“Intellectually, socially, and spiritually two moral creatures do not merely double their personal potentials of universe achievement by partnership technique; they more nearly quadruple their attainment and accomplishment possibilities.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 43:8.11).

Celebrating renewal and resurrection on this day, we remember Jesus’ constant admonition, “love one another, even as I have loved you.” I also recalled a quiet Easter Sunday last year when my wife Chappell and I decided to drop out of the world, leave our exhausting business dealings behind, and head up to Sonoma County. It's a place we often return to. We drive an hour and a half north to our beloved home of the heart where we met and were married over three decades ago. This time, we celebrated with a picnic at Benziger Winery in Glen Ellen, one of author Jack London’s old haunts. Though conspicuously absent from Easter Sunday worship in a church, our hearts were present to honor the day with talk about our spiritual experiences, the obstacles, difficulties, questions and hopes. She wanted to know the recent insights about having Jesus in my life that I’d been talking about. I’d recently shared how my understanding of personally accepting the experience of forgiveness had grown, along with my sense of its importance to my practice of the highest ethic, the Golden Rule [170:3.3-7] (pg. 1861).

Because of doubts that sometimes plagued me, she shared her certainty about the eternal life. Both of us grew up with the concept of heaven taught in Christianity which we found both inadequate and incredible (beyond the pearly gates is a life of ease playing harps). Forsaking its childlike immaturity, she’d gravitated to the philosophical logic and reason behind The UB depiction: further opportunities to work on your goals and ideas. It is the only afterlife vision that makes sense with all the gifts received in this first life, and yet so little time to develop them. This excerpt from Paper 103 expresses it well.

“The pursuit of the ideal—the striving to be Godlike—is a continuous effort before death and after. The life after death is no different in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life. Real religion does not foster moral indolence and spiritual laziness by encouraging the vain hope of having all the virtues of a noble character bestowed upon one as a result of passing through the portals of natural death,” (103:5.7) … but so hard to do all of it on one’s own.

We raised a glass and and toasted our life and partnership with a delightful Benziger Merlot.

“Adam and Eve exerted a lasting influence on all mankind; for the first time in the history of the world men and women were observed working side by side in the Garden. The Edenic ideal, the whole family as gardeners, was a new idea on Urantia.” (84:7.8)

“The union of husband and wife in the marriage-home relationship is a material function of the mortals of the evolutionary worlds. True, indeed, much spiritual progress may accrue consequent upon the sincere human efforts of husband and wife to progress, but this does not mean that marriage is necessarily sacred.” (83:8.2)

We learn in The UB that co-operation is a byword of the universe. On the cosmic level, “no Son could hope for final success without the incessant co-operation of the Divine Minister and her vast assemblage of spirit helpers, the daughters of God.” (33:3.4) But, we are reminded, “co-operation is not a natural trait of man.” (68:1.4)

To form more effective working groups and partnerships, and to achieve the challenging goals that lie ahead, perhaps our most difficult duty as “golden rulers” (71:4.16) is to learn to trust each other more. Jesus once said to Andrew, “If you trust me, trust your brethren more,” and later to James: "James, if you trust me more, you will be less impatient with your brethren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the brotherhood of believers. Learn to weigh the consequences of your sayings and your doings.” (The UB, 192:2.8.)

Among the vineyards, the Sonoma farms and ranches, and surrounded by the Mayacamas Mountains, we made another toast in honor of our Creator Son Michael, our brother Jesus. We felt a renewal of life’s purpose, a revival of faith in our mutual desire to continue to grow in wisdom and knowledge.  Each of us able to fill in the gaps in each other’s experiences, we shared our doubts and fortified our faith on a beautiful day in the countryside.