August 2009, to the Bridge community:
In her book An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Episcopal priest and professor Barbara Brown Taylor doesn’t use spirituality to understand life. She uses life to understand spirituality.
Each chapter of the book looks at what she calls a practice – “a certain exercise in being human that requires a body as well as a soul.” They are things like “waking up to God,” “paying attention,” “wearing skin,” getting lost,” “saying no,” and “feeling pain.”
“Each helps me live with my longing for More. Each trusts that doing something is at least as valuable as readings books about it, thinking about it, or sitting around talking about it. Who wants to study a menu when you can eat a meal? … In a world of too much information about almost everything, bodily practices can provide great relief. To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger – these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir…. In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life.”
I’d like to invite you to journey with me and others into the mystery of the ordinary, into the power of whatever is close at hand. This fall, each Tuesday evening we will delve into one of the practices of the book, not as a book study but as a study of our own lives. We’ll begin with a presentation, then move into smaller groups with which we will travel with intentionality and care throughout the fall.
The programs of past years have taken us into deeper, newer territory. We are blessed with a growing group of trained and sensitive leaders and a new understanding of how to be the church in vital and exciting ways. This is our next step as a community of faith, and your presence plays a central role in the fruit it will bear as we seek the new places God welcomes us – right in our own lives.
The program is Tuesday evenings Sept. 22 through Nov. 24, 6:30 – 8:30. Childcare is provided with advance rsvp, and there will be space set aside beginning at 5:30 for you to bring a snack supper. As with past programs, it’s best if you know you won’t miss more than two or three sessions, which lets you and your group forge powerful relationships that will stay with you long after the program ends.
If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know. To register, please email Cecilia at cwagner@christchurchphila.org.
Hope to see you this fall,
The Rev. Susan Richardson
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From September to late November, we meet Tuesday evenings with people of all ages throughout the congregation for dinner, a presentation by one of the priests, and then time in small groups with whom we’ll journey throughout the fall. It’s a transformative way to forge unique, lifelong connections with others, to deepen your own spiritual journey, and to ask the questions that mean the most to you. For questions or more info on the program curriculum, please contact the Rev. Susan Richardson at srichardson@christchurchphila.org.
