Sacred Text Reading Group (Saturday)
Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/16/2021
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: Alice Munro
Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/16/2021
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.

Our text for Saturday, October 16 comes from Alice Munro, a Canadian short-story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature for her short stories in 2013. Many of her stories are loosely based on her life, but in her last collection Dear Life (apparently intended as a farewell volume), there are 4 stories at the end that she states are more autobiographical than her other work. The last story in this set (“Dear Life”) is the titular story of the book and is about a woman’s girlhood and coming of age. The 1st quote is from about a 3rd of the way into the story and the 2nd quote is the last paragraph of the story. Some of the themes raised by this quote are guilt, forgiveness, memory, and the lasting or perhaps transient effects of our actions. Many religions value a sense of guilt, and this story explores how guilt or regret works and its value.

Click here for a good intro to Alice Munro from an eloquent fan.

Our text:

I had to stay in the house to help my mother, and I was full of resentment and quarrelsome remarks. “Talking back” it was called. I hurt her feelings, she said, and the outcome was that she would go to the barn to tell on me, to my father. Then heʼd have to interrupt his work to give me a beating with his belt. (This was not an uncommon punishment at the time.) Afterwards, Iʼd lie weeping in bed and make plans to run away. But that phase also passed, and in my teens I became manageable, even jolly, noted for my funny recountings of things that I had heard about in town or that had happened at school.
I did not go home for my motherʼs last illness or for her funeral. I had two small children and nobody in Vancouver to leave them with. We could barely have afforded the trip, and my husband had a contempt for formal behavior, but why blame it on him? I felt the same. We say of some things that they canʼt be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do—we do it all the time.

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