Download this page in Word format.
And here's your homework for our next
Covenant Group meeting:
During
the coming week, create a space to rest, daydream, wander, ponder or
remember. Try to make it a significant amount of time. This is not traditional
meditation and it is not activities like reading, exercising.
gardening or other hobbies. It is quiet time spent focused on yourself, on
looking inward, time that isn't useful, productive, required, educational,
healthy, entertaining, creative or distracting.
Here are some
ideas:
We
will describe our experiences and our reactions to it in the first part of CG.
I am hoping that a little mindful quiet time may be just what we need
Welcome to
a new way to cope with the demands of life.
Welcome to
a way that requires no difficult skills,
adds no new burdens, and accommodates all
spiritual
systems and lifestyles.
Welcome
to those who want to do nothing—more often,
more
creatively, with joy and without guilt.
Welcome
to simplicity.
Welcome
to serenity—tranquility, calmness, and
clarity—every
day.
Check-In- Take a minute or two to
briefly share either the high point or the low point of your life since we last
met.
Meditation # 481 in Singing the Living Tradition
It is our quiet time.
We do not speak, because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk, because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not dance, because the music has lifted us to
a place where the spirit is.
It is our quiet time.
We rest with all of nature. We wake when the seven
sisters wake.
We greet them in the sky over the opening of the
kiva.
Questions:
Describe your experience of “doing nothing” and your
reaction to it.
What did you learn about yourself from this
experience?
Is there quiet time in your daily/weekly schedule?
Why or why not?
What effect would it have on your life if you did
this more often? less often?
What spiritual practices do you or could you do to
bring quiet space into your day/week?
Check-out
Let us hold the silence for a little while and then each person add a single word to the quiet.
Closing Words
adapted
from Doing Nothing by Steven Harrison
Being is what remains when we stop trying so hard.
In the stopping we discover the vast spaciousness of
life, of love, of connection.
And out of this vast love, out of this ground of
being, arises the very movement of life—our life.
The life that can be such a challenge and burden is
also the life that is the expression of the infinite.
From the perspective of life itself, doing and being
are one.
We cannot live without acting and we cannot live
happily without love.
This dance of the absolute and the relative, the
whole and the aspect, is the life in which we find ourselves.
Our exploration is not the avoidance of activity or
the denial of love, but the discovery of stillness in movement, wholeness in
form, and the fullness of emptiness.
Extinguishing the Chalice:
Let us open our minds and hearts to the place of
quiet, to the peace that is within us and around us and to the soft, gentle
coming of love.
Go in peace.
-
Respect the Talking Stick-one person speaking at a
time, no interruptions, comments, questions etc. during check-in and first
round of sharing on topic
-
Make I statements whenever possible
-
Use Active Listening
-
Respect confidentiality of shared information
-
Avoid giving advice
o
May ask clarifying questions during second round
o
Speaker may ask for advice which will be shared
later
-
Share time so everyone who wishes to may speak
-
Anyone may pass at any time
-
Encourage holding silences
Next Meeting: Easter Sunday, April 20, 2003
Location of
next meeting:
Leader:
Deborah
Dinner Menu
Sally
Lynn
Nancy
Deborah & Mark
Staci
Glenn
Shirley
Concerns?