UNIVERSITY UNITARIAN CHURCH

Reflection Groups

Fall 2024 Reflection Groups:
We Were Made for These Times

10 Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption

Read this information before applying

Reflection Groups at UUC were introduced in Spring 2022 to encourage the experience of discovery, solace, hope, and courage through UU spiritual exploration, reflection, and meditative practice in the supportive company of others. Since that time, we have offered 5 such experiences*, and fall 2024 marks our sixth program. You’ll join a group of 8-10 participants including a trained facilitator or co-facilitators, for six sessions meeting twice a month for two hours each time. Participants are asked to make a commitment to attend for the duration of the group.

A guiding text is chosen to provide an encounter with spiritual diversity, offering a perspective that we hope will be new for most UUs. By engaging terms and concepts likely to be outside the known and comfortable, Reflection Group participants will have the opportunity to practice loosening rigid personal habits and cultural norms and gain insight into adapting and applying meaning in a more fluid frame of circumstances and lived experience.

PLEASE NOTE:

Reflection Groups are specifically grounded in the experience of regular spiritual practice, both independently and with your group. Participants are encouraged to engage in practices that may be well known or new to them, such as Lectio Divina, meditation in many forms, introspection, sharing in covenant, and contemplative spiritual discernment. Journaling (through writing, art, music) is an important aspect of this program.

These are not discussion groups. Rather, they invite personal reflections offered from the heart, and are met with deep listening rather than immediate response. Reflection groups develop the capacity to be present with open acceptance, refraining from cross-talk, critique, offering advice, or trying to identify and fix a problem. Agreements on engagement are held in covenant among group members, who may choose to mutually amend their chosen practices any time.

These are not book groups. While a book will be used to provide a common foundation for personal reflection and exercises in spiritual practice, the content will not be reviewed and evaluated as a group. Reading, contemplation and preparation is expected in advance of each meeting. During the gathering, participants will allow reflections to emerge through spiritual practices described above. Facilitators will guide these practices and offer reflection questions to invite sharing.

NEW THIS FALL:

Our Fall 2024 groups will introduce the option to meet monthly or more frequently with a professional Spiritual Director as a companion and guide for your journey. Spiritual Direction is an optional, fee-based resource that participants will arrange directly with the professional provider. There is no charge for the rest of the program. UUC may have scholarship funds available to help support this cost for those who need financial assistance.

In addition to the groups’ regular sessions, participants have the opportunity to gather on Wednesday, November 6, to share a meal and responses to the election results – and what they may ask of us.

Participants in Fall 2024 Reflection Groups will be given priority for enrollment in the 11-session UU Wellspring program beginning in January and running through June, 2025. Watch for information sessions and applications in October.

Our guiding text for fall 2024 is We Were Made for These Times: 10 Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption, by Kaira Jewel Lingo.

Why this text?

While we are still feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in multiple layers of our lives - work, family, schools, the economy, and health - we are also in the midst of political turmoil around the world and in the United States during this election year. Our church, where we seek refuge and healing in times of loss and change, is experiencing significant transition as well.

Discovering We Were Made for These Times and receiving the author's simple, calm, universal, and yet somehow deeply intimate instruction in spiritual deepening felt like an education in cultivating stability and tools for personal and institutional discernment, as well as a balm of resilience and hope.

In the shared experience of these Reflection Groups, we will consider not only our personal perspectives, but also how spiritual exploration might contribute to greater clarity around our congregation’s process of change during our ministerial transition, and our shared discernment of our call to action and service.

About the Author

Kaira Jewel Lingo was a nun in the Thich Nhat Hahn Zen Buddhist tradition for fifteen years. She is authorized to teach in this tradition as well as in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

Kaira grew up in an interracial family within an ecumenical Christian order that developed a new kind of monasticism for families working with the poor. As a result, she developed a life-long interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice.

Kaira has lived in Kenya, Mexico, Brazil, France and the United States. She attended Stanford University and chose to do her junior year at Howard University. She wote her bachelor's and master's theses on capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art.

Kaira now teaches and leads retreats internationally. She focuses on spiritual mentoring through art, play, nature, racial and Earth justice, and embodied mindfulness practice. She especially feels called to share the Dharma with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as activists, educators, youth, artists, and families.

The book may be obtained through commercial sources or from public libraries, including in eBook format. We expect that our UUC Bookstore (open on Sunday mornings or by appointment) will also carry the book by September.

How are the small groups formed, and how do I sign up?

Applications are available online (use the button below), and printed application forms are available at the Information Table at the lower entry and the Connections Station in Nathan Johnson Hall. Applications are due by 5 p.m. Friday, September 20. Groups will be formed based on availability of participants and facilitators, with an eye to balancing warm companionship and diversity of perspective.

Groups meet in-person at the church or in a member's home. Arrangements for Zoom participation may be possible in the event of illness or travel. Some cohort groups - parents, young adults, Wise Women - may be available if there is sufficient interest. Be sure to mark your application to indicate all groups and times/ dates you are open to, so that we can maximize options for your participation.

We may not be able to place all applicants in groups. Confirmation and group assignments will be communicated by September 25. Groups begin in early October.

Need help with your application or have other questions? Contact Janine Larsen, UUC Director of Ministries.

* Previous guiding texts chosen for UUC Reflection Groups: