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HOW CAN A MAN OR WOMAN
be so fortunate as to become
intimately associated with an epochal revelation—as every
reader-believer of this generation is?
My story begins in Chicago in 1921, when I was 23. I was
working at the Walter Hoops Advertising Agency. My best
friend there was Lister Alwood, much my senior, and a gifted
writer and poet. While at Hoops I also met a lovely creature
who joined the company after I did. I asked her for a date,
she told me “soon,” and I gave her a rain check. But before
the rain check could be honored, I left Hoops to join an
agency in San Francisco.
After two years on the coast, I received a wire from Alwood
urging me to apply for an $8000-per-year job he had applied
for unsuccessfully. (I was making only $400 a month, and
$8000 was a mint of money at that time!) I agreed to return
to Chicago for a personal interview. When I told my boss of
my dilemma that good man said, “Go get it if you can, and
God bless you. If you don’t get it, come back and go to work
and forget about it.” I got the job.
The first evening back in Chicago I had dinner at Alwood’s
home. He asked if I would like to attend with him, on the
following Sunday, a meeting at the home of a famous
psychiatrist—a Dr. William Sadler, a great speaker and
teacher. Perhaps there would be some reading, but
interesting discussion and conversation for sure. I
accepted. Before Sunday came, I had a date with the “Hoops
lovely,” making the rain check good. We had not
corresponded, but I had carefully kept the address.
The first Sunday I was back in Chicago—the last Sunday in
September, 1924—I attended my first Sadler Forum meeting.
Afterwards I asked the doctor if I could bring a young woman
the next time. He consented. The following Sunday Florence
Evans went with me, and from that day to this we have been
identified with the Forum that later received the Urantia
Papers.
In 1955 Florence and I knew the first Urantia Book would
issue from the presses while we were on a round-the-world
trip for me to do some work in Australia and New Zealand.
Dr. Sadler’s brilliant son Bill, a fantastic student of the
Papers, agreed to airmail a book to us as soon as he could
lay his hands on one. That copy is now so underlined that
the underlining has no emphasis. It bears in the front this
inscription:
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“First Urantia Book! Glimpsed in Rome, 11:40
a.m., October 1, 1955. Clyde and Florence Bedell.”
An addition reads: “First reading completed
4/22/56. San Francisco, 10:48 p.m.” |
Florence departed this sphere for the mansion worlds in
1979, a week after our fifty-third wedding anniversary.
My life, with the enthusiastic approval of both my sons, is
dedicated to help, in every way I possibly can, “promote,
improve, and expand the understanding of the peoples of the
world of the teachings of Jesus.” We should all pray that
all people in our movement, from Chicago outward over all
the earth, might discover those quoted words from the
Foundation’s Declaration of Trust.
How many people in a millennium can be early recipients of
an epochal revelation? It is our duty to bring its message
to all the spiritually deprived people we can reach, in
keeping with the character of our book.
Clyde Bedell's Concordex
[click on book for purchasing info]
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