Sacred Text Reading Group (Wed.)

Words are for those with promises to keep. --W.H Auden

Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/15/2023
12:00 pm - 1:00 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! Please note that the Zoom room now requires a password, so please drop an e-mail to sacred-text-reading+owner@uucpa.org to express interest.

What do we mean by a sacred text? Any text 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.

As Unitarian Universalists, we find these kinds of meanings everywhere, so the text itself might be from a so-called secular source, or from a religious canon, or something in-between.

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 text. Our practice usually follows one of these versions of Lectio Divina. 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).

The facilitator will post a version of the text in the chat for all to see. Everyone is welcome, as are your suggestions of future texts. Group members also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.

A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.

Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.

Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep,
Words are for those with promises to keep.

— W.H Auden

For check-in / getting-acquainted time, and for those who are new and want a brief orientation to the practice, the room will be open ten minutes before and ten minutes after the session.

How to join: First, e-mail sacred-text-reading+owner@uucpa.org, since you will need a password. Then:

  • Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/96865808923
  • Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 968 6580 8923
  • Join this class by phone: +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) Meeting ID: 968 6580 8923
  • Join this class by one-tap on mobile phones: +16699006833,,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.

Add to: Google Cal, iCal, webcal