GOLDEN GATE CIRCLE
WEEKEND BULLETIN:
January 2, 2010
Happy New Year 2010 From the San Francisco Bay Area!
Come to the Urantia Fellowship's General Council (GC) meeting!
There will be a community reception/social planned for the Bay Area Urantia Book readership on Saturday evening, January 30, 2010. This social gathering will follow the General Council (GC) meeting that begins Friday Jan 29th at 7 PM, taking place at the Marriott Hotel near the San Francisco Airport. The GC will take a break from their meeting on Saturday the 30th (9 AM - 5 PM) to attend the reception. Festivities begin at 7:00 PM.
Don't miss this chance to meet dedicated fellow readers and devoted gospel workers from all around North America!
What exactly is the Urantia Fellowship you may ask? I know that in this bulletin we often assume all our readers know what the Fellowship is. The Urantia Book Fellowship, founded in 1955 as Urantia Brotherhood, is an inclusive association of individuals, families, and groups whose common inspiration is the transformative teachings of The Urantia Book (UB).
Through worldwide support of study, dissemination, and reader services, Fellowship members seek to assist spiritual progress, growth, and understanding among all readers of the UB around the world. The Fellowship is committed to the ideal of spiritual unity as embodied in the teachings of The Urantia Book. The Fellowship is also a member of the North American Interfaith Network.
Reader services and organizational business matters are managed by the General Council, a representative body consisting of 36 members elected from the readership. The Council is assisted by an Executive Committee (EC) comprised of Council members who manage various working committees of The Fellowship.
Note that the Urantia Book Fellowship is not officially affiliated with Urantia Foundation.
The meeting of the Executive Committee (EC) meeting will begin one day earlier than the GC meeting. They will meet on Thursday Jan 28th from 7-11 PM and on Friday Jan 29th from 9 AM - 5 PM., and the meeting will end at noon on Sunday the 31st. EC meetings are generally open to all Councilors who are there and wish to attend.
General Council meetings are generally open to any local readers who wish to attend. If you wish to attend the meetings and stay at the hotel, please call Marriott Reservations to reserve your room at the SF Airport Marriott. Call 800-228-9290 or 650-692-9100, and use the event name: The Urantia Book Fellowship, with the reference #: 1-YXCEHP. Rooms are $109.00 a night, single or double. A free airport shuttle is provided.
The San Francisco Airport Marriott is at 1800 Old Bayshore Highway, Burlingame, CA.
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/sfobg-san- francisco-airport-marriott/
Suggestion for your Reading List:
Charlene Morrow recommends The Faith Book, which came out a few years ago (2007). It is as relevant today as it was then, likely even more so. Charlene was on the Interfaith Committee of the Urantia Book Fellowship, but has moved to the International Committee. "I really love and am dedicated to both of them," she said.
In the wake of the tragedy of 9/11, Upper East Side mom Ranya Idliby, an American Muslim of Palestinian descent, stopped calling her sons by their Muslim names in public. Instead, she'd use their nicknames, Ty and Timmy. She asked her grandmother not to speak Arabic outside the home. The Islam that preached "violence and hate" became a subject she would talk about frequently at her daughter's school-bus stop with Suzanne Oliver, an Episcopalian-turned-Catholic. Oliver said, "When I found out she was Palestinian, I was interested in her viewpoints."
Later in 2002, they met children's book writer, Priscilla Warner, a Reform Jew, and they joined together for the original purpose of writing an interfaith children's book. They wanted to write about the differences between their faiths, and highlight the commonalities among the Abrahamic religions. All three are mothers who want to teach their children religious tolerance, and each places great stock in her religious identity.
They all came to realize they needed to deal with their own questions, stereotypes, and concerns before starting the book. After several meetings, the trio's relationship and project seemed in jeopardy, but they painstakingly worked through their differences, accompanying one another at times to each of their places of worship, reading one another's Scriptures, and supporting one another's doubts and fears. In the process, the women developed a strong bond that strengthened the way each practiced her own religion and moved them all toward deeper commitment to interfaith dialog, to justice, and to one another.
Three years and many hours of taped conversations later, they produced instead of a children's book as planned, an adult book based on their recollections and growing mutual affection. But the result is no church, or mosque, or synagogue picnic: The trio periodically let it rip, confronting their own prejudices and stereotypes.
The American Indian Astronomers of Chaco Canyon
(My favorite gift this Christmas was the complete DVD set of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" TV series of 1980, received from my wife and daughter. Sagan discusses the star knowledge of Chaco Canyon's people in one of the episodes. Ed.)
At 17:47 PM Greenwich Mean Time on December 21st, a solar calendar in the center of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, heralded the winter solstice. Two bands of sunlight passing between two carefully placed rock slabs bracket the figure of a spiral petroglyph engraved on a cliff. This is the well-known Sun Dagger (pictured above) of Fajada Butte created by the Anasazi residents of Chaco Canyon who understood the movements of the heavens. They could read when changes in the seasons would occur with the changing altitude of the sun. There are many similar phenomena throughout Chaco Canyon and San Juan basin to the northwest.
The Anasazi (their Navajo name) were expert horticulturists growing corn (maize), beans and squash that fed a cities of 5,000 people, perhaps even more. The Hopi who claim them as ancestors call the Chacoans, "Hisatsinom" meaning ancient people.
What should interest us about Chacoan or Anasazi civilization? The development of an important role for the science of astronomy probably indicates other aspects of their developing culture.
"Science teaches man to speak the new language of mathematics and trains his thoughts along lines of exacting precision. And science also stabilizes philosophy through the elimination of error, while it purifies religion by the destruction of superstition." (UB 81:6.10, p. 907)
The Chacoans developed their extensive agricultural foundation by building and diverting water through irrigation canals. Their cities, such as Pueblo Bonita, "Beautiful Town," (as it's known today), were centers for the turquoise trade. Known for ceramic arts as well as those based on the use of turquoise, they traded their artifacts for goods from Mexico.
"From the valley of the Nile to the Hindu Kush and from the Ganges to the Yellow River, the chief business of the superior tribes became the cultivation of the soil, with commerce as a side line." (81:3.1, pg. 903)
Dennis Lamenti, Dine'/Ashiwi/Mvskoke, believes he is the only Native American astronomer in the U.S. with -- or working on -- a graduate degree. As a Native American and a nontraditional student, Dennis brings a different perspective to astrophysics. The primary difference is that he believes everything is alive and has its own spirit.
Dennis, being Navajo (Dine), grew up on or very near the lands once occupied by the Anasazi (Chacoans). He grew up learning the traditions of his ancestors about the stars and the heavens. Now his native beliefs have aligned with what he's learning in modern astronomy.
Lamenti, an Indiana University (Bloomington) graduate student, is involved in nationwide initiatives to bring more Native Americans to the field of astronomy while introducing his culture's astronomic heritage to the world. "Our stories tell us how to live, and we don't have to lose them when we move into university settings," he said.
In 2007, he took several Native American students to Kitt Peak National Observatory, located on the Tohono O'odham Nation near Tucson, Ariz., for a week-long study of astronomy. "Many observatories like Kitt Peak are located on the sacred ground of local tribes," he said.
Prayer #2 for the New Year
Lord, I know that many who will pray this day are going through incredible difficulties right now, so I ask you to let them see that it is precisely these difficulties that you will use "the transmuting fire" to harden them like iron to be used for your kingdom purposes. As some wise man once said, we should seek out the great treasures of your wisdom to be found in the storms and trials of our lives.
Thank you, Jesus, that your greatest treasures are still waiting for your children to claim them. Thank you that with every test we pass, we grow stronger and more able to stand against the storms of our lives. Thank you that we can begin right now, this morning, to unravel the bondages that hold us back by helping us to recognize the power of faith. A simple faith is a faith that tells us that peace is available to us even in the midst of disaster, and that joy can be found no matter what our struggles.
Thank you that you are waiting to give us a bold faith that uses the patterns of our lives to redirect our focus and to grow us into warriors for the truths of the gospel. Thank you that even when we fail, You will meet us at that juncture of our lives, and use that failure to make us over into people who choose humility -- who choose perseverance as their path. Help all who pray this prayer to recognize the power of simple faith, so that their lives can be used to impact the destinies of nations. You promise us that if we desire faith, you will grant us our request.
Thanks for tuning in and please -- Stay tuned! Dave Holt, Editor and GGC VP.
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