New Zealand Corner – June 2025
By Marion Steward, New Zealand
Here in New Zealand, we are anticipating the national holiday of Matariki, which this year is on Friday 20 June. This time is referred to as the Māori New Year, and traditionally is a time to acknowledge the past, celebrate the present and plan for the future.
For our Urantia Book study group, we can look back on our mini conference in March, which seven of us attended. It was held at Athenree, a small coastal town in the Western Bay of Plenty. We stayed at the local holiday park which had some hot springs, and we regularly took our conversations into the hot water. We all find these face-to-face gatherings wonderfully enriching occasions. They enable in-depth discussions on any topic, and simultaneous side conversations (which of course aren’t possible on Zoom), all of which help us get to know each other more.
In the present time, we have experienced some growth in our online study group, for the first time in quite a while. We had got quite used to there being just seven core members. We were quite familiar with everyone’s perspectives, interests, thoughts and opinions, and our fortnightly meetings were interesting but not particularly challenging in terms of exploring different ways of seeing the world. But recently, we have experienced growth in our numbers. One reader contacted us, joined the group, and promptly bought three hardcover copies for himself and some friends. The next new member was a young man from Uganda. He first sent an email requesting to join our online group and eventually turned up at our meeting. As time has passed, it has become apparent that he is a genuine truth seeker, and keen student of the ideas in The Urantia Book. He asks many questions, both at the meetings and on emails, and in turn has shared with us some of his own life experience, which is very very different to our own. The third new member is a Urantia Book reader who was in our study group many years ago and has now returned to study. Incorporating these readers into our study group has become and continues to be, a stimulating experience as we share our diverse perspectives. The Urantia Book notes that learning to socialise with diverse people is a “supernal cultural achievement” (43:8.4), and that eventually we will need to learn how to do so with “ever-lessening irritability and ever-diminishing resentment” (43:8.9).
Looking into the future, some of us are planning to attend this year’s ANZURA conference in Brisbane, an even larger face-to-face experience, which has the potential to expand our knowledge and understanding of the truths in The Urantia Book even more, and provides those essential socialisation experiences noted above.