‘I Felt Like I Was There, Walking With Jesus’

Cheryl Boyles is writing a screenplay series for television based on Part IV of The Urantia Book, The Life and Teachings of Jesus. Here, she recounts her journey so far and invites others to participate in this momentous endeavor. 

This story really began when I found Jesus as a child of seven. Or rather, when he found me.

I was in a bad situation then, and terribly afraid. Jesus’ personal presence became very real inside of me in a way I still cannot easily describe, only to say that it has never left. 

I grew up truly loving Jesus and wanting to know everything about him. As a young woman and new mother at 20, I read the Bible cover to cover. I was struck by the difference between the human record of Jesus’ teachings and Paul’s gospel of sin and atonement but didn’t know how to reconcile this conflict on my own.

I was a stay-at-home mom of three daughters—homeschooling and teaching Sunday School and AWANA (“Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed”) when I began to dabble in various forms of creative writing. I eventually went to work as a government sales representative in the technology services industry. During this time I happened upon a little software program called Final Draft (originally purchased on floppy disk!) and from there I began teaching myself the art and the craft of screenwriting. 

At some point I followed my heart into alternative health and took yoga teacher training. I soon found myself the owner/operator of a yoga studio. During my 14-year tenure as a yoga instructor I was introduced to many new avenues of religious thought and for this experience I am most grateful.

Praying for Revelation

It was between jobs as an outside sales rep and a yoga teacher that I began to pray for revelation. I craved understanding—for a way to view Jesus’ story in a context that resonated with the revelation of God’s love he had put in my heart as a child. 

Within months of forming this petition, I was introduced to The Urantia Book: “The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings...” 

One paragraph in and I knew I held a revelation in my hand.

The Life and Teachings of Jesus opened up unimagined spiritual vistas for me and suddenly everything made sense. As I read I felt like I was there, in Palestine, Egypt, Rome…walking with Jesus, listening to his sweet, resonant voice.

I have seen the film with my mind’s eye from the beginning.

I had been writing screenplays for 20 years, and reading The Urantia Book for 15 of these, before the first thought of adapting Part IV into a series occurred to me. My notebook in hand, I perused the Jesus papers with a screenwriter’s eye trying to get a sense of what such a project might entail.

Having experience in both researching and writing historical adaptations I realized that new characters and subplots would be required to create compelling drama, as well as original and paraphrased dialogue for Jesus. Before long I became convinced such a formidable undertaking was beyond my capabilities.

Five years later, seemingly out of nowhere, I was overcome with a sense that I was to write a script concerning The Urantia Book. I had no clarity as to what, but I could not shake the impression. For a brief time I entertained the notion of a feature film about the origins of the book but not another single inspiration or idea surfaced in that vein.

In October of 2019 I had a mental vision of celestial voices echoing Michael’s prebestowal instructions through the cosmos. I felt at that moment that I was being called upon to adapt the Life and Teachings of Jesus into a teleplay series, and that this “scene” was to be the opening. 

I immediately opened a new screenplay document, titled it simply “Jesus,” typed “FADE IN,” and basically stared at an otherwise blank screen for the next eight months.

The First Episodes

In February of 2020 I contracted COVID-19 and never fully recovered. I was still very symptomatic by June when our dog unexpectedly died. Between the lockdown, my ongoing illness, and my grief at losing my beloved pet, something in me cracked open. I started to write as if my life depended on it. 

By August I had drafts of the first three episodes written. 

The strength of Jesus’ presence during that particular summer was the most real and sustaining spiritual upholding I had ever known. 

And Jesus had some fine help. If not for my best friend and husband of 30 years—Thomas—this series never would have come into existence. He has been reading and studying The Urantia Book with me for 24 of those years, five of which we hosted a study group in Southern California (where we called home until we retired and resettled just south of Tucson). Thomas is my proofreader, insightful critic, and most avid supporter. Our Father’s love for me flows liberally through him.

I eventually came to call the series The Son of Man. While filmmaking takes a village, these scripts have been written in solitude and I confess to getting discouraged at times. I’ve sometimes questioned why I would invest years of my life researching and writing something that only my husband, a short-list of friends and family, and readers for screenplay competitions get to see. But at the end of the day there is a burning in my soul to keep going.

The Living Jesus

In a recent opinion piece published by the news organization, Common Dreams, I came across the following quote: “As a society, we have to admit that, despite 50 years of knowledge about the dynamics of the collapse of our life support systems, we have failed to initiate a systematic change to prevent this collapse. It is becoming increasingly clear that, despite technological advances, the change needed to put us on a different trajectory will also require a change in belief systems, mindsets, and the way we organize our society”(italics added).

As Jesus taught Angamon, leader of the Stoics in Rome: “Unless the moral insight and the spiritual attainment of mankind are proportionately augmented, the unlimited advancement of a purely materialistic culture may eventually become a menace to civilization. A purely materialistic science harbors within itself the potential seed of the destruction of all scientific striving, for this very attitude presages the ultimate collapse of a civilization which has abandoned its sense of moral values and has repudiated its spiritual goal of attainment.” (132:1.3)

Consider with me the breakout moment we are currently witnessing, as young people across the US and around the globe effectively harness their moral duty to reject the sordid values this backward world deigns to impose.

While prayerfully pondering these things, I was reminded of something Jesus said: “How is it that you so well know how to discern the face of the heavens but are so utterly unable to discern the signs of the times?” I am aware that such discernment is a motivating force encouraging me forward in this often lonely service of adapting the life and teachings of Jesus for film, the sole purpose being to lift up the Master in a broadly accessible way so that he may “draw all men to himself…”

”The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries…What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus…” (196:1.2)

An Invitation

There is no one path to film production/distribution. With new technologies, streaming services, and independent filmmakers, the process is in a constant state of reinvention. Many filmmakers are utilizing direct-to-consumer platforms like YouTube and Amazon Prime. The three known requirements for making films are money (investors/crowdfunding), talent, and connections. 

If production is our Father’s will we know that absolutely nothing is impossible; we have only to be willing to do the hard human work. I invite my revelation-enlightened kingdom siblings—as you are spirit led—to join us in forming our production team for this momentous endeavor, to help us plan, organize, actively gather, and manage necessary resources.

If you are interested in a closer look at how I’ve approached this series please enjoy the following presentation (actors are suggested “types” and not actually attached to the project): 

The Son of Man: Series Presentation

“What an awakening the world would experience if it could only see Jesus as he really lived on earth and know, firsthand, his life-giving teachings! Descriptive words of things beautiful cannot thrill like the sight thereof…” (195:9.8)

May, 2024

Contact Cheryl Boyles at jesuswriter1@gmail.com. Her website is at: The Son Of Man TV Series