Hey Folks…this Sunday is Christmas at The Table!First things first – our gathering this Sunday will be in the evening. There will be no morning gathering! And now the details:

Our Christmas gathering will start with a meal at 6:00 PM. It’s a “potluck plus” – The Table (with generous assistance from Ray and some down-home cooking) will provide a couple of hams and a roasted turkey, plus some perogies. (My spell checker doesn’t know “perogies”. Is that spelled correctly?) The rest of what we eat will be whatever folks bring. And by the way…if you want to come but can’t bring anything, just show up anyway. There’ll be enough food. Really…

We’ll follow the meal with a program at 7:00 PM. This year we’ll be sharing “The Gifts We Bring”. I suppose you could say that our gathering will be another sort of potluck; we’ll share what people bring. It won’t be on-the-spot spontaneous, and it won’t be open mic, so don’t be concerned that you might suddenly be recruited to participate, other than being invited to sing along on some carols. We’ve got some pretty wonderful offerings cued up, including the Kids Table singing a song they wrote (!), which promises to be utterly unique.   

Hi All,

We’re back at Creative Manitoba this week, 4th floor of 245 McDermot Ave.

Tim Plett is away, so we’re watching a movie!

That’s right, this week we’re going to take part in one of my favourite holiday traditions: (over?)analyzing TV Christmas Specials made for children, by watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. Despite being over fifty years old, the perennial classic has a lot to say about the commercialisation of Christmas, the struggle with not feeling the way you’re “supposed to feel” at Christmas, and offers a beautiful image of the idea of Christ as embodied in the nativity story; plus that Vince Guaraldi score! We’ll share the movie time with the kids and there will be POPCORN for everybody!

Also, Creative Manitoba is collecting non-perishable food items for Winnipeg Harvest. There are bins in the “common area” of the floor we meet on, so feel free to bring along any suitable food items you may wish to share with those in need and leave it in the bin. The good people of Creative Manitoba will make sure it gets where it needs to go.

Hope to see you all this weekend!

I’ve been reflecting a bit lately on how “story shapes” often seem to have aspects in common, even across cultures and over long periods of time. I believe that saying “It’s all the same story” is an idea that comes with all kinds of problems, not the least of which is painting other peoples stories with our own brush – layering our biases onto other narratives. However, I also believe that we have enough in common as humans to use story shapes as a useful way of examining the narratives that matter to us personally. Our own stories, our own history if you will, are often near the top of that list. And often as not, our spiritual stories are a very important part of our personal narrative. These stories often work together to provide a lens through which we view the world; a story that we reference to try to make sense or meaning of what we are experiencing.

This Sunday morning we’re going to consider one relatively well known story shape and then use that shape to open a dialogue about our own stories. As is always the case at The Table, no one will be compelled to share anything, but the opportunity to do so will be part of our time time together. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

We’ll be gathering at Creative Manitoba, and the Kids Table crew will be back in their usual space.

A couple of “community calendar” reminders as well:

Sunday, December 2nd we’ll be gathering at the University of Winnipeg (in the castle). It’ll be like old times…

Sunday, December 23rd we won’t have a morning gathering because we’ll be gathering at Creative Manitoba in the evening for a potluck and Christmas celebration. Whoop! Put a party emoji in your phone and plan to be there.

I’ll see you on Sunday.

Peace,

Hey folks – we will be meeting at Creative Manitoba again this week, and NOT sharing the space which means among other things that the Kids Table gang will be back in the room they usually occupy. Next week will be a “shared space” week again, but as far as we know that should be the only such occasion in this calendar year. A big shout out to everyone that was there last Sunday for your respectful contributions to helping both groups (ours and the Indigenous Artmakers seminar participants) have a positive experience. Arlea (the seminar leader) gave me very positive feedback about how it all felt, for which I’m grateful.

Talky Bit – this week we’ll be starting a bit more in-depth exploration of the “myth of redemptive violence”. What are some of the roots of violence, can any of us claim to be free of them, and how can we begin to consider not just alternative ways of dealing with conflict but actually start to entertain the vision of a completely different world in which violence is not “necessary”? We’ll encounter more questions than answers, I expect, as is the case with any complex and deeply embedded issue. As long as we don’t come to blows about it…:)

I’ll see you on Sunday.

Peace,

Hey everyone. We’re at Creative Manitoba – 245 McDermot Avenue, fourth floor. I also want to provide a “heads up” about the fact that we’ll be sharing that floor with another group this Sunday. In general terms, it’s important for all of us to understand that the other workshop taking place will be an Indigenous one, so the Sacred Circle will be off-limits for the morning as there will be a smudge taking place in that space around 10:00 a.m.

Parents…do take the time to prep your kids on this one. This is a week where we need to dial down the generally “free range” ethos of the shared spaces. It’s a way we can both show respect and cooperate with the much larger project of reconciliation in a very “hands on”, embodied manner. As caring humans, this is our work to do. All of us, not just the parents in our midst.

Kids Table – will still be on the fourth floor, but in a different space. We’ve been told that will be the room adjacent to the large classroom where we usually gather with the adults (and where we will still be gathering), but come prepared to practice some flexibility in this regard.

Talky Bit – Ideas are nice and all (I rather like them!), but if we don’t apply them in to real life they aren’t necessarily helpful. This week, I’m going to attempt to help us get our imaginations in gear about how to plug “third way” thinking into our everyday lives. We will, of course, be helped along the way by some ideas. I mean really…life without big ideas?! Come on…

I’ll see you on Sunday.

Peace,

Tim Plett

Well, not exactly. But still – we’ll be gathering in a turret (an interesting but no longer practically shaped room) and talking about sorta mysterious things, so that must count for something!  This week we’ll be meeting at the University of Winnipeg Club Room. It’s located on the 4th floor of Wesley Hall. That’s the castle-ish building that faces Portage Avenue on the main U of W campus (515 Portage Avenue).

Details about finding our gathering:  Enter the building by the main front doors (right in the middle of the front of the building, on the Portage Avenue side). There is a red and white campus sign on the grounds to the left of the doors that says “Wesley Hall”. Once inside, go straight ahead up the first short set of stairs, and take the wide curving hallway to your right. Once you go around the curve, you will see the elevator in an alcove on your right. Take the elevator to the fourth floor, exit to your left, and you’ll be in the Club. Whew!

Hey everyone – this week we’re (still) at Creative Manitoba. In fact, that’s where we’re gathering every week for the rest of this calendar year, with the noteworthy exception of next week, when we’ll be at the U of W. More details on that in next week’s blurb. The address is 245 McDermot Avenue, fourth floor. We will have signs out marking the entrance for both the elevator and the stairs.

Our gathering this week will mark our second consecutive Parent / Child dedication. That means, among other things, that we’ll have a house filled with guests. From my perspective, that is exciting and delightful. I like The Table, and I’m proud to be part of this exploratory community, which means I’m also pleased when we can welcome folks that aren’t usually there and do whatever we can to provide them with a positive experience. That might include being gracious about some very ordinary things like finding parking or waiting for the (not) hyper-speedy elevator.

In this particular instance, it also means there will be a few more littles around. In other words, lots of action! So if you’re an adult that knows your way around, keep an eye out for those that don’t, especially the youngsters.

As part of this gathering we’ll also have a chance to hang out and share something to eat. Not a typical “Souper Sundaypotluck”, but a celebration graciously hosted by Arryn, Seema and their family as an extension of the Parent/Child Dedication. Whoop!

Kids Table will be on. Oh, will they be on…:)

The Talky Bit…well, the obvious focus will be on the Dedication. By way of setting that up, I want to muse a bit about the ways in which children can be in charge of showing us the way to peace. Yep…children and peace. Does that sound a bit unlikely to you? Me too…we’ll see how it goes.