Sacred Text Reading Group (Saturday)
Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/15/2021
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

A twice-weekly online sacred text reading group. We meet on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome!

Using a spiritual-practice approach, in each session we will explore a different brief scriptural text in depth. The aims of the sessions are educational (learning something about the texts and traditions), spiritual/moral (discovering what the texts ask of us), and community-building (getting to know each other better). Our practice usually follows this version of Lectio Divina.

The facilitator will have a version of the text available to share; “bring” your own if you like. All are welcome, as are your suggestions of future texts. Group members also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

To have check-in time, or if you are new and would like a brief orientation, arrive ten minutes early. And all are welcome to stay ten minutes after as well, for more getting-acquainted time.

How to join:

  • Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/578882781
  • Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 578 882 781
  • Join this class by phone: 669 900 9128 US (San Jose), Meeting ID: 578 882 781
  • Join this class by on-tap on mobile phones: +16699009128,,578882781# US (San Jose)
  • Phoning in, but not in the bay area?  Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abL8clvIYT
Add to: Google Cal, iCal, webcal

Sacred Text Reading Group
Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/15/2021
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

A weekly online sacred text reading group with Amy

Using a spiritual-practice approach, in each session we will explore a different brief scriptural text in depth. The aims of the sessions are educational (learning something about the texts and traditions), spiritual/moral (discovering what the texts ask of us), and community-building (getting to know each other better). Amy will have a version of the text available to share; “bring” your own if you like. All are welcome, as are your suggestions of future texts. About half our readings so far have been those suggested by group members.

Our text for Saturday, May 15 is this passage by Iris Murdoch, from her essay “On ‘God’ and ‘Good’” (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], page 59):

The chief enemy of excellence in morality (and also in art) is personal fantasy: the tissue of self-aggrandizing and consoling wishes and dreams which prevents one from seeing what is there outside one. Rilke said of Cézanne that he did not paint ‘I like it’, he painted ‘There it is.’ This is not easy, and requires, in art or morals, a discipline. One might say here that art is an excellent analogy of morals … We cease to be in order to attend to the existence of something else, a natural object, a person in need. We can see in mediocre art, where perhaps it is even more clearly seen than in mediocre conduct, the intrusion of fantasy, the assertion of self, the dimming of any reflection of the real world.

How to join:

  • Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/578882781
  • Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 578 882 781
  • Join this class by phone: 669 900 9128 US (San Jose), Meeting ID: 578 882 781
  • Join this class by on-tap on mobile phones: +16699009128,,578882781# US (San Jose)
  • Phoning in, but not in the bay area?  Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abL8clvIYT
Add to: Google Cal, iCal, webcal