Sea of Faith — Dunedin

Newsletter

Lynne Baab spoke to us on:

Spiritual Practices:

Why the growing interest? How do they “work”?

Lynne explained:

“In Western countries, people in a variety of traditions increasingly engage in spiritual practices such as fasting, sabbath keeping, meditation and contemplative prayer, praying with icons, stations of the cross, and intentional hospitality, to name only a few.
I have written about spiritual practices in the Christian tradition, and I’ll share what I’ve learned about the sources of the growing interest and the impact of practices on individuals and communities – drawing mostly on the Christian tradition, but also mentioning the role of spiritual practices in other religions and among people with no formal religious commitment”.

Lynne Baab is the Jack Somerville Lecturer in Pastoral Theology at the University of Otago. She is a Presbyterian minister and the author of numerous books, including Fasting, Sabbath Keeping and Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World. Click her website, where you can read about her books and access articles she has writtenabout spiritual practices.

A report from last meeting:

Arthur Templeton talked to us about 70+ years of woodcarving, and showed us some of his work.

Then, in our Annual Meeting, we added Margaret Feist, Alan Jackson, Frances Smithson and Peter Wishart to our Committee. Continuing elected members are Sheila Clarke, Aelred Edmunds, David Kitchingman and Pen Whitaker.

After that, Marjorie organised us into discussing what we, as Sea of Faithers, might like to see as an advertisement on the back of a bus. Some groups did this in terms of a message to the world at large.

Others took it rather as advertising our Sea of Faith branch, so included the SoF logo, and/or our website address.Here are most of the results:

We made GOD	|	Hope	|	Conservation	|	Faith
	|	Love	|		|	is
GOD made us	|	Trust –	|	is	|	trusting
	|	Is anything	|		|	NOT
Goodbye GOD	|	more important?	|	Preservation	|	believing
_______________	|	____________	|	__________	|	______
EVERYONE	|	Yesterday	|	Santa Claus	|	Wondering
is our	|	is the past:	|	…….	|
brother or sister.	|	tomorrow	|	Free lunch	|	about
Our brothers and	|	is the future;	|	…….	|
sisters are our FAMILY	|	today	|	GOD	|	God?
Our family is	|	is a gift – that’s	|	……..	|
EVERYONE	|	why	|	?	|	We all do.
	|	it’s called the	|		|
	|	present	|		|
_______________	|	___________	|	__________	|	______
Compassion	|	MAKE IT	|	Make	|	GOD
	|	A HABIT,	|	compassion	|	or
has no	|	CONSERVE	|	the	|	NO GOD
	|	THE PLANET	|	fashion	|	be
borders	|		|		|	GOD
_______________	|	___________	|	__________	|	______
Forget yourself,	|	Whether	|	LIfe is now :	|	FIND
care about	|	there is a God	|	not	|	MEANING
others	|	or not,	|	yesterday,	|	BY
and enjoy life	|	enjoy	|	not	|	LIVING IT
	|	the life you have	|	tomorrow	|
_______________	|	______	|	__________	|	______
Care for	|	TRUST –	|	Doubt	|
your neighbours,	|	HOPE	|		|
enemies,	|	AND	|	is	|
and the earth	|	CARE	|		|
our home	|		|	OK	|