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Soul Matters
March: Trust
In her poem "Trust the People," adrienne maree brown emphasizes the importance of trust in building connections and fostering community. She encourages us to trust those who feel like home, allow us to rest, and inspire us with their capabilities. Trust deepens through shared experiences, even in the face of breaches, and is essential for personal growth and emotional expression. This month, the theme "The Practice of Trust" invites us to engage in various activities that explore trust, including discussions, worship services, and creative expression. By leaning into trust, we can overcome fear and anxiety, enriching our lives and relationships. Participants are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences with trust and find ways to engage with the theme both individually and collectively.
Something Constant Drawing Near
By Robert Lavett Smith
March is a mentor we must learn to trust—
The greening threshold of the ancient year
When soil revives and skies abruptly clear,
Seeds struggle into sunlight, as they must.
We feel within ourselves that upward thrust,
That sense of something constant drawing near,
Something whose steadiness allays our fear,
Its gifts ubiquitous but not discussed.
How confidently spring makes promises
The Steller’s jays seem certain it will keep;
This season means exactly what it says.
Our eyes turn skyward yet our roots go deep;
What lies ahead is anybody’s guess,
But, for the moment, we are done with sleep.
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February: Inclusion
Our theme for the month of February is the practice of inclusion. In a time when it feels like the safe place to be is curled up in bed with the curtains drawn, it can be difficult to know that challenging ourselves to be in community and welcoming others are the best places for us to find safety right now. Inclusion calls us to move beyond just belonging or tolerating. It calls us to live into our values and put love at the center of all we do. Inclusion invites us to examine ourselves and determine what we are not recognizing in ourselves that prevents us from being whole. The practice of inclusion reminds us we have to actively participate in our lives and in our communities to constantly become aware of how to make more room in our hearts and in our congregation. This is especially important when so many are pulling back policies and practices of expanding their communities. Let us enter into this month with curiosity about how we can be more inclusive of pieces of ourselves and inclusive of others in our congregation and community.
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-- Soul Matters (www.soulmatterssharingcircle.com)
The Women’s Building San Francisco. The Women’s Building is the most notable in the whole of San Francisco. The incredible MaestraPeace came from top muralists; Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton and Irene Perez. It spans the entire face of the beautiful four-story building acting as a true testament to the power and creativity of diverse women. More Info Here.
To engage in ancient practice of meditating on an image as a spiritual practice. Written instructions can be found here. Watch the Visio Divina portion of our August 4th service here. Watch this video recording where we guide you through the process (click here).
IMPLICIT IN THE LIGHT
By Robert Lavett Smith
In February, month of indecision,
A strained inclusion permeates the air—
Squabbling sparrows shower with derision
Spring’s timid green, apparent everywhere;
In colder climates, there might still be snow,
Yet ripeness is implicit in the light
That sifts through foliage to lawns below,
Turning the withered grasses golden white.
This skittish moment when two seasons meet
Seems to encompass all the lumbering year:
Spring’s frigid drizzle and late autumn heat,
Petulant fogs that never really clear.
May we, too long indoors, resolve to be
Open to nature’s inclusivity.
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January: STORY
Story is our theme for January. We human beings are so many things: tool makers (though not the only tool-making species); language users (though not the only species to communicate in sounds); and also one of the only story-telling species we know—at least so far. Stories are how we make sense of the world. They can tell the hero's journey, teach moral lessons, make us laugh, hold a mirror up to some piece of our world so we can see it clearly, and even show us the shadow side of the human spirit. History is just journalism, Joseph Campbell once said, and not very reliable. “Myth is much more important and true than history.” Myth and story, at their best, capture something deep and powerful, ground us in a narrative, and invite us to throw our life up against or through that narrative. Nothing is more powerful than learning to tell a story about the world that makes sense, a new story to lead the world forward to a new way of being. Come reflect with us on story and what stories are most important to you.
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-- Soul Matters (www.soulmatterssharingcircle.com)
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder c.1560
To engage in ancient practice of meditating on an image as a spiritual practice. Written instructions can be found here. Watch the Visio Divina portion of our August 4th service here. Watch this video recording where we guide you through the process (click here).
TALES WE TELL OURSELVES
By Robert Lavett Smith
In January, when the wind is shrill,
We contemplate its sad soliloquies.
As bitter weather bends us to its will,
Street trees embroider doubtful histories.
The spirit of the season faced both ways,
The future as uncertain as the past—
Both faces, so prevailing wisdom says,
Composing chronicles that will not last.
We shelter in the tales we tell ourselves,
Truths deeply rooted in the loam of time;
Our sense of narrative, if nothing else,
Inclines our common lives to the sublime.
And even if we never write a word,
Our stories rescue us from the absurd.
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December:
Presence
Woody Allen famously once said, “80% of success in life is just showing up.” Showing up certainly matters. Studies of people who “are lucky” find that those folks who are out circulating in the world, making friends, and making connections “get more lucky.” Being there when opportunity arises matters. Friendships are formed, so often, by “time on task.” Presence—that quality of just being there, steadily, reliably—matters. And this month we want to invite you to pay attention also to the kinds of presence we can pay attention to, to how we can deepen our connection to self, to each other, to the miraculous, mysterious, and unknown, to purpose and calling. It won’t all happen in our services. You might find it in the poem of the month or a small group, a discussion of an issue in the world, a piece of music, or conversation over coffee some day in the courtyard. We invite you to be present to presence!
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​-- Soul Matters (www.soulmatterssharingcircle.com)
Photo by James Wainscoat
THE KIND ASSERTION
By Robert Lavett Smith
There is a certain presence to December,
Even in places where there is no snow—
The distant sun has dwindled to an ember,
but there is something holy in its glow.
The Druids knew its power long ago;
It promised passage through the longest night,
When cold enclosed the moonrise like a bow
And shadows shivered in the red firelight.
That promise lingers even now, despite
Pervasive smells of woodsmoke and wet clay;
The ground is brown here, but the sky is white,
The dogeared page of the diminished day.
The kind assertion that awaits us there
Disseminates its blessings everywhere.
November:
The practice
of Repair
Repair. In a world of fast fashion and planned obsolescence, of consumer mindsets and quick fixes, there is a parallel world of people and practices that are about how to pull things broken, frayed, a little wonky, back into usable, mended states, and even broken things back into wholeness. Repair is that work. Many of you are familiar with the Japanese practice of "Kintsugi." It is literally that practice—"kin" ” meaning golden and “tsugi” meaning repair—where a broken piece of pottery is mended back together and visibly so, even thought more beautiful for the broken seams and wabi-sabi beauty of it. And in this parallel world bent on mending, there is the underlying assumption that we try not to treat the world and its things, but also its people and institutions, certainly not the earth, as dispensable, as incidental to our forward motion. We are in a world in need of a lot of repair. This month we think about some of the aspects of what it means to be menders.
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​-- Soul Matters (www.soulmatterssharingcircle.com)
Let Us Rebuild
By Robert Lavett Smith
November is the season of repair,
Before the winter rains assert their claim,
When autumn is apparent everywhere,
The numb sun shrunken to a faded flame.
The brownest brittle leaves desert the trees
That never are entirely denuded;
Squirrels conduct their yearly inventories;
Songbirds depart, their business here concluded.
This is the moment to address the damage
We’ve carelessly inflicted through the year,
To speak of secret wounds with quiet courage,
The path before us difficult but clear.
Let us rebuild the ruins of the heart,
Drawing upon forbearance, faith, and art.
October:
The practice of
Deep Listening
Listening helps us find our way. The listening of therapists allows us to navigate our way through life. We turn to prayer to hear God’s guidance. We listen to experts so we can get ahead. Like a flashlight that leads us through the darkness, listening helps us stay on course. And yet maybe there’s more to it than that. What if listening doesn’t just guide us through the world but also creates our world? That sacred space of being deeply listened to isn’t just calling us home; it is home. We don’t have conversations; we are our conversations. Listening literally constructs the world we live in. And whom we become. One wonders if this is why the poet Joyce Sutphen says, “Listen carefully. Your whole life might depend on what you hear.”
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​-- Soul Matters (www.soulmatterssharingcircle.com)
September:
The practice of Invitation
What is in an invitation? It looks so simple—the envelope or virtual envelope we get with the invitation to join in some moment or adventure? A movie, a party? Or the hand extended from someone on bended knee and the larger invitation to join in a life together: Will you marry me? Seems so simple. Just an invitation. Want to join this church? Be my friend? Go climb a mountain? Get an ice cream? What is written and tucked in an invitation if it is real and with the potential to welcome the fullness of everyone invited to be in an authentic relationship? What does the practice of invitation, the spiritual practice of it, say about what we believe invitation requires of us?
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