Month: February 2011

An evening of eating, reading, listening, discussing(?), laughing, praying, etc.
with the GCF community

Thursday, February 24, 2011
Chaplain’s office, Wycliffe College (basement)

6:00 – Dinner
7:00 (or so) – Something After Dinner – discussion, etc.
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Dear friends,
In order to ensure that some reading actually does get done this week, we’ve decided to devote our Thursday evening to sharing some readings with each other. We’ve occasionally read aloud at GCF – Biblical books (esp. New Testament epistles), letters from former GCFers, even children’s stories – and always it’s been a worthwhile and enjoyable experience. The difference this time is that we’re inviting you to contribute to the selection. We’re open to (even hoping for) a variety of genres: short stories, poetry, plays, excerpts from longer books, children’s stories/literature, something you have written, or even a story wish to tell.

If you have something you’d like to share with the group, please let either Sara or me know what it is, and roughly how long it will take, so we can gauge how much will fit in the time we have available. Some readings may invite further discussion, or you may prefer that we just listen and don’t discuss. You can also decide whether the reading will be improved if others have the text, or whether the hearing is most important (e.g. I personally prefer to hear plays/drama, and see poetry). And our sense of what’s “appropriate” for this community covers a wide range from serious to funny, thought-provoking to whimsical, sublime or down-to-earth.

Dinner will be potluck, so our eating will be another form of sharing.

And while we’re on the theme of listening, it turns out the conversations that were recorded last Thursday during dinner by Tina from CBC’s Tapestry program didn’t actually make it onto the air on Sunday. Apparently the interviews that made up the bulk of the program went longer than anticipated, but she was “really happy” with the comments she received from people at GCF. “The folks I spoke with were generous and thoughtful with their ideas. … Please pass along my thanks to the group.” They’re considering a future episode specifically on singleness, in which case some of the recorded material may yet appear on air.

If you’re able to join us this Thursday for a relaxing and enjoyable evening together, I look forward to seeing you there. Please feel free to bring a friend (or 2) along with you. And if you’re busy or travelling out of town, I wish you a blessed and fruitful reading week.

Shalom,
Geoff

An evening of eating, discussing, laughing, discerning, praying, etc.
with the GCF community

Thursday, February 17, 2011
Chaplain’s office, Wycliffe College (basement)

6:00 – Dinner
7:00 (or so) – Something After Dinner – discussion, etc.
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Dear friends,
This week we will continue the conversation about singleness that we started last week. We’ll reflect together on what we heard from that discussion, and perhaps review some of the important themes that were highlighted by the four remarkably open and insightful reflections that opened the evening. Then we’ve invited Shannon Blake to share some of her thoughts, not only about her own experience of singleness, but also about some larger themes around the topic and some observations about how we might engage it in hopeful ways within the GCF community. We’ve specifically asked Shannon to consider how being part of the Sanctuary community ( http://sanctuarytoronto.ca/) has shaped her thinking about the ways we accept and support each other and ourselves.

We’ll also consider some biblical texts that can help inform our perspectives. In all of this, including our engagement with scripture, we want to wrestle with the task of finding balance amidst some of the tensions we named several times last week

between affirming and embracing who we are now
and longing for the person we would like
(or that we believe God has called us)
to become
between celebrating
grieving
and hoping
between our understanding of God and God’s work in the world
and what we see in our own and others’ lives
between the “desires of our hearts”
what we pray for and long for
and what actually happens

Please join us Thursday for dinner and the next part of this important discussion. And if you know of anyone else who needs to be part of this, please bring them along.

Shalom,
Geoff

An evening of eating, discussing, laughing, discerning, praying, etc.
with the GCF community

Thursday, February 10, 2011
Chaplain’s office, Wycliffe College (basement)

6:00 – Dinner
7:00 (or so) – Something After Dinner – discussion, etc.
====================================

Dear friends,
Our society, popular culture, churches and families have plenty to say about coupling up. Even the university is in on the action, complete with a concert and published research (see The Bulletin‘s Feb 8 Valentine’s Day issue). With or without either marriage, sexual activity or clear answers (and the many possible combinations of these), romantic relationships in their many forms are pretty thoroughly discussed in a variety of contexts.

Singleness, by contrast, seems to be something of an un-topic. It is seldom addressed as a discussion of its own, and when it is, it’s typically understood in terms of what it’s not: singleness defined by the absence of romantic relationship, as in “Why isn’t a nice young woman/man like you married by now?” It’s especially surprising given that a growing number of North American adults are single, whether waiting longer before getting married, being single again after a divorce, or simply remaining single.

I must admit that our campus ministry hasn’t been all that different. Although characteristically comprised mostly of single young adults, we have not had an intentional discussion specifically about this topic as long as I’ve been involved here. So starting this week we’re aiming to address that gap with at least a couple GCF Thursday evenings.

This week we’ll try to open up the topic in a broad way, exploring some of our own experiences, the many facets and nuances of the theme, and the diverse – often contradictory – messages that we get from our families, churches and culture. Next week we’ll look more deeply at what the Bible has to say that can be helpful in guiding our thoughts, actions and relationships.

It’s worth acknowledging at the outset that this is complex topic fraught with all manner of dilemmas and potential tensions. We come from so many different places: female and male, in a “relationship” or not, married or unmarried or divorced, sexually active or not, entering or leaving relationships, content or dissatisfied with our situation, with emotions anywhere from ecstatic to profoundly miserable, feeling like we’re part of the GCF community or on the periphery, coming from God-only-knows how many different theological positions or sexual orientations, having thought deeply about these matters or coming to them for the first time. More often than not, as Facebook states so succinctly, “it’s complicated.”

Despite all that, or more accurately, because of that very complexity, we believe it’s important to have this conversation at GCF, so we’re prepared to accept the risks. Our hope is that, in the context of a diverse, caring and insightful Christian community, guided by the Spirit, scripture and compassion, we can explore the too-long-neglected theme of singleness in ways that can be both life-giving and redemptive.

If that sounds like something you want to be a part of, then please join us for dinner and discussion this Thursday. And if you know of anyone else who needs to be part of this conversation, please bring them along.

Shalom,
Geoff