Friday, March 5th
Topic for the Day: Everybody Is A Story
facilitated by Cyndi Philkill Doty
"Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each others' stories once again.
The stories we can tell each other have no beginning and ending. They are a front row seat the the real experience.
Real stories take time. We stopped telling stories when we started to lose that sort of time, pausing time, reflecting time, wondering time. Life rushes us along and few people are strong enough to stop on their own. Most often, something unforeseen stops us and it is only then we have the time to take a seat at life's kitchen table. To know our own story and tell it. To listen to other people's stories. To remember that the real world is made of such stories.
Because we have stopped listening to each other we may even have forgotten how to listen, stopped learning how to recognize meaning and fill ourselves from the ordinary events of our lives.
Hidden in all stories is the One story. The more we listen, the clearer that Story becomes. Our true identity, who we are, why we are here, what sustains us, is in this story. The stories at every kitchen table are about the same things, stories of owning, having and losing, stories of sex, of power, of pain, of wounding, of courage, hope and healing, of loneliness and the end of loneliness. Stories about God.
In telling them, we are telling each other the human story. Stories that touch us in this place of common humanness awaken us and weave us together as a family once again.
Sometimes when I ask people to tell me their story they tell me about their achievements, what they have acquired or built over a lifetime. So many of us do not know our own story. A story about who we are, not what we have done. About what we have faced to build what we have built, what we have drawn upon and risked to do it, what we have felt, thought, feared, and discovered through the events of our lives. The real story that belongs to us alone."
This month Souly for You will offer you an opportunity to listen for your own stories, learn how to listen to others' stories, and to share a story of your own.
Time: 9:00 am to 2:00 pm
Location is the home of:
Cathy McWilliams
25601 Centennial Trail
Golden, CO 80401
Schedule of Events:
9:00 to 9:30 - Greet Over Treats
9:30 to 11:45 - Teaching, Discussion, Activities & Personal Reflection
11:45 to 12:30 - Lunch
12:30 to 1:45 - Group Sharing & Discussion
1:45 to 2:00 - Closing Circle
Cost: $30 per person (partial scholarships available)
Suggested Items to bring:
slippers
journal
favorite writing pens or pencil
Please wear comfortable clothing
To Make a Reservation for Souly For You:
Please send an email to the address below stating you would like to attend along with your name, phone number and email. We will send you a map and detailed directions when you register.
Directions:
Take I-70 West to exit 254 (Buffalo Overlook). Turn right onto Mt. Vernon Country Club Drive and continue past an elementary school on your right. You will see two large stone pillars ahead. Drive through the pillars and continue on the road which curves to the east.
You will go down a hill to a round about. Go 3/4 of the way around the round about and continue on a dirt road up a hill. You will see a mailbox on your right with the house number 25601 at the intersection of Kathy's driveway and a road to the right.
Kathy's house has a graveled and fenced parking lot that you will see at this point. Usually someone from Souly For You will be out at the round about at 8:45 a.m. to point you in the right direction.
