We had a lovely conference this year which was held 4 – 7 October at the Edmund Rice Centre in Lower Plenty, Melbourne. The theme was Urantia Stocktake – Past, Present and Future. Readers attended from Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, NSW, Hawaii and New Zealand. The group was cosy and allowed for plenty of informal interaction. Our thanks go to the Melbourn Study Group members who hosted the gathering – Regina Williamson, Prue Scott, Bevan James and Dennis de-Jong.
There was good mix of presentations and workshops this year with plenty of humour, socialising and music. I heard many people express what a highlight these conferences are in that you can feel safe and comfortable talking about Urantia Book teachings and concepts that you just can’t talk about freely with those who are not familiar with the book.
We held a delightful welcoming “meet and greet” happy hour on Friday afternoon where we socialised and got to know new people who attended for the first time. Each morning before breakfast, the “early birds” attended a worship session with a good mix of silence, prayer and readings from the book. Prue was the MC and opened the conference on Friday evening with an ice-breaker activity whereby we were given a little slip of paper with a question on it. We went around the group, and each read out their own question and then answered it. This was fun and stimulated a lot of discussion.
Here is a list of the presentations given:
- Opening Address by Prue Scott where she set the tone for the weekend.
- The Lucifer Rebellion by Bevan James. He reminded us about the Lucifer Manifesto and all the social repercussions that we can still see in our society today.
- Jesus in the Book of Enoch, Prophesy and Eden Update by Dennis de-Jong. He pointed out the many places in the Book of Enoch that prophesised much that came to light in Jesus’ bestowal, including Jesus’ coining of the term “Son of Man”. In addition, he shared information on the underwater project that is attempting to find evidence of the sunken Garden of Eden in the eastern Mediterranean Sea where The Urantia Book describes it to be.
- Some Principles of Geology for Readers of Part Three by Graeme Chapman who is a long-time geologist loves the geology in The Urantia Book and can give us well-informed information and comparisons in the book to modern day science.
- Personal, Scientific and Philosophical Discoveries and Interpretations by Nigel Nunn, our amazing resident astrophysicist, who was able to show us incredible slides and explain some very complex information about the cosmos and philosophy in layman’s language that we could understand.
- Michael, His Home and Life – Advice for a Better Life on Urantia by Regina Williamson. She stressed the importance of Paper 21, The Paradise Creator Sons which she said “…doesn’t have one sentence that isn’t important”.
- Urantia Organisations – Past, Present and Future by Kathleen Swadling. She had been asked to do this topic because many people were confused and uncertain about the organisations that make up the Urantia movement. She took us through the history of the main organisations of today, right from the times before the book was published to present day, with speculation on the future.
- New Directions of Study by Phillip Marriott, who is the Chair of the Study Group Committee on the International Service Board of Urantia Association. He let us know about the revision of the Study Group Guide and gave us all a copy. This is a very helpful booklet for anyone wishing to start a study group.
Workshops and break-out sessions included:
- A film on Architectural Spheres compiled by Gary Tonge.
- Populating the Cosmos, a fun workshop led by Prue. She had created a lovely schematic chart of Nebadon with all its constellations, mansion worlds and planets. We all helped ourselves to many little bits of paper that had the names of personalities on them. We then had to decide where each personality hailed from, and place onto the chart in the section of the local universe where we thought that personality came from. It generated a lot of fun and interaction as people discovered how much they knew, or didn’t know, about where various beings sprang from.
- New Format for Study Sessions, led by Phillip. This got everyone thinking and talking about how we can improve study groups and other methods of study that may attract new attendees.
- Prayer Composition and Dispatch, led by Prue. We had some quiet personal prayer time after which we all wrote a private letter to the being that we wanted to send the prayer to, whether it be the Father, Michael, Mother Spirit, guardian angel etc. Once we wrote our prayer on something close to our hearts, we slipped it onto an envelope and addressed it to the being or deity we were addressing. The idea was for no one else to see what we’d written. Prue collected them up and “dispatched” them as a figurative way of “sending them up on high” by burning them in a symbolically ceremonial fire.
- Hit Us with Your Best Shots which was in the form of a roundtable “forum” where anyone could ask questions, and the group would discuss and provide the answers.
Evening recreation times were a lot of fun. The Melbourne crew entertained us with an hilarious skit of an encounter between Lucifer and Jesus complete with celestials. We also had an “open mic” session where anyone could get up and perform in some way. There were some guitars so several performed music while others recited poetry.
Sunday afternoon allowed a couple of hours of free time so we could go for walks or simply wonder around the garden and explore a large labyrinth. ANZURA’s AGM for members was held just before dinner. Elections were held and Rita Schaad and Merindi Belarski were re-elected as President and Secretary respectively. The Board now still consists of:
President: Rita Schaad
Vice President: Pree McGee
Secretary: Merindi Belaski
Treasurer: Robert Coenraads
NZ Representative: Marion Steward
Sunday night’s dinner was spectacular. The dining room was a beautiful room with a giant spiral staircase – the ambience was lovely. The tables were rearranged to become one long continuous table complete with white tablecloths, flowers and candles. It was a real High Tea, and the atmosphere was buzzing with the sound of everyone happily socialising. Once dinner was over someone broke out the guitars again and the open mic session from the night before continued. The whole evening was a great grand finale.
We closed the conference on Monday morning where everyone was free to reflect, give feedback, and discuss the weekend by sharing personal highlights. A big thank you to the Melbourne crew for planning and hosting a very enjoyable weekend, and a special thanks and acknowledgment to Prue for masterminding much of the worship sessions, workshops and high tea evening.