The Writer Within Workshop: Unleashing Your Spiritual Gifts

PREPARE

Before hand, arrange a circle of chairs, one per participant. Create a small worship space in the centre of the circle of chairs. A small table or a piano bench. Drape this with a cloth. Place a bowl large enough to hold a candle. Have matches nearby to light the candle before participants arrive for your workshop. Place name tags, paper and pens near the door as people arrive. Make copies of Writing: A Spiritual Path, by Ray McGinnis.

GATHERING

Invite participants to gather in the circle and ensure that everyone has a paper and pen to write with.

Invite participants on a blank sheet of paper to write down three questions:                          

1) Who am I?                           2) Why am I here?                   3) What do I want?

Invite them to write freely for FIVE MINUTES about these three questions. Let them know that this is preparation for introducing ourselves to each other around the circle. Let people know that they do not have to read what they have written, that this is written preparation.

Let people know there is no way to blow it, and when time is up, invite someone to volunteer to share first in response to the three questions - referring to their journal notes or speaking off the cuff.

ENGAGE

Invite participants to read Writing: A Spiritual Path, by Ray McGinnis.

Discuss: What connections are there between the art of writing and spirituality?

CREATING A CIRCLE PSALM

One of the poetic forms found in the Book of Psalms is called REPETITION. Here a line or phrase is used in alternating lines, or frequently throughout the psalm.

Read together a contemporary version of Psalm 136 like the NRSV.

Notice the repeating refrain in this Psalm. It may be translated “God’s love endures forever.”

Use this phrase as the end of a sentence and invite each person in your group to create the first half of the sentence. Don’t plan ahead or assign people to be responsible for any particular part of God’s Creation or other universal clue for God’s love enduring forever. Invite each person to write whatever comes to mind as they write the opening to their sentence.

Next invite one person to begin by sharing their line with the ending refrain.

Proceed clockwise around the circle and have each person read their full sentence, using the refrain agreed upon in your version of the refrain in Psalm 136

 Take time to invite responses from the group. For example, they can complete this sentence stem: “Hearing this circle psalm I appreciate (interested or surprise by)…”

You may wish to have someone collect the individual sentence stems from the Circle Psalm exercise and have them distributed to the group members, or if the group gives permission, for possible use in a newsletter or public worship.