© 2017 Ivan Stoll
© 2017 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
Once again, not far from the beach, the town of Sitges near Barcelona hosted this European inter-association meeting in Spain.
There were 18 of us for 8 associations:
- Antonio Sheffer who passed the torch of head of the conference committee in Europe to Sebastian Nozzi
- Olga Lopez Molina, Francisco Ruiz and Carmelo Martinez from Spain
- Danielle La Scala, Luis Garcia-Bory and Sandra Burgo-Cisneros from Switzerland
- Christopher Moseley from England
- Alexander Hehlert and Sebastian Nozzi from Germany
- Eija Seppänen-Bolotinski and Risto Mäntinen from Finland
- Jaap Terra, Ina Terra and Anna Zeven from the Netherlands
- Karmo Kalda from Estonia
- Ivan Stol and Lucas Perier from France
5 people presented their national association: Chris, Alexander, Carmelo, Risto, Karmo and Ivan.
The goal of this meeting was to determine how Europe should organize itself and what actions we should take around the Urantia Book.
- The most important thing seemed to us to be communication. A website in four languages (English, French, German, Spanish) will be set up with contacts for regional managers. Regular ZOOM sessions will be held.
- Then the question of the borders of our Europe arose. For us, it is not limited to the member countries and includes Russia and Africa.
- Should we organize European meetings? Yes, every three years, and certain destinations have been determined (Vienna, Rome, Israel,).
- Distribution of the book: It seems that translating the book creates a dynamic which allows this book to spread quickly (example of France where the maximum number of readers appeared when the book was available in a maximum number of bookstores).
- A survey will be presented to members of associations inviting them to reflect on their motivations as such, why they want to continue, what their needs are.
- Among the goals of associations, the following were mentioned: cooperation with Africa, an Italian-Swiss conference, a trip to Israel, a trip following the itinerary of Jesus in Italy, book fairs in Madrid and Frankfurt.
- How to talk about the book and how to get young people to read it: Here the question arose of the orientations of the AUI which was presented to us by Chris WOOD during a two-hour Zoom during our meeting.
- The words of Christ Wood that we can recall are: his conception of the different circles to make known The Urantia Book, the first being the protection and dissemination of The Urantia Book. The 2nd: education for students of The Urantia Book. The 3rd: information initiatives. The 4th: religious work; the 5th, social work and the 6th, philosophical work.
- Chris’s goals for 2021 are that Europe will be financially independent and that there will be a financial partnership between Europe and Africa, and between North America and Latin America. The BSI expects (wishes) a very large increase in donations by then ( ).
I will develop a point that seems important to me. The AUI absolutely wants to create teachers for the book and then to set up conferences to make this book known.
It is true that, as Anna Zeven pointed out, participation in the United States is much higher in conferences, and the programs are more varied and ambitious. The opinion of Europeans is not in favor of this project which seems to us to be the preparation of a new religion concerning the Urantia Book.
We prefer Jesus’ approach which consists of learning from others (in groups and in life) then preparing the ground for spirituality among the population (Jesus’ journeys) through conferences but without talking about the Urantia Book, just the concept of God and cosmic brotherhood which will increase the number of truth seekers who will end up reading this Urantia Book and take over.
So, in Europe, the goal would rather be to energize young people around the concepts of fraternity and divine justice, of truth, beauty and goodness in order to prepare the society of tomorrow, the Urantia Book being only a tool which allows determined people to carry out this project as best as possible.
To get in touch with people (without talking too much about The Urantia Book), there are:
- Conferences (Zoom, YouTubes, videos on the site)
- Social networks (or even create networks on spirituality)
- The media (TV, radio)
So there are plenty of ideas and young people to emulate these activities.
Finally, we talked about the next international world meeting in Amsterdam and it is advisable to book in advance because of the tulip festival.
To conclude:
the site was very pleasant and some meetings and 2 meditations took place at the edge of the beach under a beautiful sun.
Ivan Stol — November 2017
