Book group invitation: Looking Inward, Living Outward
Book group starts 2 weeks from today, Aug. 22, 2024
I'm hosting a multi-session book group on zoom, to read Looking Inward, Living Outward: The Spiritual Practice of Social Transformation by Daniel Wolpert. We will start September 5 at noon Eastern, and continue on these Thursdays: 9/19, 10/3, 10/17, 10/31 (costumes optional), taking a break in November because I’m traveling to Asia with my daughter Nov 7-29, then meeting 12/5 and 12/19 . Let me know if you can join us so that I can send you the zoom info. We have a good core of people, and can add a few more!
Here’s what caught my attention from the book blurb (my emphasis in bold):
“In a world of so much hurt, how can we create communities of care and healing?
While many contemporary Christians focus on a spirituality of the afterlife and individual salvation, Jesus calls us to create communities that enact justice and bring peace here on earth as it is in heaven.”
How can we create communities that care, bring healing, enact justice and bring peace? Community building is one of the tasks I feel most called to in these days, especially in this season. My hope is that we will build a community together in the reading of this book, a community that will ripple out into each of respective circles of community.
The rest of the book blurb:
“In his revelatory new book Looking Inward, Living Outward, popular spiritual leader Daniel Wolpert calls us back to a life of prayer and twelve specific spiritual practices that re-orient our gaze outward in acts of social transformation.
Drawing from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, one of the most radical speeches in human history, this encouraging and practical guide connects acts of contemplation with action, providing biblically based and spiritually grounded practices for living into the beloved community today. Discover how spiritual practices can change the way you interact with the world and inspire lasting change.”
What will this group be like?
We’ll meet for 60-75 minutes. We’ll aim to cover 2 chapters/spiritual practices each time we meet, although we’ll start with introductions, and the Introduction and just Chapter 1 on September 5. My intention and hope is that you and I will try out the spiritual practices in between each meeting and notice what resonates and sticks for each of us, and we will talk both about the inward noticing and the outward actions that we discover and intend to put into practice. It’s likely, because I know how music makes community, that we’ll find music and other creative expressions to help us build community.
The Twelve Practices:
1 Creating Focus in My Life: The Practice of Willful Attention 2 Where Do I Put My Effort? The Practice of Boundary Creation 3 Who Is Blessed? The Practice of Fearless Humility 4 Using Our Good Eye: The Practice of Self-Awareness 5 On Becoming Salt and Light: The Practice of Powerful Presence 6 On Oaths and Caring: The Practice of Compassionate Relationship 7 Let’s Talk about Money: The Practice of Serving God 8 Facing Anxiety: The Practice of Radical Trust 9 On Clinging to Treasures: The Practice of Letting Go 10 What Is Justice? The Practice of Discernment 11 Creating Peace: The Practice of Loving Your Enemy 12 Social Transformation and the Coming Kingdom: The Practice of Prayer
Let me know if you can join us.
Share this invitation and invite your friends to join us here for occasional music and ministry offerings or subscribe yourself if you haven’t yet:
Next Contemplative Nature Walk
We are looking at September 28, 10 a.m., for our autumn walk, and since a couple of our walkers in June came from the Worcester area, they recommended Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary for our next location. More details to come in early September. Message me if you want to get more details via email.