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.