GIFTED and GIFTING in EPIPHANY

December 14, 2019 By Judith Favor

Saturday, January 4, 2020 | 9am – 4pm
Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Altadena, CA

The Magi aren’t the only ones
bearing gifts during Epiphany.
Those who view inspiration as a gift
also receive the fruits of
personal creativity as a gift.

Prayer and poetry are close cousins.
“They play at the edges of mystery,” writes Marilyn McEntyre, author of When Poets Pray.
“Poets hold a tension between line and sentence, between sense and reason,
between the transcendent and the deeply, comfortingly familiar.”

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND TO REGISTER

Registration Fee Includes Lunch

A Mother’s Heartlines

December 9, 2019 By Judith Favor

Early-morning pages, written before my responsible self comes on duty,
take me into deep, dark places and a few bright, clear ones.
My fifty-four-year-old son is dying of cancer,
complicated by meth addiction.
Mary’s question to the angel echoes within me: How can this be?
The answer, according to the Beatles:
Mother Mary said to me, Let it be. Let it be.

“What are you seeing?”
Ray’s last words were raspy,
yet powered by the curiosity that propelled his entire life.

“I see you filled with light,” I said, “and surrounded by light.
I see you loved and loving, forgiven and forgiving.”

With that, he slipped into stillness. No sign of pain.
No sign he knew I was there, yet I knew it was the
absolutely right place to be. I just knew.
How long can a mother gaze upon her comatose son,
seeing that of God in his wasted body and paralyzed limbs?
One can live infinitely into a single moment, says Philip C.
When my oldest son phoned to take me to lunch,
I said, “No thanks. I’m right where I need to be.”
I declined Michael’s invitation to dinner, too, because I was beginning
to feel something so unexpected, so far off the deathbed emotional charts,
that I could barely name it to myself,
let alone speak it aloud. It felt strangely like joy.

Joy? How could this be? I was losing my youngest son
to cancer after decades of shared adventures, epic struggles
and occasional unitive experiences in nature. Why joy?
Later it came to me: Holy obedience. Surrender to Love.
All through Ray’s final day, I sat where Christ guided me to
sit. Kept silent until prompted. Spoke what Spirit directed
me to say. Personal needs, even hunger, evaporated into
the mystery of grace.

How can a son’s tragedy become a mother’s grace?
How could Ray’s passing engender a joy huge enough to encompass
all of his pain, all of my pain, and perhaps your pain, too?
Holding a loving, prayerful vigil with my dying boy lifted
me through sorrow and beyond it to an astonishing fullness
of joy. But even robust joy is fragile and fleeting.
Ten days later, grief yanked me down, pulled me deep
beneath the strong dam of capability I had constructed to
care for my husband as he weakens with Parkinson’s Disease.
Triple sorrows smashed my carefully constructed dam.
Loss of son. Loss of Partnering Pete. Loss of mobility and freedom.
The combination brought me to my knees.
I cried and cried and cried and cried.
How is it even possible to sob for so many hours?
Pete, helpless to comfort me, called the grief midwives.
Friends Connie and Charleen came and knelt beside me on the floor.
Time collapsed beneath floods of tears.
Losing a child is unspeakably difficult.
I can manage only silence.
Lifting Heart Lines from my messy morning pages buoys
me through the grief-bursts.
I swim infinity loops in the community pool,
and dive deeper into stillness.

Sometimes I find a Heart Line in another’s words.
Sacred Veil lyricist Tony Silvestri: “Giving myself permission to write
these texts allowed me to revisit my grief in a very powerful way.
I understood I hadn’t fully grieved, because I hadn’t processed it in art.”
Eric Whitacre’s music and Los Angeles Master Chorale lyrics convey Silvestri’s
intimate expression of his young wife’s death.
Primagravida. Retroperitoneal cystic. Adenocarcinoma. Adnexal cysts…

How do they manage to sing complex medical terms so tenderly,
without choking up?

I sat at the threshold with my son, at the open door of Mystery,
until Ray was ready to pass through it.
He crossed a horizon as wondrous as the one we crossed together
when I gave birth to him 54 years earlier in this same hospital.
In his end is my beginning.

Those words came in meditation. I wonder what they mean…
I travel to Quaker Center to renew body and spirit in the redwoods,
to commune with Friends and place rocks of personal heartbreak
in a communal griefbowl of clear water.
I seek a weekend of contemplation for strength to tend Pete
as his health and memory fail.

I awaken at 1:40am to a delicious melting-chocolate sensation,
as if I had melted into God. If I had stayed in bed to savor it,
I’d still be ambulatory today…
but I rose to go to the bathroom. Fainted. Fell.
Heard my rifle-shot tibia fracture,
saw ragged bone protruding through flesh and foot twisted at right angles.

“Uh-oh, compound,” said the first EMT.
“Not prepared for that,” said the
second.

In Trauma ICU,
a nurse drew red balloons and wrote Happy Birthday on the whiteboard.
My decidedly unhappy 79th birthday was brightened by my daughter’s visit
followed by assurance from two female orthopedic surgeons
that their repair efforts were successful.

Let Your Life Speak:
Reflections on Extinction,
Hope & Holding in the Light

November 30, 2019 By Judith Favor

Can an endangered species recover, with human help? And how can we, as Quakers, participate in such an endeavor? One way is by eldering, focusing on light and love, truth and equality while conservation leaders deliberate in secular settings.

Oliver Ryder, a member of LaJolla Friends Meeting and Director of Genetics at the Institute for Conservation Research of San Diego Zoo Global, invited me attend a unique workshop/conference at Safari Park this past October. My role was to be a worshipful presence and to hold contemplative stillness as notable thinkers discussed the social and ethical issues involved in rescuing the northern white rhinoceros from imminent extinction. Oliver guided proceedings using gentle, clear Quaker processes.

It was my rare privilege, as an elder, to sit quietly in the Light as the scholars and scientists deliberated, to “be still and cool… from my own thoughts… and to be stayed in the principle of God” on behalf of everyone present. Thomas R. Kellyʼs phrase “continuously renewed immediacy “ kept me centered in a state of attentiveness “where the breath and stillness of Eternity are heavy upon us and we are totally yielded” to the Divine Presence throughout the proceedings.

I understood more bioscience than I had expected, and was emotionally moved by each speakerʼs heartfelt dedication. Most significantly, I became animated by hope as I held participants in light and love as they raised questions, explored risks and benefits, and expressed emerging views and values.

“We are hopeful,” said Oliver “because two northern white rhinos are still alive, and we are caring for a sizable herd of southern white rhinos here at Safari Park. We have a healthy baby on the ground; he weighs 510 pounds at ten weeks of age, born to a surrogate mother through assisted reproductive technology. We also have the Frozen Zoo, in which we have been banking living cells for forty years. We were able to return

the pacific pocket mouse to its native habitat, and to hear the whoosh of California condors flying free at last, so yes, we are hopeful about protecting the northern white rhinocerus.”

It was awesome to get to meet these charismatic creatures up close, introduced by caregiver Jonnie and the zoo crew. Four-thousand pound Victoria came when called, baby Edward gamboling close behind. Victoria nibbled apple chunks from Jonnieʼs hand and gazed at us contentedly, while Edward romped nearby. He thrives on motherʼs milk and tries to eat hay as she does, but his teeth have not yet come in. Conceived through assisted reproduction by artificial insemination using frozen semen from another southern white rhinoceros, he was born – after a sixteen-month pregnancy – on July 29, 2019. Named for a major donor, Edward weighed 148 pounds at birth and is well on his way to reaching the two-ton-plus size of his elders!

When humans see wild mega-fauna only as dots in the distance, we can form only remote relationships with them, but rhinos are very relational up close. They thrive on affection and attention, just as we do. Jonnie trains them to step on the scale when asked, defecate before rectal exams, stand still during medical procedures and keep their mouths open during dental exams. Two of the female rhinos at San Diego Zooʼs Safari Park are not interested in becoming surrogate mothers, so they roam free of invasive procedures. The others willingly take part in the Northern White Rhino Genetic Rescue Initiative which involves new reproductive methodologies for rhinoceros species. Everyone working on the project is very careful. Above all: they care. And all are part of a growing body of hope.

Ancient rhinos roamed free for eons, until murdered by humans for their horns. Sudan, the last male of its kind, died in 2018. The October 2019 National Geographic featured Ami Vitaleʼs photo of Sudan on the cover. His daughter and granddaughter survive, but with no hope of reproducing. They are closely related to southern white rhinos, some of whom live at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

After admiring Victoria and Edward, I found myself contemplating Amani, munching hay in her enclosure. She is a healthy 5,000 pound rhino—and pregnant— due to give birth in November. Contemplation is a kind of seeing that is more than mere looking, because it includes recognizing – and thus appreciating – what we gaze upon. The contemplative mind does not tell us what to see—but it does teach us how to see, and I was close enough to behold the hopeful look in Amaniʼs eye as she awaits motherhood.

Gazing contemplatively at humans dedicated to the mission of San Diego Zoo Global, I saw their hopefulness as more than subjective optimism. Among committed cellular and molecular researchers, ethicists, lawyers, synthetic biologists, sociologists, veterenarians, animal caregivers, donors and journalists, hope is first and foremost a life-giving energy. Together, I see these visionaries comprising a “body of hope.” Some Quakers would call it “the body of Christ.” Whether we use sacred or secular language to describe it, embodied hope became a visceral truth for me during a two-day symposium hosted by the Institute for Conservation Research. I glimpsed hope in every face and heard it in every voice, magnified by widespread compassion and commitment to bring a beguiling beast back from the abyss of extinction. The body of hope does far more than preserve a lovable endangered species: it also provides a forceful energy to direct the course of spiritual evolution among humankind. The body of Christ shapes the course of things to come.

Steady & Clear

November 30, 2019 By Judith Favor

Trouble called me by name one Sunday afternoon at California Central
Women’s Facility. I had just finished co-leading a weekend Alternatives
to Violence Project workshop with three Quaker volunteers and had
walked with them from the cellblock to the exit gate. The moment I
passed through the Xray detector into the visitor’s room, the watch
sergeant called my name. His tone was stern. When I turned, an even
sterner voice added, “Miz Favor, I need to talk to you. In my office.” He
jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Lieutenant and sergeant gave me hard looks as I stepped around the
end of the counter and followed them. Why did each man keep a hand
on the holstered pistols at his hip? Why address me with harsh eyes and
clipped voices? What was so threatening about a sixty-year-old
grandmother?

“What’s the problem, officer?”
“You broke the rules.”
“What rules?”
“Department of Corrections rules. You are prohibited from doing
volunteer work in the same prison where you visit an inmate.”
“I didn’t know there was a rule against that.”
“There is. We’re telling you. You cannot volunteer and also visit a Death
Row prisoner, or write to her. That is against the rules.”

“I’m trying see your point of view,” I began, thinking it wise to start off
diplomatically, “but I’ve been leading AVP workshops with the general
population for two years with no fuss. I know about the rule prohibiting
women on Death Row from participating in programs. Rosie is not
involved in the AVP program, so I don’t see the problem. Why can’t I
do both?”

The men shook their heads in unison. They folded arms across chests.
I tried another tack. “Getting to know Rosie was what inspired me to
train for AVP leadership. I want to show inmates how to solve
interpersonal problems nonviolently, because violence is what landed
Rosie behind bars.” More hard looks. I could tell they were not
persuaded.

“It is against department policy,” said the lieutenant.
“You can’t do both.”

I sensed it was fruitless to ask for an exception, but did it anyway.
“Could you grant me an exception to the rule? Everyone comes out
ahead when you give me permission to do both. Can you do that?”
Denied, of course. This conversation was not endearing me to the
lieutenant. I knew better than to insist on speaking to his supervisor, but
did it anyway. The sergeant punched a phone and summoned the watch
captain. Both guards kept arms crossed over their hearts. A stony
silence prevailed until the captain arrived. His furrowed brow showed
he was not happy to be here. I repeated my plea. He insistently repeated
the rule.

“No, you cannot do both.”
“But that’s not logical,” I protested. “Your policy doesn’t make sense in this situation.”
“NO,” repeated the captain. “Absolutely not!”
He gestured toward black binders labeled DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS.
“Prohibited. Period.”
“Well, you’re giving me a tough choice,” I said. “I’ll need some time to think about it.”
“No.” He gave me another hard look. “You can’t leave until you decide.”

I pictured my friends waiting in the parking lot. I met the captain’s stare. His jaw was set.

“Which is it? Decide now.” His eyes drilled into mine.
The pulse in my throat pounded so hard I thought my voice would shake,
but it came out steady and clear. ““Rosie. If I must choose now, I choose my friend Rosie.”
“Why?” The lieutenant sounded genuinely puzzled.

The other two exhaled noisily and shook their heads. One muttered something.
“Because she comes first for me. If you won’t let me facilitate workshops
here, other Quakers will do it. I can contribute at other California
prisons. Rosie is my friend. I will not abandon her.”
“Murderer.” The sergeant’s face twisted into a mocking sneer.
“You can all go.” The captain dismissed us and quickly left the room.

I felt discouraged as I drove away from Central California Women’s
Facility, where prison administrators and guards acted as if murderers
were monsters. They acted as if women on The Row could not be
redeemed. Their frozen faces seemed oblivious to my reasonable
questions, hardened against inquiry. Their scowling brows seemed
allergic to reflection. Their hard voices refused to consider any point of
view but Departmental Policy. Their hands on pistol butts conveyed
power and domination. The combination made mutual understanding
impossible. Compromise was totally off the table.

Soon after three armed men forced me to choose, I discovered “The
Abnormal Is Not Courage,” a poem by Jack Gilbert. His words about
World War II reminded me that Quaker volunteer service is not
accomplished with tanks or horses. Work for justice does not take place
on stallions, with sabers in hand. Witnessing to ‘the spark of God’ in
people occurs through everyday interactions. Sometimes it happens in
prisons, sometimes in homes, schools, retreat centers and cafes.
Sometimes it takes place in sunlight, usually in conversations that most
folks will never hear. Witnessing to “the spark of God” in myself, friends
behind bars (and you) comes through small moments of faithfulness and
simple actions that few will ever see. These days, for me, many faithful
actions take place on the pages of my forthcoming book titled
FRIENDING ROSIE: LIFE ON DEATH ROW.

At age seventy-nine, I lack the strength and energy to visit CCWF as
often as I once did, or as often as I would like, but my commitment to
Rosie remains steady and clear. My invitation to readers, to you, to hear,
see, correspond with and visit incarcerated persons is grounded in the
“normal excellence, of long accomplishment.” Twenty years after I first
ventured behind bars to meet Rosie, Gilbert’s poem reminds me that the
work of advocating for free people to befriend imprisoned ones is made
up of the “beauty of many days.”

When Poets Pray by Marilyn McEntyre

September 30, 2019 By Judith Favor

When Poets Pray bookcover image
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2019
140 pages

“In prayer, as in many other areas of life, we ‘learn by going where we have to go.’” I was delighted to see a line from Theodore Roethke’s “The Waking” as Marilyn McEntyre’s opening words in When Poets Pray because this was the first poem I ever memorized. The author’s writing captivated me from beginning to end: “Pray in dialogue with a poem,” she concludes, “in ‘call and response’ fashion, pausing after each line or two to speak or write a prayer that the poem evokes or allows.”

I experienced an animated, almost visceral quality in the pages of When Poets Pray. I like McEntyre’s genuine warmth in sharing personal gifts she receives from poets who pray. I like her quiet, unassuming way of weaving prayerful human yearnings into poetic scholarship. I especially like her choice of “Eagle Poem” by Joy Harjo, the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate, who invites us into nonverbal ways of praying “in languages that aren’t always sound but / Circles of motion/ True circles of motion / like eagle rounding out the morning / Inside us.”

When Poets Pray sweeps from the medieval worldview of Hildegard of Bingen to contemporary poets Lucille Clifton, Francisco X. Alarcon, Anna Kamienska and Wendell Berry. I found the author’s poetry selections as emotionally potent as they are illustrative. John Donne’s “Batter my heart, three-person’d God…” dives down into the dark mysteries of prayer. George Herbert and Thomas Merton penned overtly biblical prayer-poems. Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov and Galway Kinnell remind us how prayer can overlap with our own interior self-talk. “When the disciples ask Jesus, ‘’Teach us to pray,’ writes McEntyre, “they seem to be aware that prayer involves practice – even a learning curve—and some serious retraining in habits of the heart.” I laughed at the author’s playful interpretation of Scott Cairns, whose poetry “offers a wry, timely look at a few of the varieties of self-deception that those who pray are prey to.”

My only critique is that the author, a retired educator, did not include any Quaker poets. I do see McEntyre creating a pioneering archive here, one that links prayer with poetry, and hope she continues in this direction. Friends who treasure Leading From Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead (Introduction by Parker Palmer) will want to invest in a hardbound edition of When Poets Pray, not only to have and to hold but also as a resource in guiding spiritual practice groups.

Judith Favor of Claremont Meeting in Southern California values true prayer and true poetry. Both are essential nutrients for her contemplative soul.

Embodied Writing through Contemplative Inquiry
with Rev. Judith Favor

December 10, 2018 By admin

https://stillpointca.org/calendar/2019-writing

Saturday, January 5, 2019
9:00 AM 4:00 PM

Pilgrim Place
at the Napier Center — 625 Mayflower Road, Claremont, CA, 91711 United States (map)

Google Calendar ICS

Description

“Embodied writing supports the fruitful discipline of finding and asking ever keener and more beautiful questions. Writing in contemplative community helps us become larger, more generous and more courageous, equal to the fierce invitations extended to us as we grow and mature.” — David Whyte

Who and what helps you identify the questions you don’t want to answer?
In the clamor of social noise, where do you find silence to reflect inwardly?
During times of political-economic disruption, what softens you enough to notice delicate new forms of awareness emerging?

Showing up for your self at this moment in history is an audacious act. It takes courage to consult your bones long enough to corral new insights onto the page. It takes bravery to plumb your viscera deeply enough to bring forth congruent new questions that lead toward wholeness.

Beautiful questions point toward new possibilities hidden in the spaces between the words. Going toward the creative is where healing and strengthening begin. The annual Epiphany Retreat offers guidance in the fruitful discipline of embodied writing, where Stillpoint’s seasoned community supports your intrinsic need for stillness among friends.

“All creativity comes out of an extended encounter with silence.”

— Matthew Fox

Registration

Cost is $58 ($68 with lunch)

Register before December 22 for a $10 discount, automatically reflected in the prices below!

Would you like to purchase a lunch with your registration?

About the Presenter

Rev. Judith Favor is a retired UCC pastor and teacher at the Claremont School of Theology. A veteran spiritual director and writer, she has been a contemplative, seeker, and companion to others for many years.

In Original Light

March 30, 2018 By Judith Favor

Judith Favor Journeys into the Quaker Heartland

As we went I spied a great high hill called Pendle Hill… and when I came atop of it I saw Lancashire sea… and the Lord let me see atop of the hill in what places he had a great people to be gathered.

– George Fox 1652

The job of a Quaker pilgrimage is to re-connect us with eternal truths, lucidly lived.

I was a great-grandmother by the time I found my way to the hall where Quaker faith and practice began. In May 2017, walking through Swarthmoor Hall’s stone entryway, I felt rooted and grounded in Love. I never would have made it there, though, without Connie McPeak Green’s caring guidance and sturdy companionship.

She and I set out to find our Quaker roots with a rental car and a do-it-ourselves itinerary, but navigating Cumbria’s narrow roads frazzled me. I hit a pothole on our first day, got a flat tyre and had to call the AA for roadside assistance. Self-doubt quickly followed.

Manager Jane Pearson welcomed us home to the Hall that day with a gift of immeasurable grace: would we like to walk ‘In Fox’s Footsteps’ with seasoned guides? We would! Connie re-booked our travel plans and we joined Gordon Matthews and Sasha Bosbeer on a ‘1652 Quaker Pilgrimage’.

It was quite the challenge to climb Pendle Hill. Readers who’ve done it know about shale embedded in dirt, uneven steps marching upward at a forty-five degree angle. My old body needed divine assistance. A breath prayer gave strength: ‘Mercy’ as I lifted one boot and hefted it up; ‘Grace’ each time I planted that boot on a higher stone.

The view was worth the effort, a shiny line of North Sea visible in the haze.

After a picnic we settled onto Pendle Hill’s uneven turf for worship. Resident Friend Jan Shimmin sat back-to-back for support. Shared silence on common ground became a ‘sticky’ experience for me, a muscular Quaker glue, bonding strangers into community on the first day of the pilgrimage.

The plaque marking the Sunbrick Quaker burial ground. |
Photo: Yohan euan o4 via Wikimedia Commons

I could not have anticipated the power of Light and Love that emerged as we walked on Firbank Fell, explored Sedbergh and Kendal, gazed at the Quaker Tapestry, saw Marsh Grange, picnicked on the seaside bluff where Margaret Fell grew up, enjoyed a morning with Ben Pink Dandelion at Clitheroe Meeting, shared an evening with Rex Ambler at Swarthmoor Hall, conversed with British Friends in historic Quaker Meeting houses, and gathered in worship at Sunbrick burial ground – ten Friends from three nations atop the unmarked bones of some 200 forbears denied burial in church-owned ‘consecrated ground’.

The job of Quaker practice is to repeatedly lure us toward direct experiences of Light, to remind us how it feels to be one with Love.

I landed in England unsure whether my ‘convinced’ status was enough to qualify me as a true Friend. I brought doubts. I wanted help strengthening my conviction. My heart opened at Swarthmoor Hall. My mind cleared. I can never be a ‘birthright’ Friend, but, then, George Fox and Margaret Fell weren’t either. Original Quakers all started out ‘convinced’. This, for me, was ‘a great opening’.

At Swarthmoor Hall clear light filters through diamond-shaped leaded-glass windows into rooms where Margaret Fell and six daughters planned missionary journeys and corresponded with far-flung Friends. Beams infused with expectant silence sheltered us as we worshipped in The Great Hall. George Fox’s bed and travelling trunk sat just overhead, in an upper room, as did a cradle in which Margaret Fell might have rocked her babies to sleep.

A Swarthmoor interior. | Photo: Les Dunford via Wikimedia Commons.

I’ve come to view the ‘cradle of Quakerism’ as a crucible of light, or maybe a chalice. Transformative spiritual and social changes took shape and continue to shine. Staff and volunteers, resident Friends, event guides and guests all contribute to the energy field of living love at Swarthmoor Hall.

As Gregory Orr put it in his poem ‘Let’s remake the world with words’:

‘…Let’s,
as Wordsworth said,
Remove “the dust of custom” so things
Shine again, each object arrayed
In its robe of original light.’

Following ‘In Fox’s Footsteps’ is a graced way to robe old doubts in original light. And in the end, isn’t that what we ask of a pilgrimage – that it reconnect us with eternal truths, lucidly lived?

See the original article on The Friend magazine website

(note: subscription required for full text)

Lenten Writing

March 4, 2017 By Judith Favor

STILLPOINT PRESENTS

Lenten Writing:

Name: GIFTED and GIFTING in EPIPHANY
Start: 2020-01-04T09:00:00+00:00
End: 2020-01-04T16:00:00+00:00
Location: Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church

Befriending Spiritual Fitness with Rev. Judith Favor

“The spiritually fit person knits back together the separateness of work and play, reunites being and doing, has a spirit place in nature, never eats without thanking somebody and refuses to let all time be the same.”
— Donna Schaper, Sabbath Sense

Saturday, March 4, 2017
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
1221 Wass Street, Tustin, CA 92780

Cost: $48
($58 if you would like a lunch provided)

Register now at stillpointca.org/calendar-event/writing-2017

Stillpoint invites you to gather on the first Saturday after Ash Wednesday to practice spiritual fitness with self, others, God and creation. Gently guided writing exercises open fresh perspectives on past, present and future, helping restore spiritual energies for the work of social change. Spiritually responsive journaling has helped generations of seekers cope with inevitable disruptions; it has guided countless people in learning from failures and challenges.

It is so easy to lose track of what we value. Contemplative writing helps us sit still long enough to see what has been ignored or misplaced; it grounds us as we forge links between interior and social realities; it restores our spiritual direction. Pen in hand, we gather in Sacred Presence with like-hearted souls to listen together for the still, small voice, to behold what we hear and to see new truths flow naturally onto the page. Prayerful writing in the company of others is a powerful way of tending the soul and mending the universe.

Stillpoint • PO Box 94535, Pasadena, California 91109 • StillpointHQ@gmail.com • stillpointca.org

ASKING WRITERS about The Beacons of Larkin Street

January 18, 2017 By Judith Favor

Working Cover Draft for The Beacons
a new novel
by Judith Favor

Reading connects people;
so does writing.

Writing helps clarify ideas,
keep track of details
and discover hidden meanings.

Expressing our truths with love
connects us—physically, mentally,
emotionally and spiritually—
to our readers
and to our deepest selves.

We read to know we are not alone.

C.S.Lewis

The Beacons of Larkin Street is a Nineteen-Seventies historical novel written by a contemplative feminist great-grandmother, an ordained minister who once pastored a church in San Francisco.

Where do you see contemplative perspectives influencing the stories? Feminist perspectives? Grandmotherly points of view? Ministerly perspectives?

Set in San Francisco, twelve aspects of the City structure the novel. What connections do you see between the human characters and the character of San Francisco?

Tales of The Beacons move between the perspectives of seven women. Do you find the author’s omniscient POV to be confusing, credible, clear, challenging or something else?

If Beka were the sole narrator, the reader would get one singular angle on each character. Do you think Beka’s POV would have strengthened the novel? Why or why not?

If she were the sole voice, Rev Ruth would have told the story very differently. Would you prefer her first-person voice? Why or why not?

Which of Rev Ruth’s difficulties as a first-time pastor give you the greatest insight into her character? The most compassion for her?

How about Beka’s efforts to guide things as Saint Lydia’s Head Beacon?

The seven women have different sexual orientations and diverse attitudes about sexuality and spirituality. Did the author convince you that each is justified in her beliefs and practices? Why or why not?

In Dot and Rev Ruth’s conflict over communion, do you think the resolution took too long, or came too fast? How might you have done it?

Who was your favorite character? What about her intrigued you?

Which scene was your favorite? What made it memorable?

At the end, several story lines are left unresolved. Do you wish the author had resolved the characters’ dilemmas?

Do you think Rev Ruth will live or die? Return to guide St. Lydia’s, or go to Cleveland?

What do you think will become of Paige? Dot? Hope and Millienne? Luz?

Are there other subplots you wonder about?

This is the first in a trilogy. Which dilemmas and storylines do you most want resolved in a sequel?

“As It Is: Spiritual Journaling”
(class starting soon!)

July 26, 2016 By Judith Favor

Monday, August 8th – Friday, September 2nd, 2106

www.spiritualityandpractice.com (Sign-up Webpage)

“As it is.”

These three little words embedded in the lines of a prayer taught by Jesus remind us to seek the workings of the divine “on earth as it is in heaven” — that is, to approach our many challenges in union with Sacred Presence. But how? One profound and reassuringly helpful tool to foster this sense of unity is spiritual journaling. Through contemplative writing, we get practice in recognizing and responding to our relationship with God, self, others, nature, work, and society just “as it is.”

Spiritual Journaling opens space to relate to deep questions:

What does this event or this emotion have to say to me?
What can this disappointment teach me about healing?
What does this discovery reveal to me about the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit?
How can my anguish over the suffering of this person or that group stir my love into action?
How can my felt sense of yearning guide me in taking the next best step in this situation?

Whatever spiritual path you are on, this e-course will equip you to explore interior, interpersonal, social, and sacred realities. Holy questions gleaned from scripture, poetry, and literature will offer a variety of perspectives on faith and doubt, action and reflection. In each email sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for four weeks, you will receive:

An introductory reflection on the day’s topic
A tip for getting started with your writing
A special query to spark your thoughts and journal writing
A suggested action and resources for going deeper if you wish
A link to the “Practice Circle” (a community forum open 24/7 to share with others in this e-course and to receive guidance from Judith)

Judith began journaling when she was ten, in a small blue diary with a gold lock and miniature key. She chose a ballpoint pen, because she knew that writing in pencil would let her fudge the truth. In 1974, she began a lifelong love affair with keeping a journal, studying journaling as an art form and not only writing but also inserting soul collages, tree photos, and icons in her journals.

In 1981 she enrolled at Pacific School of Religion and then went on to be pastor of United Church of Christ congregations in San Francisco until the ministries of spiritual formation and writing laid claim to her soul. She now lives with her husband Pete at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, California. Her heart is enriched by her work in spiritual accompaniment, teaching, and contemplative writing.

Judith invites you to freely express your full range of written reactions in this e-course — confused or certain thoughts, positive or negative emotions — because each aspect of the truth of yourself will reveal valuable insights. You may want to follow her journaling prompts exactly; you may also view them as a trampoline and record the bouncing associations that follow. This e-course gives you lots of freedom, most of all the freedom to follow your heart and the arc of your own life’s story.

(4 CEHs for chaplains available.)