Sacred Text Reading Group (Saturday)
Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/13/2021
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 (Barbara Ehrenreich)
Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/13/2021
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, November 13, 2021, is from Living with a Wild God, by Barbara Ehrenreich.

. . . [T]here is one image, handed down over the centuries, that seems to apply, and that is the image of fire, as in the “burning bush.” At some point in my predawn walk—not at the top of a hill or the exact moment of sunrise, but in its own good time—the world flamed into life. How else to describe it? There were no visions, no prophetic voices or visits by totemic animals, just this blazing everywhere. Something poured into me and I poured into it. This was not the passive beatific merger with “the All,” as promised by the Eastern mystics. It was a furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once, and one reason for the terrible wordlessness of the experience is that you cannot observe fire really closely without becoming part of it. Whether you start as a twig or a gorgeous tapestry, you will be recruited into the flame and made indistinguishable from the rest of the blaze.

You may appreciate seeing the broader context here. We’ll read that longer passage once, then settle in to a closer reading of the single paragraph given above.

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