Judy Ryde facilitated our second event held in March at the Bath University Chaplaincy Centre.

Following on from the thoughts of our last meeting, based on the article "Street Spirituality" written by Peter Hawkins; the evening was based on "listening to the other as meditation".

We practised active listening skills, such as listening to another person in our group talking for three minutes - without interrupting!

Following this exercise, we talked about how different it was when being asked to be listening intently, yet not speaking or responding by words. We noticed that our body language was encouraging, and supportive.

The speaker had their uninterrupted three minutes. It was noticed how much more difficult it was to continue to speak, without having had a spoken response from the listener. It also made us start speaking, beyond the day-to-day surface level, and within our own words start to explore what we really meant by what we were saying.

As an exercise in our spiritual lives, it was really helpful to explore different ways of listening to other people - to really hear what they had to say. As a part of the ideas started at our first meeting (see below), it was a really valuable skill to explore.

Some of the ideas from our first meeting were:

• how do we attend to the 'more than' in life,
• how do we allow space in our lives?
• Living, as part of the whole - how do we live in this environment?
• What is wisdom?
• Material success always has the seeds of its own destruction.
• Self-serving is always self destroying.

• How do I align myself?
• How do I open to the other?
• How do I create inclusivity and stewardship?
• How do I always ask, what is the greater purpose here? It is about valuing good questions more than good answers and engaging with meaning. Spirituality is about finding meaning beyond one's own material existence
• Being present to the person
• What's the experiment, I'm going to do in my life, to create more and new spiritual spaces?

• to expand on our listening skills
• the nature of the self
• Metaphorical language
• Activities - putting things into practice
• Explore "Street Spirituality"
• Being fully present to the other
• Share at the spiritual moments and experiments
• Relational, taking a small theme and exploring in more depth

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 20, 7 p.m. for 7.30. Starting with tea and biscuits! Venue - University Chaplaincy Centre

Speaker Kay Millard on "Expressing Spirituality in Words". This is an experiential evening, including discussion and practical hearing of the words.

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