Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl00780)

liesel f. deutsch wrote:
>
> Bee,
>
> If you'd like an opinion, if you have enough people willing to facilitate or
> what have you, I'd have some of both. That was the original idea anyway, to
> have some public meetings & some just for the serious members. How many of
> each during a month can be decided on by the group.
>
> I had all tourists in my study center in Syracuse. Everything went fine as
> long as I did it, and they could just come & take in whatever I had to
> offer. That was ok to get started, but then I had a tresurer who didn't
> collect donations, & a book agent who didn't want to order books, & when 1
> of them agreed to conduct a program, he didn't prepare anything. So I just
> stopped the whole thing. It's ok to give a side show to attract people I
> think, but then a study center is supposed to promote serious study as well.
>
> Liesel

Seeing them as tourists sort of gets a handle on the situation and that it's
ok if they come sightseeing but I used to get so disappointed when these keen
tourists didn't come back. I used to wonder what we weren't doing right but I
see now that there isn't a lot to be done until they stop being such
dedicated tourists. We have a lively study group of 6 going strong so that is
not bad in such a small Lodge.
Keep well
Bee
> ........................................................................
>
> >Yesterday I watched a video by Joy Mills, in fact it is a set of 6, that was
> >done at the annual Queens Birthday Weekend 3 day seminars that are held in
> >Auckland. This one was 3 years ago and I couldn't go that time. The whole 3
> >days were called Guidelines for the Spiritual Life and the tape was The
> >Pilgrim Path, Preparing for the Journey, tape 1.
> >In it she brought up the concept that the world can be divided into two
> >sorts, the Tourists and the Pilgrims. She then invited definitions of each
> >from the audience and some interesting ideas were presented. Tourists come
> >and look around and want to be entertained and expect to get their money's
> >worth whereas a Pilgrim comes to seek a way and is focussed on that. There
> >were many other examples but at the end she said that we should be careful
> >not to turn our Lodges into Tourist Attractions in our zeal to share our
> >wisdom. We need to preserve a place for the Pilgrim who's road is hard enough
> >as it is. She hit a cord within me as I have been thinking along the Tourist
> >Attraction notion to try to increase our membership but now maybe some real
> >quality stuff for the Pilgrims already within our Lodge may be wiser and more
> >profitable for us all.
> >Interesting stuff.
> >Bee Brown
> >
> >
> >