Keeping in Touch: Circles of Women
In the religion papers the UB suggests we develop “habits which favor religious growth.” UB 100:1.8 And then it lists them. Circles of Women is the perfect place to practice the first five of these habits… and probably the other three too!
Here are the first five habits:
- Cultivated sensitivity to divine values
- Recognition of religious living in others
- Reflective meditation on cosmic meanings
- Worshipful problem solving
- Sharing our spiritual lives with each other
Wouldn’t it be great to have a group of women who meet regularly to share their spiritual lives, focus on values, solve problems together, and support each other? We urge you to form small groups of women who get together in person, by phone, or on the internet. In earlier days many of us yearned to see our Urantia sisters more often than the occasional conference. Well, now we can do it! We may not live close enough to be with each other in person often enough, but we have free conference call, Skype, and Zoom. Let’s get together to support each other and grow together. Here are three different kinds of Circles that you can set up: Spiritual Companions, a Circles of Women, and Mother’s Working Teams.
Spiritual Companions:
Two or three women can get together on free conference call to share, support, and pray. Sharon and Kaye have been Spiritual Companions by phone and in person for years. When Mary joined them to work on this retreat, the conference call worked great for the three of them.
Find one or two other women to be your spiritual companions. If the group is larger, you might want to move to Skype or Zoom because it’s easier to tell who’s talking when you have video. And then it becomes a Circle of Women—and perhaps a little less intimate.
Circles of Women
Invite a small group of women to join a circle. Set up a regular meeting as often as the group desires. Meet in person, by phone, or Zoom (or Skype). Someone needs consistently to be responsible for the scheduling and sending out notices of meetings. Someone needs to see that the topic/question for each meeting is chosen. Someone needs to conduct the meeting. These responsibilities can be shared or focused in one person, but the group won’t likely survive without them.
Purposes of Circles of Women:
1. Support, sharing, prayer. Practice Our Way.
2. Learn about our Mother, and grow a relationship with her.
3. Explore ways to be spirit-led. (See helpful techniques in Adventures in Spiritual Living Manual and Joyful Living techniques. These will be sent to
you as attachments to emails sometime in the next few weeks.)
4. When something works for you—activities or discussion/sharing topics—describe the activity and report on how well it worked to Our Mother Spirit of Nebadon Facebook page. (Information on how to join this secret Facebook page at the end of this document.)
5. Decide what you want to focus on: discussion and sharing topics, spiritual enrichment activities, service projects, or you may want to become a working team in Mothers Workforce.
Mother’s Working Teams:
A working team is a small group that takes on some part of Mother’s work.
- Susan Cook is making a video to raise awareness about sexual exploitation and trafficking of children taking place in the US—right under our noses.
- Kaye is creating a program to teach parents (and other significant adults) how to raise their children with strong, worthwhile values. It is called Parenting4Values and will be available free.
- Sharon is heading up a Pre-conference Spiritual Retreat for IC17, focusing on men and women getting acquainted with our Mother Spirit and working cooperatively for her.
- Mary, Sharon and Kaye will be working to create materials on Our Mother Spirit, Circles of Women, Feminine Leadership, and Higher Ways to cooperate.
Such projects need help. People to work in them. People to provide resources, etc. If you are interested in helping on some of these projects, please let us know. You may develop your own project to help Mother minister in this world (to help our brothers and sisters to join the great adventure of finding God.)
Purposes of a Working Team for Mom:
1. Support, sharing, prayer. Practice Our Way.
2. Find ways to serve Mom.
3. Choose a project to work on together independently or one that connects with other teams’ projects.
Reflective Listening
One of the processes which can be used in any of the groups described is “Reflective Listening.” Practicing this form of listening occasionally is very useful to train ourselves to slow down and listen attentively to others. Here is a description of Reflective Listening:
1. Each person gets a turn to share on the topic or question.
2. As she shares, the group listens attentively with love for her.
3. When she finishes, one person in the group will reflect back. The reflector will state briefly in her own words, “What I heard you say…”).
4. The speaker can explain further anything she thinks needs clarification This process helps the speaker to understood better her own thinking..
5. Others can ask clarifying questions as well, so there is some discussion.
This process is an opportunity to listen deeply and calmly to each other so that we fully hear and understand. You will enjoy both listening and reflecting, as well as benefits of clarity and understanding that flows from the process.
Experience is so much better than instructions: If you would like to participate in a small group demonstration of Reflective Listening on Zoom, please let us know. We would be happy to set up a time when you can experience the Reflective Listening is an example of one of many techniques that could be used in a Circle of Women. Start a circle or join and participate actively in one—you won’t regret it! (As we develop the material, we will send you more information by email about Circles of Women.)
Opportunities to Stay in Touch
- Our Mother Spirit of Nebadon Facebook Page
Purposes of the site:
1. To learn information about Mom,
2. To support each other in our relationship with our Mom and spiritual growth in general,
3. To share (and receive) information about what’s going on with women all over the movement.
If you want to join:
a. Have a Facebook page.
b. Be friends with Mary or Sharon. Or send a friend request to one of
c. Send an email asking to join the Mother Spirit page to:
d. When you get a Facebook notification of someone posting on the them. - Zoom call: Deepening our relationships with our Mother.
a. Sharon Lanier would like to start a regular group on Zoom on this
b. If you want to join, email Sharon
c. She will send you an invitation.
d. You can click on the link in the invitation to join the call. - Help Spread Parenting4Values
a. Kaye is still working on Parenting4Values, but the first stage is
b. It needs to get into the hands of parents of children ages 0 to 8 years.
c. Email Kaye will also be happy to send complete, and those who have read it are really excited about it.
Everyone knows families who could benefit. If you will help by sharing P4V with people you know, email Kaye. She will send materials in PDF form by email which you can easily copy and email to the parents you know. (It will be available to download for free once the website has been completed, but work on it has not yet started.) the material to anyone who is interested in reading it.
