Wednesday night late, 11:30 pm. Just had a really great group this evening. The past three years, we've been experimenting with new content, new books, new ways to talk and respect each other in group.
I think most everyone is onboard, excited, trying. We keep at it and it helps tremendously that people are doing good work on their own. A few people are doing spiritual formation stuff and a bunch of us are reading Rohr and contemplating. It just seems like a good convergence of things.
I believe if you're going to have any chance of people personally changing in a spiritual community/church, it needs elements like the ones we are discovering and experimenting with. Mutual respect and no crosstalk in meetings. Personal work. Contemplation and action, both.
I facilitate the group schedule, but am not the leader. We don't have an official leader, super Quaker of us, but I organize things. I don't quite know where this is all going, but it feels like life to me right now.
Baby steps.
Group has been a central part of our spiritual life for 20 years. This little group has changed, but has elements of what made it good all along. I hope we can retain those as we move ahead. "Transcend and include" as Ken Wilber says.