We've decide to share the prompts for each week with our blog readers, along with a reflection from student participants. This week's prompt focused on Spirituality and Creative Expression: Prompt: Describe a piece of art, music, dance or other form of creative expression that has helped you connect with the Divine and/or enhanced your spiritual life. This could be a singular work or piece of art, music, etc or a form of creative expression that speaks to you spiritually. After you have identified this piece or form of expression build a personal narrative around it that invites others to learn about you as you talk about it. (Each participant will have about 8 minutes to share your story with the group.) Below are some helpful organizing questions that you may want to use but do not feel obligated to answer them. They are just guides and suggestions. Beginning– How / When / Where did you first encounter this piece or form of expression? How did you come to realize the spiritual significance of this piece or form of expression? Were there circumstances and/or events leading up to this experience that affected the experience? During –What do/did you experience spiritually because of this piece or form of expression? What do/did you experience emotionally because of this? What does role(s) does this play in your life? How frequently do you encounter it (Ie did you see or experience the piece once or is this a piece or form of expression you come back to often or occasionally). How does/did this experience impact your spiritual life? Afterwards– How has your relationship with this piece or art or art form evolved over time? How does that manifest in your life? Why do you think these changes have happened? How do these changes relate to your spiritual life? From student participant Caity Wallace, '15: a piece of creative expression which has impacted my spiritual experience is the song, "Come to the Labryinth" by SJ Tucker. You can listen to it on her website http://music.sjtucker.com/track/come-to-the-labyrinth. Add Comment New Format for Spring 2012 03/14/2012
After a wonderful first term, we've learned a few things about the Journey Conversations model here at Drexel and we're excited to offer a new format for Spring 2012. First, we won't be requiring participants to commit to coming to every small group meeting! Second, we'll be sponsoring weekly gatherings, open to the entire community, each focusing on a different topic. Journey Conversations will remain a space of contemplative listening and sharing, but will be far more open and our weekly topics will be more specific. We will again offer an opening Retreat for students, faculty and staff to learn more about the contemplative practice at the heart of Journey Conversations. Weekly Session Topics for the Spring will likely include: Sprituality and Science Experiencing the Divine in the Natural World Spirituality and our Bodies Suffering and Spirituality Spirituality in personal relationships Spirituality and Justice Spirituality and Music God Image and God Concept Looking forward to seeing you at our retreat April 15th and weekly meetings starting April 18th, 7pm at the JEMIC, 2nd Floor! 15 students, faculty and staff members participated in our opening retreat January 16th with Journey Conversations founder Diane Millis. It was truly an inspirational event. The retreat taught participants about the power of personal story-telling as a way of discerning and sharing what is important to us in the world. We also learned the art of compassionate questioning - asking questions that are open-ended that invite others to reflect deeply, questions motivated by our desire to help the other find new ways to listen within themselves and learn more about their own stories, hopes, fears, and visions of the future. Following up on the retreat, those participants who will stay on for small groups will use this frame work of telling the stories of our personal spiritual journeys and receiving compassionate questions from the group to further our conversations. Our hope is that this framework will teach each individual participant something new about their own sacred journey, and build bridges between participants and across religious, cultural and ethnic difference. Stay tuned for updates from our small groups! Thanks to everyone who joined us for our first information session! We are so excited to be launching Journey Conversations this winter. We're posting the handouts from the information sessions here in case folks need extra copies, want to share them with friends, or would like to bring them to the next meeting of your student org or department. Remember that the APPLICATION IS NOW LIVE and you can apply just for the retreat or for the full experience! JOURNEY CONVERSATION INFORMATION SESSION HANDOUTS: 
Welcome to Journey Conversations at Drexel! 11/10/2011
Drexel's Interfaith Council is very excited about a new program aimed at deepening and expanding spiritual/religious life on campus. The Drexel Journey Conversations is an approach to building interfaith relationships through facilitated small groups that engage in shared sacred readings, individual storytelling, deep listening, compassionate responding and collective reflection. We are using a national model called, Journey Conversations, which you can learn more about at their own website. If you're wondering whether Journey Conversations might be for you, consider these questions: Do you... have questions, doubts and struggles with matters of faith and religion? want time and space to explore your experiences of faith, religious identity and spirituality? struggle to understand, relate to and talk to people whose faith background differs from your own? Want help with this? want to have more time for silence, reflection and spiritual practice? hope to listen and support people exploring faith and receive that support yourself? If you answered "yes" to one or more of these questions, please consider becoming part of Drexel's new Journey Conversations program, which will run during Winter Term 2012. In addition to the website above, you can get more information by coming to one of our information sessions, which will be held Nov 15 12-1:30 pm and Nov. 17th 6-7:30 pm at the James E. Marks Intercultural Center. Food will be provided at both gatherings, and they will be structured so that you can drop in at any point and get information. If you have further questions or know that you want to be part of this experience, please let me know. You can also direct any questions you have to Pastor Amy Emmett-Rardin of Asbury Ministry (abe28@drexel.edu) or Rabbi Isabel DeKoninck of Hillel at Drexel (idekoninck@phillyhillel.org). | ArchivesMay 2012 Categories
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