Trail Tales, First Quarter, 2008
1/15/08: There is a unique quality of peacefulness that comes with being on a houseboat. When a calm river is the backyard, the reflections off the waters encourage taking time to reflect on the course of life and how it flows by. The UBtheNEWS project now flows into its second year and the robust, yet reasonably smooth, currents continue to carry me along. The back porch of Robert Borello's houseboat is not only serene spot for quiet reflections, but also the perfect place to receive his seasoned wisdom. But make no mistake about it. I'm not just floating along here; I've hit the ground running this year!
In particular, you may want to check out the new UBtheNEWS pamphlet. A complete rewriting of that has been finished. It now includes a summary of five reports instead of just three.
Between January 6 and January 13, I did six presentations. One of these presentations was at the Theosophical Society in Deerfield Beach. All of the people at this event, a half dozen, were new to The Urantia Book. One snowbird from Montreal, Christiane Pelletier, was particularly inspired by the presentation and said she would like to set up events for me to do in Canada, especially for young adults. I was very well received by this group and encouraged to give them more advanced notice the next time I'm passing through town so that they will have time to promote the engagement more effectively.
The other five events I did over this eight-day period were at Urantia study groups that ranged in size from two to twelve. Of the eight that showed up to the one in Ft. Pierce at the home of Dan and Lara Amyx, about half of them were new. I spent a couple nights up there. They were wonderful hosts and I had great time getting to know them. The new addition to the STAR POWER section of UBtheNEWS about Sir Hubert Wilkins came from a biography on Wilkins that Dan had. Check it out; this is a very special entry!
Inviting non Urantia Book reading guests to presentations at study groups cannot be encouraged enough. Consider organizing two UBtheNEWS presentations when I am in your area. One that would be just for Urantia Book readers, which would allow us to focus more on the outreach issues. And the other one for inviting people who are new to the UB, so that the UBtheNEWS project can have a more direct and immediate impact on helping study groups grow.
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I got some regular exercise down here in south Florida by playing tennis with David Hubbard, his wife, Amy, their son, Jacob, and David's father, Roy. Jacob did not play tennis, but at eighty years old his grandfather was all over it. That made four of us to rotate through two on one configurations, while the fourth person watched Jacob. David and I also found time to play some music together and enjoy a little time at the beach. David stayed at my place seven years ago and did a beautiful job helping me finish off the basement in a house I had in Boulder. We got to play a lot more music together back then and, being much more accomplished, I learned a lot from him. It was great to revisit some of that music.
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I also got to play some music with an old friend from Brandeis University, Mitch Weyuker. Mitch became quite famous in Israel before moving back to the states. The band he had in Israel a number of years ago was asked to be the backup band by Israel's biggest pop vocalist at that time. Mitch and his family now live in Boca Raton, as does another friend from my college days, Amy Segel. She has changed a bit, except that she's now the mom of two adorable children.
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Amy with Danielle and Jake
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Jack Miller was instrumental in helping me set up presentations at various venues. Jack is a real champion for the cause; he is one extremely motivated individual and a very gracious host. I spent about three nights at his place at Boynton Beach. Jack got me into the Theosophical Society and eased my entry into the study group hosted by Gina and Rainbow Fire in Delray.
Jack was also the driving force behind the presentation I did at Jeffrey Lew's place in Miami. I had a brief, but powerful, first meeting with Jeffery when I met him at Robert Borello's annual houseboat party back in 2002. Many times since our first encounter I had wondered “Who was that guy and what ever happened to him?” Kicking off our second introduction at his place with a UBtheNEWS presentation was a great way to get that question answered and a great new friendship has emerged.
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Jeffrey is an artist. He is filled with all the energy, charm and brilliance that is so often associated with great painters. During the presentation he was awestruck by the images of the Blue Jets (see Inner Ionosphere Report). Immediately declaring that he was going to do a painting of them and being true to his word, when I saw him a couple days later, he had already gotten started. What you see here is the work in progress. More of his work can be viewed at jeffreylew.com. Chuck Bellman was also in attendance and especially enthusiastic about the UBtheNEWS project.
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Jack, standing tall & the Artist, in black
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Much thanks goes to David Albee, who hosts a study group at Unity Church in West Palm Beach. David, like Jack, is an extremely enthusiastic UB reader and was very supportive of the UBtheNEWS project. He has also been a member of Unity for forty years. We were nearly successful in setting up an address to the congregation the following week, but there just was not enough time for them to get me into the schedule. However, the invitation is there for the next time I pass through.
Direct outreach presentations have been a happenstance occurrence for the most part. My intention throughout the first year of the UBtheNEWS project has been to focus on informing UB readers about this work. But I am quickly coming to appreciate that it has developed sufficiently to make a very good impression with people who are totally new to the UB and that there are a lot of opportunities to book speaking engagements around the country with non UB groups. In fact, there's a lifetimes worth of work in this regard, seeing as most of the country (and the world) still remains largely ignorant of the existence of The Urantia Book. This year I am going to start to shift my approach. Increasingly, I'm going to book events with non UB groups and then invite local UB readers to come to these presentations rather than doing it the other way around. Perhaps “by example” would be the best way to introduce UB readers to the inherent outreach potentials of this new way to do introductions.
Like a new baby, we are destined to see a lot of changes the UBtheNEWS project between the first and the second year. And like all fast growing toddlers, baby could use a new pair of shoes. ;-) Please consider making a contribution to the UBtheNEWS project to ensure the continued success and development of this outreach ministry.
Namaste,
Halbert
1/31/08: Things were really on fire the last half of the first month of the second year of the UBtheNEWS project! The 10th report was published; we're now into double-digits! At the University of Florida in Gainesville, I met with four physicists (one of whom had attended a UB conference in early 90's), the director of the History of Science Society, and the Chair of the Anthropology Department! Plus, some exciting dialogue has started with a Nobel Prize winner in the sciences, who has an appreciation for how science is catching up to the UB! On top of that, two presentations were given that had attendances of 19 and 23 persons! And as if that we not enough, Star Power now documents that Jimi Hendrix was an avid Urantia Book reader!
(Speaking of great guitar players, while passing through the Orlando area on my way out of southern Florida, my older brother and I managed to squeeze in a little jam session. ;-)
I finally got to meet the Beasley's in Brandon (near Tampa) and got to experience firsthand that all the great things everyone said about them were true. They hosted a wonderful event that drew 19 people, if I counted right. Certainly, there were no less than that. As you can see from the picture, they had arranged a very nice set up for the presentation. And as you can see from the other picture, they are very much in love. I left with a half dozen fresh ripe grapefruit from the trees they have in their backyard, which have given me a deliciously prolonged memory of my time with them.
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After the Beasley's, the next presentation was scheduled in Belleview at the home of Jeanne Kreibler. Belleview is in between Ocala and a very large retirement community called the Villages. This location was chosen to make it more convenient for people coming from each direction. Every direction. And they just kept coming. Jeanne and I were scrambling to try to find more and more AND MORE chairs. About 23 showed up to everyone's delighted surprise. The event went very well and we had a nice mix of new people and old readers. Dennis Brodsky showed up with a printout from the Internet documenting a Nobel Prize winner's appreciation for the UB, which led to the opening of the dialogue mentioned above.
Heading north gave me another chance to spend several days with the Neibaur's in Gainesville. If you have been following along with the Trail Tales, you may recall that Matt was involved with developing science and the UB corroborations fifteen years ago. Spending several days at the university library in Gainesville gave me the insight (and the opportunity) to realize that this project has developed sufficiently to make a good first impression with scholars in various fields. Up to this time, the only cold calling I've done with the scholarly community was to drop in last summer in Chicago on the geneticists who did the research that led to the Adam and Eve Report.
Admittedly, I was a little tentative getting started with this direct approach. So I started with the ones who had open office doors. I began with the Physics Department, not necessarily the easiest group to approach, but I was parked near that building. Miraculously enough, the first physicist with whom I spoke had actually been to a Urantia conference in Colorado in the early 90's! He had a been-there-done-that-and-that-aint't-where-it's-at type of attitude. Initially, he was very dismissive. However, I supported him in concluding that, at the time he was checking it out, not enough powerful corroborations had developed to present a particularly compelling picture of credibility. He suggested that I probably wasn't getting particularly good responses from scholars because it was such a “tough sell.” I countered that he was the first one I had approached, except for the genetics researchers, who were very interested because their work had multiple correlations to the UB's history of Adam and Eve. By the end of the conversation, though of course not convinced of anything, he realized that his expertise in physics was not going to give him the superior knowledge base to gain the upper hand in the conversation and that his opinion just might be a bit dated. The conversation ended well with him taking a card and saying that I would take a look at it.
Planting seeds is not harvesting. Some will not grow; some will grow. And some will take longer to sprout than others. Unless the unusual circumstance of instantaneous sprouting occurs, we just do not know how planting is going to turn out. But we can always rest assured that planting is a good idea.
After meeting with three more physicists, all nice simple introductions that went reasonably well, I figured maybe the History Department would be a little more receptive, especially because I had just published the Vikings Report, which interrelates to the one on Native American migration. Checking out the directory I saw that there was a History of Science Society. Bingo!
Now that I was a little warmed up from having done some heavy lifting in the Physics Department, I was ready to knock on closed doors and go right to the top. So I marched myself right into the History of Science Society office and asked to speak with the director, R.J. Malone. Of course, I did not realize at that time that this is not something that all major university campuses have. It wasn't until I did a little online follow up after the meeting that I came to realize that Gainesville appears to host the premier organization on this issue. I was wondering why it was listed as a Society and not a Department.
From their website:
Who We Are
“The History of Science Society is the world's largest society dedicated to understanding science, technology, medicine, and their interactions with society in historical context. Over 3,000 individual and institutional members across the world support the Society's mission to foster interest in the history of science and its social and cultural relations.”
What do you know? Live and learn.
I had an excellent first meeting with Mr. Malone, the director of this worldwide organization. We spoke for about fifteen minutes. He encouraged me to apply for a grant from the Templeton Foundation. (I don't want to jinx anything. So if something happens there, I'll let you know, but from what I can tell it seems like a good match, a match made in heaven, dare I say. (I hope that didn't jinx anything. :))
I've really got the outreach-to-scholars bug now. Obviously, it didn't take too long to catch it. The UBtheNEWS project has developed to the point where a great first impression can be made to scholars. The website now contains enough reports in enough fields to attract interest with people from various fields. This will increasingly become a focus of my work in the next year. . . but only if you help.
As this project heads into the second year, my personal finances are dwindling. Presentations to mixed groups are being encouraged and are increasingly occurring. Mixed groups are not good environments for fundraising. Truth be told, I don't like asking people for financial support at presentations even it is just UB readers. In fact, I don't even like asking people for money to cover the costs of the new color pamphlets that I provide at presentations that cost me more than a dollar a piece, and I do not have it in my heart to say take just one.
The pamphlets are a very valuable tool for informing people about the UB. Check it out if you are not familiar. Then, once you check it, email it to everyone you know. That doesn't cost a thing. Then, please appreciate the value of this work and make a contribution. This project needs your support now.
Namaste,
Halbert
2/15/08: February started out with the biggest boon to date in UBtheNEWS history! This came in the form of Joe DiMaggio, who has graciously offered to do webmastering as a free service. His time and talents are an enormous contribution. As you can tell from all the things that have been posted since this project got underway in January 2007, maintaining the UBtheNEWS site is ongoing effort that requires a lot of hours. And Joe has skills in abundance to do this type of work! From all of us who love the UB and the UBtheNEWS project, we can’t thank you enough. You are an answered prayer!
After having the extreme pleasure of developing this arrangement with Joe at his home in Jacksonville, Florida, I did some outreach at the Asheville campus of the University of North Carolina. The first door I knocked on, unannounced, of course, was the Chair of the History Department. (I just love making surprise visits. I’m not going to argue that it is the best approach, but it does have a way of keeping things fresh and, besides, I only need less than two minutes to plant a seed.) Wouldn’t you know, this guy had not only heard about the UB in grad school, but also seemed to recall placing a copy in the library at the university. He had many astute questions he wanted answered regarding Martin Gardner’s book and the development of UB institutions. After we had spoken for about fifteen minutes, it was time for him to get back to work. Or so I thought until he followed me out into the hallway asking, “Would it really just take five minutes to look quickly through those presentation slides?” “Of course, my computer is already booted up!”
Next I went to the Chair of the Sociology/Anthropology Department, who had never heard of the UB before. He was, however, very interested in what I had to say and looked through the slides. The idea of having me come back at some point to do an interdisciplinary presentation was very appealing to him. He pretty much insisted that I also go speak with the Chair of their Religion Department. The Religion Department is just getting started at Asheville and I had a very nice chat with the gentleman who is assigned with getting that up and rolling.
(For those of you who have not read the last Trail Tale, let me just say that my first experience of doing this type of outreach was just as outrageous than this one, if not more so!)
From Asheville I headed to Charlotte, NC for a presentation.
It’s not everyday you get to meet a man in his 80’s with a wife in her 70’s,
who happen to be planning their last motorcycle trip before relocating to Oaxaca,
Mexico. Of course, these would be UB readers, Budd and Sandy Blume. Budd used to
live in Chicago, has been reading the UB since 1956, and became a member of the
First Orvonton Society because the leaders of the First Urantia Society thought
he was a little too young and wild to be part of their group! I think Budd and I
must be kindred spirits.
The presentation at Budd and Sandy’s went wonderfully.
Eric Johnson showed up (unfortunately, his wife Joilin couldn’t make it). Eric is
one of my oldest UB friends. We first met when we were living in the Boston area
in the mid 80’s. Then we both ended up moving to the Boulder/Denver, CO area. The
Blume’s had a nice level driveway for me to park in for the night. In the morning,
Budd made up a delicious bacon and eggs breakfast and filled me in on all manner
of incredible tales about his adventures traveling around the world and being a
longtime UB reader.
I have now made up a little one page greeting to leave with the pamphlet that
introduces the UBtheNEWS project. During the two hours I had to spend at Duke University,
I stuffed about twenty mailboxes with these. If you have not yet checked out this
pamphlet, it recently got updated and is ten times better than the first draft.
It can be printed out or emailed to a friend. This may turn out to be one of the
most effective pamphlets ever created for introducing the UB, but it will never
produce results if it is not shared. So please, get busy with this. It is cheap,
easy, and a fun way to make a really powerful and positive first impression of the
Urantia Book that objectively and verifiably distinguishes it from every other type
of spiritual source material on the planet! (Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting
for?)
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Sherry, Marion, and James
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The next presentation after Charlotte was at the home of Dr. James and Marion
Perry. Dick Ziglar was in attendance and he has introduced me to a physicist friend
of his who lives in California. I’ve been playing telephone tag with this physicist,
but will hopefully be talking with him soon in an attempt to pass him on to Chris
Halvorson so that physicists can do their physicist thing.The Perry’s are awesome!
I wish I could have taken them up on their offer to spend the night after they fed
Sherry and I a delicious meal, but I had a presentation in Tennessee the following
evening and felt it was important to get some miles behind me that evening, so that
I would not be too tired for the next presentation.
Crossing into Tennessee also
led to crossing the Appalachian Trail. For those of you who do not know about the
Appalachian Trail, it runs from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in
Maine and is about as many miles long as The Urantia Book has pages. Before moving
out to Boulder, CO in 1987, I hiked about 700 miles of this trail from Pennsylvania
up to Maine. So naturally, it has a special place in my heart and I could not resist
the temptation to stop and hike about a mile of it.
The potluck and presentation
at Dean Whites in Tennessee was excellent. Eleven people showed up, all filled with
life and bubbly as could be. I saw Rabia Harris there; she used to live in Boulder
years ago. It was one of those, “Hey, haven’t we met before?” kind of things. Everything
was going so well until the next morning.
Dean had an extra bed for me to sleep
in, which turned out to be an especially blessed circumstance, because the heater
in my motor home malfunctioned. I had gone out to turn it on before going to sleep
so that the pipes wouldn’t freeze (it was quite cold there at the base of the Appalachians).
In the morning I discovered that the ignition on the propane heater had malfunctioned,
my home on the road was filled with gas, and all the pipes had frozen! I can’t begin
to tell you how depressing it is to see an icicle hanging down from the faucet in
your motor home.
I was in quite a funk for a few minutes until I started counting
the blessings, like being inside when it happened. You know, the little things.
Of course, this motor home is twenty years old and the useful life of these components
were due to come to an end. Fortunately, I did not have any more presentations planned
before the Celestial Nights Retreat, starting about ten days after the presentation
at Deans.
So with a generous contribution from Dean as I headed out the door, a
beat it down to Tallahassee for better weather and repairs. I won’t know what the
real damage is until I take it in to be fixed on Monday. But it will likely need
a new heater and water heater (frozen water, I think they call that ice, had been
forced out of the water heater), and, of course, the water lines will need pressure
checked to see what has survived the ordeal.
But at least some blessings beyond
not being in the vehicle when this happened are showing up. I’m now staying at the
home of Judy Langston. Judy has a catering business and is preparing the food for
the retreat, so naturally she is swamped with work, which means I have not only
been available to lend her a hand, but also have been eating a little better than
usual.
More on this leg of the great adventure in a couple weeks. . .
Namaste,
Halbert
2/29/08: Celestial Nights ’08 was awesome! Evidencing a remarkable coordination of minds, bodies, and spirits, the members of Mind Body & Spirit created an eternal treasure of experiences for about 50 children of God. I’m so glad a photo gallery has been added to UBtheNEWS so that everyone can get a fuller appreciation for the extraordinary people and outrageous place that breathed life into this event. Exquisite food was provided by Taste Budz, Judy Langston’s catering service. If only we could download tastes and smells onto a website. The people, the place, the food; it was a triunity of treats.
This event ranks as the largest UBtheNEWS presentation to date. There were about 45 people in attendance. Plus, I did a couple private showings for some folks who couldn’t make it the main event, including our chef and his girlfriend (neither of whom knew much at all about The Urantia Book). Because of the unique social, “interfaith” aspects that exist between people associated with The Urantia Book and the Teaching Mission, the presentation was customized to highlight how the UBtheNEWS project is able to bring people together who have divergent perspectives and sometimes disharmonious relationships. Appreciation for the emerging credibility of The Urantia Book attracts the interest and participation of pretty much everyone these days. Whether people are aligned with the Urantia Foundation, the Urantia Fellowship, or the Teaching Mission, or whether people have differences that are personal or ideological, I’m happy to report that this project brings people together!
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Paula Thompson, Director of the Urantia Fellowship, also presented. She gave a beautiful account of her recent experiences at a major book fair in India and touchingly shared some personal stories. Several other excellent presentations were also part of the event. I’m sure you can find other sites that will provide a broader appreciation of all that transpired. I do want to say, however, that where this was held was spectacular. I have never been to such a beautiful spot with such nice facilities for a conference/retreat. There’s nothing like a narrow barrier island with first class accommodations to set the stage for a fantastic event.
Many wonderful personal contacts were made. Numerous people expressed an interest in actively supporting UBtheNEWS. Naturally, this project can make good use all manner of interests, skills, and time availability. There are so many different aspects of the UBtheNEWS project that can always be moved forward whenever someone has the inclination. It is easy for me to help people efficiently integrate themselves into this effort and I look forward to working with the people who expressed an interest.
One of the good things to come out of this event was initiation of an email list. The email list is going to provide more forward-looking information and ideas than what I tend to put in the Trail Tales. As well, there are various types of things that I would like to share with people that are not appropriate for posting on the website. Additionally, this email list will be used to encourage people to provide financial support for the UBtheNEWS project. I never liked trying to raise funds through the Trail Tales; the email list will put an end to that. If you would like to be on the email list,
just let me know. Providing financial support is not required in order to receive the emails. Please do not hesitate to be on the list because of financial considerations.
Speaking of financial considerations, I want to thank Mind Body & Spirit for covering all my expenses! It is one more testament to the incredible level of support that I have been receiving from those folks for quite some time now and it is very much appreciated.
I also want to thank Judy Langston for letting me stay at her place for over week on very short notice so that I could make arrangements to get my motor home fixed. Repairs needed to me made to the heating system, hot water heater, and electrical system. The AC/DC converted needed replaced, it may have done some damage to my coach battery; I’m not quite sure about that issue just yet. Eight hundred dollars later there still seems to be a slight gas leak. It has been exceedingly difficult to identify the source. Such is the balance of life. Living on the road has its blessings and, especially with a 1989 converted van, its challenges.
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A few of us got to spend an extra night on St. George Island, which was a wonderful way to wind down. I stayed because I had a presentation scheduled for Monday night in Panama City, about 80 miles west of St. George Island. This was actually a return engagement at Capstone House. I had presented there in December to 17 people, all non Urantia Book readers, and they were very interested to have me come back again. As you can see, they even put an ad in the paper. Again there were 17 people, but this time a few Urantians showed up. Having seen the ad, Jim Brummett showed up with his wife. Jim used to live in the Boulder/Denver area. I hadn’t seen him in about twelve years or so. There was also a gentleman there who had just recently read the book straight through in the last several months. He was very turned on, tuned in, and contributed some great questions and comments. Ed, the gentleman who scheduled me for these events, was gracious as always and provided me the clipping!
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From Panama City it was off to New Orleans in advance of heading up to Baton Rouge for my first presentation in March. I stayed with a friend of mine from high school, Dr. Mark Caldwell. Mark is especially interested in maximizing human potentials. He had a most interesting apparatus involving electrodes, music, visual effects, and a computer program designed to stimulate better neural activity in the brain. This is not like the basic biofeedback machines you may have heard about. This works more on the unconscious level and produces stimulation that is very specific to a persons particular brainwave patterns. I was fortunate to have enough time to do several sessions.
Mark took me to some classic spots in New Orleans. And we were both delighted to discover that the Halbertcicles took a liking to his freezer. An especially large and broad at the bottom Halbertcicle grew. You can check out pictures of these in the new Photo Gallery. A lot more pictures from the last year will soon be posted as well. Feel free to send me pictures related to the UBtheNEWS adventure if you have any.
One last thing I’d like to mention is something that actually should have been included in the previous Trail Tale. In the first half of February, UBtheNEWS published a new and improved version of the Galaxies: Who’s Counting report. This revised report was co-written by Phil Calabrese, Chris Halvorson, and myself. This is the first time that some many people have been very directly responsible in the creation of a UBtheNEWS report. It was a real pleasure to work with everyone and marks, what I hope will be, a new phase of co-creative development in the preparation of reports. Chris Halvorson, in particular, has been making a tremendous contribution this last month and deserves special thanks. He has meticulously reviewed five reports, making important contributions to each of them.
Happy trails to all of you; I hope everyone from Celestial Nights ’08 made it home okay.
Namaste,
Halbert
3/15/08: The saying goes that “March comes in like a lion . . .” Normally, this refers to bad weather. As concerns UBtheNEWS, however, the beginning of March has been lion like in terms of being a majestic and roaring good time! One of the highlights was the opportunity to do an interfaith presentation at Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas, Texas. Not only was this the first UBtheNEWS presentation to an interfaith counsel, but also the first “high-tech” experience, complete with drop-down screen, ceiling mounted projector, and a built-in microphone at the lectern!
The Thanks-Giving Square interfaith counsel is a beautiful collection of spirits having a human experience. I did a forty-minute presentation for about eight members who came for lunch prior to their counsel meeting. This was a specially designed UBtheNEWS program, focusing on Thanks-Giving. I quoted material from The Urantia Book that highlights Jesus’ preference for prayers of thanksgiving to be offered in group settings. Then, I talked about being thankful for how God blesses us from within with the indwelling spirit and from without through epochal revelations (that exhibit a unique quality of credibility, of course). At the counsel meeting, which was attended by about 22 people, I presented a five-minute overview of The Urantia Book and the UBtheNEWS project. All of this was very well received. The woman representing Buddhism and the Baptist minister were especially eager to converse.
In an unprecedented expression of tight scheduling, from Sunday the 9th to Friday the 14th, I did six presentations in six days! And on the seventh day I rested, Well, not really. I made the three and half hour drive up to Oklahoma City so that I could rehearse music for a Unity Church performance the next day, but that story will have to wait until the next Trail Tale installment.
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This run of presentations started out at the home of Rick and Debra Guevara. We began at 2:00 and did not finish up until 8:00; I was talking for six hours straight. Obviously, a lot got said. In fact, a number of things got said that have never been said before about the whole nature of this endeavor. It was all well and good, except for the toll it took on my vocal chords. By the last two presentations I was heavily reliant on David Glass and others to read the slides for me, while I filled in with additional commentary. My vocal chords have never fully recovered from the loosing my voice at the beginning of this adventure in January of 2007. Hopefully these next couple months will help me get completely healed up. The presentation schedule will be much more relaxed while I focus on doing direct outreach at universities in New England.
Much thanks goes to Ann and Steve Garner for hosting me while I was in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. It was great to have one place to stay at during the nine days that I was in the area. The exception being that I spent the last night at Mark Austin’s (of Common Ground fame). Mark and I spent several hours discussing future plans for synergizing UBtheNEWS presentations with Common Ground performances at Unity Churches and interfaith events on university campuses. The idea is to combine these events into an integrated cultural expression of education and inspiration.
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Mark lives close to where I did the last of the six presentations, which was held at The Gathering Place Church. This means that two out of the six presentations were for non UB audiences! David Glass regularly attends this church. Bless his heart for reading through pretty much all of the slides at that event. Ten people showed up; most of them were pretty much unfamiliar with The Urantia Book. Rev. Joy Cox was very appreciative and encouraged me to present there again the next time I’m in the area. An invitation for a return engagement fits my definition of a good sign.
Special thanks goes out to Diana Drake who invited me to present at her study group the night before the presentation at The Gathering Place Church. She had printed up and folded 100 pamphlets for me. This was a very timely contribution to the project. Leaving her place that evening, my van wouldn’t start. So I had to call AAA to have it towed on a flatbed over to Ann and Steve’s house. It all seemed like some mysterious midwayer activity was going on because the guy that AAA sent over said he had been praying for someone just like me to come along with the type of information I had for him. When I told him I travel around the country doing educational presentations, his immediate response was, “Does it have anything to do with science?” He took about 20 pamphlets and gave me the Chinese takeout he had picked up right before taking the call, as I finally ended the evening around one in the morning. Because Ann’s husband Steve is very handy with engines, I just had it brought back to their house. As it turns out, the problem was just a loose screw clamp on the battery cable. Good thing I didn’t check that before calling AAA.
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Working backwards now from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, on my way into Texas the first stop was a presentation in Austin. I stayed with Ted and Sharon Lanier, who have a spiritual bookstore in Austin. Ted personally sold a copy of The Urantia Book to Stevie Ray Vaughan a couple years before Stevie started playing gigs on the mansion worlds. I had already planned to add him to the Star Power section and now I can include Ted’s tale as part of the documentation I had already found in one of his biographies, which noted that he used to read the UB to his girlfriend. Ted and Sharon were wonderful hosts with some very interesting connections and information that I think, among other things, are going to help further develop the Star Power section.
Before entering Texas, I did a presentation in Baton Rouge at Virginia Yarbrough’s home. This was a marvelous event with sixteen people in attendance. We had a great meal before hand and a very nice prayer/meditation time in their exquisite back yard. If they are not already posted, additional pictures of their property will be included in the Photo Gallery soon. These are not to be missed. Some people drove for two hours one-way to attend the event. That type of dedication and interest is very much appreciated and respected.
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Virginia Yarbrough
and Halbert
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The first day of March I attended a jam session in New Orleans at the rehearsal space of my younger brother, Hirsh. Two of his band mates also showed up. I think we ended up playing for nearly three hours! It was quite a gratifying and most excellent musical experience. They are all way better than I am, which means it was an especially nice treat for me. Aside from being a great guitarist, Hirsh has also developed a fantastic singing voice.
So there you have it. March comes in like a lion, a truly majestic and roaring good time!
Namaste,
Halbert
3/31/08: The second half of March began with an extraordinary event that had many “first time” aspects. A UBtheNEWS presentation was hosted by Unity Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was given to about 35 people; this ranks as the largest presentation given so far to people who are new to The Urantia Book! Susan Magilka, the music director, had to twist my arm a little bit to get me to agree to be the featured musical guest at their Sunday service. This occasion thus became the first time I ever got paid to play musiyc!
Susan and Terry Pursell provided some accompaniment for a song I wrote shortly before hitting the road, called “Please Pass the Love.” This song has gotten a little funkier since it was first written, and the Unity congregation was the first audience to ever hear it with accompaniment and with its new and funky rhythm. Terry also helped me out with a song I wrote called “I’m a Father, Too.” This song was written about ten years ago when Harry Menton from Boulder asked me to do a song for an upcoming Father’s Day worship service. I couldn’t think of any songs I knew that would be fitting, so I wrote “I’m a Father, Too,” which people have always seemed to enjoy quite a bit. The feel of the song was inspired by a John Prine song I had been listening to and has that serious/humorous quality for which John is so well-known.
Lunch was served after the service, followed by the full one-hour UBtheNEWS slide show presentation, with an overhead projector, dropdown screen, wireless ear-mounted microphone, lectern, and a laser light pointer to highlight all the special features of each slide as they pertained to the specific topics that work together to strongly suggest in an increasingly compelling fashion the superhuman quality of credibility associated with what many of have come to believe to be the fifth epochal revelation to this darkened sphere, known through out the cosmos as Urantia, the final bestowal world of Christ Michael. And this, of course, was then followed by another hour of questions and answers.
I think it must be difficult for most people who read The Urantia Book to appreciate what it is like to be first introduced to the book through a two-hour UBtheNEWS presentation, highlighting how science is increasingly catches up to its historic and scientific content. But take a moment and try to imagine this. Slides that show the Garden of Eden, that reveal how genetics research is corroborating the whole Adam and Eve story, that demonstrate the existence of an inner ionosphere and how, in asserting the existence of an inner ionosphere, the UB departed powerfully from the source material that seems clearly to have been used in preparing the section on earth’s atmosphere. The astronomy corroborations. Etc. There is no other book exhibiting this type of quality. People are seeing something that uniquely distinguishes the book.
The first question asked after the presentation was, “What do want us to do?” Answer: “My work here is done. My job is simply to give you the best first impression that I can and then trust that you will do with it whatever is right for you. I’m not selling anything or telling you to join something or do something. Unity churches has incorporated a Course In Miracles into their culture; perhaps you will want to do the same with this book.”
Well, maybe that “I’m not selling anything.” line isn’t completely true. I did make some copies of my first book available because I was a musical guest without a CD. They did end up buying seven copies of “The Logic of Love: Finding Faith through the Heart-Mind Connection.” I think my explanation regarding the use of the word “Father” for God helped move some books because I mentioned that the ideas I expressed to them about this issue are presented in the book. I’m fairly certain that I never sold so many copies at one event!
All-in-all, I think we have to chalk that event up as one of the best days in the life of UBtheNEWS and in the life of Halbert!
Two days later I did a presentation in Edmond, OK at the Marrows. About ten people attended this event. Several of the folks there had seen me do a presentation when I passed through the OKC area last summer. This was before I had put together a slide show. Those who had seen the earlier presentation got a sense of how much progress has been made since last summer. Appreciating the pace of the UBtheNEWS project is perhaps even more important than appreciating where it is at any given moment. The trajectory is what this is all about.
Speaking of progress, in case you have not seen it yet, there is now a section on the Info For UB Readers page that is dedicated to presenting the scholarship of Chris Halvorson. At the time of this writing, the only thing posted is information on how to listen to his study groups live each week over the Internet. However, Kristen Michaels and Eric Schaveland have been videoing these study groups for the last couple years. Michael DiMattia, who does sound engineering for a living, has graciously agreed to take the videos (which get impressive production work done on them each week by Kristen) and format them for posting on UBtheNEWS. Michael will make up a five-minute highlights “thumbnail” for each study group!
UBtheNEWS enthusiasts are now organized to begin the process of posting all past and future study groups so that people will not have to “tune in” on Friday nights in order to get the benefit of Chris’ brilliant scholarship.
It is my opinion that one of the most important things we can do for the progress of the revelation is to make sure that Chris, who has emerged as such a premier scholar of The Urantia Book, can work full-time on Urantia Book related projects. Chris really is the quality control expert for UBtheNEWS. He has directly contributed to about half the reports and his time and expertise are going to becoming increasingly important to this project.
In the coming year I am going to be focusing a lot of my energy on doing direct outreach at universities. Having him be more available to speak with professors who would like to speak with someone of Chris’ caliber is an essential part of developing inroads into academia. After leaving Oklahoma, I headed to Boulder to speak directly with him about what it would take to orchestrate this type of transition. The details are still getting worked out, but expect to hear more about this effort very soon.
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Halbert and Common Ground
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From Boulder I headed out to Kansas City, Missouri where I caught two Common Ground shows. We all ended up meeting at Eugenia Bryan’s home and crashing at her place for the night. Rob Davis also showed up there; he is touring around to help develop the Daynal Institute project. Because interfaith groups and Unity Churches are such a natural place to do UBtheNEWS presentations, I have been discussing ways that I might be able to promote Common Ground when I am scheduling UBtheNEWS events. Music and education are powerful cultural levers. It would be great to get these things working together.
I also had a presentation scheduled at the home of David and Kathy Hughes. This was a marvelous event and I ended up spending two nights at the Hughes’. David was introduced to The Urantia Book through Brigitte Mars from Boulder, CO. I had met Brigitte and her husband, Tom, when I moved out to Colorado to attend the Boulder School For The Urantia Book back in 1987. It was great hearing David tell stories about those early days! Their daughter was about as old as her son is now. My how time flies.
I’m now planning a slow trip to New England through the D.C. area. The Shroud of Turin report should get finished up before I get to New England. Once this topic is included in the slide presentation, I will put on some polishing touches and make it available for viewing and download on the website. Soon everyone will be able to attend a UBtheNEWS presentation in the privacy of their own home any time they like!
Namaste,
Halbert
Archived Trail Tales:
2008: 2nd Quarter
2007: 4th Quarter
2007: 3rd Quarter
2007: 2nd Quarter
2007: 1st Quarter
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