Posted by Helen on: 01.30.2008 /
The January meeting of city up/rooted was on Monday. About 10 people were there including 3 who hadn’t been before. It’s neat to have new people show up. Some of them said they had wanted to come before but this was the first meeting they could attend.
Nick, an atheist, and Anachim, an Emergent Jewish Rabbi, were back. I was glad I wasn’t the only not-Christian in the group. Not because the Christians have been other than welcoming to those of us who aren’t. Rather, because I like the diversity and challenge of friendly conversation between people whose beliefs are different.
After introductions we talked about ‘practising’ which was partly because I’d asked Rebecca if we could. I’ve been thinking lately about how Off The Map is practice-based rather than belief-based and how glad I am about that. It’s in practising that I often find common ground with people whose beliefs are different.
There was talk about the value of practising in small ways - a smile, saying ‘hi’. I liked that because it was so like Doable Evangelism and OAs.
There was talk about how we don’t even do that, often. Chris, who was new, said coming to a group of strangers like this was an ‘unusual’ thing to do in our culture.
Anachim said he’d been thinking about ‘obligation to the divine’ and there was some conversation about that. Nanette said she preferred commitment to obligation because to her an obligation was imposed on her but a commitment involved her more. But James said he preferred obligation because commitments were too easy to break.
People talked about practice as in prayer.
There was mention of - it’s important to figure out what works for you individually.
Rebecca said it’s not always easy to practise loving others.
Ben said he decided being himself is more important than being ‘nice’.
I mentioned John Eldredge negatively but Lindy said she liked his books because they were about being free to be who you’re meant to be. I do like that message but I think he’s very sexist and rather than letting people be free, he creates his own stereotype, in turn, of how people should be. One that works for him but I don’t think it works for everyone. In fact I know it doesn’t from talking to other people who’ve read his books.
I was very pleased Lindy felt comfortable disagreeing with me about Eldredge.
I liked the discussion.
Near the end we picked up again talking about how we might end. Rebecca had a printout of some possible readings. I still feel that anything Godward (prayers, psalms) excludes me because I don’t pray. I don’t mind if other people want to use them but if the goal is to use something unifying I can’t pretend that works for me.
One of the readings was from Walt Whitman. We decided to end by each of us reading a phrase from it. It worked out, I think, that everyone had one phrase and then we were done - which was neat. Maybe a sign that was the right way to end? I don’t know, but I liked ending that way. I preferred it to last month’s silent hand squeeze wrap up.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
1A sign from whom? ;)
Comment by: Helen
2A sign from God who may or may not exist, of course! :-)