1997-05-01-Life Of Loving Service
Pittsburgh #56
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Life of Loving Service
o 1.2 Group: Pittsburgh TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Tomas, Merium
o 2.2 TR: Gerdean
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Personality
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Meek
3.3.2 Socialization
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Life of Loving Service
Group: Pittsburgh TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Tomas, Merium
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
TOMAS: Greetings, my friends, I am Tomas.
Group: Good evening, Tomas.
TOMAS: It is good to be with you again. All of us in the celestial realms rejoice in your steadfastness, in your yearning to grow in spirit reality, in your desire to do His will, and in your efforts to serve. Lovely personalities, how are you this evening?
Celeste: Wonderful.
Leah: Just great.
Lesson
Personality
TOMAS: It has been a good evening and continues to be productive of spirit communion. This evening’s studies regarding The Eternal Son have brought now into your comprehension of Deity an aspect of action in mercy and as you have observed in your recent assignment regarding personality, the fact of personality is activated by and through mercy. You now have the chief two ingredients toward living a life of loving service.
Those instances where you observe personality, without judgment, wherein you recognize a fleeting glimpse of reality — be it childlike faith, confusion, experience of the ages, relative retardation, enchanting aspects, and all manner of personality manifestation — there is within you then that which is called to serve.
Many times the smile is adequate. Many times the acknowledgement speaks volumes, fills untold wells of loneliness. It may not be your responsibility to bring your concern for their wellbeing into the picture, but as you accept and acknowledge and pass by, you have served. We have spoken of this from the beginning — to open doors between you; to allow the fear to fall away, in trust of divine guidance.
And now you begin to see the Father at work in the lives of His myriad children. You have sought for Him, you have found Him in the Isle of Paradise, you have found Him within your own essence of association in your own Mystery Monitor, and now you glimpse Him in others – not only in the spiritual, but also in the actual, the mortal, the existential existence of your fellow creatures.
This acknowledgement that these beings are the children of Our Father enlarges your world. You are not alone. You are embarked on a joyous adventure wherein you will encounter other interesting personalities throughout eternity. Much of your on-going eternal education is adapting to, adjusting to, responding to, working with, appreciating, enjoying personalities. You cannot always select what personalities you will encounter, but you always have free will choice as to how you will treat/regard any and all those that you do encounter. How would the Father regard this child of His?
As you see personality and may or may not opt to respond in a service way, you may deprive yourself of the opportunity to serve altogether, but as you are touched by life, as you see the Father-indwelt personality with the difficulties that they suffer in this mortal life, the challenges they face, see them in mercy of their standing. Allow the embrace of The Eternal Son to wash over that being — your brother, your sister. And so even when you cannot or will not engage yourself personally, you can operate through the spirit to project your Father’s love and mercy on that personality.
This you can do as a conscious act of your will. It is a service. I invite you to look at this because oftentimes the distress that you see in your arena is enough to allow you to pretend that it does not exist, for the frustration is potentially overwhelming as to how you can serve, how you can do something about it. Rather than deny its existence, envelop it (the individual and their circumstances) in a shroud of love and mercy as you pass by. You need not ask for anything on their behalf or in their regard, but direct your love that you have received from the Father to them through the Father.
It is, of course, far more intriguing when you allow yourself to become involved in the realm. Nothing is more important, you see, than the work of your realm, but it is true that your capacities cannot encompass every individual human being. You do have finite capacities, after all. But to the extent that your own expanding infinite love is eager to serve, direct your free will to love and mercy. Merium is here this evening and would speak regarding the Sermon on the Mount. One moment.
MERIUM: Good evening, my lovelies. Tomas and I are yet getting used to each other, you see. Teamwork takes time. Sharing is a learned condition, and although Tomas is infinitely eager to share with me his platform of teaching, he is not entirely accustomed to my personality, and so we adapt, as he has said, and as you already well know.
Dialogue
Elizabeth: Someday you will have to describe your personality for us.
Meek
MERIUM: Someday, as you get to know me, you will be able to tell me about it yourself! Indeed, you remind me of our session on Tuesday, but I will only titillate you by that hint, and so you must find out by hearsay how we carried on, on Tuesday, but this evening I would like to discuss, but briefly, this thing about the meek.
You have, some of you, been discussing the meek. The meek are easy to discuss for they do not threaten. Like the elderly man and woman, like the Butler citizens, like the Sunday School children, these are examples of the meek. There is no threat from them. They are easy to recognize, easy to observe. Theirs’ truly is the Kingdom of Heaven.
They have not only inherited the earth, they are quite comfortable upon it. They make themselves at home here. They have no argument with their Maker or their lot in life. They have accepted and adjusted. They are not angry. They are not impatient. They are meek and they are beloved. They are not troublemakers, they are not rabble-rousers, they are not do-gooders, they are not movers and shakers. They are meek, easily accessible, too easily vulnerable.
Elizabeth: Well one person who isn’t meek is ___ [[[spouse]] of a group member]. He was an example of a personality that wasn’t meek.
Leah: Very un-meek.
MERIUM: I recognize that. I did not include him for that reason. In, again, focusing on “blessed are the meek,” I remind you to be meek, to be at home on Urantia, to be a man among men that you might rub shoulders with your fellow men. Am I receiving signals that I should be saying female gender words here?
Elizabeth: No!
Leah: You probably heard me say that. There are no men in this room.
MERIUM: It is a language usage.
Leah: Of course.
MERIUM: I intend no disrespect to our gender.
Elizabeth: “Our” gender.
MERIUM: I return you to brother Tomas.
Leah: Thank you for coming.
Elizabeth: Thank you very much, Merium.
TOMAS: We are both here and are both available to “field questions or comments. Let’s move on. Are there questions about our discussions or about your experiences on your assignment or about your reading, or any commentary?
Elizabeth: Well, in speaking about personalities, sometimes I feel a little concerned because I enjoy putting personalities around me that I find easy to deal with and pleasant and I don’t think I’m getting a lot of practice in dealing with the other type of people, and so I think maybe I’m not using my time here to learn as much as I should, but I prefer not to have to do it unless it’s thrust upon me.
I certainly did put in a lot of years with my father, who was a bit of a curmudgeon personality, so maybe I got a lot of practice there, I’m not sure, but I was getting the idea that you were saying something to us about a lot of our growth is going to take place in our relationships with these diverse personalities. Is that correct, Tomas?
TOMAS: That is certainly correct. And this will be so throughout eternity.
Elizabeth: And yet I seek the personalities that are easy for me to deal with. That’s not a lot of practice, as I said.
TOMAS: You have become skilled at insulating yourself against the vicissitudes of life.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I have.
Celeste: That seems to be a very normal thing to do.
Socialization
TOMAS: It is a normal thing to aspire toward, but it is not always successful, and yet, Elizabeth, you have effectively insulated yourself from much that could cause you damage; that is, you and your family. But you have also removed yourself from the mainstream wherein the seeds are able to fall on fertile soil.
It is perhaps not your liking to fraternize with the ilk of the Alpheus twins. Granted they are not what one would call socially fragrant, intellectually challenging or stimulating, creatively stimulating, even spiritually compatible, but they are important, you see, for they are your brothers. They are part of your family, and although you can insulate yourself and educate yourself and so forth, you will one day need to accept your fellowship leanings.
There is no satisfaction as deep as recognizing the fraternity of siblings in the spirit, and in the spirit it matters not whether you are clever or smart or witty, but that you are real. In time you will yearn to become not more gracious, more refined, more well insulated, but more real. Indeed, as you grow in the spirit you become more Real, and like “The Velveteen Rabbit,” this is not done by remaining insulated and on a shelf, but it comes from being rubbed and hugged and scratched and buffeted until your whiskers fall off.
I understand that the structure of your life has deep roots. Great history goes into this insulated existence in which you have found yourself. But it is true, as you say, that your eternity in front of you involves adapting to other personalities and it is a good time and place here and now to begin, recognizing that all attached humans to these personalities are not necessarily what you would call lovely. It is hard to love unlovely mankind, but it is an aspect of Sonship that you want for your brothers even that which they do not know that they want for themselves.
How have you been, Kate?
Kate: Good.
TOMAS: It is good to see you. I sense that you are not as vocal this evening as you normally are. Perhaps it is because we have experienced some focused sharing. Have you found merit to our exercise? (Yes) I enjoy hearing you learn to communicate, to convey meaningful value to each other.
Elizabeth: We’re probably going to continue, in a certain respect. We’re going to continue a little bit of this, even if we get a new assignment. I think we’re going to do this again.
TOMAS: I appreciate the sharing aspect and would encourage it to continue, for it eliminates excessive chatter. I do appreciate the need for socialization and the culture which you share, and indeed the fragrant personalities that you are that would give rise to such joyous socialization, but it is my purpose to introduce the spirit into your lives.
The Paper having to do with Religion in Human Experience indicates that there is a difference between a social gathering and a spiritual gathering, and I am going to pull rank and say that I believe that if we are here in honor of Michael and to study how he lived, it is more toward a spiritual meeting than a social meeting, and so I would like to keep communion as a part of our gathering together, and perhaps when you have a party I can observe without comment. However, I do not want to usurp your intercourse, and so when I have concluded, or when the teaching platform has concluded, you are certainly at liberty to return to your social customs.
Elizabeth: I think it’s productive to do what we did and to keep it to a certain extent focused on a spiritual path. I think everybody else feels that way. We do a lot of social things, so this isn’t supposed to be truly social.
TOMAS: I will then think about an assignment for you for next week, and let us continue to observe what is personality –not that you have to do anything about it, mind you, but observe what you perceive to be personality.
(In reference to those personalities who are so difficult of loving — you are cherished for your efforts, for your long suffering, for your endurance, and indeed for your mercy, for final judgment is beyond the mortal realms. It lies in the Ancients of Days who have greater wisdom that we. It is not for us to determine when personality has become extinct, when the light of a personality has gone out.)
We will continue to observe personality in terms of the living tree, the living fruit.
Kate: Fruit of the spirit, Tomas?
TOMAS: Always. I do not mean to bring up this fruit to maturity too quickly, but in observing personality, observe personality as it is – alive! The tree is alive and showing fruit. It is not ready to be hewn down and cast into the fire. It is the living personality that I want you to observe (“Let the dead bury the dead.”). Focus on that child of God. Continue to appreciate their personality, their mortal personality aspects as a child of God, given personality by Him.
And see, too, allow your spirit inside you to speak to you regarding your service. Is it a nod? Is it eye contact? Is it “Hello?” Is it shared laughter? Is it a complaint about the weather in good humor? Is it further discourse? These small steps open doors. Continue to remind yourself of the purpose of your life: to know God, to be more like Him, and to serve his children, fostering the reality of God on Urantia.
Yes, we will not go too far in the assignment. Continue to study personality. Observe, admire, be amused by your fellow brothers and sisters, and feel for a leaning in terms of service. Report back to me then next week regarding any leanings you may have felt. We will go from there as to what then to do with those leanings. All right?
Group: (Assent)
Closing
TOMAS: Merium joins me in wishing you well on your adventures this upcoming week. It is spring. People are out and about. They are innocent. They are fresh. They may be grumpy but they are happy that it is spring, and so the positive outweighs the negative. Therefore, enjoy yourselves. Walk in grace and in beauty. Farewell.
