon was in some ways even more spectacular than the Redwoods of California. It’s a stand out, stand alone expression of life that is highly unusual and embodies extraordinary grandeur. John Montchalin II gets credit for getting me out to that area and helping me do some campus outreach in Bend. Like the Ponderosa Pine, John also exhibits a quiet awesomeness that only comes from living long enough to experience so much. Had he not contacted me about coming out for a visit, I would not have passed through this very unusual part of the country for the first time.

It was great to spend a couple nights at his place and also get a chance visit more with his son, John III. They were both at IC08. But naturally, meeting up with them there was part of an ongoing inundation of activities that did not give us nearly enough to time to talk and smell the pine trees.

From Oregon I headed up to Missoula where Randy Neumann, another new friend from IC08, had taken the initiative to set up not one, but two, presentations. The first one was at the University of Montana and the other was at his home in Polson. One of the highlights of the university presentation was getting a chance to advertise it on KBGA, the campus radio station. This was a first-time experience with a university radio station and a lot of fun. We showed up unannounced, but were graciously received by the DJ on duty, and I was given a few minutes to make the pitch. I also took the opportunit to meet with a few professors and passed out a bunch of UBtheNEWS pamphlets.

On the drive up to Polson, just as we crested the mountains and entered the reservation, there was an incredible double rainbow. It was one of those special occurrences where the full rainbow is in view. Occasionally, one actually gets to see the rainbow’s end! In this case, at a farmhouse. On the way to Randy’s we stopped at the annual Hat Party at country home that featured an excellent barbeque dinner and live music. One of the musical guests, Steven Riddle of the Singing Sons of Beaches, showed up to the presentation the following day. His group provides a hilarious assortment of musical Montana satire. I had great fun on my drive across Montana reliving the experience as I listened to the CD he gave me. Johnette (who provided the picture) and Wendy drove 150 miles each way to attend the presentation! Talk about making an effort. It’s really humbling to see people travel so far to see a UBtheNEWS presentation and to fellowship with other UB readers. We all went out for dinner afterwards to a great local restaurant, known for their barbeque, of course. Montana and barbeque apparently go together like, well, Montana and barbeque, I guess?

Because Randy was good enough to take me up on the suggestion to set up local presentations and because Sheila Hansen, a new reader in Appleton, Wisconsin, was good enough to get in touch and offer me a place to stay if I was “ever passing through,” a whole series of events unfolded that led to meeting about fifty people in four states that I had never visited since starting this adventure in January 2007. (This brings the total number of states where I have actually done UBtheNEWS work up to 34; it will be 35 by the end of the month after I do a presentation at a World Religions class in Michigan.) Appleton is pretty much on parallel with Missoula. So, instead of passing through Boulder, Colorado, where I lived for twenty years before setting out on this journey, I traveled through North Dakota and Minnesota, on my way out to Wisconsin.

Randy set things up for me to meet with a Methodist preacher in Laurel, Montana. Then I had a night on the road before I stopped to meet with Raymond and Margaret Lang in Cooperstown, North Dakota. Talk about birds of a feather, these two actually spent about eight years traveling around the United States doing missionary work in a small motor home the same size as the van that I’m using. They sent me off with a delicious assortment of homemade cookies, roles, zucchini bread and a couple jars of strawberry rhubarb jam! This couple defines inspirational.

From North Dakota it was on to Minnetonka, Minnesota to do a presentation at the home of Jill and Keith Strunck, awesome supporters of the UBtheNEWS project. They brought together 21 people, one of whom was none other than John Halvorson, the brother of Chris, who is the Quality Control expert for UBtheNEWS. Meeting John was especially fantastic not only because he’s Chris’s brother, but also because he has an interest in preparing reports. Jill used to live in Boulder, so I know her from “way back.” They really went all out for the presentation, re-arranging their whole living room and providing quite the assortment of snacks and beverages, as well as providing me a delicious steak dinner before the presentation.

The next day I drove to Appleton to meet up with Sheila. From there we headed down to Lyndon Township near Sheboygan to the home of Jeanette Nigh. She was hosting a gathering of readers, about a dozen showed up, for a special study on session. This group included a delightful couple from California, Sande and Jeanne Beddoe. I got a break from presenting and got to enjoy wonderful studies on faith put together by the folks from Wisconsin. Jeanette lives on an out of the way country property on which they built the Chapel of the Searching and Foundering. This little chapel couldn’t be more charming. We did the last study, on the faith of Jesus in this holy and home built sanctuary, complete with its own steeple/bell tower.

Sheila is a real pioneer in her area, having organized an interfaith group that gets advertised through, among other places, the “Meet Up” website. It is called “Interfaith Spirit Quest.” I just love the name. This group attracted a remarkable young man named Zack from Zambia. He came with us to the study session. He’s got one those especially brilliant speaking voices that derive from that part of Africa. So it was particularly glorious whenever he did any of the readings. He said his culture was more philosophical than theological and I could see him taking a real interest in a copy of my first book (that Sheila was passing around), The Logic of Love: Finding Faith through the Heart-Mind Connection. So naturally, I gave him a copy before leaving which seemed to please him greatly.

Speaking of The Logic of Love, as some of you may know, the prologue to this book is a story about a friend from high school, Scott Greene, who had a profound impact on my life. (I’ll reprint this at the end of the Trail Tale.) As it turns out, he and his wife and their three superb daughters live in Madison, which is where my travels ended during the first half of September. Naturally, the Halbertcicles are great fun for kids (of all ages) and so we gave it a try to see whether the magic of God’s grace would bless us with this peculiar phenomenon. Not only did one grow, but it grew in one these funky little individual muffin “trays” that they had at their house (they were kind enough to send me off with a few for future use ;-). This was the only one to grow and it grew using their Brita filtered tap water. (Normally, distilled water works best. But as has occurred a couple times now, Whole Foods distilled water tends to produce nothing but duds, which is exactly what happened with the gallon that I had picked up before heading to their house.) Fortunately, Scott made the extra effort to try some of their water in three of the muffin cups after a couple tries with the distilled water failed to produce results. It was with the greatest pleasure that I signed a copy of my book for the kids and presented it to the oldest one, who is almost sixteen, just old enough to appreciate a book like that. And I think she’s going to have a whole new appreciation of her father after she reads the prologue.

Speaking of my other writings, I recently started a section on UBtheNEWS called “Halbert’s Creative Contributions.” Increasingly, I will be posting all manner of videos, books, articles, and music. Eventually, my two books will be posted in their entirety. So just keep checking in. Already I have posted an article called In the Name of the Father. If you are one of those many people who have some trouble with the use of the term “Father” for God, please read this article. I think you’ll find it very helpful. Even if you do not have a problem with this, read it anyway, so that you can recommend it to people who do. This provides a very unique approach to the subject that came to me one morning many years ago when this was a problem for me. Some other sections have also been recently added. Tidbits and Teasers is where you will find recent articles that relate to various topics that have not yet been written up as reports but probably will be eventually. There is also an Emerging Topics section now where I am posting information that will help us all keep an eye out for and organize material that is leading up to new reports. You will also find some new information about the UBtheNEWS Email List at the top of the Info For UB Readers page.

As this project progresses there is more and more to do and keep up with. I am now alternating between writing new reports and enhancing old ones. If anyone would like to “adopt a report,” thus becoming the point person for helping to keep that report up to date, this would be one of the best types of contributions you could possibly make to the project at this point. Really, it is getting to be quite overwhelming to try and stay on top of the different facets of all these topics. Please help it grow into the grassroots group effort it was always designed to be. If you are so motivated, pick a report that is of special interest to you and get in touch with me immediately!

Here’s the prologue to The Logic of Love:

The dress code at Phillips Exeter Academy required coats and ties above the waist, but permitted jeans, even shorts, below the waist. This administratively adopted schizophrenic approach to apparel represented an attempt at balancing Ivy League intellects with adolescent bodies. The academics were advanced and the facilities were fantastic, but aside from that, it had all the same social dynamics as any other high school in America.

Culturally speaking, Exeter was the epitome of preppy, and anyone who broke out of this stereotype assumed certain risks. Adolescence, of course, provided a heaping helping of ostracism for deviants. But attendance at Exeter was supposed to be a ticket to the good life. So, the price of nonconformity had a premium attached. Nonconformity was blasphemy because it meant a rare opportunity was being foolishly squandered. We were being prepared for corporate culture. The name of the game was Coloring Within The Lines.

Consequently, an expectation of the ordinary pervaded the student body whenever student council presidential candidates gave their campaign speeches. Our highest hope was to be amused. This usually came in the form of watching a peer sweat under the pressure of public speaking. They tried their best to be compelling, and we tried our best to be polite. The only thing out of the ordinary the year my classmates were running was that Scott Greene sat on stage, waiting his turn.

Scott was not your typical student. There was nothing preppy about him. His hair was long. He often wore it under a bandanna tied gypsy style. That's why Scott had been affectionately nicknamed Gypsy. To those of us who knew him, he was a bright light of kindness. But as a candidate in this race, he was a dark horse indeed.

When it was Scott's turn to speak, we could see immediately that his agenda was bigger than the election. He was writhing with excitement and consumed with passion. Neither protocol nor preparation could shepherd him through the experience. With a certain degree of reluctance, he apparently allowed a desperate muse to enter his body. He seemed both possessed and self-aware.

At first, he tried to use the microphone. Then, he apologetically cut loose from the tether and, stepping away from the lectern, made sure that his natural voice could reach the ears of all those present. Unprotected by the lectern's safe harbor, he began tacking back and forth across the breadth of the stage. We all watched in amazement as Scott sailed forth with a plea for a student body dedicated to the values of love, honesty, and forgiveness. He spoke briefly on the importance of these values as they related to student life and ended his talk by affirming that his purpose was to deliver the message, not to get elected. In less than one minute he accomplished what he had set out to do. So, with touching humility, he thanked us for indulging him and returned to his seat.

Scott won, and I learned something. Love transforms the individual and transcends cultural differences. It empowers people and unifies communities. Love accomplishes more than it sets out to do; it is the self-created miracle in our lives. Scott's election inspired hope and revealed the good in others. I had never witnessed a friend take such an extraordinary stand for love. His willingness to do so opened the doors of opportunity wider than imagination.

There is a direct connection between that day and this book. Scott was a catalyst for helping me focus on what I had been striving to create in my life. He took the ethereal sentiments of the heart and crystallized them into expressible values. His courage was inspirational and his election affirmed the transformational power of love. On that day I learned that with love, anything is possible.

Thanks Scott.

Namaste,

9/30/08  I am delighted to announce that the UBtheNEWS project kicked off this new fall semester with the largest and longest outreach presentation so far. Thirty-six students at Oakland Community College’s World Religions class learned about The Urantia Book from nine to noon on September 23rd! Though all of the UBtheNEWS reports were at least touched on, there was only time to cover two of them in depth. It unfolded this way because the students took so much interest in the more spiritual, cultural, and historical aspects of The Urantia Book. The classroom discussion was very lively throughout the presentation. Introductory remarks sparked the curiosity of the students and this set off an interactive energy that lasted until the end of the class.

Professor Larry Austin saw a UBtheNEWS presentation at IC08. We all have Ron Thacker to thank for Larry’s attendance. Ron, who lives in Michigan, not too far from Larry, saw the first presentation I did at IC08. Knowing Larry teaches just outside of Detroit at the country’s tenth largest community college, Ron correctly surmised that Larry would have an interest in taking things to the next level. So he strongly encouraged Larry to experience the second presentation at IC08 and for this reason Ron gets to share this month’s Ripple Effect Award with Sheila Hansen. (See the previous Trail Tale to find out about Sheila’s ripple effect.) Networking is a beautifully thing. It is such an efficient use of time that can often develop into incredible events and important connections with people. Fortunately, Ron was able to attend the classroom presentation and thus experience the consequences of his actions first hand. By the end of the afternoon, all three copies of The Urantia Book were checked out of the campus library!

What ripples are you going to make this month? This is how things really happen; this is how life works. A little initiative goes a long way. Plant one mustard seed and watch it return many fold, often with very little additional effort. The good news is that the fix is in. God has the game of life rigged in our favor! We get to reap where we haven’t sown. We can plant a seed and not deplete our seed inventory. We can touch one place in a pond and observe its effect on the whole pond. What a way to set the rules for the game of life. Indeed, God is great!

Speaking of reaping where one has not sown, such was my experience with the GLMUA fall study session in Chesterton, Indiana. (GLMUA—the Greater Lake Michigan Urantia Association. They have a way of pronouncing this acronym that has a peculiar way of making one smile. ;-) James Woodward, an awesome and ongoing UBtheNEWS supporter/networker extraordinaire, put in a good word with the folks organizing this event, which helped get me invited to do a presentation. Thanks James!

It was delightful to meet with this enthusiastic circle of UB readers. Rick Lyon, their new president, was a splendid host to whom I am most grateful for his wonderful hospitality. The study session theme was “The Revelation Within Society,” one of my favorite themes, to be sure! I felt like I fit right in. Focusing on the role of the UB within society opens up all kinds of topics on which people have very strong and differing opinions. The people who gave presentations and led discussions brought real leadership to these discussions. From “bonding” exercises to hot political topics, a wide range of rubber-meets-the-road experiences made this event especially personal and relevant.

Prior to heading down to Chesterton, I passed through the Chicago area. Tamara Woods gets the Angel of the Month award for allowing me to stay at 533 Diversey and park in the back at night. This was a big help. Chicago is not the easiest city to visit, I’m sorry to say. It’s a hard one to navigate through, the roads get pretty torn up from those harsh northern winters, and parking requires divine intervention (which I’m happy to say did show up as needed). Several of us went out for dinner before the Tuesday evening study group. It was great to see Brad Hansen-Smith again. I met him at the Kindred Spirits Retreat Center a couple months ago. His outrageous presentation in Oregon provided me with immediate access to my “inner child.” Seeing him in Chicago was like déjà vu all over again. If you have never been to his site, there is no time like the present. You have to see this to believe it.

The month ended with a trip to Denison University to visit with Dr. Lyone Fein before heading up to New England. I did not do a presentation at her class this semester because my timing was out of step with the syllabus, but we did make plans for me to do another presentation at the end of the spring semester. The work I did at the Denison University library went extremely well. I identified two new topics for UBtheNEWS reports. One of these, on the recent discovery of the world’s oldest rock, is in the final stages of development and will probably get posted by mid October. As soon as I read the story in the news, I knew there was a UB correlation regarding the location. The other soon-to-be-developed report has to do with when the earth’s crust formed. Following up on the oldest rock issue led to the discovery that earlier this year the date on when the earth’s crust formed was pushed back significantly and in a way that parallels The Urantia Book’s description of early geological developments. In this case a rocky road is not such a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing. And discovering two new rocky topics to write about in one day is a very good thing.

Simply put, Denison University rocks! If you have not seen the twelve-minute highlights video from the presentation I did there last semester, I highly recommend watching it. This provides, perhaps, the very best insight into the emerging realization of the inherent potentials of the UBtheNEWS project.

Namaste,

Archived Trail Tales:

2008: 2nd Quarter
2008: 1st Quarter
2007: 4th Quarter
2007: 3rd Quarter
2007: 2nd Quarter
2007: 1st Quarter