GA 2002 CLF Workshop

Betsy Williams
We are back from General Assembly in Quebec. We had a very productive time and would like to fill you in on CLF's events.

Our first event was the workshop I led called "Between Sundays: Spiritual Self-Care for All Ages." We had wonderful testimonials from CLFers: Ruth Gibson, a life-long UU who is currently an MRE in Denver talked about how CLF provides a church home for her while working as a religious professional. As a music lover, one of her spiritual practices is to let a favorite song/hymn enter her mind each day and stay there--like those annoying advertising jingles can--turning a predisposition of hers into an intentional meaningful practice. I realized I sometimes do this, too, with favorite hymns and it is very calming and connecting. Ann Woldt, from Wacoma WI, talked about using the CLF library, the CLF list, and online community in general. She was great. Cheryl Wallace, another CLFer who is a religious educator, spoke about learning about UUism through association with us and presented Eknath Easwaran's Eight Point Program to Spiritual Living which she follows. Check out the website www.nilgiri.org for books and information about this program. Two books by Easwaran are Meditation and Seeing With the Eyes of Love. Then I read the comments that were submitted by Kathleen Stidman and Lynn Douglas about "doing RE" at home.

The panel presentations were followed by some discussion from the audience and then I presented the new website "Between Sundays" which officially went "live" July 1, 2002. As I said to the audience, I don't know if I was more proud of the website or the fact that I'd figured out how to show it on a screen behind me! It was fun and very well received. I just know this is going to be a useful tool for families and religious educators who work in small, isolated communities.