2020
I did not do much until March 2020.
Right before the world came to a stop, I had my first meeting with Israel Eshed. At the time I already had an inkling of what was coming, and there really was no point in starting to work on anything.
A week after the meeting came COVID-19, and the whole world stopped in its tracks. It took a couple of weeks of lockdown until on March 22, 2020 the first seed for the 2020 Urantia Hackathon was planted. Luis Garcia-Bory and I were discussing what we can do with this new situation and Luis came up with the idea of a hackathon.
That kept us very busy until July 2020, when the Hackathon took place.
I watched Luis lead us in this complex endeavor and learned a lot from him. I also learned from the things that did not work well in our executive team. All of these lessons later culminated in the long-term vision of how to formulate the principles of teamwork that are now in place in the Center for Unity executive team.
The hackathon was a great learning experience, and served as the foundation for the next step in building a long-lasting organization. I also delved into Jim Collins’ books (Good to Great, Built to Last) which were an immense inspiration. I was introduced to the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS).
One of Luis’s great ideas is to recruit an Advisory Board. A council of “elders” so-to-speak. It was a brilliant idea, which was the next step for the Center for Unity.
Recruit an Advisory Board. That sounds like the next step!
I started reading about advisory boards. I decided to approach women and men with a lot of experience, and with a demonstrated service record. Above all, I wanted members who were not only individually wise but had their own personal relationship with God.
First was Gard and Katharina. Then Elisabeth and Paula.
Ben Bowler was a natural choice for me, and he was next.
Next, I was thinking that we need Millennials and that brought Alexandre and Tony.
The guiding principles for choosing the members are: long term students of The Urantia Book, and wisdom. Next is diversity – in race, gender, age, faith-tradition, and culture.
We currently have a group of 7 – 4 men and 3 women, Boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials. White and black, North American, South American, African and Australian.
By September, Sandra and I met Shmuel Ben Naftaly and Sefi Kiryati. Sefi is an accomplished architect, who has built many projects in Israel and around the world. Of particular note is his work on the Moa Oasis eco-village and a spiritual temple for the Brahma Kumaris in India.
Sef invited Sandra and me to his house, in the southern region of Mt. Carmel. There, we talked about the Jesus Museum and about our dream of building a Temple for our Father. Sefi was visibly touched when he invited us to go up to his studio and showed us a design he had made years ago for a “House of Prayer for all Nations”.
There were a lot of emotions that evening. I felt Sefi came to us at the opportune time to advance the concept of the Museum and Temple. Sefi immediately donated his design to the project.
For the next year we would have many more meetings about the Museum with Taly, Sefi, Shmuel and Sandra – the founding team of the Jesus Museum.
By November we all went to meet once more with Idan Greenboum, the Head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council. During this meeting, Shmuel, Sefi, Adv Even and myself presented to Mr. Greenboum the concept of the combined Museum and Temple and asked to get Idan’s blessing to build it on the Beit Tamara property.
Mr. Greenboum said that he is in favor, but asked that we start talking to the Israeli Land Authority to start the bureaucratic process of obtaining a lease on the Beit Tamara property. It was clear to all of us that would not be a short or cheap process….
In that presentation we were still using the names “The (physical) Center for Unity” and “The (virtual) Center for Unity.” The Jesus Museum and the Jesus Metaverse will be named as such almost a year later
To be continued….
