Our Soul Matters Theme for February is Widening the Circle.

This theme will be explored in our Soul Matters small groups, Religious Education and Sunday services.  You can find materials for individual reflection on the Soul Matters page.

Here are some questions for your to consider as you ponder this theme:

Is it possible that being on the inside leaves you out of the loop?

What if the margins aren’t narrow?

What if that space of exclusion is also a position of perspective?

What if being shut out allows you to understand the insiders better than they understand themselves?

Why do so many seek the safety of that inner circle anyway?

Don’t we know that the circles not only keep others out but also the air?

Haven’t we learned that it’s on the edge of circles that hate makes its home?

So even if you weren’t among the ones who put the circle in place, by allowing it to linger, don’t you carry the burden of responsibility as well?

What if who we are doesn’t end at the barriers of our own skin?

What if sin is believing that you can put the puzzle together with only the pieces that belong to you?

What if heaven is the moment you realize that none of us can get there alone?

What if the only true freedom lies in the willingness to fight against that which imprisons someone else?

If that is true then let’s widen the circle until it breaks!

For as long as the circle exists pieces and parts of ourselveswill always lie on the other side of the line.

So let us push, pull, twist and tear, dig underneath and climb over the top,do whatever it takes to meet each other face to face. And having found each other, let us stare and struggle, fight and forgive, call in and call out, until “me” and “you” dissolves into “us.”

Is there any other way we become whole?

February materials for individual reflection