New Life News

Christmas 2011 Banquet Report — Strawberry, AZ
     To say that the New Life Christmas banquet was a success is an understatement. While all of the activities we’ve come to value were offered – talks, feasting, entertainment, dancing and more – the insights and energy generated were new and unique, occurring right there in the present moment.
     An extra talk was added on Friday night so four marvelous classes in all were given through Sunday Christmas day. Wow, so much food for thought! For example, Bill Brown began Wednesday evening’s class with an account of what happened at his public school in Baltimore in the 1960’s. For many years, right principles and values were taught in his school as part of the learning experience, but because of societal pressures and changes, those values could no longer be taught. The mention of any higher power was forbidden. That change was just one of many that has set this society and this world on its ever more destructive course. Bill later gave us a very powerful quote from Vernon: “No excuses! Just admit you’re wrong – 24 hours a day, day after day, week after week, year after year – ‘I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong.’” What are we wrong about? For one thing, we turn to human beings for the answers when we should be turning to the Creator.
     Now I ask you, where in the whole world can we go and be able to hear about what is wrong with us, hear the real answers to all problems and to talk with others about the pure truth?  In order to bring about the banquet festivities, work is required for days and weeks ahead, and students who volunteer to join in helping have discovered a valuable secret. When done with a right and receptive spirit we can push the limits beyond what we think we can do while feeling the presence of pleasant energies coming in to help.
     A letter received by New Life from a grateful student of these teachings was read at one of the classes. The letter read in part, “The books and tapes you sent me have been of tremendous value. After a long time of churchgoing and doing and living the way I thought was right, I found myself still searching for something. Vernon Howard’s teachings are that something!”
     On Friday night, a powerful reminder was given when speaker Moe Janosec said, “Most people think they already know and so this teaching can’t help them.” He then echoed Vernon’s admonition that, “You must not become like them. If they’ve chosen to go over the cliff, they will think nothing of taking you with them.”
     Isn’t it incredible that the real answers are known and that anyone can partake of this banquet of Truth in order to find real relief and to grow spiritually? This year seven new people from Arizona and Colorado attended their first class and banquet on Christmas Day to hear the wonderful messages. On Sunday, director Richard Wooldridge talked about using direct perception of truth beyond the mind. He told the great little story in 50 Ways to Get Help from God, #42 where the man says, “I’m waiting for instructions from headquarters.” For those willing to work, wait and listen instead of running off to find the latest teacher or group, all will be revealed. And as Dr. Terry Roche assured us, we can learn how to approach God directly.
     After a full banquet, with superb turkey, tremendous entertainment, light and happy dancing, and lots of rewarding work, students departed beaming, buoyant and brimming with new energy lasting for days. How fortunate we are to be able to receive this beautiful message. And these are the very things that were taught by Christ some 2000 years ago, which made it a perfect way to celebrate his birthday.

Thanksgiving 2011 Banquet Report — Westminster, CA
     Gathered for Thanksgiving banquet in Westminster, CA were students eager to be renewed and to receive new and higher impressions. Wednesday night we listened to introductory talks on the “higher viewpoint,” based on a section of Treasury of Positive Answers #32. This evoked numerous spontaneous stories by students who related their own experiences when first reading or hearing Vernon Howard’s powerful principles. Upon later revisiting the very same material, astonishingly new insights came to them, as they saw things not seen before.
     Similar to those remembered episodes, we also experienced with new eyes yet another fresh and revitalizing banquet. Our receptivity to a talk or quote or song or dance or conversation became a completely new and different experience “for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear.”
     We were reminded on Thanksgiving by Director Richard Wooldridge of one of Vernon’s talks on the “Avoi-dance” we do, the little shuffle of lies and excuses we use to avoid and to run away from Reality and from facing ourselves when things get rough. He gave us the exercise to not run away; for example, “don’t go off or leave class because someone else is a nut! Refuse to be furious. Let go of everything.” And the biblical reminder from Dr. Terry Roche to “prove all things” for yourself echoed Vernon’s injunction to “question everything, every idea you’ve learned since birth.”
     Driving home we observed the early morning shoppers packing the malls on “Black Friday,” and gave thanks that we have something of real value to live for. Don’t miss a banquet if at all possible. That banquet, like each moment of today, will never come again. Come to where the truth is alive and be refreshed. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” *
* Matthew 6:21 and Luke 12:34

2011 September Banquet Report
     “Thanks for the affirmation that God exists!” wrote a student in an e-mail, grateful to have previously traveled to the banquets. That also portrays this banquet very well. In Strawberry, AZ we were greeted by splendid fall weather with cool refreshing showers, and by others who also came to practice the lofty higher principles of living taught by Vernon Howard.
     Using Vernon Howard’s works — 50 Ways to Get Help from God booklet, The Power of Your Supermind, and MP3 CD (Volume 4, track 19), New Life Foundation students spoke Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday on how we can work with and live truthful principles to change our natures. Instead of “arguing with heaven” or each other, we can have the “fixed knowledge that you can handle” whatever life brings. It was explained why we don’t get help from God and how we can become truly willing to receive what God is just waiting to give us. How we are rebels without a clue and how to be rightly rebellious. And how the mind is only a mechanical force but will one day no longer have to make any decisions. We learned of a true and “final freedom” beyond thought.
     Plus a banquet teaches that “learning is supposed to be fun,” as one woman reminded us, not harsh or sluggish or ponderous. The exercise given for the banquet day’s activities was to be wide-awake and “Be Quick!”
     Numerous situations are present at banquets to really experience the “freedom beyond human thought” instead of only talking about it or quoting Vernon’s words. This is particularly necessary since we have our own ideas of what is spiritual and what isn’t. On Saturday morning director Richard Wooldridge used an example to demonstrate this: when in Boulder City, Nevada at the New Life building, he found Vernon before a class watching the Dodgers playing baseball on TV. Vernon, free of reactions himself, could quietly observe his students and leave them to study their own reactions.
     On Sunday the exercise was given that “awareness of my every reaction is final freedom.” When we are “gone” and living only a thought life, we miss reality above the mechanical mind. A great example of this was given by Richard, who, when he turned off the TV one evening, heard a “symphony of insects singing all around.” We were asked, “What else am I missing?”
     Another student’s letter read at banquet said, “I often crave contact with others on the path.” We are indeed so fortunate to be able to gather together with like-minded students for the higher purpose of raising our levels while enjoying light camaraderie as well as the healthy impressions of fun, clean entertainment.
     Formal entertainment this September was introduced by emcee Doug Stewart dressed in Mexican sombrero and serape. Included were humorous short skits and longer ones by Rick, and Michele and Regina, a poem on “Velleity” by Bruce, and some favorite old songs: “Back Home Again in Indiana and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” by Lynne and Bruce; and “Juanita” sung by Doug. A highlight was a pretty Western song “Blue Montana Skies” performed by Kyle, Lynne and Craig on his guitar. The pure, exquisite harmony of the ladies’ voices is proof that we don’t have to wait to “go to heaven” to hear the angels sing. Following the Pretties dance, we were also able to dance to our old favorite songs, and we dined on delicious, picanté Mexican food.
     That evening we completed the new Fall/Winter newsletter for mailing, and next morning after more talks and eats drove off to our home states — taking with us a higher state within.

Englishman’s Visit
     In 1989 a man from England felt a need for something more in his life, so truth led him to Vernon Howard. Knowing no one, he booked his first trip over to Nevada and stayed for a full 6 months. He then went back to England for a short period of time and came back for another 6 months! Right away he felt a strong connection with what he was hearing. His name is James Potts and he subsequently made many journeys to New Life classes from England. He has also thrown himself into the work, helping out whenever and wherever he can, thus increasing his opportunity to learn more and to benefit from a right attitude toward truth.
     It has been 5 years since his last visit to New Life and he was thrilled to have the opportunity to come again and to participate in all of the activities going on in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Speaking in his broad Lancashire accent, James said about the trip, “It’s like coming back home. We should never take New Life and these classes for granted. We are only here temporarily.” He timed his visit so he would be able to attend the 3-day banquet festivities recently held there. He was a star in one of the best acts ever given at a banquet. It is the theme song of most human beings on this planet, the song “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me” from the old HeeHaw TV show. The students who participated dressed the part perfectly and sang the song with great gusto. All of the singers as well as those in the audience loved it.
     James was rejuvenated by being around like-minded people, those seeking something higher than what the world has to offer or what they can do for themselves. It was very interesting because a number of students at the banquet who had never met him before felt drawn to James right away. Even though they didn’t know him personally they had something in common with him. A receptive spirit and a genuine love of truth can take you a long way in this work.
     James is very unpretentious and leads a simple life. He rents a small flat in England and spends a lot of his time listening to and reading Vernon Howard and applying what he hears to his own life. We could all learn something from him.
     Upon returning to England he let us know he had received tremendous energy from the experience and was very grateful for everything.
     Breaking News! — James is a perfect example that you don’t have to be an aggressive ‘striver’ to get along or to really make it in this world. One of Vernon Howard’s favorite words, which he used quite frequently, is the word ‘pleasant.’ It’s all right to just be a pleasant man or woman. He is a great contrast to some spiritual students who are full of themselves and full of unconscious hostility and unseen egotism. Real humility is a very attractive quality to find in a seeker and it is much more rare than would normally be supposed. As James himself said in one of his talks, “We can stop trying to be important.” Here’s another helpful quote on this subject from 1500 ways to Escape the Human Jungle, “When spiritual facts are not accompanied by the erasing of egotism, we fall into imaginary spirituality.”
     Let’s all refuse to live in imagination and embrace the life lessons of simplicity, unpretentiousness and thankfulness toward the power that has given us the chance to ‘live above this crazy world.’

A Taste of Another World — 2011 Pagosa Springs Banquet Report
By Judith Anderson
     Too bad the whole world wasn’t at our summer banquet weekend! They could have had a chance to awaken a bit to a higher-world atmosphere, as those attending did. And what an experience it was to be at this New Life banquet in Pagosa Springs, CO this July 2011. Yet the magic truly lies in one’s degree of receptivity to Truth, the topic with which Moe Janosec launched Friday night’s talks. With receptivity everyone had the opportunity to attain a bit of a different level of being and to gather personal evidence that higher possibilities exist for each of us. Our level of receptivity is always a matter of personal choice but for those who let the beauty of Truth’s message outweigh any negativity, the rewards were great.
     All weekend talks were based on Vernon Howard’s THE ANSWER, the letters in which Vernon wrote, “If you carelessly disregard (this message from Truth) you must pay the heavy penalty ….” We were assured we can know what Vernon knew. James Potts, visiting from England, and one who speaks from his heart, reminded us that this world is on the Titanic and we don’t want to go down with the ship.
     On Saturday an exquisite breakfast of fresh fruits, quiches, sweet rolls, piping hot coffee and much, much more was provided by the New Life ladies, followed by a meeting which indeed nurtured our spirits. Speaker Doug Stewart, from the Southern California classes, shed light on how dark forces keep us in egotistical confusion so nothing higher can come in. Then New Life Director and compelling speaker, Richard Wooldridge, set a lofty yet relaxed atmosphere in the room. He described the egotistical and hostile mind as a prison, which we can get beyond so that no one can push our buttons, an essential task in our work. “We are here to learn to sit back, relax and let God take care of everything,” he said.
     The serious work and talks were beautifully balanced with a barbeque banquet feast spread nearly the width of the hall, followed by delightful ‘homegrown’ entertainment and lively ‘follow-the-leader’ dancing for all. Western songs, dances and jokes augmented the Southwestern theme for the Colorado festivities. Lots of effort went into providing food for the weekend, arranging the book table, setting up and taking down equipment, and for the ‘clean-up party’ at the end of the day. This is an intended part of the banquet experience that provides the chance to work with others and typically provokes some of those negativities within that we hide from ourselves and that do so much damage. But instead of blaming the other person, we could expose and drop them. The more we participated in these activities, the more the outside world began to lose its grip on us and there was an awakening to the presence of something else. Our essence began to be felt.
     And speaking of the enormity of physical work and planning in preparation for the banquet, one speaker emphasized the necessity of spiritual initiative. Bill Brown said, “You’ve got billiard-ball brains — unless the ball hits you, you don’t move!” All classes offer the opportunity for anyone to go against the fear, by getting up behind the microphone and giving the class something helpful, as well as telling a joke, being in a skit, singing a song or dancing in the entertainment segment.
     Sunday morning, our new energy was still present at the New Life building in the country and up a winding path (the “happy trail”) to the pergola on a mountainside resplendent with tiny wild flowers and rollicking golden mantled squirrels. Another rewarding class was held there, with examples given of how the masses are propagandized and, like puppets, do what they’re told. The speakers left us with powerful messages from the letters in the answer like these: “The mind can ask questions but can’t answer them,” and “Time does not exist in Reality — you are living in a complete state of delusion,” as well as Vernon’s powerful analogy that we are trying to understand the Cosmos with our mind, which is equivalent to using a toy telescope. Although the masses don’t and will never want the Answer, anyone receptive to truth can have it — here at our classes and banquets at New Life Foundation.

2011 March Irish Banquet Report — Strawberry, AZ
By Judith Anderson
     Warm and sunny days in Strawberry, Arizona invited us to relax and to absorb the higher atmosphere of the Irish banquet. At banquets we are — if willing — thrust like a rocket above our narrow personal views into the lofty way above this crazy world.
     As was said Saturday in the powerful talks, God owns the universe. So even though Satan runs this planet, we can learn to recognize and then consciously ignore evil. The wonderful picture of St. Patrick chasing the snakes out of Ireland was a timely reminder to chase the darkness out of our lives too.
     On Wednesday evening Vernon Howard’s powerful injunction to know from yourself was the battle cry offered for the weekend events. First we must question our sincerity, and then see our resistance to the jolts we must have to wake up — plentiful at these powerful banquets. Watching others and ourselves is great good fun; as one student noted, we don’t have to go to the movies or ever get bored when the observer is alert and watching.
     We dined on the traditional Irish fare of especially good corned beef, cabbage (bubble and squeak) and all the trimmings; then listened to the lovely ole Irish and Scottish songs. At the book table were new specials, as well as the brilliantly colorful new Spring/Summer 2011 Newsletter, with tons of helpful lessons, quotes, articles and FAQ’s. It was prepared for mailing with prompt dispatch at the work parties, while we renewed old acquaintances and helped spread the word about a New Life.
     Three brand new people heard talks and took part in the festivities, and made the freeing, refreshing plunge by participating in informal dancing and fun within the friendly, safe atmosphere. We left thankful and wanting to attend our next banquet, armed with more Light and knowledge of the inevitable counterattacks after strong classes and healthy banquets, which try to prevent our little flame from growing and glowing.

Christmas 2010 Banquet Report — Strawberry, AZ
By Judith Anderson
     Christmas should be a time of both quiet reflection and great good cheer. These states and much more were present in abundance at the 2010 New Life Christmas Banquet in Strawberry, Arizona. During the Christmas holiday week, we were most fortunate to be able to attend four uplifting and powerful yet lighthearted classes based on the incomparable teachings of Vernon Howard.
     The banquet was a grand opportunity to observe our mechanical, habit-laden nature and to challenge its hold over us. Beginning on Wednesday night we were urged to see more deeply — to constantly be an alert challenger — of what happens within and without. Some of the talk highlights included questioning society’s obsession with giving material gifts in a season that is really all about a spiritual celebration, the use of the metaphor of an electrical connection illustrating how to make cosmic connections and a reminder that you cannot will yourself to be conscious, you can only observe that you’re sound asleep. Our negative and wrong states were exposed for interfering and blocking this natural connection to something higher.
     At Saturday’s talks Directors Richard Wooldridge and Dr. Terry Roche referred to Vernon Howard’s talk and transcript “Let’s Play Fair,” a strong indictment of the world’s propaganda that encourages ‘something for nothing’. On the contrary, everything in this life, including the transformation and elevation of the spirit, is individually earned. In ‘Let’s Play Fair’ an illustration from the movie ‘Nicholas and Alexandra’ is highlighted. When one of the Bolsheviks strikes the Czar, his servant protests, crying out ‘You have struck his Majesty!’ This powerful lesson demonstrates that even though rightness is viciously attacked by this world, the Truth is stronger than all of the hatred on earth. Richard further explained that evilers bent on distorting their history have maligned the last Czar and Czarina of Russia. The authentic way to counter this evil is explained by Vernon, who says to “stand up for the Majesty of Truth itself” as the loyal servant of Nicholas and Alexandria did.
     From Wednesday thru Sunday numerous delicious meals and snacks were served by the ladies, including the particularly succulent turkey on banquet day, with an outstanding strawberry cheese cake pie and other desserts to top off the dinner. Entertainment on Saturday was characterized by youthful exuberance, especially in the dancing. Highlights included a light and graceful ballet by Kyle and Lynne. A new trio (Craig, Doug, Karen) sang Christmas songs and old favorite holiday carols included “Winter Wonderland” (Strawberry Sisters and Dr. Bruce Tracy), “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” (Ferrell Gale), as well as the community sing-along led by Bruce. Short jokes and humorous skits were well-done and ranged from the subjects of cold weather to computer terms to the perennial ‘chess nuts boasting in an open foyer,’ giving us all lots of chances for healthy chuckles.
     There is no way to describe the energy and atmosphere present, you must experience it for yourself. Truth’s banquet is always spread if we will partake of it.