April 28th

Great meeting on April 28th with Mary, Jeffery, Ronnie, Carlyn, and me.  We discussed a bit from the Coda of Everything Belongs.

After some discussion about Shameless: A Sexual Revolution, by Nadia Bolz Weber we decided to pass on that book.

We looked into Thomas Keating’s book Intimacy With God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating  and decided to read it as our next book.

See y’all next week.

Everything Belongs cont.

January 13th we discussed several parts of Everything Belongs.

Notable:  Ch 2, p 28 … we need to understand our exploration is not an effort to get anywhere.  My starting point is that we’re already there… Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. …  (We had a discussion.)

Ch 2, The Sign of Jonah, p 44 …”Jesus knew the graphic story of Jonah the prophet, who was running from God and was used by God almost in spite of himself… we must go inside the belly of the whale for a while.”  Discussion

Liminality and Transformation:  There was an interesting discussion about whether Rohr’s use of the term “liminality”, liminal space, was the precise meaning of ‘liminal space’.

p 48, The idea that ‘liminal space’ requires a crisis was a big part of the discussion.  Nevertheless, the idea of the need for a transition, a time of waking us up was discussed extensively.

p. 49 the meaning of the Greek word meta-noia was discussed.  Rohr’s translation of meta-noia as “turning around” I had read in the new translation of The New Testament by David Bentley Hart.  He translated Matthew 3:2 as “Change your hearts; for the Kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.”  Other translations use the word “repent“.  We discussed the idea of ‘repent’ and ‘turning around’ or ‘changing your mind’.

Please continue reading Everything Belongs.  We are agreed that it is very ‘meaty’ and needs to be read and discussed slowly.

January 27th was the Annual Parish Meeting and lunch after the 10:30 service.

Carlyn and I met afterwards and talked for a few minutes.  Others couldn’t come due to illness or work-related issues.

Carlyn and I agreed to continue slowly reading Richard Rohr’s book.  We agreed that we read a little bit then it wants reflection.  We hope that we can get together for discussion next Sunday afternoon.

Prayers for those of our group who are encountering health issues.

Meanwhile, everyone please feel free to share ideas from the reading via email, or comment on our blog in the comment section below.

We hope all of you with infirmities will be soon on the mend and we’ll see you next Sunday, February 3rd.

Boyle in the Hood 11/25/18

Presence Group Folks, 

Today we talked a bit about Tattoos on the Heart, and made some future plans.  

• We’ll finish Tattoos on the Heart during December and discuss the finished book when we get back to regular meetings on January 6th.
• Our next book will be the Richard Rohr book, Everything Belongs:  The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (Amazon) and here for the Goodreads blurb.
• Please begin reading it during December, discussion will begin also on January 6th.  
• Remember we will not meet Sunday’s in December.  

Everyone is enjoying reading Tattoos on the Heart.  Positive comments were made on some of the vignettes; however we agreed, due to the vignette form, we’re finding it difficult to discuss.   

 

 

 

 

 

Planning Ahead for Advent

For November 11th:

• finish reading The Shack
• begin reading Tattoos on the Heart
• keep an eye out for Advent reading suggestions

In today’s meeting Pat brought up our Advent tradition of:

• choosing an Advent book for us to read and discuss
• no regular meetings during Advent due to hectic seasonal doings

The idea being to discuss via email or the Blog and get together again in January.

This means we also need to discover Advent readings prior to December 2nd, the 1st Sunday of Advent.

Fred would like to have us all over to her apartment for a pot luck dinner and possible Advent discussion sometime in December.  Please check your calendars for a likely time for that.  Perhaps some Sunday late afternoon/early evening in December?  But that’s not written in stone.

 

January 29, 2017

A discussion of The Presence Group’s new book, The Four Vision Quests of Jesus, by Steven Charleston commences.

 

June 14 The Places that Scare You

Sunday June 14 we met and discussed chapters 18, 19, 20, & 21. Our discussions lasted until 2:20 so meditation was only 5 minutes!

Readings next Sunday June 21: We will be finishing the wonderful Pema Chodron book “The Places that Scare You“.  We hope everyone can join us.

For our next book we decided to return to the first book on The Presence Group reading list “Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self”, by Kabir Edmund Helminski. You can click on the link to go to Amazon.com.  It’s been about 8 or 9 years since some of us read the book that got this group started and we’d like to read it again.  Many of you will be reading it for the first time.

There is also a companion book that relates the Helminski book to Christian practices.  It’s called, “Living the Presence: A manual for Contemplative Christian Practice” by Lynn C. Bauman.  Let’s discuss Sunday June 21st if we want to use it as a companion or not.  We do have several copies in the St. Stephen’s library, so it may not be necessary for anyone to buy a copy of the 2nd book.

We hope to see you Sunday afternoon June 21.

Winifred

What’s our next book?

We’ve decided to finish up early on “The Mist-Filled Path…”
Several members have come up with some intriguing suggestions for our next book. Here they are (in no particular order):

Paul Elie, The Life You Save Might Be Your Own

The Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Pema Chodron, The Places that Scare You

Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness

If I missed your suggestion please let me know.

All can be found on Amazon (with synopses and reviews) and have Kindle editions too.

If you’d like to comment on your choice for our next book, please post a reply below.

Book Study for January 5, 2014

We were unable to meet on December 29th.   We will be meeting as usual on January 5, 2014.

The Presence Group continues to progress in our two selections, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard, and Christian Meditation, by James Finley.  We continue to discuss chapters 5 and 6 from Christian Meditation and Chapter 4 in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  Feel free to read further into either or both at your own pace.

We are moving slowly as there is much to contemplate.   We’ve found Christian Meditation to be packed with wonderful material to discuss almost paragraph by paragraph.  The miriad of visually stunning images in  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek need much reflection time too.

Christian Meditation is a book that seems to resonate in our everyday lives.  Weekly we relate experiences that we have had that connect to our readings.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard

Christian Meditation, by James Finley is an instruction book on meditation for beginners and practitioners alike.

The metaphorical Pilgrim at Tinker Creek alongside the instructional Christian Meditation is an interesting combination.

—————————

Proceedure:

1:00 to 1:15 gather together in the library at St. Stephen’s

1:15 to 2:10 discussion of the current chapter(s)

2:15 to 2:30 Meditation Period in the library

—————————-

You are invited to join us.

For more information contact Winifred Bellido.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ

Book Study for December 22, 2013

The Presence Group continues to progress in our two selections, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard, and Christian Meditation, by James Finley.  We continue to discuss chapters 5 and 6 from Christian Meditation and Chapter 4 in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  Feel free to read further into either or both at your own pace.

We were unable to meet on December 8th due to illness and members out of town.

We are moving slowly as there is much to contemplate.   We’ve found Christian Meditation to be packed with wonderful material to discuss almost paragraph by paragraph.  The miriad of visually stunning images in  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek need much reflection time too.

Christian Meditation is a book that seems to resonate in our everyday lives.  Weekly we relate experiences that we have had that connect to our readings.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard

Christian Meditation, by James Finley is an instruction book on meditation for beginners and practitioners alike.

The metaphorical Pilgrim at Tinker Creek alongside the instructional Christian Meditation is an interesting combination.

—————————

Proceedure:

1:00 to 1:15 gather together in the library at St. Stephen’s

1:15 to 2:10 discussion of the current chapter(s)

2:15 to 2:30 Meditation Period in the library

—————————-

You are invited to join us.

For more information contact Winifred Bellido.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ

Book Study for December 8, 2013

The Presence Group continues to progress in our two selections, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard, and Christian Meditation, by James Finley.  We continue to discuss chapter 4 from Christian Meditation and Chapter 3 and 4 in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  Feel free to read into Chapter 5 of either or both.

Each week in our discussions we wonder about James Finley’s mentor Thomas Merton.  Several years ago our group read Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation.  Unfortunately the writing left us cold.  Since we have read many references to Merton from authors who have been influenced by him.  We would like suggestions on another of Merton’s books to read at some future date.  Please leave your suggestions in the comment section below this post.  

If it seems we’re going slowly, you’re right we are.  <g>  We’ve found Christian Meditation to be packed with wonderful material to discuss almost paragraph by paragraph.  The miriad of visually stunning images in  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek need much reflection time too.

Christian Meditation is a book that seems to resonate in our everyday lives.  Weekly we relate experiences that we have had that connect to our readings.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard

Christian Meditation, by James Finley is an instruction book on meditation for beginners and practitioners alike.

The metaphorical Pilgrim at Tinker Creek alongside the instructional Christian Meditation is an interesting combination.

—————————

Proceedure:

1:00 to 1:15 gather together in the library at St. Stephen’s

1:15 to 2:10 discussion of the current chapter(s)

2:15 to 2:30 Meditation Period in the library

—————————-

You are invited to join us.

For more information contact Winifred Bellido.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ