Marking three years since Tenri Forum 2006

It’s exactly three years to the day since Tenri Forum 2006 ended. Although it was an inspiring three days, I have not seen any signs of a comparable coordinated effort in the English-speaking congregation since then. I honestly must say there is much to be desired from anyone who is in the position and authority to bring together another such event, even one much smaller in scale, in the future.

The wonderful people who helped put together this grand event appeared to have been burned out in the process of preparing and carrying it out so much that it took more than two years just to get the “book” (Tenri Forum 2006: New Frontiers in the Mission — Compiled Speeches & Summaries) together.

In some ways, I sympathize, but in other ways, it’s just another source of extreme frustration that comes with the territory of being a Tenrikyo follower. Not to mention they messed up my presentation in print format… grrrrr… (Please click here for the authoritative version, if you’ve yet to read it.)

For those who don’t have the book, the Tenri Forum 2006 entry at the Tenrikyo Resource Wiki is a good place to start.

Uh, by the way, what happened to the TF 2006 book blog?

I had a grand ambition when the TF 2006 book first came out: I was going to read and blog the entire thing (613 pages) here on Tenrikyology.com! I was really serious about this: I even wrote and posted the Intro to this series! But as you can see, I haven’t added anything else in the six months since then. Which kind of begs the question: What happened?

I think the most honest explanation I can give is twofold:

1. I got lazy, and
2. I chickened out a bit, realizing I may have bit off more than I could chew

Before I went on to post the next blog after the Intro, it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t a hot idea to start blogging on Tenri Forum 2006 without letting people know what I was going to do it. I composed a mass e-mail announcing my intentions to all the contributors but I never got around to sending it. I admit it: I chickened (or maybe flaked?) out.

I’ve only started reading the book about a month or two ago, but I’m still on the afternoon session from the first day.

I honestly can’t say if I’ll get around to blogging the TF book. I might finally blog it sometime later on a much smaller scale, just mentioning and maybe summarizing the presentations I happen to like instead of the full-blown analysis that I originally had in mind. But I’m not making any promises at this point.

*Note: This post has been revised since its original publication.