© 2006 Robert Mondange
© 2006 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Worship God? An invitation to travel outside of space-time | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 38 — Winter 2006 | Testimony on the meeting in Armeau |
I came across the Urantia Book in Provence, a long time ago, it was at the time of photocopied booklets. Old readers will know what that means. I came across the book because I was avid readers and was looking to read something other than novels and perhaps also because I was on a spiritual quest. Friends told me about a book that explained the organization of the universe and the place of God in all that. The first readings were difficult and if there had not been a study group, with “confirmed” readers I would certainly have given up.
A professional transfer sent me to Eure et Loir, there were no study groups. My reading became less frequent, some months almost non-existent.
Fortunately, the chance of transfers brought me back to Provence where I met a former reader, we formed a mini study group and my individual reading resumed.
Time passed, to finally arrive at the present time where I was vegetating all alone in my corner with my book and somewhat regular readings. Chance made me meet a former reader who found another source of spiritual inspiration and who does not want to go back. During all these periods I remained a member of AFFUB, at least since it existed. When our president contacted me, I was surprised to learn that there was a reader 10 kilometers from my home, with whom I immediately made contact and with whom I could perhaps create a study group. But it is necessary, at least at the beginning, that I know how to arouse “interests and curiosities”, I do not know the book well enough to do it properly.
The experience that I can draw from this is: that an isolated reader is a reader who risks abandoning the book, that it is important to create study groups, but that within these groups, there must be men or women who, through their knowledge and experience of the book, are “motors who drive others”.
Along the same lines, but still on the same level, I am very involved in humanitarian action, particularly in Ivory Coast. I created a humanitarian association called the Friends of the Country of Assikoi. Through it, I live the teachings of the book by giving selfless love to those in need. I hope that one day someone will ask me where my sources of inspiration come from and why I do this. The answer is in the book, but I don’t know it well enough to make them understand. In some correspondence I include a few sentences from the book. But, even if I give the source, it will not be enough to have the book accepted by a population in the midst of which different churches abound.
In conclusion, I think that we need readers who know the book perfectly. It is therefore up to “experienced readers” to help those who need to know the book better, either to get in touch with isolated readers, or to make the book known when life circumstances allow it, or to place a book in a library, for example.
Robert Mondange
| Worship God? An invitation to travel outside of space-time | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 38 — Winter 2006 | Testimony on the meeting in Armeau |