Telling Our Whole Religious Stories

Many people have come to Quakerism from other religious traditions, becoming convinced Friends after a journey of seeking. Often these stories include a difficult road. This workshop is an opportunity for Friends to share these stories, examine their influence on our spiritual lives, and explore what to keep and release. “Talking about religion can be…

Workshop Description

Many people have come to Quakerism from other religious traditions, becoming convinced Friends after a journey of seeking. Often these stories include a difficult road. This workshop is an opportunity for Friends to share these stories, examine their influence on our spiritual lives, and explore what to keep and release.

“Talking about religion can be hurtful, to oneself and to others. Affect linked to religion is deeply rooted; in some obscure way, it holds together the totality of the self, of the community and culture … And yet, when religion is nothing more than inertia ensuring past cohesion, it no longer plays a dynamic role in the present. It becomes deadening, and no longer infuses an additional life into the individual and collective dimensions that unite the corporeal with the spiritual, the sensible with the mental, the self with the other … Could we not imagine the divine differently?”
– Luce Irigaray, “Spiritual Tasks for our Age,” Key Writings

Many of us have come to Quaker spaces from other religious traditions as part of a journey of seeking. Sometimes, that seeking is because other religious experiences were unhelpful or not spiritually satisfying. Other times, that seeking is because we have had bad experiences or experienced harm by a religious tradition, and yet still experience a longing for spiritual practice and community.

These experiences are all part of our stories, and worthy of tenderness and exploration. This workshop is a space to do that exploration both internally and in community with others.

Being a Quaker and believing in God are not requirements for participation in this workshop. We also actively encourage participants to hold terms for the Divine broadly, including Spirit, Mystery, the Source of Love, the Inward Teacher, and more.

In this workshop, we will:
Map our spiritual journeys through creative practice and group sharing
Learn about the concept of lament in the Jewish and Christian traditions, and use lament as a spiritual practice for exploring religious harm
Explore the practice of apophasis, or saying what God is not, as a healing exercise around harmful conceptions of God
Engage in journaling exercises, structured small group sharing, embodied rituals, and other contemplative practices to help us dive deeper into our spiritual stories.

Our hope is that Friends leave this workshop with a sense of healing and peace with their past experiences, more fully able to engage in Quaker practice and more in tune with the multifaceted Divine.

Please note that this workshop will not be able to offer psychological support related to trauma such as sexual abuse within religious communities. If you have experienced religious trauma, you may wish to work with a mental health professional instead of or in addition to taking this workshop.

Leader Experience

Jen Newman is currently the Executive Director of Beacon Hill Friends House, a Quaker center and intentional community in Boston, Mass. She has extensive experience facilitating small and large group workshops for BHFH, New England Yearly Meeting (as a part of the Living Faith conferences, several gatherings on Spiritual Life and Ministry, and as an anchor group leader for Sessions), as well as for other Quaker organizations. Jen facilitated the community conversation on hybrid worship at the 2021 FGC Gathering and co-facilitated part of the Workshop Sampler with Allison at the 2023 FGC Gathering. Allison Kirkegaard has offered workshops at Beacon Hill Friends House, Friends Committee on National Legislation’s annual meeting, and various monthly meetings. She also frequently facilitates interest groups, affinity groups, and worship sharing groups at her monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings as well as meetings she travels among. Allison co-facilitated part of the Workshop Sampler with Jen at the 2023 FGC Gathering.