Who Joined

“To be born is to be chosen. You have a task of creativity to realize here that no one else can accomplish. If someone else could bring this to birth, they would be in your place and you would never have been sent here...You are an artist of the eternal.”

-John O’Donohue

A total of 56 people joined the pilot. They came from various religious backgrounds and none at all, but tended not to have found a comfortable or complete home within a single religious community or identity. Many (not all) were in the United States, many (not all) were in the 25-40 age range. Just under half were people of color. Some were parents. Some were community leaders who came to this project through the How We Gather work, though many were simply seeking to deepen their own spiritual lives.

We extended each one of them an invitation to deepen into the mysterious call that only they could answer -- namely, to be the person that they uniquely are, and to express that being-ness in service to the sacred across every dimension of their life.

There was no application to be part of this project. As we told participants, if there is an invitation coming from within your being, that is aligning with the promise of this offering, then we want you to be part of it.

That said, we did name expectations as follows:

EXPECTATIONS

  1. Desire - you are so hungry for a deep-dive into spiritual formation that you will orient your year around it, including some significant parts of your schedule.

  2. Fidelity - to what has drawn you here, and to yourself, your group, the ideals of this project, and the specific promises you make throughout the year.  

  3. Openness - to being changed by encountering new truths and new relationships with people of various religious backgrounds and none at all, who are likewise pursuing a path of personal spiritual formation.

  4. Patience - with yourself and others, turning to curiosity over judgment, and finding your ground in the face of all that will unfold.

  5. Co-creativity - to be a participant designer in an experience that is happening for the first time and will therefore be a work-in-progress!

We held a series of three Zoom calls to orient prospective participants, and then invited them to commit.

 
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