Attending the Deep Heart: Our Stories as Sacred Text, a Lunchtime Series

Online LUNCHTIME 6-Part Series, Thursdays, 12:00-1:30PM Central, $125

October 21, 28 & November 4, 11 & 18 & December 2nd

Attending the Deep Heart:  Our Stories as Sacred Text

Through spiritual companionship in community (group spiritual direction),  participants will explore what it means to say that our lives are sacred text.

“Our experiences, our memories, our stories, all that we carry around within us: this is material for pondering, for reflection, for prayer. Inscribed with the word of God in our very being, we are ourselves sacred texts. In becoming prayerfully present to a layer of our lives, we may realize that God inhabited that layer in a way that we didn’t perceive at the time.”  Jan Richardson (artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.)

During these 6 weeks we will share our sacred stories in community with one another, open ourselves to the deeper heart, “the word of God in our very being,” and offer our deep heart to others as we bear witness to their stories by “becoming prayerfully present.”

Though we might say there is nothing special or sacred about our stories, by sharing our real life experiences in community, we have companions to help us see more than we can see by ourselves.

We invite you to experience each virtual 90 minute gathering as a time of retreat for prayer, journaling, reflection, silence and conversation and between each session we encourage you to carry your experience and spiritual practices into the week.

Included in the registration is an optional one hour individual spiritual direction virtual session with Julie.

If you are wanting to explore your life in a deeper way and to do that as part of a community of others who are seeking the same, this 6 week experience may be just what you are looking for.

Session Information:

• Thursdays beginning October 21st (skipping Thanksgiving) and concluding December 2nd
• 12-1:30 Central Time
• All sessions will be conducted via Zoom.
• During the session, please try to create a quiet space apart in your home or outside
• Bring a journal and a candle
• Includes a one hour individual spiritual direction via Zoom session with Julie (Optional)

Julie O’Connor is a spiritual director providing both individual and group spiritual direction, a certified Enneagram instructor/coach and a retreat facilitator.

She served in Mission Leadership and Spiritual Formation at Ascension Saint Thomas in Nashville and Ascension Health National Office for 41 years. Her focus was primarily to help leaders and associates integrate their own sense of ministry, spirituality, and vocation into their lives and work and to help build true community to better serve the hospital’s Mission and Values.

Julie co-designed a program to certify facilitators to lead retreats at Ascension which prepares them to offer spiritual and formative experiences that are engaging, meaningful and transformational.

She is a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from the University of Alabama.  She received her MA in Pastoral Theology from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Terre Haute, Indiana and her Certificate in Spiritual Direction from Stillpoint, Inc. in Nashville.

Julie’s mission is to continue her own spiritual journey to wholeness in union with God and to assist others to grow into the fullness of who they were created to be as they awaken to their belovedness and respond to the unfolding path of their vocation. Her  motto or phrase that frames her beliefs and  work is Formatio in Caritate: formation/formed in love.

When not cheering for the Crimson Tide, Julie enjoys golf, kayaking, walking the Harpeth River Greenway, spiritual reading and porch pondering with a cup of tea.