Spiritual Process Groups
Unit 1 Links and Resources
Welcome Packet
1
Holding Space For Our Stories
"Being heard is so close to being loved that for
most people they are almost indistinguishable."
VIDEO:
READING: The Reflective Listening & Reflective Practice Pages in the Welcome Packet (PDF found Above the Theraplatform Link) Helping, Fixing or Serving?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: PODCAST : You're Gonna Be Lousy At It, At First: Reflective Listening, Intentional Dialogue and How to Vastly Improve Communications with Just About Everybody
2
Good Grief
“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the losses; you’ll learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the losses you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”
VIDEO:
READING: Teach us how to Weep : The Wild Edge of Sorrow
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: PODCAST: Jeff Chu - Grief As A Biblical Practice
3
Loss & Lament
“Lament will not allow us to revert to easy answers."
― Soong-Chan Rah,
VIDEO:
READING: Prophetic Lament
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: My Dear Sister - To the Church: A Call for Lament
PODCAST: Why Lament surprisingly leads to life and freedom
4
Spiritual Timeline
VIDEO:
READING: Seeing God in New Ways: Recovery from Distorted Images of God
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: "I Don't Know if God is Real: Working through Distorted Beliefs" Dr. Jim Wilder
5
Doubt & Faith
“I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me — that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”
- Anne Lamott
READING: Rethinking Doubt by Rev. Mandy Sloan McDow , 9 Reasons why Faith Does not Equal Certainty by Gregory A. Boyd
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
-
Podcast: 4 Stages of Faith; An Interview with Brian McLaren on his book Faith after Doubt - I don’t think doubt is the enemy of faith; I think doubt is the best friend of faith. I think doubt is the enemy of authoritarianism.” @brianmclaren
6
Imposter Syndrome
Descriptive & Quote: "Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon, persist in believing they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise." - Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes
VIDEO:
READING: Imposter Syndrome from Presence
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Thinking Your Way Out of Imposter Syndrome, TED TALK
7
Prophetic Imagination -
“Dignified or not, believable or not, ours is a God perpetually on bended knee, doing everything it takes to convince stubborn and petulant children that they are seen and loved. It is no more beneath God to speak to us using poetry, proverb, letters, and legend than it is for a mother to read storybooks to her daughter at bedtime. This is who God is. This is what God does.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
VIDEO:
READING: Chronicles of Eve by Megan D. Owen : Sitting at the Feet of the Rabbi
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: : Rachel Held Evans - Reading The Bible Creatively
8
Table Fellowship
Descriptive & Quote: "Think about Jesus. He was totally free before the authorities of his time. He told people not to be guided by the behavior of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus came among us as an equal, a brother. He broke down the pyramidal structures of relationship between God and people as well as those among people and offered a new model: the circle, where God lives in full solidatity with the people and the people with one another." -Henri Nouwen
VIDEO:
READING: Table Fellowship
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: VIDEO Communion: Ready to Receive and Christ's Table
VIDEO: Nadia Bolz-Weber "Blessed are the Unemployed..."
9
Self-Compassion
Descriptive & Quote: Tender self-compassion involves “being with” ourselves in an accepting way: comforting ourselves, reassuring ourselves that we aren’t alone, and being present with our pain. Fierce self-compassion involves “acting in the world” to alleviate suffering. It tends to involve protecting, providing for, and motivating ourselves. Sometimes we need to stand tall and say no, draw boundaries, or fight injustice. Or we may need to say yes to ourselves, to do what’s needed to be happy rather than subordinating our needs to those of others. And if we’re stuck in a bad situation or habits that are harmful, it means doing something different. Not because we’re unacceptable as we are, but because we care. -Kristin Neff PH. D.
VIDEO:
READING: Self Compassion
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Try Softer Aundi Kobler
VIDEO: BE WHO YOU ARE
10
Contemplation & Mysticism
Descriptive & Quote: "We have, indeed to fashion our own desert where we can withdraw every day...Solitutde is thus the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter. Solitude is not simply a means to an end. Solitude is its own end. It is the place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world."
- The Way of the Heart by Henry Nouwen
VIDEO:
READING: Mysticism | A Compassionate Ministry
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: VIDEO: The Psychological Experience of Centering Prayer a talk given by Thomas Keating
11
A Time of Reflection
Descriptive & Quote:
“The inner life of any great thing will be incomprehensible to me until I develop and deepen an inner life of my own.”
- Parker J. Palmer.
VIDEO:
READING: What is Truth By Parker J. Palmer
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: VIDEO: Circles of Trust by Parker J. Palmer
12
Final Project
Descriptive & Quote: This week you will bring the culmination of your learning to share with the group. In what ways has your deconstruction shaped you? This can be shown in a song, poetry, short story, painting, drawing, the sky is the limit! Show us your evolution!
