We had a newcomer to our morning mediation group.  She showed up three times, but we haven’t seen her for a while.  During her last time with us, I asked her to read the Dedication of Merit, which is particularly hard to pronounce.  I’ve been beating myself up wondering if that was too aggressive of me to ask her to participate like that.  I’ve been beating myself up wondering what I might have done to scare her off.  I’ve been beathing myself up wondering what I could have done to keep her with us.  It’s no secret I’m rather passionate about having people join our Sangha (congregation in Christian terms).  I took the opportunity to ask the Sangha this morning, “What can we do to keep people on board?”  Two ideas emerged.  One is to offer newcomers a mentor who can be available to answer questions. The other was to gather contact info so that if we don’t see someone for a while, someone can reach out and just tell them that we appreciated their joining us and offer a welcome to return anytime.  Today, there was a newcoming, so I put my contact info in the chat, and offered these two things.  I do my best. I should be happy with that.  And as I should myself here, I’m reminded of, “things as they are… things as we want them to be.”  Such is suffering.