Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Please join us for Engaged Spirituality on Sunday January 31 from 10:30 AM – Noon on Zoom as we discuss Chapter 1: "Commitment" of Disciplines of the Spirit by Howard Thurman. Here is an outline for that discussion:
A. (The goal of every living thing is to seek, to find, and to secure whatever is needed to live, to continue its life and to grow its potential) This is the Fundamental Trait of Life.
B. Commitment means to yield one’s inner assent of the nerve center of one’s consent, deep at the frontal part of oneself and self-consciously place one’s life, dreams, aspirations, hopes at the disposal of an end, a purpose, an ideal, or a cause, that is increasingly more significant than whether the individual lives or dies.
C. (Commitment itself opens access to the resources of the fundamental trait of life, so that if one deliberately yields consent at the nerve center of one’s life to a single end, i.e. one makes a commitment, one creates free and easy access to the resources needed for that commitment to live and to grow its potential.)
D. When one who has an evil heart gives the nerve center of one’s consent to an evil enterprise, that person (also) receives energy and strength.
E. When one yields one’s inner assent of the nerve center of one’s consent, deep at the frontal part of oneself and self-consciously (gives) one’s life, dreams, aspirations, hopes to God or to any other being, object, cause, purpose which seems to be God in manifest, then the vast creative Spirit of the Living God will course through one at the point of one’s commitment.
F. (What is involved in the yielding the nerve center of one’s consent to God?)
G. It is a life long journey to yield the nerve center of one’s consent and make a commitment to God.
H. Different Commitment/Conversion Experiences
I. Who is making the commitment?
J. What do you want? - Really? The reply is dependent on the answer to who one is and to what one is committed.
K. How do you propose to get what you want?
L. Spiritual problems Inherent in the experience of commitment
M. Conclusion
I have attached notes on “Commitment” that combine the text from the book as well as Thurman’s recordings on “Commitment” from Boston University’s Howard Thurman Listening Room and Emory University’s Howard Thurman’s Archives.
A thought to ponder for this meeting: What is your lifelong commitment?
Take care,
Eileen
Join Zoom Meeting at 10:30 AM
Meeting ID: 879 9397 9293 Passcode: 397874 One tap mobile
+13017158592,,87993979293#,,,,*397874# US (Washington DC)
+13126266799,,87993979293#,,,,*397874# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 879 9397 9293
Passcode: 397874
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/k4BDPobbd