I’m not done wanting to be church.
I’m not done believing that I can be a part of loving co-creative spiritual community where together with others I can experience the life of heaven and take part in bringing that heaven into being here on earth.
And I must do this and be this, in my own way.
Yes, the spiritual life is an invitation to surrender but not to anything, ANYTHING outside of ourselves. It is a surrender to the call of the Divine life, to Divine love which can only be perceived, sensed and known within.
I have reached a point in the journey where my choice to be faithful to God makes me ill fitting for most existing church structures….and yet I still crave church, perhaps more deeply than ever before. Church where deep friendship and connections are being made, where important conversations are happening, where future generations are nurtured in love and wisdom. Church where I and others are not required to conform, but empowered to be, to be ourselves, to bring what we feel called to offer and receive what we need to thrive.
On this Easter Sunday I am taking a next step on this journey to bring this new form of new church life into being that I have come to call the Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative. To gather this community of misfits and mystics, justice seekers and truth tellers ready to experiment with forming truly new ways of being church that foster freedom and connection, personal integrity and collaborative action.
I perceive similar groups are forming all over the planet at this moment in different flavors. At this crisis point of fragmentation it seems a Divine hand is making possible new connections, new nexus points to draw us back to one another. Not that we might recreate the tribal groupings of the past but that we might form new porous flexible co-creative spaces that work in tandem for the benefit of all.
And what is the particular flavor of the collaborative I have been charged with instigating you ask? Well…… it includes me, and Emanuel Swedenborg, and Helen Keller and Jesus and perhaps you? And its organizing values, its primary guardrails, are simple and yet as I’m discovering every day radical and profound: Be Love, Be Honest, Be Useful.
Be Love: Remember we are all one and love is our source. Direct this love towards yourself and others.
Be Honest: Tell the truth. Notice the truth of this moment inside and out. Listen and speak. Be brave enough to let falsities be revealed.
Be Useful: Do your part. Only you can know what you need go. Care for yourself that you may bring your particular medicine to others. This is how we remake the world.
If you feel ready to step further into this circle of forming community, to help shape what it will become I would ask that you take these three steps:
Join our private virtual community space: https://virtualvillage.sutra.co/
Set up a profile and let others know who you are, what you care about, what other communities you are a part of, and what draws you to this effort.
Commit each week to sharing at least once and reading/listening to at least one other person in the community.
I know many of you have already stepped into this circle, by attending a retreat or joining in a virtual collaboration and I am so grateful to you. I hope many of you will also feel called to join the virtual village and participate in this next leg of the journey.
At this inception time we are particularly excited to welcome those who are affiliated with local Swedenborgian and New Church Societies and organizations to enrich our collaboration. Those organizations with at least 2-3 people represented in the Virtual Village will be invited to create a dedicated virtual hub in the village to encourage collaboration between existing communities.
Those who participate in the Virtual Village for at least 12 weeks between now and September 2026 will be invited to a Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative Summit this Fall where we will decide on the direction of our efforts for the coming year.
Our virtual space is not perfect or finished or complete, but it is ready to be a meeting space where we can begin to find each other and cross pollinate ideas. Where we can practice Be Love, Be Honest, Be Useful and nurture what the Divine life is calling into being through us and with us. I hope you will join us. This effort will be made more perfect as each new person enters in.
With love friends.
Happy Easter!
Sage
