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"The great
hope of Urantia lies in the possibility of a new revelation of Jesus
with a new and enlarged presentation of his saving message which
would spiritually unite in loving service the numerous families of
his present-day professed followers." (2086)
The
pre-eminence of family.
In The Urantia
Book the family concept portrays ideal relationships, even divine
relationships, on the highest spiritual levels. We are all
members of one family, the family of God. The endorsement and
acknowledgement of "family" in this epochal revelation
nearly exhausts our human concepts of supremacy and importance.
1. "Almost
everything of lasting value in civilization has its roots in the
family." (765)
2. "the family is the master civilizer.…" (913)
3 "...man's supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization's
only hope of survival. …" (943)
4. "The family was the first successful peace group …."
(765)
5. "The most effective of all social groups is the
family.…" (1775)
6. "The family is man's greatest purely human
achievement.…" (939)
7. "Family life is the progenitor of true morality...."
(942)
And from Rodan of Alexandria,
8 "...family
life is...worth any price, any sacrifice…." (1776)
The privilege of
rearing cosmic citizens, children of eternal destiny, inspires us to
persevere through the trials of family life.
"No
surviving mortal, midwayer, or seraphim may ascend to Paradise,
attain the Father, and be mustered into the Corps of the Finality
without having passed through that sublime experience of achieving
parental relationship to an evolving child of the worlds or some
other experience analogous and equivalent thereto. The
relationship of child and parent is fundamental to the essential
concept of the Universal Father and his universe children. Therefore
does such an experience become indispensable to the experiential
training of all ascenders.…" (516) Also, "...parental
experience is essential, the idea of procreating cosmic citizens,
the enlarged understanding of the privilege of procreation-giving
sons to the Father." (939)
"The
creation of new pictures out of old facts, the restatement of
parental life in the lives of offspring-these are the artistic
triumphs of truth." (555)
While the human
family does not survive death, the earthly family may contribute to
individual survival because of the values, habits, self-maintenance,
and gratifications that are fostered in family life. A Primary
Supernaphim, Uranita's Chief of Seraphim says, "Love of
offspring is almost universal and is of distinct survival
value….The animals love their children; man--civilized man--loves
his children's children." (940)
"Participation
in family contributes mightily to social and personal progress.
Couple marriage favors and nurtures intimate mutual understanding
and effective co-operation which augments parental happiness, child
wellbeing, and social efficiency." (928)
The same primary
supernaphim from Paradise characterizes the home as,
"civilization's most useful and sublime institution…"
(931) Later she says, "The family is vitally linked to the
mechanism of self-maintenance; it is the sole hope of race
perpetuation under the mores of civilization, while at the same time
it most effectively provides certain highly satisfactory forms of
self-gratification." (939)
The family is
nearly all-important to the child. "The family represents to
the young child all that he can first know of either human or divine
relationships. The child must derive his first impressions of
the universe from the mother's care; he [or she] is wholly dependent
on the earthly father for his first ideas of the heavenly
Father." (1922)
The importance of
family life is certainly not unique to our planet. The people of a
continental nation on a neighboring planet, "...regard
the home as the basic institution of their civilization. It is
expected that the most valuable part of a child's education and
character training will be secured from his parents and at home, and
fathers devote almost as much attention to child culture as do
mothers." (811)
Michael's
dedication to his earthly brothers and sisters of Joseph's family
should inspire any parent. Jesus served as father to his
earthly family for almost a score of years. (1389) "The family
occupied the very center of Jesus' philosophy of life-here and
hereafter. He based his teaching about God on the family,
while he sought to correct the Jewish tendency to over honor
ancestors. He exalted family life as the highest human
duty.…" (1581)
Jesus' dedication
to his family was constantly being manifested. "Jesus rightly
reasoned that the watchcare of his earthly father's family must take
precedence of all duties; that the support of his family must
become his first obligation." (1389-1390)
He persisted,
right up to his baptism, to contribute financially to the family and
to take a deep personal interest in the spiritual welfare of every
one of his siblings. (1419) And this demanding experience of
supporting his family safeguarded against excess time for idle
meditation or mystic indulgences. (1393)
Any commentary on
spiritual family life should acknowledge the family's contribution
to true brotherhood. "Marriage, with children and consequent
family life, is stimulative of the highest potentials in human
nature and simultaneously provides the ideal avenue for the
expression of those quickened attributes of mortal personality. The
family provides for the biologic perpetuation of the human species.
The home is the natural arena wherein the ethics of blood
brotherhood may be grasped by the growing children. The family is
the fundamental unit of fraternity in which parents and children
learn these lessons of patience, altruism, tolerance, and
forbearance which are so essential to the realization of brotherhood
among all men." (941) So, the family is the essential arena for
practicing love with one's own siblings. These fraternal feelings
and attitudes may eventually be generalized to include all
humankind, even an entire universe of intelligent life.
"Family life
is the progenitor of true morality, the ancestor of the
consciousness of loyalty to duty. The enforced associations of
family life stabilize personality and stimulate its growth through
the compulsion of necessitous adjustment to other and diverse
personalities. But even more, a true family-a good family-reveals to
the parental procreators the attitude of the Creator to his
children, while at the same time such true parents portray to their
children the first of a long series of ascending disclosures of the
love of the Paradise parent of all universe children." (942)
For ages, on our
planet, children have been regarded as property. Enlightened parents
must now learn to shift from the pride of ownership to the privilege
of parenting, from thinking of one's offspring as possessions, my
children, to contemplating the honor of temporary custody of God's
children. The true goal of parenting is to gradually let go of our
traditional parental role, with its often attendant selfishness, in
favor of the brother-sisterly role, with its trend toward
selflessness.
"Gradually"
is the tricky word here. The wise parent strives to nourish the
free-will dignity of each child at a developmentally appropriate
rate, not so fast as to over burden the immature child with too much
freedom, not so slow as to foster over dependency and stifle moral
and creative growth. What a challenge!
It appears that
all sentient beings in the master universe are bound to respect the
free will of God's children, it's universe policy. This is
instantiated clearly when we read of certain seraphim called Law
Forcasters. "The intellectual foundation of justice is law, and
in a local universe law originates in the legislative assemblies of
the constellations. These deliberative bodies codify and formally
promulgate the basic laws of Nebadon, laws designed to afford the
greatest possible co-ordination of a whole constellation consistent
with the fixed policy of non-infringement of the moral free will of
personal creatures." (432) Indeed, even the perfectly divine
Thought Adjusters, "are always subservient to your will."
(1204 cf.,1183 1217)
What do these
mandates imply for our human relations with each other, especially
with our mates and children? If the absolute fragment of the Father
refuses ever to encroach on the mortal free will of his host, even
in the slightest way, what right do I have, in any degree, to
violate the free will of one of my fellows? (1180) Yet, if one of my
kind does not have a functional free will, I would think that this
decree would not hold in exactly the same way. And just such a case
is that of the young developing child whose free will is tenderly
emerging. To me this is one of the powerful reasons why parenthood
is such a monumental, even sacred, responsibility. How do we
approach and accomplish this task of fully respecting the free will
of our children while acting as responsible parents? Jesus shows us
the way in his conduct toward his earthly siblings. It appears that
his vital technique was the use of Family Meetings or Family-Council
practices.
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