February 23, 2020

Wow!  I really got behind in my blogging!

The Presence Group finished Intimacy with God, by Thomas Keating and began reading The Soul’s Slow Ripening, by Christine Valters Paintner.   Today on 2/23/20 we’re into Chapter 9.

We’ve enjoyed the book very much and continue to enjoy it.

Some highlights so far:

• The Celtic way of thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.
• Talking about the “thin places” in the world where one senses the presence of the divine particularly in those threshold places.
• Taking walks to experience the world about us.
• Using photography to enhance the experience of these moments.
• The writing exercises at the end of the chapters are revelations.

 

August !!!

Wow!  What happened to August!  We’ve been meeting each Sunday and I’ve never written a jot about it.

We’re reading Thomas Keating’s “Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer”.  We’re on chapters 9, 10, 11 now and enjoying the discussion.  The early part of this edition seemed a tad dry, but now there’s more to it.

Today August 18th we didn’t meet due to a few folks being away.  We’ll get together again next Sunday August 25th, and the following Sunday, September 1st.

Due to a church function we won’t be meeting on September 8th.  But come for the Block Party and Rally Day festivities.  St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 1805 W. Alabama St.

 

 

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.

Palm Sunday & Happy Easter

April 14th we enjoyed several great chats and confessions and got around to discussing Everyone Belongs too.  Great Book!

We talked about the next meeting on April 28th.  There’s a section called “Guide for Reflection” at the back of Everyone Belongs, that begins after the coda section on page 177.  (It is curious that all the pages after 176 are numbered 177.  Is that only in my Kindle, or do the paper books number it like that too?) 

“Guide for Reflection” asks 2 or 3 questions for discussion about specific statement from takes each Chapter of the book.  Please look it over and hopefully on the 28th we’ll all get to talk about the book via those discussion questions and wrap up this wonderful visit with Richard Rohr.

Of course that means we need a new book!  Yipes!

Ronnie has a suggestion.  Last week Ronnie heard an excerpt read from Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book, Shameless.  I’ll forward you the excerpt to read over.  You can also read about the book at Ms. Bolz-Weber’s website.  http://www.nadiabolzweber.com/

Nadia Bolz-Weber NADIA BOLZ-WEBER is the author of two New York Times bestselling memoirs: Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People and Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint.The founder and former pastor of a Lutheran congregation House for All Sinners and Saints, she speaks at colleges and conferences around the globe. http://www.nadiabolzweber.com

Please bring your suggestions for a new book to the 4/28 meeting.  We can decide then which books to choose in what order for future reading.

There is no meeting today Easter Sunday, but Happy Easter Everyone and …

See y’all at church,

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.

 

April 8, 2018 New Book

The Presence Group began discussing When Things Fall Apart:  Heart Advice for Difficult Times, by Pema Chödrön.  We’ll be continuing to discuss the Introduction, Chapters 1 and 2 for April 15th.

We welcomed two visitors today.  It’s always encouraging to have new voices to add to the discussions.

 

Lenten Wrap Up & Search for the next book

Ronnie, Carlyn and I had a very pleasant meet Sunday afternoon 3/18.  We jumped about the wonderful Hope As Old As Fire book dates, several in March and some in December.  We agreed that we liked the idea of revisiting it about once a month in the coming months to be able to share again the wonderful concepts and gorgeous prose of Steven Charleston.  Read March 20 just for the imagery.

I mentioned that I won’t be able to meet Palm Sunday, but I believe Carlyn and Ronnie can.  The rest of you please ‘check in’ letting us know if you can come on 3/25 afternoon.  

It was the general consensus that we won’t meet on Easter Day, so the meeting after that on 4/8 we decided is when we’d begin a new book. We’ve got two weeks to get the new book so let’s decide ASAP so those who don’t have the new book can order it.

I checked back discussions about a new book and some of the candidates are:

• Dutch Sheets, The Essential Guide to Prayer:  How to Pray with Power and Effectiveness
• Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs:  The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
• Pema Chodron,  When Things Fall Apart:  Heart Advice for Difficult Times
• Steven Charleston, Sanctuary of the Spirit
• ​OR something completely different!​

Note:  The links above are for the Kindle editions of each book.  If you prefer paperback or hardback follow the link, then click on “See all formats and editions”.  

(I’ve likely forgotten to mention others that were brought up so please add to the list.)

Do not be shy.  Speak up for the book you are leaning towards or are passionate about.  Let us know what you think — the sooner the better.

I’ll stick my neck out first and say I am leery about the Dutch Sheets book because of the title.  I wonder how can ‘power and effectiveness’ be part of my prayer life when I’ve never thought of prayer in that way.  BUT that’s probably a good reason to read it to find out.  <G>  During our meeting yesterday I read the first few paragraphs of the book aloud and it was comfortable reading.

I’d be happy to read any of the other three authors mentioned above since I know I love the way they write.

There, now it’s your turn to speak out.

This is also a great time for new members to enter the group.  Be sure to let people know we’re beginning a new book April 8th.  I’ll let our Communications Director at St. Stephen’s know too.

We welcome any comments below as to the books mentioned and any other candidate you’ve got in mind.

Winifred “Fred” Bellido

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ

Advent Season 2017

The Presence Group will meet each Sunday in Advent including 12/24/17, Christmas Eve. We are reading The Vigil, by Wendy M. Wright and continuing to read chapters from The Gift of Years.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ