February 6, 2014 – Vespers Service

As a part of our weekly Vespers Service, we have been reading and discussing chapter’s from Karen Armstrong’s “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life,” (2010). This week we focused on Armstrong’s eighth step: “How Should We Speak to One Another?” In our discussion, we focused on the, “principle of charity,” which can be summarized in Armstrong’s words:

…when we hear a statement that at first seems odd or false, we automatically try to find a context in which it makes sense, because we want to understand what is being said to us, (138).

In order to make the principle of charity applicable to real life, Jeffery, resident of Lawrence Road House of Hospitality, prepared an engaging, multimedia exercise. We listened to clips from TV debates and analyzed the ways in which the principle of charity was evident, (or not)…

I would like to end this blog post with a checklist for making ourselves mindful of the way we speak to others, paraphrased from Armstrong’s concluding paragraph:

• Before I argue: Am I ready to change my mind?
• While I argue: Am I really listening to my opponent? Am I making points that will further understanding? Or am I getting personal and inflicting pain?
• After I argue: Can I back up everything I said? Did I want to inflict pain? Did I know what I was talking about or was I depending on hearsay? (141-2)

January 30, 2014 – Vespers Service

For Vespers tonight we went on a field trip to the Cooperative Extension of Mercer County, Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (930 Spruce Street, Trenton), where Master Gardeners David Byers and Jim Simon of Isles, Inc. gave an informative presentation on community gardening.  The presentation included a historical overview with the amazing fact that during World War II 20 million victory gardens produced more than 40% of the vegetables grown in the United States.  We should be dreaming bigger dreams!

Isles has created a fantastic Virtual Garden Tour where you can visit the Bethany House and Westminster Presbyterian Church gardens, as well as 43 others in the Isles Garden Support Network. 

After the presentation the residents of Lawrence Road House of Hospitality invited the residents of Bethany House of Hospitality over for dinner.  We had a lovely time.