New Zealand Corner

From , By Marion Steward, Auckland NZ on

Musings on Christmas in New Zealand

The annual celebration of Christmas is here upon us once more, and students of The Urantia Book are possibly asking themselves that perennial question generated by the knowledge that the actual date of the birth of Jesus is August 21st, not December 25th – ‘what should we do about Christmas?

In New Zealand, Christmas for Christian families/communities continues to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus, but for most of the non-religious people (48.6% of the population as declared at the 2018 census) it is a public holiday with a special emphasis on the family. The way that people celebrate this event for the most part has very little to do with the birth of Jesus – lights, Christmas trees, gifts, decorations around the home and garden, special food at various times of the day, Christmas crackers – but for many people these aspects represent ‘Christmas’. 

There have been occasional moves over the years to de-winterfy the celebration here – my daughter learned a song at primary school called “Christmas at the Beach”, but the Northern Hemisphere traditions retain their strong hold on the celebrations here, and so fake snow still abounds in shop windows, along with all the other songs that stem from Christmas observed in the heart of winter.

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God’s CD Collection

From , By Neil Francey, Burleigh Heads QLD on

The vastness of the master universe is almost beyond measure, yet the revelators describe it as within a boundary. Does infinity then extend beyond that dimension, out into a fathomless darkness? Could there be other master universes located beyond the power, communication, and travel capabilities of the one presented to us?

Such musings are in good company, as on numerous occasions in the quotations below, the revelators say effectively (as on page 642): ‘We do not know, but we speculate much concerning these and related matters.’

The ideas expressed here are purely speculative. They have no basis in revelation and are merely a personal observation. These concepts in no way compare with the scholarly astronomical research and deductions being made by professional analysts of the Urantia revelation. [My thanks to Nigel Nunn for his invaluable interest and comments about this article.]

View article in PDF here (opens in a new tab)

Also on the ANZURA website under Topical Index/Study Aids you can find an excellent description, with diagrams, for the Master Universe. (Or you can click on this link to go straight to it: An Artist’s Conception of the Master Universe)

Religion of Mind and Spirit

By Marion Steward, Auckland NZ on

My goal for this presentation was first to summarise Jesus’ teachings about the Religions of the Mind and Spirit and then explore religious and spiritual beliefs and practices in the world today – necessarily from my own perspective. While I was preparing the presentation, I had two very meaningful interactions that strongly influenced my thinking about this topic. 

I was discussing spirituality with some friends and one of them, Julie, shared how she used to be a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, and recalled lining up to meet the Maharishi Yogi when he visited Auckland. She vividly remembered the jolt of spiritual energy she experienced when she touched his feet. Many years later, with very little religious life, she was attending a Catholic funeral, and was minding the grandchild of one of her friends. The child was taken up to the altar during the Mass and at the exact same moment that the priest put his hand on the child’s head to bless her, Julie felt exactly the same jolt of spiritual energy, which seemed to come out of nowhere. 

The second experience I had was at the place I work, which is a state funded tertiary institute. It is our practice in New Zealand to welcome new students in our Maori meeting house, with a traditional welcome ceremony, which is conducted almost entirely in the Maori language. At the end of this ceremony, the Maori in charge explained to the students, who were all from other countries and studying English with us, that although the students had not understood anything that had been said, that didn’t matter, because they weren’t talking to them, they were talking to the spirits of their ancestors and inviting them to feel at home in the meeting house and the institute. Many students commented afterwards on how much comfort this gave them. 

These were two examples of spiritual experiences/beliefs, quite distinct from religious beliefs, which strongly influenced the focus of my presentation.  It is very much an unfolding journey which each of us must walk individually.

Click on this ‘Read More’ link to view a PDF of Power Point presentation:

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Secret of Survival

By Cecilia A. Bendall, Hobart TAS on

Cecilia chose quotes from The Urantia Book and read them out slowly, giving enough time for the listeners to contemplate each message.

There were some comments made afterwards relating to the quotes. One of the passages was especially touching:

There dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and (that) there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness. [Paper 0:12.13, page 17.2]

Cecilia responded: You make the decision to survive – with the brain, with your mind and with your intellect: “there is a God”, “I want God in my life”, “I believe there is a God”. But it is in our Soul that we are led into our personal truth. By knowing Jesus he sojourns with us, leading us into our own personal truth – which is different from any other person’s. And that leading is done by someone who walked the earth, he knows what fear is, he knows the human limitations.

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Jesus’s Growing Awareness of God

By Geri Johnson and Rob Mastroianni, Hawaii on

Geri and Rob traveled from Hawaii to be amongst us and together presented some deeper insights into the early years of Jesus – the child.

There is no better inspiration or example of one’s growing personal relationship with God than the life of Jesus. 

In our spiritual growth, we are not asked to experience anything that Joshua –Jesus – did not also experience.  As we read about his early years, there are numerous incidents that stimulated his growth and development, some with significant detail and other events that were casually mentioned and left for us to ponder. 

Such as:   

Rob: What did he say to the heavenly Father during his little chats?

Geri : What kind of questions did he ask his family, the chazan, friends, and even strangers, that left his parents thinking he was a “walking question mark.”

Rob   “…But his real education—that equipment of mind and heart for the actual test of grappling with the difficult problems of life—he obtained by mingling with his fellow men…”  [Paper 123:5.8, page 1363.1] What did that look like?

Geri: As he became aware of his mission in life and pondered the nature of this mission, how did he handle being an adolescent with his newfound awareness?

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Remembrance Supper

By Julilan McGarry, Hobart TAS on

We celebrated the Remembrance Supper on Sunday morning by reading out some prayerful quotes and sharing ‘ bread and wine’.

 “When I give you this new commandment, I do not place any new burden upon your souls; rather do I bring you new joy and make it possible for you to experience new pleasure in knowing the delights of the bestowal of your heart’s affection upon your fellow men. I am about to experience the supreme joy, even though enduring outward sorrow, in the bestowal of my affection upon you and your fellow mortals.
[Paper 180:1.2, page 1944.5]

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DOing God’s Will

By Pre McGee, Clarencetown NSW on

The Title of this Presentation is ‘DOing God’s will: sharing our inner life’ [Paper111:5.1] and focuses on what is this DOing of the will of God to encourage readers to share their inner life with God.  To encourage readers to put into action what they have been reading in The Urantia Book. As Walt Disney said: ‘The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.’

Click here for PDF

Presidents Report

From , By Phillip Mariott on

The ANZURA national conference will be held very soon—it’s less than three months away! Have you registered and booked your tickets yet? We have so much planed—Julian McGarry has organised a great program which you will see further on in the conference article. We currently have a good number of attendees booked for the entire weekend and we will see quite a few day-trippers from Tasmania. It will be good to get together once again after the last two years of lockdowns.

We’ll be staying at the Stewarts Bay Lodge, which is a short walk to the historic Port Arthur. I can personally attest to the Port being a very worthwhile site to visit; there are a few surprises in our history, and it was not what I expected.

During the conference we will be holding ANZURA’s Annual General Meeting with the usual elections. Both mine and the Secretary’s first 2-year terms will be coming to an end but as we are allowed to do two consecutive terms, I will be nominating for a second term if the members will have me.

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Countdown to Tassie Conference

From ,
Stewarts Bay Lodge dining room

21 – 24 October 2022

Registration is now open! (see below for details)

Time is running out to register for this year’s Annual Conference being held in Port Arthur, Tasmania 21 to 24 October. Treat yourselves to this special event by dusting off those unused travel bags and making the trek. If you haven’t made up your mind yet about coming, there’s still time to book, but to secure the accommodation we need to know by the middle of August so please hurry so we can finalise our booking with the venue.

After two years of virtual conferences, we are excited about meeting up with everyone again face-to-face. There’s no substitute for in-person contact while discussing in-depth our favourite book!

Stewarts Bay Lodge is set in a stunning waterfront location and is nestled in a world heritage listed national park. It’s in walking distance to Port Arthur’s Historic Site and offers a variety of quality self-contained cabin and chalet accommodation with restaurant, function rooms and recreation facilities all surrounded by a white-sand beach, crystal clear ocean waters and beautiful woodlands.

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2022 National Study Day Reflections

From , By Study Group Hosts on

ANZURA’s 2022 National Study Day was held on Saturday 18th June. Various study groups came together to study Paper 155 – Fleeing Through Northern Galilee. Following are some reflections from those who participated:

Canberra Online Study Group

William Wentworth

Three members of the Canberra Study Group, Verona, Ysbrand and William, met by Zoom, and were later joined by Phillip, Termina and Gordon. Some lively discussion ensued as we read the paper.

Our attention was caught by Jesus’ statement to the apostles that to live out the truth is a more effective way of winning souls than preaching. There was also considerable discussion about his comments on the crystallized creeds, and how Judaism had become formalized into lifeless dogma. Some of us saw obvious parallels with modern Christianity.

However, the core of the paper seems to be the two discourses on religion which Jesus gave in response to a question from Thomas. Jesus referred to the evolution of religion, pointing out that he was himself was an agent of such an evolutionary leap in our planet’s religions, and that such development involves hard spiritual effort, many mistakes, and difficult struggles in order to leave the safety of tradition and engage in true spiritual growth. To transition from the religion of the mind to the religion of the spirit is the supreme adventure of existence, for that is what brings us closer to the Father.

In the second discourse, Jesus does, however, warn us that having begun our journey into truth, we should not be betrayed into looking down on those who still languish in the traditional creeds. He points out that those creeds have crystallized from the sincere efforts of previous generations and are not to be despised. The Father responds to the “faintest flicker” of faith.

I think each one of us derived something worthwhile from our reading and discussion.  

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