Resonant Reading (Wednesday)-Searching for Sheep-Wood
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:
Wednesday, October 1st
“Each sheep is too important, too beloved, by the shepherd to just cut their losses and move on. This shepherd ventures out into the wilderness, searching everywhere for even this one. Now, I very much doubt that the sheep knows it’s lost. I understand they’re not really the smartest animals. It’s not like your pet dog, who might actually miss you and try to find its way home to you. The sheep is probably happily munching on a patch of grass, blissfully unaware that the rest of the flock has moved on or that it has wandered slightly too far away to be seen. And yet there’s the shepherd, retracing their steps or looking around for which way the sheep might have been lured, scanning the rolling hills for a glimpse of wool.”
—The Rev. Nikky Wood, St. Tim’s Episcopalian Church in Mountain View, sermon from the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Creationtide II
—The Rev. Nikky Wood, St. Tim’s Episcopalian Church in Mountain View, sermon from the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Creationtide II
How to join:
- Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/96865808923, passcode 227385
- Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 968 6580 8923
- Join this class by phone: 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) Meeting ID: 968 6580 8923
- Join this class by one-tap on mobile phones: 6699006833,,96865808923# (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 Wednesdays. For the Zoom link for Saturday, go to Calendar and click on a Saturday 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.