Resonant Reading (Saturday)-True Poetry-Miguel de Unamuno
An exploration of ideas, feelings, and our life experiences, using a different short reading as our springboard each time. The sessions are on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome to come twice a week or once in a while.
The participants over the years have found that the approach we take, and the respectful, affectionate community of inquirers in which we read and converse, are as important as the reading itself. While many small groups begin with a check-in, with a session only an hour long, Resonant Reading jumps right in to the conversation. Those who are frequently in the group get to know each other very well this way, and those who are new will soon find they are among friends.

Facilitators use a light hand, posting the reading in the chat and calling on whoever’s Zoom hand is up. Suggestions for readings* come from group members, who also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

The reading for this session: Saturday, January 24th

Only the feeble resign themselves to final death and substitute some other desire for the longing for personal immortality. In the strong the zeal for perpetuity overrides the doubt of realizing it, and their superabundance of life overflows upon the other side of death.
[…]
The vanity of the passing world and love are the two fundamental and heart-penetrating notes of true poetry. And they are two notes of which neither can be sounded without causing the other to vibrate. The feeling of the vanity of the passing world kindles love in us, the only thing that triumphs over the vain and transitory, the only thing that fills life again and eternalizes it.
And love, above all when it struggles against destiny, overwhelms us with the feeling of the vanity of this world of appearances and gives us a glimpse of another world, in which destiny is overcome and liberty is law.
—Miguel de Unamuno, The sense of the tragic

 

 

How to join:

  • Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/91019857324, passcode 227385
  • Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
  • Join this class by phone: 669 900 9128 US (San Jose), Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
  • Join this class by on-tap on mobile phones: +16699009128,,91019857324# US (San Jose)
  • Phoning in, but not in the bay area?  Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abL8clvIYT

This is the Zoom link for Saturdays. For the Wednesday Zoom link, go to the Calendar and click on a Wednesday session.

Questions? Drop an e-mail to resonant-reading+owner@uucpa.org.

 

*This activity was formerly called “Sacred Text Reading.” That proved misleading–for one thing, more often than not our sources are secular–but it’s worth describing the qualities of a sacred text, which we still look for in the readings we choose. It is any reading that helps us to:

  • connect to something of supreme importance to us
  • feel more connected to other beings or to the universe
  • feel more intensely alive
  • align our lives with our values,
  • perceive or feel more deeply
  • be more fully and authentically ourselves.