2006-04-23-Volunteers, Group Dynamics

Session

Lesson

Presence

Evanson (Jonathan TR): Hello, Evanson speaking. You are all such forward looking individuals, and I am grateful to be in your company. You hardly realize the benefit your efforts to grow have brought you. I did not pursue such activities while in human flesh. You have made your lives simple in comparison because of the peace and surety it has brought you. You have discovered that the striving is not painful but rewarding, and that change is like exercise; it may feel strenuous but it increases strength.

I wish to encourage you to become more sensitive to your spiritual field that surrounds you. Each of you has recognized your field of energy of love and light. I encourage you to determinedly work with that energy in social situations and in your working arrangements. The power of positive energy overrides negative energy. It is more easily identified with by another, and you draw allies by projecting such uplifting vibration. Your stature as an ascending being, your presence of mind and heart, penetrates into the soul of another, and it draws forth an encouraging impulse whereby another finds their own presence and connection. It is so subtle that no word you say or touch pinpoints what is felt but it is recognized. Try in the day or two ahead of you to be, as you might say, in the driver's seat and work with this understanding, for your society is entering into difficult times, and it will be important for the workers of divine light to project with power. I have finished my words. Thank you.

Service, Teamwork

Machiventa (Mark): Greetings, I am Machiventa. I would spend a few moments in discussion of the paradigm you encounter that you refer to as being volunteers. On your world it is unusual and rare for volunteers, individuals whose desire it is to work toward common goals for no compensation in a time when you have the term "time is money", and therefore you are choosing to allocate your resources, and volunteering represents your choosing to spend some of your resources, your time, in pursuit of goals or ideals that will bring you no direct monetary compensation.

In that sense volunteering represents a very noble and divine trait of looking to allocate your resources toward avenues of service and not toward avenues of self advancement. Just as in this circuit we form at this very moment that we all have chosen, we all have volunteered our time to come together in this forum and, having come to this of our own freewill choice, this offering that we have made represents our higher selves, our more divine motivation in that we are allocating the resource of our time toward those pursuits not of this material world but rather for idealistic, spiritual gains instead.

This phenomenon of coming together in groups of peers is one of the opportunities to negotiate while you are in the mortal flesh. It is important to realize that when individuals choose to donate of themselves towards any common goal that they are in a vulnerable state of bringing their resources to that forum, and they should at all times be encouraged that to donate in such a fashion is indeed a noble trait and to be commended. However, there does arise in this paradigm the opportunity for those of strong will to commandeer the efforts of a group of investors in the process and take control of the pool that is generated of those giving individuals. The best tack for keeping the contribution on an equal playing field is to strive to make all the participants aware of the nature of the format and to provide for opportunities for all contributors to feel as though they are an equal and valid part of the circuit that has been formed. This requires skill of individuals to monitor the ebb and flow of this pool of combined resources and to be where the contributions are flowing in and the resources are flowing out and, through monitoring this, to strive to strike a balance between all the individuals involved.

This process can lead to delicate interpersonal interactions in which the dynamic of the individual and the group may be illustrated to refer to the original intent of the forum, and it may become useful for one among this group to be appointed chairperson or facilitator with the obligation of monitoring to insure that all individuals feel included and that no single individuals are over-impacting this given circuit. One suggestion might be to offer any individuals who feel the need to delve deeply into particular subject matters the option of formulating a new circuit with the goal to facilitate such in-depth desires while freeing up the general format to be more applicable to a wider variety of participants. You have witnessed in the past how the teaching is conducted, and you have observed that we make every attempt to leave no one behind in our teaching program while still, you have observed, providing for those with more experience to still find something of substance and value.

Teaching Mission

The orchestration of such volunteer meetings will fall to you as participants to conduct and regulate. We will make no imposition or mandates regarding how your individual forums should work but rather, as you have also observed, we will work with whatever forum, with whatever format, we find ourselves. You are beginning to see the value of providing for the various levels of understanding that you are beginning to encounter in this process. For some time we have enjoyed working in close groups together and advancing as a class toward common understanding.

Now we will encounter new waves of seekers. Your Light Line has reflected that these waves are finding our classrooms, and therefore we may find it quite appropriate to divide out at times into more beginner oriented classes and yet still maintain some classes of higher education. This will be largely up to you to determine as you perceive the needs of those who join and wish to pool their efforts as well.

Every effort should be made to accommodate people in their seeking at whatever levels they may be found. Trust your analysis of the needs of your fellows and meet their needs where you find them. If this means speaking to their level of understanding then so be it. Much can still be gained to those who feel as though they have been exposed to these left before. If you encounter the need to form a group for advanced study, so be it.

We will meet you on whatever terms you request. But there will arise this question of suitability for greater audiences, and it will be up to you to formulate your response as to how to deal with various levels of understanding. You have my commitment to work with you in whatever format you see as proper at the time. No doubt it will be proper if it is your will and in alignment with the will of the Father. These are my words, even my suggestions, for this hour. Thank you for hearing them. I open the floor.

Closing

Veronica (Jonathan): Children of God, I greet you. This is Veronica. You are the luminaries of the great and vast truth that appears to be obscure in the minds of your fellows. You are repositories for the ocean of love that pours itself upon the rocky shores. You are the goodness of God enlivened, animated. Behold yourselves, for you once sought to penetrate the veil of the wholly beyond, and now you are the very indication of its reality. You are great in your humbleness, but you are also the greatness. Settle yourself ever deeper into the conviction of your universal position.

Though the reflective surfaces of your physical world show you a form of animal origin, deep within you is your lastingness, your divinity. Let it erupt forth; be blinding. It is time for Urantia to explode in light, to be set afire in love. It is time. As you accept yourself, you accept the purpose of God for you. The revelation to this world comes by way of your action. Go forward. Be He who resides inside.