I don’t know about you but I like leaders I can talk to. I don’t like people who keep their distance. I like a person in a position of responsibility who is approachable and accessible. One leader who is like this and whom I admire is a minister in Pennsylvania whose office is in his car. This man is the Executive Minister for all of the ministers and parishioners in the state. In this position he can easily sit in his office and have people come to him. But he doesn’t. He drives a minivan filled with books and leaflets and other miscellaneous stuff and goes to where the people are. He travels with his cell phone and PDA while he puts hundreds of miles on his car every week. He doesn’t wait for people to come to him - he goes to them. He makes himself available and accessible to the people he is ministering to. The reason I admire this man is because he leads by being approachable.
And so I understand these two qualities – approachability and accessibility - to be important in my understanding of the Eternal Son of the Paradise Trinity. God doesn’t wait for us to ascend to him/her in order make Godself available to us. The Urantia Book says that the Eternal Son is one step closer to us than is the Universal Father (74.6). It goes on to explain that as the Father is love, the Son is mercy (75.6). Mercy is defined as applied love (75.9), the Father’s love in action. Mercy is deity taking part in the universe, reaching out to their children, coming to us with love and caring rather than waiting for us to come to them. The Father becomes more approachable through the mercy ministry of the Eternal Son.
Even though we will attain the Eternal Son before we attain the Father, the Son has provided another avenue for us to meet him/her. The Son is approachable through the persons of the Paradise Sons (80.2). The Eternal Son has created persons who are like him – “divinely perfect” portraits (87.6) - who are able to reveal the Father to the beings of time and space (89.2). The Creator Sons experience their creation through bestowals – actually living the lives of their subjects. In this way they allow the Eternal to share the experiences of created personalities (86.5). God knows who we are in a real / experiential way through the earthly life of a Creator Son. “In the Creator Son both Creator and Creation are blended in understanding, sympathy and merciful association” (224.6). It is in this manner that the Eternal Son is made accessible and approachable to us created beings. And not only does The Eternal Son experience the creation through the Paradise Sons but he/she has also experienced a bestowal upon the seven circuits of Havona (1308.2). And so God comes down to our level, God lives with us, God experiences with us and mercifully ministers to us. God doesn’t wait for us to attain Paradise, God comes to us.
This is just one way that we can understand the Eternal Son. Obviously my simple ruminations can be greatly expanded. I just find great comfort in the idea that God comes to us. Like my minister friend who drives all around Pennsylvania - God makes the effort – extending mercy to all of his creation. For too long humanity has viewed God as distant and forbidding. An unseen presence secretly tallying up wrongs in anticipation of the great day of judgment. I prefer to view God has sitting next to me helping write this, helping me understand, helping me live. I prefer to see God getting into his car and driving here to me – in the presence of his/her Creator Son, in the presence of his/her Thought Adjuster, in the presence of his/her Spirit. I have access to the supreme power of the universe. I can approach deity. I know that I can talk to a merciful presence and someone is here with me to listen.
God bless you,
William Whitehead
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