Topic: The Table Zoom Meeting

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NOTE: The original blurb sent out earlier on Friday follows below.

We tried…and we’ll try again.

Hey folks-this week as I was preparing, I had the interesting experience of starting out feeling as though I knew where I was headed and ending up somewhere else. I had an idea about fear that I was augering into, but it just wouldn’t “work”. I’m not sure I know how to describe that part of the process, but I know how it feels. In any case, what happened is that it morphed into a deeper exploration of hope instead. Hope feels like an increasingly rare commodity these days, for all sorts of readily discernible reasons. But it’s really too simple to just say “well, hope is either something you have or something you don’t”. There’s lots of different ideas about what it is, how it works or doesn’t work, what it might produce…just lots to explore. So this Sunday in the Talky Bit, that’s what we’ll be diving into.

Other important items:

Finances – first of all, thanks to everyone that helps to keep The Table operating month by month. I really don’t have good enough words for how grateful I am. That said, the details are important and somewhat pressing. Following is an update from Justin Schinkel, the Finance person on our Leadership Team:

The Table started off the year in a good position.  Through Covid and summer we have gone through our savings and have a year to date negative cash flow of over $7,200. All things considered this is really good with Covid and only meeting remotely. However, we are struggling to pay our expenses.  If giving is part of how you participate in sustaining this community we would very much appreciate it.

Kids Table – The Kids Table team is currently working on some ideas about what might help to keep our young ones feeling connected to their pals at The Table, as well as continuing their own explorations of what they believe. (And if you don’t think kids can explore belief, just ask them about what they believe some time…and hold on for the ride!) More info in the coming weeks on this one, but some of the ideas that were shared at our Leadership Team meetings last week were really interesting! I’m excited for what is in the works.

In Person Gatherings – At this point in the tentative opening of things like group gatherings, there doesn’t appear to be a viable, affordable (we would need a very large space for even a relatively small group of people), safe way forward. That day will come. However, in the meantime we really want to have some way to see one another, so we’re working on a way to offer monthly (or some similar rhythm) opportunities to do something together outdoors on a Sunday afternoon. I hope to let you know in the blurb next week about the first of those initiatives. The general idea is that they will be things we can do that would help us to practice good physical distancing, take advantage of the health benefits of being outside, and still see one another in person. Think going for a walk in one of our beautiful parks, or skating in the winter, etc. More to follow.

We’ll meet on Sunday at 10:45 a.m. on our Facebook Group for some music and Community Time, followed by the Talky Bit. As always, the podcast version will be posted later in the week, for those that don’t use Facebook or who prefer that version.

I keep hearing stories from people who really like being able to go to The Table in their jammies, without getting out of bed. It’s a good thing this isn’t a Zoom meeting. I’ll connect with you (but not see you) on Sunday.

Peace,

Hey folks…in a pre-Covid world, this would typically be the weekend we would be gearing up at Creative to offer the full slate of what we dialed down for the summer. Kids Table would be back in action, the chairs would be in a perfect semi-circle, the Timbits box would be ready for grasping Little fingers, coffee would be on. I think it’s important to mark these things, even if we might not be enacting them in typical ways, because it both reminds of something good in the past, and signifies that what we have in terms of both shared history and shared present is good. Paying attention to the past helps ground us as a community, and as individuals within that community. That is always important, but never more so than when the world feels like it’s in a constant state of change and upheaval. So take a moment to remember Septembers past, and to be grateful for all the ways we can be in touch with one another under the present circumstances.

As you may have gathered from all the above, we’ll be meeting online this Sunday and for the foreseeable future. What I can tell you with confidence is that we don’t know how things will unfold in the next few months, but we would love to augment our virtual gatherings with some real-life ones. As always, I’ll let you know if we have plans to do that. Meanwhile, let’s meet at 10:45 a.m. at our Facebook page for some music and Community Time, followed by a Talky Bit, in which I will be exploring a possible entry point for getting unstuck when we’re faced with large scale dilemmas (like global pandemics, for instance, or re-opening schools). And a reminder that if Facebook isn’t your deal, we will put up a podcast of the Talky Bit the following week.

I’ll see you on Sunday. I’m looking forward to it.

Peace,

I remember the first time I heard someone use the phrase “Perception is reality”. The setting was a grad school classroom; the speaker was a professional therapist that was a guest lecturer. Something inside of me rebelled. What about “objective truth”? What about “facts”? If perception is reality, the world just became an utterly subjective place that I’m not sure I want to be in.

The speaker went on to elaborate a bit, making it clear that the point was that the way we experience the world is what we have to work with when it comes to meaning making. Our perception, including our perception of things we may think of as immutable, is the reality we’re working with in our lived experience. I feel like I’ve been chewing on that ever since. One of the ways that idea now informs my view of life is by encouraging me to expand what I perceive – working to make the space from which I view and experience the world as large and generous as I’m able. That’s the idea we’ll be exploring in the Talky Bit this Sunday.

We’ll gather online for livestreamed music and Community Time at 10:45 a.m., and then into the Talky Bit. After having some of the Little’s (and the less-Littles as well) running around our yard during our IRL gathering two weeks ago, the ache in my spirit of not seeing people face to face feels fresh and acute. It also reminds me to be thankful for what we have, and I look forward to being with you online on Sunday.

Peace to you all,

Tim Plett

Hey folks – it was lovely to see some of you in person this past Sunday! I’m glad we were able to do that. I also know that made it harder to hear and see what was going on if you were joining online, and as much as I lament the return to virtual, I also expect those aspects to improve.

As I was moving our equipment out of Creative Manitoba this past week (they rented out the room where our stuff was stored), I ended up having an interesting conversation with the gentleman who sort of lives in one of those small offices. He’s been alone on that floor for about three months, and although he had clearly enjoyed some aspects of that (he felt very safe, for instance), he noted that he had really missed the sound of the kids running around and playing on Sunday mornings. I’ve thought of him quite often since we have had to move out of Creative, and imagined that he must be really enjoying his quiet Sunday mornings. Turns out he’s not the only one that misses the Littles.

Note: this is a longer than usual blurb, but I would encourage you to read it all the way through. In defiance of standard online writing conventions, the best part is not in paragraph one.

OK – “What Stretched Your Neck Today” is a strange subject line. And I don’t want to say too much about it because I want to use it in the Talky Bit. I am willing to say that I’m not using it in the “wild west colloquial” sense of “being hanged by the neck”. How about this…let’s have a contest. The first person who can tell me what ancient Greek word might include the idea of “stretching your neck to see” as one of it’s less common definitions will win free Timbits – to be collected when we start regathering at Creative Manitoba again. I feel great about that idea.

Hey folks – if you caught last week’s Talky Bit then you already know that I have been planning to offer a bit of “readers theatre” this Sunday. When I made that commitment, the idea only existed in my head. Since then, it’s emerged and it’s ready to go…well, it’s as ready to go as I can make it in a week. So the good news (I think) is that the Talky Bit won’t be some strange avante garde piece that is 30 minutes of silence. Further good news is that Tim Penner has agreed to read one of the parts, so you won’t have to put up with me changing hats / voices to indicate which character is speaking. (Did I actually consider that idea? Yes, I did. I’m sorry.)

Hello Everyone,

Tim Plett and his family are away on vacation for the next few weeks and so some of us from the community will be taking over the talkie bits while he’s gone. You can look forward to hearing from both Arielle and Judi in the upcoming weeks, and yours truly this Sunday.

Since buying a house about a year and half ago, I’ve become (somewhat reluctantly) a person who takes care of a yard. I won’t call myself a gardener, that honorific would be an exaggeration. Over the course of this spring and summer, a particularly pesky patch of grass has become somewhat of an obsession, and the time I’ve spent outside tending to it has resulted in my reconsideration of Jesus’ parable of the sower, and the harsh way I was taught to understand it in my youth. So this week we’re going to deconstruct that story and put it back together, with some help from Ernest Hemingway, as a way of thinking about how the parable can inform our understanding of privilege, in whatever way we experience it, and how we use it or abuse it to the betterment or detriment of those with whom we share the world.

The aspiring college professor in my wants to assign reading for this week, but instead I will simply recommend that if you have not read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and you’re worried about having the ending spoiled (can you really call it spoiling when a book is seventy years old?), give the book a quick read before Sunday. It’s only a hundred pages long, and is widely available in bookstores, libraries, and other electronic formats. Again, not a requirement.

If you’re still feeling intrigued, join us here, in the Facebook group, on Sunday morning at 10:45.

-Tim (Penner)