September 1st, 2016 – I want to tell you about a resource I use as I’m constructing children’s lessons. The resource is a 1932 book titled Treasure-House of the Living Religions by Robert Ernest Hume. It has been identified as a source book for Paper 131 of The Urantia Book. If you google the title, you will see that Square Circles has made it available online as a PDF.
You may be wondering, “How is this scholarly book of religious quotes helpful with children’s lessons?” The answer is, it helps me find a focus for the discussion questions that I include with each lesson. Robert Hume divided his quotes into 50 chapters or themes. You can see a quick list of all 50 chapters by clicking here: Treasure-House Chapters.
I write the story summary and questions such that the lesson can be used with a Urantia Book reference or a Bible reference. This is a bit of a balancing act, but I’ve chosen to do it this way because of the big E: evolution. In addition, the Treasure-House book provides an Interfaith theme, thus broadening the possible appeal of the lesson. To see an example of what I’m talking about click here: The First Disciples. In this lesson, I chose the Treasure-House chapter “Thought and Meditation,” which helped to widen my thinking as I constructed the story and questions.
By the way, here is a passage from The Urantia Book that uses the phrase “treasure house”:
77:9.9 The midway culture, being the product of an immortal planetary citizenry, is relatively immune to those temporal vicissitudes which beset human civilization. The generations of men forget; the corps of midwayers remembers, and that memory is the treasure house of the traditions of your inhabited world. Thus does the culture of a planet remain ever present on that planet, and in proper circumstances such treasured memories of past events are made available, even as the story of the life and teachings of Jesus has been given by the midwayers of Urantia to their cousins in the flesh.
Good to know!
My progress on the children’s lessons is slow and sometimes interrupted for several months. When I write these posts, I start thinking, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!” But, I talk about the project anyway. It helps to get some feedback. So, thank you for listening to me as I wend my way through this.
Vicki Arkens