Welcome to the 10:15 community blog. We'll be listing thoughts, plans, ideas and everything else right here, so check back in regularly to find out what's going on. Our gathering is fairly new and many of us don't know each other that well, so we are doing our best to 'fill in the gaps' and help us all to connect with each other and the wider All Saints community.
We celebrated Earth Day this past weekend. We asked people to bring something from nature and we created a mini altar, inviting everyone to think about the gift of creation, as well as the beauty and fragility of nature. We also reconfigured the chapel and went for a more intimate "in-the round" set-up which seemed to work really well.
Barry read a segment of an essay by Barbara Brown Taylor called the Dominion of Love, which is found, along with a number of other reflections, quotes, and essays, in the beginning pages of the Green Bible. BBT is a wonderful writer and has a unique take on most things Christian--humans and cattle, made on the same day, funny and poignant.
On Wednesday evenings throughout Lent we are hosting an event in All Saints Chapel called Lenten Conspiracy, it's an evening of eating, reflecting and experiencing. We begin with a simple, communal meal of soup and bread (we are moving towards silence during the meal-but keeping quiet is easier said than done!). After supper, we move into the chapel space and begin with a breathing meditation. Each week there is a reflection on some aspect of the wilderness experience. Our central image is by photographer Doug Aitken, and features an armchair in the desert--so we are exploring aspects of what it means to sit down in the wilderness during Lent. Last week we talked about the spirituality of getting lost, the blessing of stepping off of well-worn pathways and opening ourselves up to the adventure of the wilderness. This week we are going to be talking about the wilderness as a dream-space, a place where we recover our dreams and discover the dreams of God--should be fun, come join us if you can.
Most weeks we begin our gatherings with a time of breathing and meditation--a simple way of 'becoming present.' We quite often use a blessing from the Irish poet John O'Donohue, whose book, To Bless The Space Between Us, is a must-have. His website (which is a bit more static since his untimely death a year ago) offers this little gem, "I would like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding."
Going with the flow, is not easy for us, we plan, calculate, and generally try to control what happens to us in life. O'Donohue invites us to a different way of being in the world, committed to fluidity and surprise, and offers the image of a river cutting its way through the landscape as a metaphor. If you've walked by a river you notice that they seldom run in straight lines, they seem to negotiate their way through the land--a twist here, a turn there, a constant conversation with what emerges in front of it as it makes its way to the sea.
“Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.” Louisa May Alcott
I’ve always heard that human touch is an important part of our existence as human beings. Now we can add “good lovin’” too. This article I read opens with, “Did you know that love not only gives meaning to your life, it brings health benefits?” It then elaborates on the actual benefits of human touch saying it not only increases production of endorphins, growth hormone, and DHEA (both of which lengthen our life span and lower the negative impacts of stress) but it says that patients who are regularly touched recover faster than those who are not touched. (Yikes, note to self: when recovering make sure you remember to touch and be touched.) When my darling Aunt was in a long term care facility I used to visit her and bring delicious smelling hand crème (organic of course) and rub her hands--along with some of the other precious older ladies, how grateful they were, their hands were so dry, but really it was the touch that was the important part. That wise Dr. Oz (so wish he was my doctor!) says that generosity is good for your health and that studies show that heart attack patients who share some love and do volunteer work have death rates two and a half times lower than those who don’t. Interesting, don’t you think?
