Jerusem — The City That Learned to Welcome Again
Tyrion was ready to leave Earth again.
This was a remarkable development for someone who had spent the previous chapter conducting an urgent investigation into the availability of breakfast.
But he had remembered something.
"Jerusem," he said.
"Yes?"
"The gardens."
"Yes."
"My friend."
"The spornagia?"
His tail began to wag.
"And I've brought biscuits."
I looked at our little traveller. White and fluffy, one bright eye filled with anticipation, the T on his collar glowing like a tiny lantern.
"You know," I said, "we don't know whether spornagia eat biscuits."
"Then I shall conduct a scientific investigation."
This, I suspected, would involve eating the biscuits himself if the experiment failed.
So we opened the great observatory map again.
During our earlier visit to Satania, we learned of Jerusem's beauty and its troubled history. Now we weren't coming merely to admire a celestial capital.
We were coming to meet its inhabitants.
And that changed everything.
A City with a Difficult Past
In the universe described by The Urantia Book, Jerusem serves as the headquarters world of Satania, the local system supposedly containing Earth.
It isn't Jerusalem on our planet, and it isn't an independently observed astronomical object. It belongs to the book's proposed celestial organization.
According to Paper 46:0.1, Jerusem is recovering from the effects of Lucifer's rebellion.
We've heard that story before.
Lucifer had governed Satania. He led a rebellion, drew other personalities into it, and left the system divided.
His successor, Lanaforge, inherited a world that needed more than a change of management.
It needed to rebuild trust.
"Did they repair everything?" Tyrion asked.
"Not yet, at the point in the book's narrative."
"Even after all that time?"
"Some things take longer to mend than buildings."
He regarded the radiant city.
"Do they still welcome visitors?"
And that, remarkably, is one of the most beautiful things about Jerusem.
Its story doesn't portray recovery as a reason to close the gates.
The World's Largest Welcome Committee
Imagine reaching the end of a long journey.
Not a drive across Ontario or a flight across an ocean, but the seven mansion worlds—the book's proposed stages of further education and development for surviving mortals.
At last, Jerusem rises ahead.
Perhaps you wonder whether you are ready to belong in such a place.
Then something wonderful happens.
In Paper 47:10.1, the narrator says that the inhabitants of Jerusem assemble to welcome each incoming class of mansion-world graduates.
Even the spornagia join the celebration.
Tyrion's ears perked up.
"They come to welcome the new people?"
"That's what the passage says."
"The spornagia too?"
"Yes."
"Do they receive biscuits?"
"The book doesn't say."
He sighed.
"More than two thousand pages and nobody thought to mention the refreshments."
But the point is rather touching.
Imagine arriving somewhere unfamiliar, perhaps carrying memories of difficulties overcome and loved ones left behind.
And instead of being told to find a number and join a queue, you discover a community eager to receive you.
You've come a long way. We're glad you're here.
What a splendid way to begin belonging.
The Reunion in the Gardens
We made our way through Jerusem's imagined landscaped estates.
There, beside luminous water and flowering trees, Tyrion spotted the gentle creature he had met on our earlier visit.
His spornagia friend.
The creature lowered its head. Tyrion raced forward, his fluffy coat bouncing with each step, and the two greeted one another as though they had known each other for years.
This reunion is original fictional storytelling, not a scene recorded in The Urantia Book.
But the book does portray spornagia as affectionate, intelligent creatures whose work helps maintain the beauty of headquarters worlds.
Paper 46:7.2–7.7 calls them landscape gardeners and compares their qualities to those of a faithful horse and an affectionate dog.
"See?" Tyrion said, offering his biscuit. "A universal language."
"We haven't established that it eats biscuits."
"Friendship first. Research later."
We decided not to record the biscuit experiment as an independently verified scientific discovery.
Still, the encounter raises an unexpected question.
Who keeps a magnificent civilization functioning?
Only its leaders? Its celebrated teachers? The beings with impressive titles?
Or also those who cultivate its gardens, care for its spaces, prepare its surroundings, and make everybody else's lives easier?
A community depends on work that doesn't always receive applause.
Beauty, like kindness, often survives because somebody chooses to look after it.
See Tyrion's illustrated first meeting with a spornagia →
A Capital with Many Different Kinds of Neighbours
In the book's account, Jerusem brings together numerous kinds of beings.
Material Sons and Daughters. Seraphim. Midway beings. Administrative personalities. Ascending mortals.
It also includes beings of the proposed morontia order, which the text places between material and spirit existence.
We don't have independently verified evidence that such categories describe actual extraterrestrial life.
But the picture of this society invites an interesting thought.
The book describes residential areas organized into circles for various groups, while other activities occupy squares, rectangles, and triangles.
Tyrion stopped to examine the plan.
"Circles, squares, rectangles, triangles?"
"Yes."
"Does everyone in celestial government have a passion for geometry?"
"Apparently."
"Somewhere there's a committee whose entire job is approving corners."
There are administrative divisions, certainly.
But Paper 46:5.28–5.29 portrays the inhabitants learning from one another through work, study, shared recreation, and contact with different orders of personalities.
That detail makes the city more than an elegant diagram.
How can very different people belong to one community without having to become identical?
We struggle with that question on Earth every day.
And perhaps being different need not mean being distant.
Service, Study, and the Art of Taking a Break
Then we came upon a passage that Tyrion immediately considered a landmark in civilization.
In 46:5.29, the book characterizes the major activities of Jerusem as service, study, and relaxation.
"Relaxation?" Tyrion repeated.
"Yes."
"An officially recognized part of civilization?"
"Apparently."
"At last. A society that appreciates the importance of lying in the grass."
The text describes gardens, artistic work, learning, recreation, social gatherings, and worship.
Among the courtesy colonies it places a vast observatory, a tremendous art gallery, and a meeting hall associated with the Reversion Directors.
Tyrion grinned.
"A comedy department?"
"Something along those lines."
"Clearly advanced."
Imagine a civilization that doesn't define progress solely by productivity.
A civilization that makes room for creativity, friendship, rest, beauty, and laughter.
Our world has remarkable machines, huge industries, and sophisticated institutions.
Yet we still sometimes treat rest as an embarrassment and friendship as something to fit into the hours remaining after work.
The book's image suggests another possibility.
A civilization's greatness depends not only on what it can accomplish, but also on the kind of life it makes possible for its members.
Five Billion Seats and a Little Curiosity
The next stop brought us near the sea of glass, the great crystal receiving field.
Here the book locates a broadcast amphitheatre where reports from across the proposed universe are received.
The seating capacity?
More than five billion material and morontia beings, according to 46:3.2.
Tyrion stared.
"Five billion?"
"More than that."
"Imagine trying to find your friend in the audience."
"Perhaps they have a system."
"And the line for refreshments!"
Yet the most remarkable thing isn't the size of the building.
It's the idea that listening to news from other worlds is a favourite pastime.
The book imagines a community that wants to know how its neighbours are doing across enormous distances.
And that invites a question we might ask ourselves.
We have never had so much information available to us.
But has our ability to listen grown at the same pace?
Knowing more facts about someone doesn't necessarily mean understanding them.
Perhaps real curiosity requires something beyond receiving messages.
Perhaps it requires caring who sent them.
A Place for Every World
In the residential circles of ascending mortals, the book describes 619 planetary memorials, one for each inhabited world in its account of Satania.
And according to 46:5.27, mortals from each world can participate in choosing changes to their own world's memorial.
One of those worlds is Urantia.
Our Earth.
Tyrion looked up.
"Does our little planet have a place here?"
"In the book's story, yes."
"Even with all our mistakes?"
"Even then."
He thought for a moment.
"Would they put a little dog on the memorial?"
"I don't believe the passage specifies that."
"Then I wish to propose an amendment."
We laughed.
But something about the memorial stayed with me.
A memorial says that somebody's history deserves to be remembered.
Not only the victories. Not only the celebrated leaders. Not only the people with official titles.
The lives of ordinary people matter too.
No telescope has verified these celestial memorials.
But the question they raise is very real:
Who is included when a civilization tells the story of itself?
Who gets remembered?
Who gets left out?
And whose voice deserves to be heard?
A Ruler with No Agenda
Before leaving, we heard about another custom of Jerusem.
Lanaforge, the sovereign who succeeded Lucifer, is said to hold informal gatherings with different groups of Jerusem citizens.
According to 45:2.5–2.6, the point of these occasions isn't routine government business.
It's fellowship.
Tyrion tilted his head.
"An official gathering without a seven-hour speech?"
"Not that sort of gathering."
"Now we're making progress."
A system once damaged by the abuse of leadership is portrayed as having a leader who spends time simply enjoying the company of those he serves.
That doesn't verify that Lanaforge exists.
But it raises a worthwhile question for any society:
Can someone in authority remember what it's like simply to be a neighbour?
Organization may keep a city functioning.
Fellowship can make it feel like home.
The Part of the City That Still Hurt
Eventually our visit brought us to the historical panorama of Jerusem.
We had seen it before.
And there, amid all its beauty, was the portion the book describes as still erased in connection with the unfinished consequences of Lucifer's rebellion.
Tyrion became quiet.
"They haven't repaired that yet?"
"Not at the point described by the narrator."
He looked toward the gardens.
"All these schools. All those people welcoming newcomers. Everybody learning and playing together."
"Yes."
"And still something missing."
A city can be beautiful and still be recovering.
A community can be generous and still carry memories of injury.
A person can smile and still have an unfinished story.
Perhaps that is why the welcome gatherings matter so much.
The book doesn't ask us to imagine that a difficult past disappears merely because life continues.
Instead, it portrays a world rebuilding something damaged—one relationship, one responsibility, one welcome at a time.
Tyrion leaned gently against me.
"Maybe a place doesn't have to be perfect before someone can feel at home there."
"No," I said. "Maybe it doesn't."
The Next Invitation
When it was time to leave, Tyrion nuzzled his spornagia friend one last time.
"Will we come back?"
"I hope so."
He turned toward the glowing cosmic map.
"Where to now?"
Edentia, the capital of Norlatiadek.
The book describes extraordinary gardens there and an entire programme of social education, where unfamiliar personalities are said to learn the difficult art of living with one another.
"More gardens?"
"Yes."
"More learning?"
"Definitely."
"More extraordinary creatures?"
"Quite possibly."
He thought it over.
"Then let's go."
And as the next part of the map unfolded, I realized that Jerusem's most important feature had never been its crystalline architecture, its vast amphitheatres, or even its magnificent gardens.
It was the possibility of a civilization where arriving strangers become neighbours—and neighbours become friends.
Continue the Adventure — Edentia: The Gardens Where Getting Along Is an Art →
🔎 Factoid — Jerusem's Source Trail
Primary texts: The Urantia Book, especially Papers 45–47. Tyrion's dialogue, his reunion with the spornagia, the biscuit experiment, and this tour are original fiction, not canonical episodes. The spornagia illustration also represents an artistic interpretation, not an observed creature.
- Jerusem's status and recovery from rebellion: 46:0.1.
- The sea of glass, broadcasts, and immense amphitheatre: 46:2–3.
- Different residents, shared activities, recreation, art, and planetary memorials: 46:4–6.
- Spornagia as gardeners and affectionate creatures: 46:7.1–7.7.
- The incomplete panorama of the rebellion: 46:8.1–8.3.
- Lanaforge and the informal meetings: 45:2.1–2.6.
- The arrival and welcome of mansion-world graduates: 47:10.1–10.8.
Evidence boundary: Jerusem, its inhabitants, and its administration are proposed realities in The Urantia Book, not independently established astronomical or historical facts. The philosophical questions about trust, work, community, and belonging can be explored without mistaking this cosmology for verified science.
🧭 Optional Detours — Before We Visit Edentia
The main adventure continues to Edentia above.