Talking God: Coming out

One of the joys of living in London is being able to go to Covent Garden and be amongst the street performers, stall holders and people pottering about. I recently met up with a potential colleague for a coffee on a sunny terrace in the piazza and found myself talking with him about the A New You workshop.

“So do you actually mention God?” he asked “Or do you keep it below the radar and talk about energies instead?”

“Oh, I talk God”, I replied, “I don’t pussyfoot around”.

His question reminded me how precious it can be to talk about the Divine in a society so bent on its secularism. I sometimes wonder if it’s a little bit like coming out – a risky move that could invite rejection, ridicule or a good ribbing.

Making a huge assumption, these days I start the A New You workshop with the first message of Conversations with God, Book 1: God communicates with all of us all the time and ask participants: “When was the last time God communicated with you? How did you know it was God? What impact did it have?”

No one balks. In fact people share with great enthusiasm all sorts of stories about how God has communicated with them – through dreams, songs on the radio, other people and even sea gulls. God uses what’s available, my Mum taught me. I am continually amazed at God’s creativity at getting through to us. The Universe seems to be configured for us to wake up.

A New You workshop, March 2009, Cornwall

At the A New You workshop I ran with Tricia Wilson on Saturday at the Eden Project in Cornwall, we did an activity I like to call the cocktail party. The invitation was to turn the clock forward exactly a year, so it became 21 March 2010, and to step into that moment. It’s an opportunity to tell a new story as if it were happening now.

“Describe what your life is like a year from now” I encourage participants. “Don’t worry too much about the details”, I say, “Get to the feelings. That’s where the real creative edge is. Practise saying “I feel really fulfilled. I am so in my joy. I am feeling so contented. I love being so satisfied with…””

Conversations with God reminds us that it is more important what we are being than the specific thing that we are doing. The soul doesn’t care what you do for a living and when you die neither will you. Your soul only cares about what you are being whilst you are doing whatever it is you are doing. 

Creating the future with our word, A New You, March 2009, Cornwall

 

With this in mind, I invited participants at this imaginary cocktail party to focus more on what they were experiencing in terms of being rather than doing. Before we got started one participant shared that she might find the exercise a challenge: “I’ve got less vocabulary for being”, she mused, “I seem to be better at describing my doing”.

It felt like an accurate observation that could apply to many of us.  Telling a new story about our lives and the feelings we choose to experience is not something we do everyday. It becomes much easier however the more we practice and the more we can be with others who don’t think it’s a completely crazy thing to do.

Getting into the room to explore our spirituality with others demands a certain degree of courage. You might have to push through all sorts of resistance and fears to even sign up for a workshop like A New You. There is a big reward, however.  It’s the joy of experiencing “I’m not alone. They are others who think like this. I’m not the only one who’s insane!”  Coming out is a powerful and affirming experience. Unless it isn’t? Leave a Comment and let me know what you think…

 

Talking God, A New You workshop, March 2009, Cornwall

 

 

 

 

The power of a shared experience

I recently attended an evening talk in London at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. It was given by Rev Pete Owen-Jones who has starred in several excellent programmes on the BBC such as Around the World in 80 Faiths and Extreme Pilgrim. The pews were full and there was an atmosphere of anticipation at what this freethinking, open-minded priest might have to say.

I’ve been to many such talks hosted by Alternatives but this one was different. Pete gave a short introduction and then invited questions about the TV programmes as well as about God, faith and life. From then on the whole evening was unscripted. No prepared stories or carefully crafted beginning, middle and end, just a flow of dialogue between him and members of the audience. This led Pete to talk about the need for Christianity to die in its current form, of how 3 weeks of solitude had changed him and how some people seem to survive perfectly well without a faith.

The whole evening left a strong impression on me. There was an aliveness, a fluidity to the talk that is so often missing when it is choreographed. I was reminded of jazz gigs where the music seems to be at its most charged when the musicians depart from the score and improvise. It is in those moments of pure creativity that the audience feels most gathered and the room rocks with a pulse of energy beyond anything an orchestra or choir can generate.

What enabled this to happen that evening at St James? No doubt it was something to do with Pete’s openness and courage to be in the moment without the need for a structure to contain any anxiety he was feeling. But there was more to it than that, I mused. Each of us who was there had already engaged in a shared experience: watching his TV programmes. This provided a communal context out of which the questions could emerge and flow. 

A New You workshop, December 2008, London

The experience made me reflect on what makes A New You different from many of the other workshops on offer in the spiritual marketplace. I think that because participants have the shared experience of reading Conversations with God before they walk in the room,  this common understanding facilitates a sense of real fellowship emerging quickly amongst strangers who may only spend a few hours in each other’s company.

I believe that nothing shifts our perspective more quickly or changes our truth more profoundly than when we are touched by the story of someone else’s real life experience. Providing space for heartfelt sharing as I do at the A New You workshop is greatly enabled by the publishing phenomenon that is Conversations with God. I will always be grateful to the author Neale Donald Walsch for the joy of this mission shared and the power of a collective experience that his books provide.