Time Adjustment: Starting at Seven , Coming and Going only for the segments you like

 Scheduling any formal activity on a Friday evening, especially one that encourages an attentive spirit and a creative mind,  is a questionable initiative for any public group to make.  Folks are tired after a full week of work, school and appointments.  and most of us just want to relax and spend time with family and our most easy going friends. 

In fact, for our Jewish brothers and sisters, sundown on Friday is the traditional time to begin the sabbath, a time to light a candle reminding us of God's presence and to just let  go of the continual push of productive effort and public expectations. Our Good Shepherd Listening Table Gathering is intended to honor this sabbath spirit, quieting our selves to be aware of God's presence in God's original temple, the natural world where, we are told. God rested and delighted in all that God had created. A hospitality of relaxation, enjoyment and minimal demands is the spirit in which we want to welcome one another.

To emphasize this spirit, we are simplifying the original plan for a 90 minute gathering into three potentially independent half hour segments for which people can arrive and depart when they want. 

We'll start the first thirty minute segment at 7pm , reading selected poems aloud  and informally chatting about them. At 7:30, we'll shift to a quiet half hour of sitting in and strolling around the natural beauty of our church's "yard" (which includes a real, "old timey" churchyard on the small rise on the west side of our building),  Those who wish to write or draw in journals or sketchbooks can hang out on one of the many picnic tables out back.  At 8pm, we will gather to share our own thoughts andcreations at the "listening table" draped with a lavender table cloth.. 

The slightly later start and more clearly segmented schedule are designed to let you relax, stop for an after dinner creemee and come and stay for only as long as you want or only for the parts you would most likely enjoy.  

If you are not able to come but wish to connect to our group online. you can find the readings, thematic backgrounds, and participant contributions on a blog curated and monitored by the group facilitator, Dr. Alan Crowley. In fact we would encourage you to join active participants and far away friends in offering your own creative works for Alan to post.  Check out the blog at www.listenwriteshare.blogspot.com, and forward questions and contributions to Alan at ajcbarnabas@gmail.com.  You may comment on poems, ideas, and the creations of others directly on the blogpage itself. (But only if you're kind. courteous, and curious!)

What the heck is a "Listening Table"?

A "Listening Table," provides a space for individuals to share their thoughts and feelings without judgment or advice. A former media specialist in Los Angeles,  Orly Israel is a communication skills educator and the founder of "The Listening Table," an initiative that demonstrates  how to create space for someone to feel truly heard in a world plagued by disconnection. Beginning with service work in a local prison in 2021,  Orly teaches that creating meaningful communication is an intentional act. 

     Similarly, Columbia University, in response to political and social conflict on its campus, set up tables in neutral areas on campus, facilitated by leaders, to foster understanding and dialogue across differences. Both initiatives aim to combat loneliness and promote better communication by encouraging active listening and providing a safe space for vulnerable conversations. 

      Here are some paradigm changing insights by British sociologist Johann Hari:

“Loneliness isn’t the physical absence of other people—it’s the sense that you’re not sharing anything that matters with anyone else.”  from Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions:

“What if depression is, in fact, a form of grief—for our own lives not being as they should? What if it is a form of grief for the connections we have lost, yet still need?”, Lost Connections

“So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.” from  Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs

Link to Hari Article on , Addiction,  Bonding, and Human connection 

  Trust Collaborative Listening Table at Columbia University

Orly Israel's Listening Table  

                                                               So… what does this kind of listening mean for our relationships to nature, art, spirit and one another? This is the essential, overarching question that we will be exploring around our picnic tables draped with lavender cloth. Listening to the voices of wise and mystical poets, attending to the interaction of our senses to the natural world around us, and conversing with mindful kindness with  one another, we will be shaping and sharing our own answers to our guiding question.   At Good Shepherd Jericho, all are always welcome at the banquet table.

Table Manners and Cooking Utensils for Meditative Feasting

 Read and Respond To Our “Theme Igniter” Poems

Pick your favorite Poem, read out loud a verse. a line, or  a word that affected you

Identify  speed bumps (where you slow down or get stuck): anomalies, confusions, questions

Give your opinion: compare, connect, evaluate, but refrain from argument or debate

Read the Sacred Text of Creation, Listen to Nature with Heart, Mind, and  Body

Stop, breathe, quiet, be present, but move when and where you want

Look, Listen,  Notice your surroundings, senses, emotions

Name and ponder any thoughts, feelings, or memories that come to you

Express yourself somehow in response, but don’t try too hard, it’s ok to “let it be”

Rest in oneness. Bask in the love, both that you are giving and that which you are receiving

Make Marks in your journal,  cast Sparks in the Stubble,  Plant Seedlings in your soil

  

 Log the date, time, place, and  both the outer and inner weather (outer and inner)

 Scan your body and senses:  sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, energy

 Sketch one specific object in your line of vision 

 Jot down any memories, feelings, connections, questions that seem important

Write a letter to God or a person close to you using your ”I” voice

Make a mess; let it flow; turn off your inner editor

 Cultivate or Sculpt an “Organic Haiku”:

 

Plant an observation, grow a sentence, prune it with your special Japanese 5-7-5 gardening tool Grab  “clay” from a poem or journal and start shaping and  carving to discover what’s emerging

Listen to One Another’s Sharing

Receive  Sharing as a Gift and Return it with the gift of your attentiveness

Don’t Jump to Judgement, Advice, or Interpretation

Give “Warm” Feedback: What you like, what touched you, what you want  to hear more of

Make suggestions only if asked by the person sharing

Detailed Invitation

 Hildegard’s Listening Table : A Weekly Listening and Writing in Nature Group

What Is it?   A weekly gathering for observing, listening to and responding to nature,  engaging in creative composition,  followed by voluntary, spontaneous sharing of created art. At the start of each gathering, participants will be invited to read aloud lines from any of that day’s poems that seemed compelling or provocative to them  in some way. The social context is intended to be friendly, non-judging, and affirming.  The spiritual context is intended to be inclusive, wholistic and welcoming,  ecumenical and interfaith, with the mindful intention of what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls “reverent awe” and “radical amazement.”  Our intention,  as individuals and as a group , will be to seek what scientist, author,  and spiritual leader Dr. Lisa Dahill names “experiential kinship.”

When is It?  Where will it happen?   On Friday evenings from 6:30 to 8:00pm we will gather at the  picnic tables behind Good Shepherd Church on Route 15  (in the main floor “narthex” if inclement weather). There is plentiful parking front and back)    People do not need to commit to all sessions, but may come and go as they are able. New participants and “drop-in”  vositors are always welcome

Who is involved and invited?  Our gatherings will be facilitated by Doctor Alan Crowley, a teacher of poetry and a scholar of the connection between literature and spirituality. Alan is also a lay minister at Good Shepherd Church, for which he hosts a variety of contemplative prayer experiences each week on an online platform. There is no cost for this offering.  All that is “required” is a desire to listen to  and be caring towards nature. Oneself, and one another. 

What will we be doing?  We will be gathered for ninety minutes for an experience of mindful listening, quiet observation, free writing, journaling and sketching, followed by kind sharing and listening. Alan will make the poems available online and provide paper copies as needed for the next week’s poems.  Also, Alan will set up a blog page (optional for all) where resources can be archived and participants can post works in progress for group member feedback.

What products are possible?  First,  participants who are interested are welcome to  contribute a piece of writing or art that Good Shepherd’s pastor, Chelsea Page, might integrate with one of our Sunday outdoor worship occasions.  Second,as the summer passes,  participants will be invited to select, develop and polish one of their writings to be published in an online document made available to the public. Any of these products are optional,  supported invitations rather than group expectations. This group does not purport to be a professional writer’s workshop, but rather a safe space for creative expression, kind interaction, and personal spiritual exploration. 

Regular Gathering Sequence:

Shared reading of  and brief conversations about featured poems 30 min

Quiet observation of nature  and Creative response (journaling,sketching, composing)  30 min

Sharing of work in progress, including “warm” feedback if requested 30 min 

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church   273 Vt Route 15 (P.O. Box 495) Jericho, VT 05465  https://www.goodshepherdjericho.org/    Contact Person:  Alan Crowley (he/him) ajcbarnabas@gmail.com

Proposed Schedule of Gatherings with Themes and Featured Poems :

 Proposed Schedule of Gatherings with Themes and Featured Poems :

June 20 Introductions: Who is Hildegard? Why  a Table?

Hildegard of Bingen , “Antiphon of Divine Wisdom”, “Antiphon of the Holy Spirit”  

June 27 Mind and Soul     

Mary Oliver “Mindfulness”, “When I am among the trees”, “Wild Geese”

William Wordsworth, “World Is Too Much With Us”, “There was a Boy”

Wendell Berry, “Wild Geese” , “The Peace of Wild Things”

Meister Eckhart “When I Was the Forest”, “The Hope of Loving”, “An Insidious Idol”

July 4, No Gathering,   U. S.  Independence Day

July 11 Time and Change

William Shakespeare, “Sonnets 15, 73”

Yehuda Amichai, “An Arab shepherd  searching for his goat”. “The Little Park Planted”

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Windhover”, “Nature a Hericlitean Fire”, “Spring and Fall”

John Keats, “To a Nightingale” , “To Autumn”

July 18 Birds 

William Butler Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole

Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”, “Wild Nights”

Robert Frost, “Never Again Would Birds Song Be the Same” , “The Oven Bird”

July 25 Earth and Sky

Francis of Assisi, “Canticle of the Sun”

Christina Rosetti, “Amor Mundi”

Basho, “In Kyoto”, “Wake Butterfly!”

Aug  1 Trees, Grass, Flowers

Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass”, “I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak”

Louise Gluck, “Trilium”

Margaret O’Brien, “Mothering God”

Kabir, “How Humble is God?

Aug 8 Love and Suffering

Billy Collins, “Aimless Love”, “Today”

Tagore,  “The Boat”,”Waiting”, “Gitanjali” ,“On the Nature of Love”

Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Sympathy”, “The Corn-Stalk Fiddle”

Julian of Norwich, “Oneing”

Aug 15 Divine Intimacy

Rabia, “The Sky Gave Me Its Heart”, “A Lover Who Wants His Lovers Near”

Rumi “Say I Am You”, “The Way Wings Should”, “How Does God Keep from Fainting”

Hafiz “How Did the Rose?” , “Startled By God”. “I Have Come Into the World to See This”

Thomas Aquinas, “The Mandate” , “The Pulse of God”

Aug  22 Final Summer Gathering, Taking Stock, Future Planning