2013-12-09-The Gifts of Communication and the Nativity
Marin #229
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: The Gifts of Communication and The Nativity
o 1.2 Group: Marin TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael, Nebadonia
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Lesson
o 3.2 Dialogue
o 3.3 Closing
Topic: The Gifts of Communication and The Nativity
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael, Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Lesson
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, welcome. We wish you a good evening. It’s always somewhat ticklish to consider what we’re doing–inviting you to be with us with the understanding you are always here: you’re part of us. We have all the ways that you, Mother Spirit, help us with all of our mental facilities. So, as you taught once, you are like the radio waves and the television signals going right through us, right through these walls–always here. And yet you are not just in some enhanced electromagnetic spectrum. You’re in a spiritual dimension, and you’ve mentioned a number of times all of the spiritual dimensions that surround us and are a part of the space in which we live. So what we are doing in these transmitting/receiving events is simply opening ourselves to you.
Again as you taught so many times, this is something we can do for ourselves in our meditation. We can have these conversations with you and with Michael, and even with the presence of God within us. We can direct our prayers to you. We can ask questions and be open to the answers; even, as you’ve suggested, take notes. Then even beyond that: just be open. Spend time in meditation with the attitude of, “Well, dear Parents, what have you got for me this time?”
So we welcome your presence. We appreciate it when, from time to time in our regular days, you let us know you’re with us, a kind of presence we can feel in our minds. Then we can say to you, “Hello! Glad you’re here!“ Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, my dear children. This is your Mother Spirit, Nebadonia. I certainly welcome you as much. Michael and I are also tickled for this kind of communication because, unfortunately on your dear planet Urantia, it is not all that common yet. I put that qualifier “yet” forward, for this communication is something that many will come to do, who hear my voice, or read these transcripts later. Michael and I certainly invite you to talk to us, address your thoughts to us. Be open to us in your meditations for what we may offer. And then take notes if you wish. Ask us a question, and then don’t be surprised that the very next thought in your mind is coming from us, or from our Father, for he too is so much a part of your mentality. He too has been a part of you right from your very beginning, your very earliest memories.
(laughing) We hope you don’t feel too crowded inside with us, and with your guardian angel alongside too. You’d be quite a crowd inside. Yet, in your meditations, don’t be surprised if sometimes you feel called upon to review your most recent activities, just to keep abreast of your life, to reflect on all that you’ve been doing. This is one of the greatest gifts we can give you, as you give this greatest gift of all to yourself through us—time: time to meditate; time to reflect; time to pray.
It’s wonderful to make this a regular thing, yet in a way that transcends your normal habits. Even though you do it regularly–shall we say, every morning–it can be a way of breaking habits, of opening yourself to what is new this particular moment, and not what is just repeating itself. This is another part of being up-to-date, being open to an ever-changing now. This is being alive. This is fulfilling your purpose of experiencing, rather than falling back into some merely habitual behavior you have been doing for years.
As Michael taught last time, you’re an experiential being. This is your purpose. This is what you were designed for, to experience your own unique life. This is literally how God multiplies and enjoys his own creations, his own living, experiencing creations. And this can even be a measure, my dear ones, of what to do–or not to do. You can ask yourself, “Is this adding to my experience of something new in this ever-changing, progressing universe I find myself in?”
The worst part of your habits–especially in terms of the various drugs and chemicals you may take—is: they all have such a very narrow range of increasing your ability to experience something new. It’s all too easy to get into a dulling habit of having a drink, or a toke, or whatever, every evening, and falling back into a kind of nostalgia, reliving over and over and over again some happy moment from the past, associated with this chemical. This is, in one way, destroying your purpose for living if you get into some endless repetition in which you are actually experiencing less and less.
You’re not making full use of this precious time you have. As a matter of fact, then your time is not precious at all. You talk about “killing time” as if it were a burden, something to extinguish. But yes, this is within your ability. This is within your choice or, you might even say, a lack of choice–just to do the same thing over and over again, and utilize some drug to make it feel okay.
But to do whatever you do to become more alert, more open, above all more curious, more wondering? This is how things become full of wonder, literally: wonderful. You acknowledge these dimensions, and not only the physical ones in the whole universe all around you, but the spiritual ones too. All your assessment, and then your enjoyment of value not only means: what value does spirit—of personal beings–have for you? It also means: what value do they seem to have intrinsically right within themselves, to discover?
This for sure is the way to go: to seek out, to wonder about and not be discomforted, but to have that security within yourself that encourages you to seek out the new. Be open to that part of Universal Reality that is not repeating itself. This is why we refer to God’s ultimate power as one of creativity, or none of us would be around. God does not have to repeat himself. He sets that absolute repetition aside as matter and energy, the whole impersonal aspect of reality that is repeating itself—Natural Law–chemistry and physics–all these blazing suns going about their appointed places, within the spirit of all his personal beings. Think of all his unique personal beings and their relating with each other, from the highest to the lowest. All of that, happening right now, is not just repeating itself.
So be careful what you are wishing for. If you’re anxious and wish everything to happen the same way over and over again to reassure you, you can establish what we’ve called a “bubble of familiarity” and do your best to live in it so nothing surprising takes place.
But then!–what a hell of a repetition! What a waste of opportunity. What a waste of delight and excitement. What a waste of all the facilities you do have, my dear ones, to respond. You response-ability, your ability-to-respond to what is new, what is different, is what adds to your soul-wealth. It’s how you’re making full use of your time, how you are filling your soul, not every evening with the same old thing, but with a new discovery, a new adventure. This is what you were designed for. This is your purpose: to fulfill God’s curiosity through you. It’s the great degree to which he gives you free will so you can choose your own life.
True enough, he establishes the parameters of “human being” that, as Michael taught last time, is a universal pattern of personal being throughout the cosmos. There are human-type beings on trillions of worlds like yours–evolutionary worlds where people find themselves at a certain stage of evolution beyond those who have gone before, yet only another step toward those who will come after. Hopefully, with all their love for their children, their children will surpass them and evolve “human being” another notch greater.
Now I’d like to also continue another thing Michael taught on last time, and that is your relationship to the physical part of you, this marvelous body you have, still beyond the full understanding of all of your libraries of medical science.
Think what it is to be a personality as somewhat distinct from the rest of you–your creative spirit, your mental facilities, the soul of experience you’re growing. You as a unique personality also have a part of you that obeys impersonal laws of chemistry and physics. This is what you learned as small children—the fact that you are not unlimited, the fact that part of you, anyway, is surrounded by space–plain air.
You discovered your fingers and toes. You could reach out and grab things. You had various kinds of discomfort because you were hungry, or needed your diapers changed. You were cold. You slipped and fell. Think of all those thousands and thousands of hours learning how to relate to this body of yours.
Now think again, deeper, how this body of yours comes and goes with respect to your personality’s awareness. You can go long periods of time of not even being aware of it while watching a movie or TV, totally caught up in what you’re seeing and hearing. Even while you’re using your body to its maximum, say cutting up your food with a very sharp knife, and being very careful; still, you can be totally absorbed in that work. If you’re a cook, a professional cook, this can be hours in which your body is simply a tool. You can be almost unconscious of it at the same time it is doing all this work. Maybe you get a little ache in your back from bending over, and it recalls you to your body.
This is what we mean by the fact that your body–as you experience it–is also somewhat of a spiritual construct. It’s how you value it, what value it has for you. And in this, as Michael taught, many of your health concerns are still so unconscious as poor habits. With some folks it’s a great percentage. Sixty, seventy, even eighty percent of their ill health is because they are so–even half-way deliberately–unconscious of their bodies. They only use it for some kind of abuse, shall we say, overeating to the point where their body is almost paralyzed with its weight, and a simple flight of stairs, or a delightful walk in the woods, is nigh impossible.
All this dis-ease, all this disease comes from not being aware of, and taking care of, themselves in the physical sense, but only deriving some kind of comfort from it that leads to a dead end—literally! It’s not being willing to lean in to the effort it takes to stay healthy, and flexible, and strong.
You all have the potential ability to experience–not just food, not just some drug, not only some easily obtainable pleasures like that–but actually enjoy the effort and the working out it takes to stay healthy, and feed your body only what it needs of the finest food and nutrition you can obtain. Just think what it means to have that “junk food” put into this precious living body of yours, this gift of God’s: putting into it junk food, and what that does to you.
For, my dears, you are a personal being. You have your creative spirit. You have your magnificent body and mind that depend so much upon your physical health, it’s like your physical-state-of-mind. So imagine yourself as the actual reality you are–this personality–and how you have to choose to be aware of your body. Every part of your body that moves, every joint whether it’s in your fingers, your knees, your toes, your hips, your back; every joint of your body needs to move, and thrives on movement. Yet because at various times, whether because of your diet or your lack of activity, all those joints start to ache and become full of pain, one simple-minded tendency is to avoid moving, perhaps not noticing that this only leads to an ever worse condition. It’s simply not working.
Your body is designed to move. All the muscles attached to your skeleton, that enable you to move; they too need this movement. They need to stretch and be supple and strong. If your lifestyle does not require the right amount of good exercise, then you must supply it. Your present culture gives you a thousand and one ways of doing so, perhaps going to a gym to work out with others helping you motivate yourselves. You also have endless TV programs and exercise programs you can buy, dozens and dozens of ways of getting this exercise you need, that your body thrives on. Get tuned into that and enjoy the thriving, wonderful ability to turn around a degenerating situation. Have a rebirth physically, and start to live.
Enjoy the hunger for experience that your soul is crying out for, so you can walk up that flight of stairs, so you can take that walk in the woods, so you can have something new and exciting in your life, rather than having some drudgery that you try to sleep through as much as possible.
The choice is yours, my dear ones. But even this is something you have to exercise, is it not?–to keep from getting to the point where you feel there is no choice? For beyond this is when it doesn’t even occur to you to choose to turn your life around. All your courage, all your wonderful human courage becomes devoted, finally, to an acceptance and a resignation that, for all extents and purposes for you, it’s over. Your life is over, and yet you will take the next several years, or longer, dying.
This is your free will, my little ones. It too is like a muscle that you have to use. And so Michael and I tease you with the notion: lean into it–embrace it, even if it’s ever so carefully into that dull ache when you’re stretching, so you stay limber and flexible. Keep stretching yourself physically and mentally. Feed your soul and make something of this life of yours to carry into eternity. Start now: always now. Start now and just do it. Now, if you have any questions or comments this evening, we can do that, too.
Dialogue
Student: Can I ask a question to Michael?
NEBADONIA: Certainly, he’s right here with us, my dear. (laughing) We hang out a lot together.
Student: I wanted to know what Michael’s Christmas message is to us.
MICHAEL: This is Michael. Yes, I thank you for remembering me and bringing me a wonderful question. My message on Christmas is that it’s a wonderful time, not only for Christians, but for all the other members of different religions and different belief systems. In recalling the story of Joseph and Mary and the little baby, Jesus, it’s a wonderful way for folks of all ages–from children to oldsters, children and parents and grandparents; it’s a wonderful way for all of you to relive and enjoy what it is to be a baby by way of this helpless little creature there in the manger. Here’s a small living being so dependent upon its parents–its mother and father–for life itself, then continuing nourishment, the warmth of being wrapped up in blankets on a cold winter’s night; to be held and comforted; to know he or she is not alone–this little baby being taken care of, and held, and nourished.
Here is a brand new personality just beginning to experience others, even if only with the ability to cry out for response from others. This to me is one of the greatest gifts of Christmas: to remind you all of how you started. You’ve all been this bloody, bawling, little bundle of life as you came out of your mother, still attached for a while. Your belly-buttons are that symbolical–not only real but also symbolical of that attachment, once upon a time–that you didn’t just spring into existence like some god or goddess.
Christmas is a beginning. In my particular case, it was where I chose to begin my human life–here on Urantia, here on this earth of yours that was, and still is, so badly in need of a spiritual rebirth. And so for you who can feel what it is to be a child again, this can be your rebirth, this Christmas time. Mother Spirit spoke tonight on turning things around in your life by sincerely praying for help to be reborn, to start again, to utilize all the wisdom that you have gathered. This is not only what means what, but what has such value to you. You may need to reappraise all of that, to start again and gain the Sampson strength to keep going. This is what Christmas means. It’s another beginning. It’s where “The hopes and fears of all the years, are met…” in each one of you, because each one of you has so much to give to all the others around you.
Today many countries all over the world are tuned in to certain newscasts of world dignitaries who are gathering in South Africa to celebrate the life of one man who means so much to you. True enough, part of this gathering is just politics on an international level–the desire to be there, and see, and be seen. Yet the occasion of it is to celebrate what one person is able to do in his or her life. In this case, what you acknowledge above all is his going almost totally against common human nature by being in prison for nigh on to three decades, yet continuing to grow spiritually during that time. It’s where you might say normal human nature would be to live out the rest of his human life in a kind of revenge, the kind that fills so much of the world’s politics.
But to come out of that prison experience strong, open-minded, still curious about all these other people? Then—because of that—he found a new opportunity to go out and mingle, and become a leader bearing the banner of forgiveness, even thankfulness? Still to have a life in which to do things for others? This is why such a life is called great, because it is so, you might say, directly opposite to so-called normal human nature. But it’s not opposite. This is just the finest human nature. This is what human nature is capable of.
This is what Mother Spirit talked on tonight. You have those great folks who, clear on into their nineties–just like this hero you celebrate–clear into their nineties are strong, and flexible, and living marvelous physical lives, usually because they’ve been hardworking and lived very strenuous physical lives as well as mental and spiritual ones. Don’t forget that even this individual, for all the poor nutrition he was subject to in prison, was “blessed” with an awful lot of imposed physical labor.
So this physical part too is what Christmas means to me: that I, Michael, hundreds of billions of your years old, Creator Son of God and father to millions of inhabited worlds; I too was required by my Father to have a physical human life. It was one that I treasured to the very end: to the very end!
This is God’s gift to you too, my children–this wonderful physical-ness, these marvelous bodies you have that are crying, even pleading with you, for care, and love, and intelligence. This can be your Christmas. This can be your rebirth. And, with really sincere meditation and prayer, so can be every morning to come.
NEBADONIA, to Michael: Thank you, my dear one. (Then, to the student)
This is Mother Spirit again. Do you have any additional questions or comments, my dear?
Student: Well, you mentioned about drugs and I’m wondering if they serve at all in terms of helping us, like marijuana.
NEBADONIA: Well yes, my dear, as I pointed out this evening: whatever you take into your body–whatever it is–does it really help you experience more? If it’s a physical thing–whether it could just be too much food—even too much good food, let alone junk food: it could still be too much. The same thing applies with everything you take in to you. Everything “turns a corner” between being something positive, and being something negative, even if it’s just regular food. There can hardly be anything more harmless than a drink, or a beer, or a glass of wine, or even, if you will, something that does not affect your lungs. There’s nothing positive about any kind of smoke.
But this too, my dear, is part of your opportunity to make an evaluation. This is your creative spirit and your mind, and part of your wisdom: that you experiment. Everyone is going to experiment with all these various things that are out there. They’re available.
You parents have to encourage and teach your children in all the ways of evaluating what they’re doing. Is it helping them fulfill their purpose of experience, of adventure, of newness that feeds their soul? Or are they just succumbing to some kind of deliberately mindless habit to avoid that new experience, to smother the anxiety that their poor soul is crying out for more life? Are they deliberately killing the anxiety that’s trying to let them know they’re not living, they’re dying, and way, way, way too soon? These are not the same as the spiritual intimations you might get in the last few weeks of a really thoroughly vigorous and wonderfully strong and inspired life.
So, yes, this is part of your choice, part of your free will, this enormous power you have to decide what you do with your life. So there is no sharp demarcation of whatever you put into your body; of whether, in a negative sense, it’s a drug or not. What are you doing with it? Let that be your evaluation.
Student: Okay.
MOTHER SPIRIT: Does that answer your question?
Student: Yes. Thank you.
Closing
MOTHER SPIRIT: Well, if there are no further questions or comments this evening, Michael and I both wish you a wonderful, wonderful, and merry Christmas. Think what those words mean, “Merry Christmas.” It’s suggesting that there might be some joy, some happiness, some thrilling excitement in getting together and sharing things in this season.
Merry. Joyful. Happy. These too are part of life. They too were part of what Michael knew in his life as Jesus. You so very rarely picture him laughing and enjoying himself with all his followers. But that was there too.
In his day and an age, as Michael has taught, there was smiling but very little outward laughter, because life was so hard. But still that part of Jesus, that positivity of deep, deep joy of living, was what so convinced those near him that there was indeed a better way of life. Jesus had a truly progressive, learning and growing kind of merriment deep down in.
So, my dear ones, we hope you can feel yourself blessed, and not only in this season but always–from time to time–just with this whole feeling of merriment. Let somebody carry you away in laughter, and joy, and wonderful, delightful self-forgetfulness–in another’s eyes.
Good evening, my dear ones. This is your Mother Spirit bidding you to be in my love. Let part of you feel this love of mine right within you, and from time to time send us your thoughts, “Hi, Mom. Thank you, and Michael–for me.” Good evening.
