I rejoice and give thanks for the efforts and accomplishments of Ellen Mitchell, who left this world on March 2 at the age of 85. She was not well-known in the world, but among the Worldwide Community of the New Message from God, she was well-known and well-loved.
Our kind cheerful den mother
Ellen Mitchell’s testimony of hearing Marshall Vian Summers speak
I don’t know very much about Ellen’s life. The above testimony shows she first encountered Marshall Vian Summers in 1994. In 1998 she moved to Boulder, Colorado to support the New Message. She has been a member of the Society for the New Message from God for many years.
I don’t know exactly what she did as a member of the Society. But I do know that when people inquired about the New Message from God in one form or another, Ellen would patiently and cheerfully respond. She may have answered more questions about the New Message from God than anyone, living or dead. To me, she was our kind cheerful den mother in the Worldwide Community. Happy for our participation, hopeful for our advancement, compassionate with our struggles. She had an inner strength, an inner conviction, which enabled her to be so kind and encouraging to us.
Ellen Mitchell’s depiction of Step 23 of Steps to Knowledge, “I am loved, surrounded and supported by the Teachers of God.”
Ellen also created many artworks that illustrated the teachings of the New Message from God. I seem to recall occasional exhibitions of this artwork, but I’m not finding them now. I consider her artwork to be direct and to the point.
Our kind cheerful den mother. I don’t know very much about Ellen’s departure from this world. It seems to be the tendency of students of the New Message from God to die with minimal drama. All I know is that if the New Message succeeds, Ellen Mitchell will be one of the reasons why. By “succeeds” I mean “causes the human family to survive an increasingly difficult world.” Furthermore, “causes humanity to emerge into a greater community of intelligent life with its freedom and sovereignty intact.” Did she fulfill her purpose for coming to this world? I don’t know. But I believe she made a great contribution.
Sahaba or “Companion disciples” in Arabic calligraphy
In Islam, there are those known as the Sahabah, (“the Companions”) who recognized Mohammed as a prophet during his lifetime, and died as Muslims. Like Mary Lee, I consider Ellen to be one of the Sahabah of the New Message from God. There aren’t enough of them to have a name for them yet. Sometimes the word “respondents” is used to describe people who embrace the New Message from God. All I know is that somewhere, on a golden scroll in a holy place, are the names of the Sahabah of the New Message from God. Ellen’s name is on that list.
The New Message from God places a much greater emphasis on what a person practices, than on what a person believes. I wish to share yet another story from the book “Tales of the Dervishes” by Idries Shah (1924-1996). This tale is from the teachings of the Khilwati (‘recluse’) Order, founded by Omar Khilwati who died in 1397. It is very pertinent to the subject of practice.
Real practice for real people
Two pious and worthy men went into a mosque together. The first one took off his shoes and placed them neatly, side by side, outside the door. The second man removed his shoes, placed them sole to sole and took them into the mosque with him.
There was an argument among a group of other pious and worthy folk who were sitting at the door, as to which of these men was the better. “If one went barefoot into a mosque, was it not better to leave the very shoes outside?” asked one. “But should we not consider”, said another, ‘that the man who took his shoes into the mosque carried them to remind himself by their very presence that he was in a state of proper humility?”
When the two men came out after their prayers, they were questioned separately, as it happened, by different parties from the onlookers.
The first man said: “I left my shoes outside for the usual reason. The reason is that if anyone wants to steal them he will have an opportunity of resisting that temptation, and thus acquiring merit for himself.” The listeners were most impressed by the high-mindedness of a man whose possessions were of so little account to him that he willingly entrusted them to whatever might be their fate.
The second man, at the same time, was saying: “I took my shoes into the mosque because, had I left them outside, they might have constituted a temptation to steal them. Whoever had yielded to this temptation would have made me his accomplice in sin.” The hearers were most impressed by this pious sentiment, and admired the thoughtfulness of the sage.
But yet another man, a man of wisdom, who was present, cried out: “While you two men and your followers have been indulging in your admirable sentiment, training each other with the play of hypothetical instances, certain real things have been happening.”
“What were these things?” asked the crowd.
“Nobody was tempted by the shoes. Nobody was not tempted by the shoes. The theoretical sinner did not pass by. Instead, another man altogether, who had no shoes at all to carry with him or to leave outside, entered the mosque. Nobody noticed his conduct. He was not conscious of the effect which he might be having on people who saw him or did not see him. But, because of his real sincerity, his prayers in this mosque today helped, in the most direct way possible, all the potential thieves who might or might not steal shoes or reform themselves by being exposed to temptation.”
Do you still not see that the mere practice of self-conscious conduct, however excellent in its own realm, is a pale thing indeed when measured against the knowledge that there are real men of wisdom?
Who am I practicing for?
There are multiple things one could take away from this story. One thing I am taking away now is that in the realm of practice, hypothetical people are overrated. The theoretical sinner did not pass by. He might never pass by. The two supposedly pious and worthy men started with an incidental detail of practice. They then wove a fantasy for the purpose of feeling good about themselves. Any sincere effort by (or for) a real person is much more significant than every effort by (or for) a merely possible person. It is my sincere hope that students of every tradition engage in real practice for real people.
Humanity faces a global pandemic. The human family faces an increasingly difficult world. A world of declining resources. Climate that is less friendly. A polluted environment. Extraterrestrial intervention. What am I going to do about it? Share a poem, of course!
She’s free She’s on her destination
February 25, 1888 issue of the New York Herald
The Walt Whitman poem “Old Salt Kossabone” first appeared in the February 25, 1888 issue of the New York Herald. It would later appear in the first “Annex” section of the final edition of Leaves of Grass. To me, it is as if he had already written his epitaph and obituary in the poem “So Long!” then discovered he had a few more poems to write. This poem is one of them.
OLD SALT KOSSABONE.
Far back, related on my mother’s side, Old Salt Kossabone, I’ll tell you how he died: (Had been a sailor all his life—was nearly 90—lived with his married grandchild, Jenny; House on a hill, with view of bay at hand, and distant cape, and stretch to open sea;) The last of afternoons, the evening hours, for many a year his regular custom, In his great arm chair by the window seated, (Sometimes, indeed, through half the day,) Watching the coming, going of the vessels, he mutters to himself —And now the close of all: One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for long—cross- tides and much wrong going, At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her whole luck veer- ing, And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly enter- ing, cleaving, as he watches, “She’s free—she’s on her destination”—these the last words— when Jenny came, he sat there dead, Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother’s side, far back.
I don’t think people in our time are aware of the complexities of sailing ships. Whitman made references in other poems to ships at sea being baffled or “puzzled.” Let’s just say it’s trickier than it looks. I take joy in this poem for a couple of reasons. I hope for those who care about me to see me “strike the breeze aright.” I hope to see a struggling humanity rising and uniting, becoming a strong race, determined to successfully navigate the difficult times ahead. I wouldn’t mind if my last words about humanity were “She’s free she’s on her destination.”
Panel Discussion, Making Contact Convergence Conference, August 2021
Marshall Vian Summers, the Messenger of the New Message from God, is relatively discreet regarding making public appearances. But the Making Contact Convergence Conference invited him to present in August of 2021. He gave two presentations and participated in a panel discussion. The two presentations are available at the New Message Community Site (free registration required)
I am familiar with Lue Elizondo and Ralph Blumenthal. Danny Sheehan is one of the conference co-organizers. Richard Dolan has written a number of books on UFOs and the history of government response. Adam Curry is an inventor and tech entrepreneur exploring the horizons of “consciousness technology.”
Seven watchers from seven worlds
The participants in this panel have a great deal of experience to bring to the subject of UFOs. I considered them, with the exception of Marshall, as a pack of bloodhounds following the trail of UFO evidence and its suppression by the US government. But Marshall was given a chance to tell his story. He answered questions from the other panel members.
The portion of the panel discussion where Marshall spoke
“Okay, first of all, I’d just like to say that what’s going with information not leaking out into to the public is really not my domain, I don’t want to presume to know what the government holds or doesn’t hold. I’m sure it holds a great deal after 50 or 60 years of secrecy but I don’t claim to have any intuition or insight into how much they do know or don’t know. They’re kind of condemned either way because if they don’t know, then they look pretty stupid and if they do know, who can hear it?
But what’s happened for me is, I was encouraged to receive a communique, and I wasn’t really wanting to do it. My work is in, really, the spiritual, religious realm. I didn’t really want to get into this business, partly because my wife’s brother was involved in it earlier and it really had a damaging, I think a damaging impact upon his well being, and he saw things that just didn’t fit his reality. He was an assistant to George Van Tassel at Giant Rock, he was his assistant, and what had happened there. He was there, full time. And so, he just finally had to leave. He was kind of given a choice: You’re either going to go deeper into this, in which case you will not have a public identity, you will not have a normal life, you will have no access to just about anybody. Or, you should probably bow out because you’re hitting a threshold where you’re gonna have to make a choice. And there was an apparent offer for him to go in that other direction.
So, I’ve been reluctant because I’ve seen this is a very messy and confabulated and repressed arena of information. But nonetheless, I was asked to receive this by a spiritual force that said we want you to receive these beings. And they actually did give me a small message, actually on my honeymoon, which I didn’t appreciate, in 1983. Just said, “Hear us, hear us, hear us, we have a message.” But they didn’t come back until 1997 when I was in a much better position, having written, “Greater Community Spirituality,” and being interested in the realm of theology in the Universe. I mean, that’s been a real focus of mine. So I began to receive these briefings after much resistance. I’m surprised at how much resistance I had because I always thought of myself as like, I’m open to truth from whatever source, right? Well, I really wasn’t open to truth from this source. But, I did finally acquiesce, and began to receive the first parts of the first of the four “Allies of Humanity,” briefings, but from a very distant voice, very far away. No physical presence, no physical engagement, no craft, nothing appearing in my room, nothing splendid or exotic or anything, just this communication. And so, I recorded it, as it was coming to me. It was written out and is now available in the form that I received it. What I want to say about this is that, we’re losing time to deal with this. We’re losing critical time. I mentioned four fundamental questions in my talk this morning and we’re stuck on the first question.
So, something needs to break somewhere and I don’t think it’ll be through the New York Times and I don’t expect Ralph [former investigative reporter for the New York Times], for you to be the vehicle for it or anything like that. And meanwhile, there’s so much disinformation going on about this amongst the people on the internet, it’s shocking. To me, it’s very shocking and I think much of is unbelievable and some of it is downright dangerous. So my concern is that we really don’t have any basis for evaluating foreign presence in the world today, because we have no idea what is going on in life beyond our world. Everything we ascertain is from our position on the ground, from a human perspective and as a result, I make no claim to understand ET intelligence. I don’t think I would even presume to do that. Nor do I think that they’re part of my spiritual cosmology or that I assign to them, spiritual causes or anything like that.
But the Allies of Humanity briefings, in a way, is a form of disclosure. This is what you need to know about who is in your world, why they’re there, what they’re doing and what their ultimate game plan is. And, here’s what you need to know about your local universe that gives rise to this intervention, [and what] supports it and what limits it. What dictates what it is able to do and not able to do, in the realm of greater things that we have no information about. So, if all we have to go on is physical evidence on the ground or sightings in our sky, I think we only have a very small piece…we don’t have the whole puzzle, maybe we only have 40% of the puzzle. So we can answer the first question, but beyond that? Why is it happening, what does it mean, how do we prepare? Well, who can go there? Everyone goes to the government…
Danny Sheehan: Let’s try to be clear, Marshall. Who is it, that you understand, is communicating this information to you, telepathically? Who is that group, what is that about?
Marshall Summers: They claim to be a group of seven individuals from seven worlds, who’ve been observing the alien intervention – I call it an intervention – on our world, and who can report on their activities, and where they came from and what guides them. Because this is an expeditionary force, this is not a big military force. And it appears, in 70 years of being here, that they’re laying the foundation for something else to come and they’re doing many other the things that I mentioned in my talk this morning. Now, I had to sit with this for a couple of years, really, before I even knew what to do with it. Because, I can’t prove to you my source is real or authentic, I can’t prove to you its authenticity. It’s only the quality of the message itself and its coherence with what is observable on ground. And my own sense of, I think this rings true to me but I don’t know why. I’m not in a position to say what is true about life in the universe and what is not. But this is a message that I’m tasked to take out to the world to translate into many languages, so people have an opportunity, from a citizen standpoint, this is kind of the citizens initiative, if you will, to look at this from a certain level of practicality and feasibility, based upon what we know from what we have learned here from life on Earth.
Danny Sheehan: As Lue was pointing out, legitimately and Ralph has too, and I do as an attorney, we need to know more about the source of this information in order to evaluate the credibility. Setting aside, which we’ll address with Adam, shortly, the means by which you understand you’re receiving this, sort of telepathically, we’ll address that separately. But the nature of the source of the information, you say, are seven individuals from different planets, different star systems in our galaxy? Are they from our galaxy, you think?
Marshall Summers: That’s what they say. Let me share some other information that I think bespeaks their intent as being neutral observers. One of the things they say, really, at the beginning, is no one should be visiting your world for any reason because humanity is not ready for contact, it doesn’t have human unity, species maturity or any kind of preparedness for this event to happen. So, all I can say…
Danny Sheehan: That’s telling us more about what it is they’re saying. What I’m doing is I’m trying to put myself in Lue’s shoes and Ralph’s shoes and my shoes as an attorney, and saying, “This source that you’re talking about, what have they told you about who they are and what their reason is for knowing this information?” That’s how you explore the credibility of a source, even if they’re an unnamed source or a potential source that wants to maintain anonymity, I did the case that went to the Supreme Court to protect the identity of confidential news sources (laughs), so I’m respectful of that. But I need to know who they are and what is the means by which they profess to have access to knowing this information. If you can share that with us.
Marshall Summers: Their story…they don’t tell their identity and where they’re from, because they’re acting as spies, basically. They come from planets where…they’re not even representing their planets. They’re on some kind of greater spiritual mission because their planets represent free societies in a universe of large, technological societies where freedom is either unknown or repressed.
Danny Sheehan: Are they all in our galaxy?
Marshall Summers: Yes, this is our local space, this is local space. So I’m telling you the story they tell me, okay? And that they underwent the kind of intervention in their histories that we’re undergoing now, and were able to ward off that intervention, through variously means, sometimes violently, and that is why they have been asked to come and give us their wisdom about this, because we have no idea what’s going on beyond our borders and we’re very limited in how we can fill out this picture. So, they’re giving us then, the picture and that is what they’re there to give us, they’ve never visited our world. They have no plans on establishing relationships with us because they say we’re far too immature to engage in contact successfully, and that no race who would ever be an ally of humanity would try to do what is occurring in the world today.
Danny Sheehan: Are they capable of interstellar space travel?
Marshall Summers: Well, if they come from different planets I would assume so. I mean, they actually say that space travel has been around even before human civilization, far before. So, we’re way behind that curve. And so, we should never try to ascertain the limits of human…”
At this point, the conversation turned to give Adam Curry a chance to share. But it is an opportunity to hear Marshall Vian Summers speak in his own words about the Allies of Humanity. Seven watchers from seven worlds.
Cover of Fantastic Four #49, Issued January 11, 1966
1966 was the first appearance of Galactus in the Marvel Comics universe. Galactus is a being who consumes living planets for his nourishment. He thinks of the living beings on those planets the same way you or I might think of the bacteria growing on our meals.
I wish to be worthy to receive a game-changer
This is a more detailed summary of the tale, but I am only interested in certain aspects. In Fantastic Four #48, despite the efforts of Uatu the Watcher, Galactus comes to Earth, planning to consume it. The Fantastic Four resist him, but are nowhere near as powerful as Galactus. It seems that the Earth is doomed, but the Watcher explains that there is a device upon Galactus’ home planet that could stop him. The Watcher boosts the powers of the Human Torch (one of the Fantastic Four) so that he may travel at unimaginable speed to Galactus’ planet and retrieve the weapon they need.
In Fantastic Four #49 and #50, some things happen that give the Human Torch just enough time to return with this weapon, the Ultimate Nullifier. It doesn’t look like much, but as you can see, even Galactus fears its power. When Reed Richards threatens to use it against Galactus, the planet-eater agrees to spare the Earth and leave if Reed gives him back the weapon. True to his word, Galactus leaves. As life returns to normal, the press dismisses the Galactus event as a hoax.
Why am I sharing this with you? In this story, it seems that the Earth is doomed. Appeals to logic, reason and conventional morality were irrelevant to Galactus. Even Earth’s mightiest heroes were no match for his power. But the Watcher gave humanity a game-changer in the form of the Ultimate Nullifier.
There might be someone reading this and thinking “Douglas, didn’t you say the Watcher was forbidden to interfere in human affairs?” Indeed I did. I have thought about this from time to time. The Watcher engaged in a form of cosmic civil disobedience. He faced consequences for this, but that is another story.
I am sharing this with you because I believe our world is heading in the wrong direction. It is depleting its resources. We are destroying our environment. Humanity is affecting the world’s climate. We have ignored countless warnings. I wish to be worthy to receive a game-changer. But there seem to be certain requirements. I must be adequately aware, discerning, attentive and discreet to receive something important. I don’t claim to have attained to this, but I’m working on it.
I haven’t read much Robert Bly’s earlier works. I am familiar with his books of ghazals, an Arabic poetic form. One of these books had the title “My Sentence Was A Thousand Years Of Joy.” I bought the book right then and there without looking inside. During this season I had a brief email correspondance with Robert Bly, where he encouraged me to write my own ghazal. He went to great lengths not to dwell on flaws of my attempt.
Many people have enjoyed the translations of Rumi by American poet Coleman Barks. In 1976, Bly showed Barks some of A. J. Arberry’s Rumi translations from the early 20th Century. Bly suggested to Barks that he make a more modern poetic translation, saying, “Release these (poems) from their scholarly cages.” If you have enjoyed the Coleman Barks translations of Rumi, you have Robert Bly to thank.
I consider Robert Bly to have signed the defense of his life in the 2010 poem “Ravens Hiding in a Shoe.” This is the final verse.
Robert, you’ve wasted so much of your life Sitting indoors to write poems. Would you Do that again? I would, a thousand times.
And in the final verse of the poem “What the Old Poets Failed to Say,” he signs his defense of poetry.
Night after night goes by in the old man’s head. We try to ask new questions. But whatever The old poets failed to say will never be said.
I became familiar with Robert Bly shortly after I moved to Minnesota in 1999. I have shared a number of the poems he included in his anthology “The Soul Is Here For Its Own Joy.” At one time, I thought to myself “When he leaves this world, they will say no poet served the muse more faithfully.” I aspire and strive to be as faithful a servant to a noble cause, as Robert Bly was to the muse of poetry.
But every so often I hear a report of people from all over the world finding the New Message. Some of them come from the relentless efforts of tireless advocates. Others come through seemingly chance encounters. Is it enough? I don’t know, but it’s definitely more than what would have happened had we done nothing.
In the gospel of Luke, many people in various situations asked John the Baptist what they should do to demonstrate their repentance. I share this because I dare to dream of a day when people in various situations ask “What does this New Message from God say humanity must do?” An enterprising student made a list, collected from various New Message teachings. These are not in any particular order.
Humanity must cease and prevent all war. If there is another all-out war, it will be the end of humankind.
The human family must unite to solve global problems. In particular, the climate becoming less hospitable, and the environment becoming more polluted and unsupportive of life.
The human family must provide for its members. There will be great stress in the future when certain regions of the world become uninhabitable due to rising seas and drying lands.
The human family must resist extraterrestrial intervention. There are craft in our skies. There are people being taken against their will. This is not benevolence.
This is what the human family must do now. I realize some people are reading this and saying “Good luck with that!” But I accept the miracles in my life as a demonstration of the presence of Knowledge. Sociologist Jem Bendell said something recently that might make a good exclamation point. “I remain a positive pessimist: I anticipate a very difficult future but continue to hunger for new ideas for how to reduce harm and find joy in the process.”
Most of you are not familiar with Robert Salas. He is a man who has been striving mightily to tell his story and have it be known.
Will our visitors let us destroy our world?
The life story of Robert Salas is relatively ordinary. Robert Salas is a 1964 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He served seven years on active duty. He worked as a weapons controller, flew target drones, commanded intercontinental ballistic missiles as a launch officer, and worked as an Air Force missile propulsion engineer on the Titan III program. From 1971 to 1973 he worked as a safety and reliability engineer for Martin-Marietta Aerospace and Rockwell International on Space Shuttle design proposals. From 1974 until his retirement in 1995 he worked for the Federal Aviation Administration. Since his retirement he has working to publicize and unfold a remarkable event from 1967.
The time of this remarkable event was March 1967. The place was Malmstrom Air Force Base in northern Montana in the US. The event happened twice, once on March 16 and again on March 24. Part of the event was the sighting of a UFO by multiple witnesses on the base. The witnesses reported the object displaying remarkable speed and maneuverability. Another part was a group or flight of 10 nuclear missiles, “going off alert,” becoming unlaunchable. Two different flights of missiles were disabled, one on the 16th and the other on the 24th. Salas was on duty as a deputy missile combat crew commander deep in the underground nuclear missile control room.
While Robert Salas didn’t mention this, there are reports of UFOs tampering with Russian nuclear weapons as well. Some of this became known after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. One of those events occurred on October 4, 1982, near the Ukrainian town of Byelokoroviche. A disc-shaped UFO apparently hovered over a nuclear missile base for an extended period. At one point during the encounter, a number of nuclear missiles suddenly activated—without authorization from Moscow or any action being taken by the missile launch officers—and were preparing to launch. Fortunately, after 15 seconds, the anomalous activation ceased and the missiles returned to stand-by status.
Will our visitors let us destroy our world? What am I supposed to think about this? It is as if the development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons has attracted UFO scrutiny. Book One of The Allies of Humanity, published in the late 1990’s, mentions this.
“It is necessary for people everywhere to understand that humanity is emerging into a Greater Community of intelligent life. Your world is being “visited” by several alien races and by several different organizations of races. This has been actively going on for some time. There have been visitations throughout human history, but nothing of this magnitude. The advent of nuclear weapons [emphasis mine] and the destruction of your natural world have brought these forces to your shores.”
Nowadays people don’t think of nuclear tests, but in the 1950’s and 1960’s, a great many nuclear tests happened above ground. If you were a visitor from outer space, and you observed this taking place, what would you think?
Two recent public opinion polls showed UFOs were not considered a military threat. I wonder how many of the respondents to that poll were aware of these events. I think I had heard of them in passing, but I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time.
All I know is that day by day the evidence grows. The New Message from God teaches what is currently a minority viewpoint on the subject of extraterrestrials.
I realize some people consider this not only false, but impossible. But many things once thought to be impossible have turned out to be so. This is a passage from the revelation “The Great Challenge Awaiting Humanity.” It is one of the chapters of the recently released book “Preparing for the Greater Community.”
“Day by day the evidence grows. Day by day more people are becoming aware. But there is still tremendous ignorance and denial. There is still tremendous manipulation of the evidence. It is very hard for people to gain any reliable information now.
The governments of the world will not tell you what they know. The religious institutions of the world cannot help you. People are filled with superstition. They are filled with hope. They are filled with wild expectancy. But who can see clearly? Whose thoughts are clear and unaffected by the prevailing attitudes and beliefs of society?”
It takes a certain intellectual and emotional preparation to see clearly. I do not claim to think clearly. I claim to be working on seeing clearly. Will our visitors let us destroy our world? Maybe not. But that doesn’t imply their benevolence.
Even with all of the difficulties the human family faces, I take joy when someone makes an effort to solve one of humanity’s problems. It is sometimes the case that the problem is something most people don’t even think about. I confess that it’s something I rarely think about. The problem is the garbage in the Pacific Ocean.
The beginning of the end for the Pacific Garbage Patch
Two Pacific Garbage Patches
The eastern garbage patch was discovered in 1997, has been growing ever since. 80 percent of the plastic in the ocean comes from land-based sources. There are six countries in particular that are ocean garbage contributors: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Ocean currents cause the garbage to accumulate in particular spots. The Garbage Patch is much worse than a nasty eyesore. It contributes to the death of many kinds of marine life. turtles often mistake plastic bags for prey such as jellyfish. Abandoned fishing lines, fishing nets and equipment can ensnare and drown dolphins, porpoises and whales. Microplastics have been found in the stomachs of nearly half of the most important species for global fisheries. There are garbage patches in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as well. Garbage patches are an environmental, biodiversity, and food safety problem.
I hope you are with me that ocean garbage patches are a problem to be solved. One of the reasons they haven’t been solved is because they exist outside the borders of any one nation. Governments don’t recognize them as their problem yet. Perhaps they should. But I am pleased to report that there is someone working on this problem. The someone is a young man named Boyan Slat.
Boyan Slat, Inventor of the Ocean Cleanup Array
Boyan Slat is a Dutch-Croatian inventor and entrepreneur who creates technologies to solve societal problems. He is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, which develops advanced systems to rid world’s oceans of plastic. Instead of going after the plastic, Boyan devised a system though which, driven by the ocean currents, the plastic would concentrate itself, reducing the theoretical cleanup time from millennia to mere years. In February 2013 he dropped out of his Aerospace Engineering study to start The Ocean Cleanup. The first cleanup prototype was deployed in June 2016, and The Ocean Cleanup now prepares to launch the first working pilot system in late 2017.
I say “Amen” to this! Let it be as Boyan Slat has said. I take great encouragement in this progress. But I take an even greater encouragement with scope of Boyan Slat’s vision. I consider him an extremely rare individual at this point. He is a person who is actually doing what the New Message from God says humanity must do. Boyan Slat is working on cleansing a polluted ocean. The New Message from God speaks of a thousand solutions required to face the future successfully. I say the Ocean Cleanup is one of them. I say the human family needs a thousand more Boyan Slats. Let this mark the beginning of the end for the Pacific Garbage Patch
As a student of the New Message from God, I cry out that God has spoken again to humanity, This speaking is in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. There are lots of people who don’t believe this is true. Even worse, there are lots of people who don’t believe this is even possible.
A silenced God is not good
Christians declare that “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son [Jesus], whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.” (Hebrews 1:2, New International Version) Muslims declare that Muhammad is “the seal of the prophets.” (Surah Al-Ahzab, verse 40, Arberry translation) Multiple Quran translations of this verse render it as “the last prophet” or “the last of the prophets.” These verses have a certain air of finality to them.
But to any Christian who would quote Hebrews 1:2 to me, I have a question. What do you think about the emergence of Islam? Do you believe that God has spoken again? Can you believe that such a thing is even possible? Or do you believe the entire Islamic enterprise is a fraud, spread by the sword? There were those who accused Muhammad of fabricating the revelation. “Or say they (again): He hath invented it? Say: If I have invented it, upon me be my crimes, but I am innocent of (all) that ye commit.” (Surah Hud, verse 35, Pickthall translation)
Albert Einstein is famous for saying “God does not play dice with the universe.” The physicist Niels Bohr one time replied “Einstein, stop telling God what to do.” Or rather, Einstein, stop telling God what God can and cannot do. One way of thinking of quantum mechanics is that God indeed plays dice with the universe.
But I say to everyone everywhere, stop telling God whether God can speak again or not. A God who does not speak to humanity, when it is facing its greatest challenges, is either not as powerful or not as good as advertised. The Muslims say “And if you are in doubt concerning that We have sent down on Our servant, then bring a sura [chapter] like it, and call your witnesses, apart from God, if you are truthful.” (Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 23, Arberry translation) I offer more than a single chapter. I offer an entire revelation. All I know is that a silenced God is not good.
