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Denise Pyles's avatar

I love your insight about communion, in that it asks us to show up. To be present with others in a sacred act of compassion.

Kevin Thomas's avatar

Being present with others🙏🏼

I see ourselves listening attentively

Denise Pyles's avatar

Love this Kevin. Thank you.

Jeffrey Keefer, PhD's avatar

Thanks for sharing these, Kevin. They are compelling ways to embrace ourselves and, in so doing, others.

Jeffrey Keefer, PhD's avatar

Thanks, Denise. This edge area kept surfacing for me, in part related to previous religious trauma, and I felt it was an area to explore. No better place than at the start of a new year, given that thresholds are such powerful places.

Kevin Thomas's avatar

A sense of continuing to understand who we are WITHOUT making judgements.

A communion of dialogue, so to speak.

Jeffrey Keefer, PhD's avatar

I liked how you framed ""continuing to understand" who we are WITHOUT making judgements." It is so easy to say, let's not judge, but there are so many components to that we can then break down and begin with micro-practices. The "continuing" may be key to this, as we continue to work and deepen into it, with new insights and opportunities to strengthen along the way.

Martha Kirkpatrick's avatar

I love this Jeffrey. As an Episcopal priest something shifted in me when I understood communion as an exchange. You bring that realization into our relationship with the more than human world, a reciprocity of giving and receiving, which is profoundly different from a transaction. I want to carry a principle of reciprocity in my participation with life into the coming year.

Jeffrey Keefer, PhD's avatar

Martha, your words are so kind, vulnerable, and powerful all at once. They are greatly appreciated. To this point, as I continue to deepen into writing as a practice for processing in public, it hearkens back to my early experiences (c. 2010 or so) when I started using Twitter as a venue to process my thinking and learn together with other somewhat early adopters. It has taken me some time to find a new home for this, given how social media itself has developed in ways that many of us thought were not helpful.