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Hello. I hope I find you well and enjoying the last few weeks of summer. Rather than our usual blog on a wide range of spiritual topics, this week I want to share with you what’s coming up for WAYfinding.
I shared with many of you in the spring round that I believe the next best step for WAYfinding is to begin offering a Sunday gathering. The reasons for this are numerous and include practical, organizational reasons like groups not being logistically possible for some people and families. But, the biggest reason – the reason that propels me to risk this change and responsibility – is that I believe a Sunday gathering is what is needed now.
All day long stories and ways of being swirl around us. Stories and ways of being that are largely divisive and fearful. Stories and ways of being that are masterful at convincing us the source of our sense of s/Self is external. It’s a kind of twisted liturgy we (almost unavoidably) walk in.
WAYsundays – that’s what we’re calling it now – will be about creating an alternative liturgy for our lives, lifting up alternative stories and ways of being. Stories and ways rooted in inclusiveness and love. Liturgies capable of holding and expressing “what it means to live a life” with all its complexities and dichotomies, beauty and sorrow. Liturgies that bolster us in standing against injustice while also reminding us that those who stand in our way still belong to us. Stories and ways of being that recall what is deep and true and already within us.
Though they’ll certainly be reimagined, WAYsundays will use some Christian stories, rituals and rhythms of the year to ground our experience. We are all humans simply glimpsing the Infinite Mystery; all traditions share this fate; and Christianity is what I know, what I know well enough to criticize, what I still love – after it’s freed from the deadening filters of certitude, patriarchy and more – and what, let’s be honest, still needs freeing from these things.
As ever, WAYfinding, as expressed in WAYsundays, will be beyond the belief box. Just like in groups, though we’ll certainly explore what we believe, how we believe what we believe will be the focus; particularity is okay but it must not become an idol. Our gatherings will express the WAYfinding belief that openness amid diversity is key to growing in love. So, for example, every third Sunday our teacher will be an “outsider,” providing us with a different perspective and a more complete hearing of the divine v/Voice. We also won’t meet the last Sunday of the month, leaving it open for other c/Connective practices and people.
Also, as ever with WAYfinding, WAYsundays will be an experiment. We’ll have to live into it to fully know its shape and purpose. I hope you’ll risk it and stay open and curious with me – whether by simply “checking it out” once it comes to be or by helping shape it into being. If the latter is of interest to you or if you have questions, please email me. I want to hear from you, and there is something for everyone to do. We will be getting started no later than January, with at least one gathering in December (if not starting then outright).
Finally, resuming with the Fall 2018 Round, groups will continue to be the important c/Connective spaces they’ve always been for thoughtful theological, social and personal reflection and growth. The fall round will begin the week of September 10th, go for 8 weeks, with a one-week break at the halfway point. This round will include a community week in mid-October. Our topic is “Why Gather?” Why gather in spiritual groups like these? Why gather for spiritual reasons on Sundays or Fridays or whenever? Why gather at all? What is the point and purpose? What does it do for us? Each week will begin with a possible answer, and groups will be lead and encouraged – individually and together – to wonder, challenge, and explore. If you’ve ever, like me, been simultaneously drawn to and resistant to spiritual or religious gatherings, this will be a great round for you, helping you to discover what is true for you and resting easier in it. (I will be pulling together facilitators (which determine group days and times) and locations in the coming few weeks. If you are willing to co-facilitate and/or host, please let me know.)
Thank you. Thank you for reading this long letter. Thank you for being on this WAYfinding journey with me thus far. Thank you for continuing it with me, or on your own or with others; we simply need more people willing to explore the big questions with openness and curiosity, vulnerability and courage, more people willing to dig deep and learn to love better today than you, than I, than we did yesterday. However you’re doing this, I am grateful.
- Anne