Click here to view the photo slideshow from Day 2 of the Conference Workshop, 2007.
The second day of the Conference Workshop, “Fulfilling the Spiritual Promise,” began amidst much hilarity, and only became more uproarious as the day went on! Paul Kaye and lovely harpist, Emily John, arrived on stage to promote Windermere’s Adopt-a-Horse program, and some behind-the-scenes genius had the idea to surround their image on the big screen with some beatific white clouds. Needless to say, Paul capitalized on every opportunity to amuse his audience. By the time we began our spiritual exercises (s.e.’s), we were awake, lively and ready for the day.
We emerged from s.e.’s to the sweet singing of Robin Graham. Then Pauli Sanderson encouraged us to reflect once again on aspects of the Spiritual Promise. My understanding is that it is the eternal nature of the Divine. It encompasses unconditional loving. It is acceptance, leading to understanding, which in turn leads to compassion. Each quality unfolded so naturally from the one before. And each time, the words resonated inside me as the truth of who we are.
Next, we watched a portion of the John-Roger seminar, “Authentic Empowerment,” which focused on bringing forward our loving, compassion and awareness to addictive patterns we have. This was followed by beautiful meditation, and then again some wonderful live music, this time from Nat Sharratt, accompanied on piano by Karen Hassett.
I loved the way in which we were continually encouraged throughout the workshop to move from listening to God’s promise to focusing on how we can take practical steps to move into alignment with that promise.
As usual, Pauli seemed to be anticipating where our individual processes might be leading us, and asked us if we were discovering joy to be a part of the Spiritual Promise. Many of us responded that we were, and before we knew it we were listening to a section of that famous seminar of J-R’s “The Traveler: the One who Laughs in your Heart”. It felt so good to be laughing so much and growing spiritually at the same time!
But that wasn’t all. I think the funniest moment of the day was watching a video of J-R clowning around throughout the years, and telling some of his outrageous jokes. I hope we can watch that every year!
After lunch, the beautiful Alisha Hayes led us in a burst of Soul Dance (more joy and hilarity!) and then we were blessed to be able to share with the Travelers for the rest of the afternoon. By the end of the day, there was such a palpable atmosphere of loving, freedom and joy that I felt completely fulfilled. Thank you, everyone who made this workshop possible. And to anyone who hasn’t yet made the trip to Conference, I’ll just say “Come!”
Read more articles from MSIA’s Conference of Fulfilling Your Spiritual Promise 2007
