The Festival Center
Spring 2013 Classes
Self-Compassion: Molding the Compassionate Heart
Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is a commitment to treat all individuals, groups and nations as we ourselves would want to be treated, to take responsibility for the pain of the world, and to alleviate and prevent suffering whenever and wherever we can.
We will embrace this course as the gift of being compassionate towards ourselves. We understand that without learning to extend compassion to ourselves, we simply cannot sustain compassionate action to others. The paradox here is that an intentional focus upon compassion for ourselves will increase our capacity for selflessness and other-centeredness. Thus, self-compassion is the seedbed of all compassionate action.
The heart of the course is the individual work done during the week and the sharing and discussion during class time. The classroom will provide a safe space for personal sharing based upon confidentiality. The goal is deep personal transformation resulting from immersion in practicing self-compassion. Provocative questions will provide weekly catalysts to growth in our capacity for self-compassion. A variety of readings will be used throughout the course. Weekly reflection papers will be assigned.
In order to build trust attendance at all class sessions is essential. If you must miss one class, please discuss it with course facilitators in advance. Otherwise, commitment to attend all classes is assumed by registration for the course.
Margie Ford is a member of the Steering Committee for the Compassionate Washington, DC campaign. She is a pastoral counselor and a member of Festival Church.
Helen McConnell is a member of the Executive Committee for the Charter for Compassion and a development consultant for the Compassionate Action Network. She is a member of Festival Church.
Biblical Justice: An Un-American Activity?
Have you noticed a tension between the biblical vision of justice and the picture prevailing in the U.S. today? How does our blindfolded lady, carefully balancing the scales, stack up against the undisguised bias of biblical justice – the very word for which denotes “showing mercy to the poor?” Have we become tone-deaf to Jesus’ mandate to love our neighbor as ourselves?
We invite a diverse group to share this journey, which will feature personal experiences with injustice and draw on Daniel Maguire’s book A Moral Creed for All Christians. We’ll try to discern what we might be called to DO to confront injustice.
Ray McGovern leads Speaking Truth to Power. He is a former intelligence professional whose writings on faith and justice can be found at raymcgovern.com.
Racial Reconciliation: A Pathway to Empowerment
In his classic Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman takes the controversial and unorthodox position that racial reconciliation is both the initiative and responsibility of the oppressed. Reconciliation, he claims, is an important pathway to social empowerment. A major influence on Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurman developed his philosophy of nonviolence through close association with Mohandas Gandhi. He would later serve as dean of the chapel at Howard University and Boston University and co-found the first racially integrated congregation in the United States. This course will explore the writings of this leading theologian and civil rights leader of the 20th Century in order to promote action towards racial reconciliation in our faith communities today.
Dr. Paula Whatley Matabane is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a social activist trained in Kingian Nonviolence by Dr. Bernard LaFayette. She is professor emerita of communications at Howard University and the producer of several films that explore the intersection of race and faith.
Dr. Kimberley A. Turner is an organizational development consultant who assists churches and faith-based institutions in addressing challenges that threaten their health. She seeks to build effective communication strategies that further the work of faith communities and are rooted in the life of the Spirit.
Love Walks: Pilgrimage As Political Spirituality
Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X. Ernesto “Che” Guevara. At a certain point in each of these (in)famous leaders’ biographies, a pilgrimage was journeyed. Pilgrimages that led to political and spiritual transformation.
This course attempts to understand the act of pilgrimage as a potential act of political spirituality. Together we will: 1) explore definitions of pilgrimage and political spirituality, 2) discuss the writings of Gandhi, King, X, Guevara, and others in order to understand how social movement leaders experience pilgrimage and political spirituality; and 3) understand how acts of pilgrimage and political spirituality can be applied to our daily lives as permanent sojourners acting within political and spiritual realms. I hope you join us and I look forward to journeying with you!
Beverly M. Pratt is currently earning her PhD in Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her studies focus on race and racism; altruism and social solidarity; social psychology; and social justice. She also thinks that the Festival Center is one of the coolest spaces in DC!
Prayer and Contemplative Stillness: Thomas Merton and Taoist Spirituality
As a Christian monk, poet, and prophet, Merton immersed himself in the religious and spiritual traditions of the East and West. Called to a life of contemplative witness, Merton had an affinity for Taoism’s contemplative way of being at home in the world. Personal experience taught him that at the deepest levels of prayer and contemplation Christianity and Taoism shared certain experiences, values, and insights. Merton realized that in the spiritual life each of us is only and always a beginner. Accordingly, this is a beginner’s course with a double focus. First, we will study and practice Merton’s way of contemplative prayer, which is a discipline of silent openness to God. Second, we will meditatively read selections from two Taoist classics and explore their implications in our lives.
Dennis O'Connor is a teacher, writer, and spiritual counselor with a special interest in the wisdom traditions of the East and the West. He has taught at the Servant Leadership School since its founding in 1989.