Appendix 1

 AKA cool writings from or about others

The Map of Light

Drift up in concept with me, if you will, to a positions above the daily affairs of life. We float quietly, like two balloonists, out of range of the noise and pressure. See below us countless persons traveling their life’s journeys on a moment-to-moment basis. They jerk randomly, convulsively, reacting to the things of the moment, following no plotted course.

Look  closely. Observe how some individual paths, analyzed from our vertical advantage, are each a series of jagged redirections. Sometimes the reverse. On occasion the circle. They go nowhere.

The reason for the incoherency below us lies in the maps used. A map measures position in reference to a center, the selection of which is dependent on the architecture of the map. Every person pursues the journey of life by consciously or unconsciously using some map. The chart that naturally arises from life’s experiences has one’s own being as it center.

As you and I peer down below us, we see the each of the aimlessly moving persons is surrounded by a hazy bubble that clouds the view from within. The inside surface of the sphere is a map centered in the individual.

To attempt to travel using only a map centered in oneself is futile. Navigation requires a chart centered in a fixed, changeless feature of the world through which one travels.

See below us how some individuals travel steady paths. Straight they go, with evident purpose, from feature to feature of the terrain of life. Always each proceeds consistently toward a single, distant light were the orderly paths all converge. The trails of these individuals, though distinct from one another, are mutually coherent and harmonious. Suddenly you and I recognize the flowing summation of their paths and the processional of the children of light, which have seen before.

Observing of the these persons more closely, you and I detect that the individual carries a map of light, centered in The Infinite One. And we realize that God is the one fixed, changeless reality. The map of light is the map of life, with which one can travel limitlessly, with absolute certitude.

Our hearts leap as we follow the noble drama played out in the life of each child of light whom we observe. High purposes and portents, apparent in our skyborne view, are less visible from within the dusty plain of daily living. As our eyes adjust to the light toward which the children light stream, we recognize the subtle fact that these persons do not follow the path of light; they create it in their passage. Their eyes always focus on the living reality of the Infinite Father, independadntof futile, dry, formulaic routes.

From our eyrie, you and I perceive that the lives of the followers of the map of light are imbued with thrilling relevance. High purpose. And true fulfillment. And we realize that it is these qualities that the others below seek in vain, without knowing it. For these realities of light are not attainable as goals; they emerge naturally in lives of those who plot their course through life from the map that is centered in the Father of All.

[From “The Multilevate Universe: A systematic framework of thought compatible with Urantia book ontology, written by Troy R. Bishop]

Prophesy and Prophets

One of today’s (July 17, 2016) messages from Rev. Jim Rosemergy at Unity of Fort Myers was regarding the idea of “prophesy.” His emphasis was on the definition that had not to do with predictions, but rather on the idea that a prophet’s message is a reflection of an inner revelation of current activity or phenomena, often associated with an inspiration from God or a higher source. This is my reading of what I heard, anyway.

To expand, a prophet is a channel for clear thinking or expressing what is really going on. The source may be self revelation, a message from the innermost being of the heart, or that still small voice the speaks truth to us individually. If may also be the result of incredible flashes of insight, from an intellect that can bridge different ideas and come up with a singular truth that often leads to other truths, discoveries, and realities. 

Jesus remarked upon how often the Hebrew prophets of old ended up being put to death for their outlandish ideas and observations, only later to be eulogized for their marvelous insights and their words placed in sacred books. Some think Jesus, himself, was one such prophet.

Jane Jacobs was certainly one of our leading twentieth century prophets. Her works were masterful renditions of telling us what we could not see ourselves–until we could. But it would take years for some. Her first book, The Life and Death of Great American Cities, gave us the exact formulas for what make a city work as a great city and what will cause it to miss the mark, to stumble from being a “lively, thriving, and safe” place to live, work, and play to a place that few would want to come to, much less live in. 

Although the book was published in 1962, the same year as “Silent Spring,” it was given little notice by those whose job is to design our cities, our streets, and buildings–perhaps because she was seen as an amateur or perhaps because she lambasted those same professionals–until the rediscovery of the understanding of what she had been trying to tell us. One of the first new implementations of her ideas about cities was evidenced in Florida’s first “New Urbanist” community, Seaside. Almost overnight, her ideas came to be seen as the something to take seriously–that is, if the goal is to make a community one that fits her definitions.

Since then, New Urbanism is all the rage everywhere, accompanied by regeneration of the downtowns of cities across the country. The I was teaching at the University of Colorado’s College of Environmental Design in Boulder, I considered her work to be the “bible” of city design philosophy and technique. It was my first-year students’ first required reading.

Jane Jacobs was also an expert in the economics of cities and nations and wrote at least three books on the subject. She also challenged, in her Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics, our moral and ethical concepts of work, market economics and public trust and distrust. 

Her last book, Dark Age Ahead, published in 2004, was Ms Jacobs being her most prophetic self wherein she undertook a look at the five areas of what she considered our most vulnerable aspects of our culture, what she called the “five pillars of culture.” These included the deterioration of the family unit, both biological and economic; “credentialing” instead of education; the abandonment of science; dumbing down of taxes; subversion of self-policing of our institutions.

While Jane Jacobs, like Jesus, tells us a little about what the future may become for these times in which she lived (and we still do) mostly she is telling us–really warning us–about what was going on right under our noses but we knew it not. And still don’t.

And like any good prophet will tell us, the question is: do we have the eyes to see or the ears to hear? I guess we will find out eventually.

Albert Einstein and the UB

“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them” or “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” - Albert Einstein

In an interview with Albert Einstein, the interview said to him, “Then you trust more to your imagination than to your knowledge?” His reply is for all of us to remember: “I believe in intuition and inspiration. … At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. . . . . Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein

“Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Therefore it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analysing long-held commonplace concepts and showing the circumstances on which their justification and usefulness depend, and how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. Thus their excessive authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, or replaced if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason.” - Albert Einstein

“Many persons have inquired concerning a recent message of mine that ‘a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels.’ Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we knew it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking. In the light of new knowledge, a world authority and an eventual world state are not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, they are necessary for survival. In previous ages a nation's life and culture could be protected to some extent by the growth of armies in national competition. Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars.” - Albert Einstein

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” - Albert Einstein

“I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.” - Albert Einstein

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.” - Albert Einstein

“I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values. I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a "matter-of-fact" habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations. … The frightful dilemma of the political world situation has much to do with this sin of omission on the part of our civilization. Without "ethical culture," there is no salvation for humanity.” - Albert Einstein

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike….” - Albert Einstein

“… the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.” - Albert Einstein

“To think with fear of the end of one's life is pretty general with human beings. It is one of the means nature uses to conserve the life of the species. Approached rationally that fear is the most unjustified of all fears, for there is no risk of any accidents to one who is dead or not yet born. In short, the fear is stupid but it cannot be helped.” - Albert Einstein

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. … Don't stop to marvel.” - Albert Einstein

“I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. … The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.” - Albert Einstein

“I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes in the personal affairs of mankind. My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!” - Albert Einstein

“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.” - Albert Einstein 

© James Leese 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020