Deepening at the Root

Two 4-hour sessions: Saturday 2/1 & Sunday 2/2 (1-5pm Eastern / 10am-2pm Pacific) Deep within each of us is a wellspring where we touch the Divine. This workshop will invite participants to open more deeply to that Source of Life and is for those who ache for a deeper experience of connection to the Divine,…

Workshop Description

Two 4-hour sessions: Saturday 2/1 & Sunday 2/2 (1-5pm Eastern / 10am-2pm Pacific)

Deep within each of us is a wellspring where we touch the Divine. This workshop will invite participants to open more deeply to that Source of Life and is for those who ache for a deeper experience of connection to the Divine, and to be led and guided in their lives.

Through experiential exercises, small group sharing, large group processing, and worship, this workshop will seek to create the Beloved Community, one of deep trust and openness, where each of us take off the armor shielding our hearts and opening us into deeper communion with each other and with the Divine Source. That deeper communion has the capacity to enhance each of our experiences of worship, listening for vocal ministry, and listening for and discerning individual leadings for action. Topics will include learning how to listen with our whole being, practicing various ways of centering into worship, worship as a transformative crucible, the spiritual empowerment that comes through letting go and falling into Spirit’s warm embrace, practices where we listen for guidance and are held accountable to it, and how self-care and the need for spaciousness in our lives impact our capacity to live more consistently connected to the Root, the Source.

This workshop will be largely experiential. We will use a lot of small group sharing to help us form a community of trust, openness and depth, and also to practice ways of being deeply present to each other. In addition to small group sharing and large group discussion, we will engage in worship, prayer, some journaling, lectio divina, “”light and lively”” play, and a small amount of storytelling, lecture, and sharing of poetry by me. Plan on about 25% worship and worship sharing, 30% experiential exercises, 25% small group sharing, 5% lecture, and 15% large group sharing.

I will be sending handouts before the workshop, and while reading them ahead of time is not crucial, you will get a lot more out of the workshop if you read through them ahead of time.

Leader Experience

Over the years I have led workshops on deepening the experience of worship (Opening to the Heart of Worship), then expanded that to include vocal ministry (Where the Words Come From), and most recently I have expanded this work further to include our leadings for action (Fire at the Root: Mystical Practice and Our Passion for Justice). This workshop seeks to engage all three areas, but given the limited time in this two day format, we will focus first on the foundation of a deepened experience of the Root, or Source, and then move to how to let go into that flow, ways of seeking guidance, and how to maintain our balance in the Spirit as we move through our lives. The foundation of these latter practices and learnings will inform ongoing opening to being an instrument for vocal ministry and the service of acting on what Friends have called a social concern, what we now refer to as witness. I have been living questions for several years around how we Friends, myself included, can better live out a more connected path of both mystical awareness and Spirit-led action in the world. While modern Friends have tended to divide ourselves into “”contemplatives”” and “”activists,”” that artificial division does not serve us well. The one Source feeds both contemplation and action, and if we want to live fully in its Life and Power, we need to open to all the directions it calls us. This work feels like offering my own growing edge-both in my personal seeking and in what I have felt led to offer others.”