reflectives – a detailed month by month look at past reflectives

threshold is a bristolian spiritual community, to find out more about us, our values, and how we operate click here. on the third saturday of the month threshold holds a reflective meeting on a spiritual or cultural theme in a public space (ie a pub!) in the centre of bristol. members take it in turns to lead these sessions, and there is a guideline of one hour preparation time. we would like to share the content and resources from these sessions. please feel free to replicate or adapt them for your own use.

october 2009 – via metaphorica

in this month’s reflective, richard led an activity intended as a counterpoint to april’s via negativa.  though it is difficult (impossible?) to say anything definitive about god, we can try to speak metaphorically, to say that god is like something, at least in some regard. holy writings are full of such metaphors, likening god to a mighty tower, for example, or a mother hen. we tried to create metaphors that would not have been available when such writings were produced, that reflect aspects of twenty-first century life. we said that god is like quantum mechanics or postmodernism – mysterious, resonant, imperfectly grasped by most of us at best, and occasionally banded about to justify actions or claims. or like the lottery – difficult to predict. or like a human rights activist seeking justice. for more examples, follow this link.

september 2009 – knock and keep on knocking

in this reflective jenny followed on from july’s specters about mourning religion. it picks up on the idea of being haunted by what has gone before. in jean-luc nancy’s book ‘dis-enclosure’ he talks about Christianity as the “religion that provided the exit from religion”. he explores how in the West all our thought is Christian through and through, even if our personal beliefs are atheistic: “the only thing that can be actual is an atheism that contemplates the reality of its Christian origins”.

for christians, rather than a move outside of institutional Religion being seen as a rejection of previous spiritual experiences, it can instead be seen as part of the nature of christianity itself. being in a state of self-surpassing is part of the deepest tradition of christianity: old law>new law (jesus was deconstructing the old law), ‘journeying man’ (church as a pilgrim people).

for our own faith journeys, this time on the threshold (the space in-between dogmatic religion and secularism) can be seen as a following-on point, pause or re-interpretation, rather than as a change in direction or rejection. in this reflective we discussed some well-used and conventional Bible verses which we still value but now read very differently (for more details click here). we thought about what the ‘keys’ were from our previous faith positio which had led us to this point. we then chose keys and labelled them accordingly (for more explanation click here). what will these keys open next?!

august 2009 – threshold summer break

this august threshold had a break so we could all enjoy weekends away, time with family and summer holidays.  but don’t worry, it was a one off, and we’re looking forward to seeing you on Sept 19th at 13:00 in the watershed for our next reflective. (we discussed cancelling august on our discussion page, where we discuss a wide range of issues. to stay in the loop and have your say in the decisions we make by consensus we recommend checking it regularly or setting up a RSS feed)

july 2009 – specters

in specters of marx derrida uses an in-between logic, between presence and absence, in order to unlock marx. through a logic of mourning and haunting derrida engages in a certain marx, one of his spirits, to re-engage in the idea of emancipation, but by another means. there is a rupture and, paradoxically, a continuity. in a nod to this logic of mourning and haunting, lindsey led a reflective thinking about how we might organise a funeral for Religion. while this may sound morbid, that is not its intention, after all have you ever heard a negative eulogy, instead it celebrates the positive in the thing we mourn?

in the end we did not formally write a eulogy or plan a funeral, we simply talked about what we mourned, which gave a nice platform to share some of our stories. a sense of community, rhythm/regularity/seasonality, and a certain type of confidence/certainty were things we all mourned, forming the ingredients of what would make it into a eulogy if we wrote one. we also chatted about the nature of mourning versus simply missing something, and about the possibility/impossibilities of going back. There was also an important recognition of the contribution Religion had made in us becoming who we are.

we didn’t get onto any haunting, the logic of mourning was plenty to fill the time. maybe haunting can be left for another occasion or perhaps we should just leave it as it is, slippery, elusive and never to be reduced to the presence of a threshold meeting…

june 2009 – photographing threshold

an outward-bound reflective, bea sent threshold members went off in different directions to photograph things that are ‘thresholdy’ – things and people in transition, boundaries, and the spaces in between.  We then re-assembled in the pub to show each other our photos.

Click here to see selection of full sized photos on Flickr

may 2009 – reflecting on threshold

“the threshold [should] not [be seen] as a location for the stepping over from one state or condition to another, but as a place or condition in itself, an endless waiting towards, a becoming nothing” henry tietzsch-tyler, 27 february 2009

“…what does it mean to reflect upon a position, a relation, a place related to other place but with no place of its own – a position in-between?” elizabeth grosz (2001: 90.)

“for me this space of radical openness is a margin –a profound edge.” bell hooks (1990: 149.)

we have now been running for a year and a half and so jenny took the opportunity to lead a session reflecting on our own existence as a fluid, non-institutionalised group or community. we talked about how threshold is like a rare species and the nature of rare species is that they either become extinct, or an effort is made to step in and save them. there is a sense of fragility, which is something i think we’ve all felt about threshold at times. we had a frank discussion about where threshold is at the moment and to took time to reflect on what threshold means to us; what we value in threshold; what our capacity is; our aspirations for the future; what we’d like to change. we felt that there were lots of things about threshold which we want to continue such as the imperfect/unpolished nature of our reflectives, no one leader and the sense that differences in opinion are valued rather than suppressed. we did also all acknowledge that we were worried about the future of the group and needed to increase in numbers to increase diversity and our capacity to survive. we talked about a lot of things (including possibly stopping official socials and having informal get-togethers instead) and decided to carry on some of the debates online on our discussion page. please join in the discussion!

april 2009 – via negativa

in the fourth century, the church fathers wrestled with the inadequacy of making positive statements about god, such as god is good. such human language inevitably limited our understanding of god’s essence, and negative theoology – the via negativa – attempted to transcend such limitations by stating, for example, god is not good. this opposition might then lead to the synthesis, god is beyond good. in this session, richard led an exercise drawing on negative theology in which we took turns to complete and lay down slips of paper bearing the words god is not. The picture below shows the results. example statements included, god is not out there, a person, slave, on our side, infinite, everywhere, a ship, a bird, obedient, almighty, male (or female), a pint of beer and god is not not. many of the statements provoked discussion – and sometimes quite strong disagreement – about what they meant and whether they could, or should, (not) be said. click on the image for a larger, if somewhat blurry, view.

march 2009 – hearing the bristol sound

jenny brought along recent lyrics from bands associated with bristol. what do these lyrics have to say about the immediate here and now for bristol at the turn of the millenium? is this the same as our immediate here and now? with a nod to the greenbelt theme of the long now (and brian eno), will this be relevant in 175 years, was it relevant 175 years ago? do we hear any sense of call as a response to these lyrics? you can answer these questions yourself by reading some of the lyrics here

we felt that, apart from a bit of social commentary from tricky and jane taylor, the overwhelming sense of the here and now is quite self-absorbed. is this what current bristolians are like?! a lot of the emotional content of these songs was relevant 175 years ago, and will probably still be relevant in 175 years time, although we thought the context, emphasis and language would be different. we didn’t sense a direct ‘call’ from these songs, but it did make us think about being less self-absorbed.

we talked specifically about each song and the conversation ranged from comparing massive attack to william blake (this statement definitely needs more context!) to moaning about portishead’s ongoing existential angst and uncertainty (which we also empathised with to some extent). we particularly liked the lyrics to sweet hours and my street (which was amusing as very much montpelier!).

please add your comments here

february 2009 – falling white stuff

our reflective was cancelled due to heavy snow. we’re currently having an online discussion on our facebook group about future reflectives. join the facebook group if you want to contribute…

january 2009 – janus the two-faced god of thresholds

bea led a reflective picking up on the mythology surrounding janus (from twilight spirituality in nov). we explored reclaiming the expression ‘two-faced’ in terms of the different aspects of ourselves which we need to show to different people, and seeing both sides of the spiritual threshold we’re sitting on. we used an image of a two-faced figure and individually considered the pairings of: how i present myself to friends/strangers; what i would like to leave behind/take forward; living within an organised religion/without religion; 2008 and the past/2009 and the future etc.

december 2008 – christmas cool wall

lindsey led a session revisiting the coolwall format (debating how cool/uncool a concept is and placing it on a continuum from cool to uncool, see the write-up for may 2008 below). the theme this time was christmas and the concepts included everything from the theology of christmas to cultural traditions around christmas, and various christmas obligations. generally we can have a debate about anything, but what was most noticeable with this coolwall was how indifferent we were to a lot of christmas related issues (particularly aspects of christmas which for some people define what christmas is). we were also surprised again at how traditional our values are when pinned down like this, although we like to think of ourselves as quite alternative…

november 2008 – twilight spirituality

jenny led a session exploring the idea of twilight spirituality. to start with we explored spiritual and cultural associations with the binary opposites of light and dark. we then thought about associations with twilight (dusk and dawn) and jenny shared the result of a google search on twilight deities (to see the results click here). we particularly liked janus the god of openings and thresholds of all kinds (including the thresholds between light and dark).

we imagined a festival to celebrate twilight spirituality: to start with we thought that the location of the festival would be in a porch area, starting at dusk and ending at dawn (with the lights on inside and dark outside, to create a state of twilight in the porch area). we had talked about the cycle of deconstruction and reconstruction in terms of dusk and dawn and wondered how to add this into the festival, perhaps a reading at dusk which slowly untangles into gibberish to be rewoven into something else at dawn?! we would have visual illusions and moving holograms (e.g. Madonna changing into Buddha and back) as decorations. there would be real ale to drink (neither hot nor cold) and marble cake to eat. two people would dress up as janus (with two heads coming out of one outfit) and they would give out ambiguous gifts father christmas style. the people would dress in veils so it wasn’t clear who they are.

however, we then decided that this was all too definite and planned to be a true celebration of twilight spirituality, and decided that a more authentic celebration would be to acknowledge the sacredness of confusing moments. to do this you would pause at doors and gates, as a physical expression of embracing thresholds rather than trying to rush through them into more definite times/areas.

october 2008 – labels

we spent some time looking at the labels we apply to ourselves and others. this took the form of a simple game led by richard in which we took turns to pick a card from a deck and display it in front of us. everyone else then confessed the way they would think about someone they met wearing/carrying/displaying that symbol. the picker then talked about how they would feel about bearing that label and the perceptions of others. eventually, we had four symbols each:

one of the really interesting things was the way in which the symbols modulated each other when displayed by the same person, for example the medals and the cnd symbol, and the darwin fish and the wwjd wristbands. sometimes, we could halucinate a life story that would encapsulate a diversity of such symbols, perhaps learning not to trust our stereotypes (if such learning was necessary).

another very enjoyable aspect of the evening was that regulars lindsey, steve and richard were joined in the game by one of the cornubia’s patrons who was sharing some bar space with us. it was great to be able to engage with a fellow pubgoer without any expectation of a “let me hand you this tract” moment. let’s hope it happens again.

september 2008 – poetic creeds

august 2008 – non-magnetic poetry.

phil used a magnetic-poetry inspired reflection to inspire us to create our own creed. in this session, because of the summer holidays/low turn out, we had a free/trial play with them. we will have another go at them in the september session.

(if you have a robot brain belief is comforting certainty)

july 2008 – faith journeys

lindsey read a taoist parable called the pathless path, which explores how the journey itself can be the goal, click here to read the full version. after the story we contemplated our own faith journeys, stimulated by an origami boat covered in prompts, such what type of traveller are you? (pilgrim, adventurer, refugee, tourist etc) what are you leaving behind? (friends, certainty, cognitive dissonance, routine etc) what would help? (lonely planet, cup of tea, companionship, encouragement etc) how are you feeling? (exhausted, expectant, confused, overwhelmed etc.).

we each made our own origami boats and, using coloured pens and pencils, we decorated our boats with words and pictures reflecting our own faith journey. at the end of the session we set out boats sailing on bristol’s floating harbour (this resulted in them being blown into the corner of the harbour wall where all the rubbish collected – which in itself might be quite indicative of the journey! we suggest if you repeat this session not to sail your boats in a polluted harbour incase some members of your group take the outcome too literally!)

june 2008 – threshold: the quest

jenny led us in a role play style game based on a theme of spiritual exploration. players chose characters ranging from st anselm to rumi to john wimber. the aim of the game was to speak to god or reach spiritual enlightenment. characters moved towards this goal by scoring points in 5 areas: love, hope, faith, scholar and quest. during the game session, the players listened to descriptions of their character’s surroundings, as well as additional information and potential choices from the game master, then described their actions in response (sometimes involving chance by the use of dice). halfway through the game players had to write a section of the game each. players then collectively played through the scenarios they had created.

may 2008 – cool wall

richard introduced us to a game loosely inspired by the top gear cool wall. we had a small pile of cards with words or short phrases drawn from christian belief or practice written upon them. we took turns to pick up a card and place it on the table between two labels – “cool” and “uncool”. others could then try to persuade the player to move the card more towards one of the labels, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. we ended up with the cool wall shown below (click on the image to see a larger version).

of course, the whole game depends on what is meant by the terms on the cards (and by “un/cool”). the discussion about what each term meant, and why it was un/cool, was the point of the game. the end result does not reflect a measured consensus, just a snapshot of individual opinions on that evening. nonetheless, we began to learn a little more about each other’s experiences and perspectives.

april 2008 – threshold style passover

this meeting was at about the same time as passover so we decided to do a ‘threshold’ passover meal. bea faciliated the creation of our own ‘threshold’ cedar plate to help us reflect on current oppresion. we did this by covering the table with sheets of paper so that the table became one big ’cedar plate’. we divided the table breadth-ways into 4 parts, each part provided the space for a question: what have we been freed from? what has been sacrificed for our freedom?  what do we mourn? what are we still enslaved to? we then divided the table in half length-ways, so that one side represented the global, and one side the personal. using a variety of food samples we started to place items symbolically in the different spaces to represent our thoughts and ideas, sometimes annotated. we ended up with the annotated tablecloth shown below (click on thumbnail for full image).

we followed this with a pub meal, leaving a beer for elijah.

march 2008 - god shaped hole

we reflected on absence and presence. phil read some quotes from a discussion on an athiest website about the absence and presence of god. we thought about absence and presence using the idea of pascal’s god shaped hole: does a god shaped hole really exist? if it does, does everyone have one? do you know something is absent if you’ve never had it? if a god shaped hole does exist what is it it like – a hollow chocolate santa?  using some coloured pens we explored these questions and our own ideas with symbols and words. we annotated a piece of paper with a jigsaw shape cut out of the center to represent our ‘hole’, or absence, and a piece of paper cut into the shape of a jigasw piece to represent ‘god’, or presence.

at the end of the session we fit all our jigsaw pieces together to get a multifarious picture of god or presence.

february 2008 - banksy reflection

lindsey led a time of individual reflection on a banksy picture. each banksy pictures was placed in the centre of an a4 page, with 3 graded frames surrounding the image with the headings: what i see; what it suggests; i feel. we made our own notes in each frame, and afterwards fed back to the group with discussion.

evaluation: if you repeat this we suggest editing out sections of some of the pictures in photoshop (if you have time). e.g. how does it effect your perception if you hide the angel’s wings/ the bottle and cigarette? note the effect of hiding the shopping bags in the crucifixion image.

january 2008 – dayenu, self acceptance and alternative resolutions

lindsey led a session on self acceptance as a counter-cultural reaction to new year’s resolutions and the constant pressure to improve: she started by reading  a jodo shinshu parable (based on tannisho, ix) about a tree’s self-acceptance, click here to read the full version . from this she asked:

1. how do you feel when you think about the kind of person you are?
2. do you like and respect yourself?
3. do you accept yourself for who you are?
4. do you have confidence to try new things even though you might fail?

on art paper each group member drew a picture of a tree in the center, and then in the tree they drew or wrote the positive qualities they thought about themselves such as personality traits or skills .

then as a group we looked at the passover dayenu song, to draw out lessons for ourselves about what is ‘enough’, and finding satisfaction with, and acceptance of, things the way they are (for more information about this and the dayenu song click here). we then had a go at writing a dayenu song for threshold, as a form of an alternative new year’s resolution. this sets the low ‘threshold’ of what is enough for our group, with the alternate line ‘dayenu – if this is all we do’. a musical person can later set a tune if they like! don’t worry, however the song turns out it is dayenu!

The outcome:

dayenu by threshold

if we drink beer and are silent together – dayenu – if this is all we do

if our paths cross but once – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we create an atmosphere where we don’t feel under pressure to be religious  – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we plant a seed whose fruit we never see – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we accept one another – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we understand ourselves a little better – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we figure out on the way and make a few mistakes while doing so – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we learn something new, or forget something we once knew about god – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we reach out for a god we cannot see – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we spot god in the other people in the pub – dayenu – if this is all we do

if we express ourselves but can’t do it in pithy sentences – dayenu – if this is all we do!

december 2007 – alternative mid-winter festivals

on 3rd december we had our first reflective/spiritual session. bea led the group in an original version of consequences – imagine your own religion and mid-winter festival. this led to some amusing results with some similarities and some perculiarities.