Message #4931

[Majeston]

GENE JOYCE
    
IN THE SPRING OF 1956 my husband and I stopped by to pick up our friends Agnes and Bob so we could all attend a performance of the Theater in the Round at Fair Park in Dallas. I don’t remember the play we saw, but I can still recall Agnes’s exact words as we entered their house: “Gene, come and see this crazy book a friend of Bob’s sent him from Australia!” It was accompanied by a note that read, “This book has meant so much to me and my family that I wanted you to have a copy,” and it was signed, “Clyde Bedell.”

Even without time to peruse the book, I was impressed by its size, the excellent bindings, and the quality of the paper. A quick glance through the table of contents whetted my interest. What was this Urantia Book? Considering what it must have cost to produce a book of such quality, this was no fly-by-night scam. The following day I ordered two copies from the publisher in Chicago—first printings, no less—for $10 each!

It seemed quite a coincidence that scarcely two weeks later, while having dinner with my friend Helen (who was executive secretary to G. B. Dealey, head of The Dallas Morning News), she mentioned the word “Urantia.” For some time she had been telling me stories about a fascinating man named Bill Sadler who came down from Chicago periodically to visit his business accounts in Dallas. As it happened, Bill was in town and it was part of Helen’s job to schedule his appointments while he was here, giving her a chance to get to know him.

Only that morning Mr. Dealey had asked her to find out from Bill some charity or foundation to which The News could give money in memory of Bill’s son, Billy, who had recently died. After some persistence on her part, Bill Sadler finally said, “Well, if you insist, they could make a donation to the Urantia Foundation.”

“Why, Helen, that’s the name of that crazy book!” I said, and told her the story about Clyde Bedell sending the Urantia Book from Australia to Bob’s family in Dallas.

From the time I was nine years old when my mother died, questions about survival after death and matters relating to religion had been plaguing my mind. I wanted to know why we are here, where we are going, and what is the purpose of it all. Although I believed that Jesus was the Son of God I didn’t much like the version of his personality as given in the Bible. Through the Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists and Lutherans, I searched for acceptable answers to my questions. They either didn’t have answers or the answers they gave didn’t make sense to me.

After reading the Urantia Book for ten years as superb science fiction I decided it was exactly what it said it was and it began to change my life. Jesus as presented in the book was such a revelation to me that it allowed me to come closer to him and to appreciate him as the perfect model of the Father’s love. He became my hero and the example of all the attributes I admired and could try to emulate.

The Urantia Book enabled me to abandon anxiety and eliminate my fears. It also helped preserve my sanity when my son Christopher died at 19. I thank our Father for this revelation every day of my life