© 1986 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
| Vol 7 No 6 July 1986 | Vol 7 No 6 July 1986 — Index | Commentary On Scientific Statements In The Urantia Book III |
If there was lack of sunshine outside, there certainly was plenty of it inside. Although the conference was on Saturday and Sunday, for a lot of people who had come from interstate and from overseas, the “getting to know you” had already started on the Thursday and Friday before. Our American visitors still looked bright and cheerful when we picked them up from the airport after their eleven hour flight from Tahiti, where they had visited our good friend Emanuel Iou and his lovely wife Jeannette.
John Hales from Chicago, Berkeley Elliott and Tom Allen from Oklahoma City immediately won our hearts with their personal warmth and sincerity. Jan Francey was waiting for us with a beautiful lunch and we all thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company and the delicious food.
Then Pamela Reynolds opened the 1986 National Conference for URANTIA Book readers in Melbourne with “The Lord’s Prayer”, her beautiful, clear soprano voice warmed us to the very core of our hearts. Pamela who, together with Jan had organised all the catering is a very active and hardworking member of the Melbourne and Shepparton Study Groups.
After a cordial and warm welcome from Neil Francey to the thirty people who were there on that first day, he gave us a quick preview of the day’s proceedings. In Neil’s usual inimitable easy style he made everybody immediately feel at home.
Quite a few people have requested that yours truly publish her contribution in the 6-0-6 and if we can find a blank space, we will certainly do so. It was just a few thoughts on the conference theme: “The Tapestry of Loving Service”.
Leith Luckett must have spent hours and hours of deep thought and careful preparation on the beautiful and intriguing artwork, that he presented to the people at the conference.
Kathleen and Trevor Swadling, representing the Sydney Study Group, gave us a report of their group. This couple has been and still is very active in the placement of URANTIA Books in libraries. The results are slow but steady, which is a healthy growth sign. They were very happy to report a few new members in their study group, which has been going for many years.
Peter Mebb had flown all the way from Perth just to be at the conference. He reported that they have quite a good strong study group in the pest. Peter has a Book booth planned for the Australia Day long weekend in January 1987. He welcomes any support that we might be able to give him for his project, but we will keep you informed as time goes by. Life is full of surprises. That certainly was the case for Monika and Mike Patterson from Hobart, Tasmania. Monika wrote to Chicago and received news that a conference was to be held in Melbourne. Although they had read the URANTIA Book for many years, they never knew that there was an Urantia Movement in Australia. Recently they have introduced two more people to the URANTIA Book. With the four of them they came to the conference and so ended all the years of reading in isolation. Te were just as delighted as they were to see some friends from Tasmania. Mike and Monika are planning to place free URANTIA books in Libraries over there. So next year we might even see a few more people from the apple isle.
Our sunshine state was represented by Kevin Meyrick. Kevin who comes from Gladstone, Queensland and is the owner of a bookstore, imports our URANTIA BOOKS. One important point that Kevin brought forward during the course of the conference was, that everything comes at a price. If we keep selling _the URANTIA Book_s as cheap as possible, it will mean that every time we sell a book from our book float, a bookstore misses out on a sale. Bookstores have to make a living too and if the URANTIA Book does not sell in their store, they will no longer be interested in keeping it in stock. Kevin pointed out that we in the long mun may defeat our purpose: to make the URANTIA Book readily available to the public… Even at $60 the Book is still very good value for money.
Here once again the value of group discussion comes to the fore. I think that in future we’Il be better of to direct potential readers to the bookstores and ask them to order it from Chicago. During the waiting period, we could lend them a copy from our book float or send them to their local library, who are always able to get a copy in.
A few Melburnians had a chance to air their views on service activities. But the most wonderful surprise of the conference was Woifgang Borutta’s: “Us in relation to the Whole”. Wolfgang, who we all know from his delightful cartoons in the Six-0-Six Newsletter, had created a visual display model of the Master Universe. Together with his friend Sean, he had recorded quotations from the URANTIA Book with beautiful music in the background. As we watched in a pitch dark room, the display box slowly lit up and as the plan of the Master Universe enfolded before our very eyes, we marvelled at the grandeur of it all. Starting with the Isle of Paradise, moving through Havona, the seven Superuniverses and finally the four outer space levels, like a magic wonderland by night the whole display box lit up. It was quite an experience and we all hope that polfgang will get permission to use it in the future.
After morning tea it was time for our Group Discussion Workshop. We were divided into five groups. We received three sheets with questions. On sheet I and II, there were five questions on each sheet. One for each group. Sheet III had to be answered by all groups. Spokesman and a person to take notes were chosen within the group. Tolfgang and Ian, whips in hand (sorry, I mean watches), were our overseers and made sure nobody dwelled too long on one question. It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other and a few rusty old brains started creaking again.
I will give you a summary of the outcome in a separate article, but I would like to say something about Group V.
Eyewitnesses can testify that this group had some great debates going. What else do you expect when people like Tom Reynolds, Peter Webb, Rod McCourt and William Wentworth get together. But this group was very wise. They could see straight away that this whole exercise was a conspiracy to make us work. They knew that truth is only relative to the time and place and that in 50 years time our great-grandchildren will go to the State Library and look up old copies of Six-0-Six, to study the early history of the URANTIA movement in Australia. They knew that these same grandchildren would chuckle at some of the answers of the other four groups. And so in their wisdom, like the Master himself, they did not leave a trace of written evidence behind on the big board. Rod, their spokesman, had something scribbled down in a secret code, but he took it with him and unless somebody will come forward. with a few gems from their great discussion, it will remain written in their hearts.
After a delicious lunch it was time for each group’s spokesman to give a summary. The general comment was that we just loved these “specific” questions. Group II and IV had the best written summaries. A lively discussion developed. Ian Esmore successfully kept order and stopped people from spilling all their beans on the first day. The service projects were meant for the second day. One point that stood out in our discussion was the feeling of consensus on the question:“Should we have an informal or a formal organization?” Everybody agreed that at this stage we should have an informal organization, with individuals and small groups co-ordinating library placement, plan conferences, buy books and act as an intermational contact. A legal organization is something to keep in mind for the future.
Afternoon tea was followed by John Hales’ presentation. John, who loves his job as secretary general of the URANTIA Brotherhood and does not mind the long hours that he works, was a first time visitor to Australia as were the other two. He brought hundreds of slides with him. For more than an hour we watched these and listened to a tape telling us the story of the origin, history and description of the URANTIA Book. We heard about the people involved with this great revelation, the birth of the URANTIA Poundation and URANTIA Brotherhood. This hour was of great interest to us all. Old and new readers alike learned a great deal from John’s presentation.
We have had a request from Ken Glasziou, who we all know as that clever scientist in Queensland, for an article about the origin of the URANTIA Book. Ken wrote : “I would be interested in an article on the actual writing of the URANTIA Book and the people associated with its initial publication, who they were and what they did. Is any information available? I’m sure 6-0-6 readers would like to know more.”
Ken, pity you couldn’t make it to the conference. You would have loved John Hales’ presentation. We will try to oblige and publish an article on this subject.
To keep things in balance, Steven Shanahan, our reversion director for the night, had organized dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant. It became a great night. The company, the food, the wine and the music were superb:
The next morning the Reynolds were in top form. Pamela sang a group of three songs and Tom gave us something to ponder on with: “Who am I?” Sundaymorning was spent on the study of Paper 99 of the URANTIA Book: “The Social Problems of Religion”.
We split up in two groups for this. There was never a dull moment in our group: At one stage Will decided he better take Cathy out of the room to finish their discussion, so the rest of the group could get on with it:
After lunch Berkeley Elliott talked about some of her experiences in the 30 years since she first found the URANTIA Book. She told us about the various study groups in Oklahoma City. One important point that came forward out of Berkeley’s talk was that we are all tested for patience. That steady growth in readers will occur if we are just patient and don’t expect miracles overnight. Berkeley commented how much she felt at home in Australia. We seem to wrestle with the same kind of problems. It is nice to know that we all have the same Father to go to for love and strength in dealing with these problems.
Tom Allen, who is involved with the Library Placement scheme, told us how over the last few months one guy placed hundreds of books in libraries. Tom feels it is still the most successful way to let the URANTIA Book find its way to the public. He has made us more enthusiastic to step up our library placement in Australia.
The time had come to knuckle down to the nit-ty grit-ty of the conference. We needed a chairman with a firm hand and a powerful voice to keep order. Our obvious choice was William Wentworth, who handled it with ease. The outreach decisions that came out of this session, Neil Francey will cover in his article.
This conference was living proof that when we are guided by the spirit within us, we can work in harmony. Things always flowed smoothly. We were unified in our goal: to make mankind aware of their sonship with the Father and their brotherhood with their fellowmen.
I want to say thank you on behalf of all of us here in Melbourne to all the people, who have helped to make this conference a success, including all those quiet workers in the background.
Conferences are about people. People who had come from far and near. And if some of them were new to us before the conference, we all departed like old friends with promises to see each other again.
| Vol 7 No 6 July 1986 | Vol 7 No 6 July 1986 — Index | Commentary On Scientific Statements In The Urantia Book III |