god in daily life
"God in Daily Life", an engagement group for theological reflection, took place on six consecutive Monday afternoons starting on 15th September 2008.
The group was based on creative listening and drew on ideas from the book 'Reflecting with God' by Abigail Johnson. Members of this group were asked to make a commitment to attend all six of the sessions and to give a 15-minute presentation at one of them on the theme "How is 'God' present in my daily life?" (interpreting the word 'God' in any way that was meaningful to them). All participants were asked to commit to offering other members of the group respectful attention and confidentiality.
We hope to offer the course again next year if there is sufficient interest. If you'd like to know more please speak to Jenny Moy or Jane Blackall - Jenny can be reached on the church office phone - 020 7221 6514.
Jenny Moy and Jane Blackall
Article on "God in Daily Life" by Caroline Blair
["God in Daily Life"] was the title of a six-session engagement group run by Jane Blackall and Jenny Moy (our warden) on Monday afternoons. It was very much a reflective group. Those of us who have done any 'work-based' training will know that there is a general assumption that people have a concentration span of approximately two minutes, so training sessions tend to be a hyperactive jumble of power-point presentations, video clips, role-play exercises, feed-back sessions etc. So it takes some getting used to, to settle into a course whose sole activities are talking, listening and thinking. Engagement Group talking and listening are special skills anyway; because there is a covenant that no one will interrupt or talk over anyone, and because there is a pause for thinking time after someone speaks, listening really did mean just that; the normal 'listening' activity of planning the much better thing you intend to say yourself just withers away.
Each week (after the first week) one or two members of the group gave a substantial talk about something of importance to them, and how this reflected on their spiritual picture of life. We were given an outline structure for such a reflection, which we could use or not as we chose. This moved from describing an incident or aspect of life to evaluating emotions, finding connections to other issues in the past or future and finally putting it into a spiritual context. Individual approaches varied from turning the experience into a prayer to asking the group to share their own feelings.
When we negotiated the covenants for the group we added one at the end which was that 'no one should apologise for their contributions', and though in reality no power on earth will stop people doing just that, at least we were able to point to the covenant and make people laugh about it. Because people chose to discuss quite personal and emotive subjects (though we were perfectly free to choose not to) the group seemed to grow close very quickly. There were tears several times, and times when all we wanted to do was hold hands and sit quietly for a few minutes.
There is a limit to what I can write here because, if ever there was a group where the covenant of confidentiality was vital, this was it. Just two final points: first that the course was based on the book 'Reflecting with God' by Abigail Johnson; and second that much of the tranquillity of the group stemmed from the absolutely meticulous preparation by the two facilitators. As is so often the case, they did all the worrying for all of us, leaving the participants free just to turn up and let everything go.
Caroline Blair
"We may have good intentions to reflect on the many layers of our lives, but the busyness of our existence tends to take priority over quiet time. Typically we reflect on issues by letting them rattle around in our headsà We reflect theologically when we pray, and in the midst of crisis when we ask, "Why me, God?" We do it when we ask, "Is that all there is?" We do it when we try to bring justice into the decisions we make. Although such theological reflection takes place, it can often be random and unstructured. In this group, we will offer a structured process for engaging in theological reflection by looking at real-life events through a series of questions, which are designed to help individuals to think through situations with the eyes of faith."
Abigail Johnson, in "Reflecting with God"
last updated: 03 Aug 2009
