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Sunday Gathering
January 7 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Join us!
Sunday’s Schedule:
Sunday’s Program and Reading:
Sunday, January 7, 2024
Where Do We Go from Here? Learning How to Own Our Story
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Speaker: Brad Ruggles is a former pastor who deconstructed (and later left) the faith he was raised in after 18 years of ministry. He is an adventurer, a psychonaut, and a lifelong learner. He and his wife, Lisa, currently reside on land previously occupied by the Odawa tribe (Holland, MI) with their dog Bella.
Musician: Spencer LaJoye is an East Coast singer/songwriter from the Midwest making queer indie folk music for everyone. The 2021 Kerrville Songwriting Competition winner spins crystalline vocals through a loop pedal while strumming an acoustic guitar in charming, banter-heavy performances that keep audiences laughing one moment and weeping the next.
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Music: Spencer LaJoye
Gathering Host: Rod Van Abbema
Music: Spencer La Joye
Meditation: Wayne Johnson
Moment of Silence
Reading/Teaching: Brad Ruggles
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. ― Rumi, 13th Century Sufi Mystic
They [dark emotions] are part of the universal human experience and are certainly worthy of our attention. They bring us important information about ourselves and can be vehicles of profound transformation.”
― Miriam Greenspan, Healing through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of
Grief, Fear, and Despair
A marker of healing from religious trauma is not simply the process of deconstructing one’s worldview and identity and rebuilding a new one; it is also the willingness to remain open to shifting and changing over the course of one’s life.
― Laura E. Anderson, When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious
Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion
We own our stories so we don’t spend our lives being defined by them or denying them. And while the journey is long and difficult at times, it is the path to living a more wholehearted life. ― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning.
Music: Spencer LaJoye
Gathering Host: Rod Van Abbema
Music: Spencer LaJoye
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