Every Saturday at 4 pm, and every Wednesday at 12 noon, something special happens in this Zoom room. A small group of people contemplates a short passage together. Some of the texts are from traditional scriptures such as the Bible or the Dhammapada, others from explicitly spiritual authors such as Simone Weil or Ralph Waldo Emerson, and some from secular poets, philosophers, sociologists, novelists, and scientists. Although it is called the Sacred Text Reading Group, the group membership is always in flux; some of the people in attendance have been to dozens of these sessions and some are there for the first time.
What holds them all together–the authors and the people in the room–are a desire to explore important questions and a belief that the sharing of words can help us to do that. To quote Weil in the reading scheduled for this coming Saturday, June 18, “The soul knows . . . that it is hungry.” If you have hungered for these shared explorations, for conversation that goes deeper than small talk, the Sacred Text Reading Group has the food you’re craving.
If you look on What’s Happening, on the UUCPA website, and the upcoming session doesn’t have a text listed, it is only because the people who usually add the texts as they are chosen are on vacation. A passage has been chosen that will stimulate a rich conversation, and you are welcome to be there, contribute, and receive.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash