-
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
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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
Check-in Briefly let us know how you are and what has changed in your life since your last Covenant Group.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered
that she had turned into the wrong person.
She was fify–three years old by then-a grandmother. Wide and soft and dimpled,
with two short wings of dry, fair hair flairing almost horizontally from a
center part. Laugh lines at the
corners of her eyes. A
loose and colorful style of dress edging dangerously close to Bag Lady. Give her credit: most people her age would say it was too late
to make any changes. What’s done is
done, they would say. No use trying to
alter things at this late date. It did
occur to Rebecca to say that. But she didn’t.
from
Anne Tyler’s Back When We were Grownups
Questions:
Each of us has made choices that have changed our
lives in ways that we may not have predicted. And most of us spend at least
some time wondering what would have happened had we made a different decision.
Share with us a choice
that you made that changed your life?
How do you think that your
life would have been different if you had chosen differently?
Do you think that it is
too late to make major changes in your life or yourself?
Check-out
For about half the time we took at check-in, each of us can make a brief statement about how we feel about tonight’s discussion and suggest one topic for discussion at a future meeting.
Closing Words
The
Road Not Taken by
Robert Frost
Two
road diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry
I could not travel both
And be one
traveler, long I stood
And looked
down one as far as I could
To where
it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took
the other, as just as fair,
And having
perhaps the better claim,
Because it
was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as
for that, the passing there
Had worn
them really about the same,
And both
that morning equally lay
In leaves
no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept
the first for another day!
Yet
knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted
if I should ever come back.
I shall be
telling this with a sigh
Somewhere
ages and ages hence:
Two roads
diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the
one less travelled by,
And that
has made all the difference.
Go in peace.
Next Meeting:
Feb. 16
Location of
next meeting:
Dinner Menu
Drinks
Vegetarian
Main Dish
Grain
Other
Bread
Salad
Dessert
Concerns?