A few weeks ago, a family passing through from North Carolina stopped by to attend one of our Sunday gatherings at Hyperion. Like most people who hear about a church that meets in a brewery, they were curious. It was a typical day where we explored a story from scripture, gazed at a piece of art together, and heard a from-the-heart story shared by someone in our community. As this family prepared to hit the road, the mom of the group stopped to tell me how much they enjoyed the morning. She likened us to “a recovery community that meets in a bar”. Exactly, I thought, and inside I must admit I beamed with pride. I’ve always hoped we’d be a place where people can bring their real selves and be both supported and challenged on our healing journeys (although admittedly, a brewery is not always the safest place for our friends who are in recovery). [click image to continue reading]

“Be patient with yourself. But start.”

– Sarah Arthur & Erin Wasinger, A Year of Small Things

“Here is another way to see Creator’s good road,” he said. “It is like a man who plants seed into the earth. Day or night, awake or asleep, the seed grows without the man knowing how or doing anything.

–Mark 4:26-27, First Nations Version

[click on image to learn about our upcoming gathering series]

We may not rest to be more productive, but I do find that rest makes me more alert, aware & more in tune with myself, with Spirit & with what’s Important. As someone who can get caught up in responding to the urgent, I need the recalibrating that rest can bring.

Since The Well started, rest has been an important part of our rhythm of life. Each 5th Sunday, instead of hosting a gathering, we invite everyone to receive the gift of rest.

Over the last few days, we’ve had several opportunities to show up & share food & gifts.

On Thursday night, some of us gathered on Overalls Farm for a Neighborhood Commons (NC) holiday potluck & white elephant gift exchange. Our last meeting, my first one back after sabbatical, felt a little life-less. We were a weary bunch. Everyone was either tired or frustrated or feeling under the weather. [click on image to continue reading]

For the past 3+ years, The Well has hosted a Racial Justice Learning + Action Group. This group has gathered monthly for conversation, learning & mutual support in our efforts to confront racism in & around us, and has had a deep impact on our life together. Mae Beth Ragland, one of this group's facilitators was asked to share some reflections and an invitation.

On Sunday, we celebrated the past year of The Well’s life together. Given our tendency - my tendency - to race toward what’s next, it’s easy to skip the pause that helps us see what’s been quietly unfolding without our even noticing it. I’m so glad we stopped to see just how much connection, creativity and care has been flowing through our little community. As we listened to the variety of voices who shared and heard about some shifts and new possibilities stirring, I was reminded that as individuals and as a community, we are always in the making… [click on image to continue reading]

According to Father Richard Rohr, “The great task of religion is to keep you fully awake, alert, and conscious. Then you will know whatever it is that you need to know. When you are present, you will know the Presence. It is that simple and that hard. Too much religion has encouraged you to be unconscious, but God respects you too much for that.”

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

— Simone Weil

We have spent the whole last year around a theme of reimagining faith, life together & a better way of being human here - and it was in stopping all of the planning & doing that I received a crash course.

To be human is to recognize what is enough.

Being mortal not only means we will die, it implies

our time,

our bodies,

our energy &

our attention are limited.

[Art: Communion of Saints by Elise Ritter.]

What a fun weekend of being reunited with our beloved Well community! It wasn’t just Kevin & I who were welcomed back from sabbatical; some who had been traveling most of the summer also returned just in time to enjoy a weekend of camping, exploring & just being together.

Beautiful space was created …

Sabbath is not merely the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms.

- Walter Brueggemann

On sabbatical, we spin a cocoon around ourselves - a protected place for disintegration in order to find re-integration eventually.

- Ruth Haley Barton

The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you

Don’t go back to sleep.

- Rumi

For the last 6 months or so, I’ve had the same morning ritual. After pouring my first cup of coffee, I sit down, light a candle, practice some slow-deep breathing, journal some reflections, then offer myself this lovingkindness meditation:

May I be loved. May I be free. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be present and connected each moment of this day. Thank You, thank You, thank You.

It’s been a very life-giving meditation & morning ritual. I noticed recently, though, that I’ve started moving through it with a little less intention and a little more rote-ness. This is usually a sign that it’s time to make some tweaks.

When it comes to the rituals we practice as a faith community, this can also be true. The point of reimagining rituals is not to strip them of meaning, but to make sure their meaning is not lost - to help us remember why we do them in the first place. [click on image to continue reading]

As a community, practicing our faith has always been central to our identity. Most people who find their way to The Well have little interest in checking boxes or attending church because they should. Instead, we are seeking to live in more just, loving, connected and healing ways here. For some of us, this is what it means to practice the way of Jesus - for others who participate in our life together - practicing is simply the path they find life-giving, grounding and more in tune with what it means to be human.

Whichever of these describes you, we invite you to share a simple practice with us during this season of exploring stories of how we navigate change, loss and transition… [click image to continue reading]

So many of the conversations I’ve had lately have been about how to navigate the host of changes we are experiencing all. the. time. Directions, identities, vocations, desires, beliefs, bodies, laws and families change. And that’s just the short list! We are constantly asked to learn new ways of relating and being in the world, which often involves letting go of old ones - and I don’t need to tell you that letting go can be hard.

Despite our discomfort, our dismay and at times our dread, change is an unavoidable part of being human.

During our upcoming Sunday gatherings… [click image to continue reading]