Shared Journeys: Knowing and Being Known

Workshop number: 
25
Daphne
Clement
Kathie Klein
Lewis Fuller
Audience
Who may register: 
Open to All (adult & high school)
full-time attenders only
Time breakdown
Worship/worship-sharing: 
40%
Lecture: 
0%
Discussion: 
10%
Experiential Activities: 
50%
Description
Leader Experience: 

The three workshop leaders have participated in the Atlanta Meeting Spiritual Nurture Group for many years. They led this writing workshop at FGC in 2011. They have organized half a dozen small retreats or workshops, and created an ongoing writing group for participants to explore their lives through free writing.

Daphne Clement is the pastor at Durham Friends Meeting, a large semi-programmed Meeting in Durham, Maine, and was for many years a hospice chaplain. She has led a number of workshops at FGC. Kathie Klein has co-led two workshops at FGC (2007 and 2011), led workshops on simple living, and has helped run small groups from a meal-sharing coop to a regular meeting for healing. Lewis Fuller co-led this workshop at FGC in 2011 and has eight years experience in the Atlanta Friends Meeting Spiritual Nurture Group including rotating leadership. In his work as concerts production manager at Emory University he leads numerous groups through stage orientation and directions for their performances.

Short Description: 

Explore your spiritual autobiography through intuitive free writing and deep listening to ourselves and each other. Using tools from group spiritual nurture, we will write in response to queries and brief readings. As we share our stories, we will find the sacred shining through the ordinary events of our lives.

Long Description: 

We seek to find the movement of spirit in the stories of our lives. Our free and intuitive narrative writing will reveal the sacred shining through ordinary events and extraordinary moments, invoking elements of our spiritual autobiographies. We will offer the gift of safe space to each other and create a community of deep listening. Previous writing experience is not necessary for this work.

Writing exercises, mostly 10-15 minutes each, will come from sources such as Natalie Goldberg, Deena Metzger, Anne Lamott, and the pamphlet Group Spiritual Nurture: The Wisdom of Spiritual Listening, by Daphne Clement; from various poetry; and from each day's check-in. They will focus on particular details and moments of life, broadly including childhood, relationships, and vocation; the present and the past.

Each day we will begin with worship, a check-in and warm-up exercises. We will continue to write and share a series of prompted pieces.

As we share our writing and listen closely in a manner similar to worship sharing, we will see how spiritual life permeates everything and recognize with appreciation glimpses of spirit in our workshop companions.

Bring a journal or laptop to do your writing.