Emmanuel’s Natural Spirituality Program, begun in 1991, provides a context for incorporating inner work—attention to dreams and synchronicity (meaningful coincidence)— into Christian life. While this approach to spirituality is new for our time, it is not new for Christianity. In the Bible dreams were crucial ingredients in the spiritual lives of men and women of faith, including Jacob, Joseph, and Daniel in the Old Testament, and Mary, Joseph, Peter, and Paul in the New Testament. In the Book of Acts there are numerous accounts of early Christians being guided both by dreams and by meaningful coincidence. Emmanuel’s Natural Spirituality Program offers the modern tools of Jungian psychology for gaining awareness of this naturally occuring flow of the Holy Spirit through the ordinary life of every individual.
The Natural Spirituality Program is made up of three parts:
1) The Introductory Class is offered at least once a year for people who are interested in finding out what the program is all about. Currently the class is being offered during the Sunday School hour, beginning September 8, 2002. Running for a total of sixteen weeks, it is open to those who want to “dip in,” as well as to those who wish to attend the entire series. The Introductory Class teaches the basic concepts of Jungian psychology, which include consciousness and the unconscious, dreams, synchronicity, individuation, and the problem of reconciling life’s opposites, especially our masculine and feminine natures. The course is centered around a textbook, Natural Spirituality: Recovering the Wisdom Tradition in Christianity by Joyce Rockwood Hudson. The format is lecture and group discussion.
2) The Journey Groups are dream groups for those who have completed the Introductory Class and want to put theory into practice. Anyone who wants to join a Journey Group must first take the Introductory Class. There are currently two Journey Groups. One meets every Sunday after the last morning service, and the other meets every Tuesday morning. Journey Group members help each other gain insight into their unfolding individual lives by analyzing the symbolic language of their dreams. The Journey Groups provide a rich experience of Christian community as their members undergo gradual transformation and healing and grow into an ever deeper relationship to God.
3) The Natural Spirituality Library is located in the Meeting House and is open to everyone in the parish. The library is heavily used by members of the Journey Group for their continuing education.
The Emmanuel Natural Spirituality Program publishes The Rose: inviting Wisdom into our lives and churches, a semi-annual newsletter/magazine offered free of charge to help link together groups and individuals engaged in the integration of dream work and other authentic aspects of the inner journey into regular Christian life.
The Rose publishes articles submitted by journeyers from any and all locales. It is a forum for the telling of personal stories; for the sharing of dreams with collective meanings; for the setting forth of new insights and understandings gained from the inner journey; for the sharing of relevant books; for the analysis of movies; for offerings of poetry and short reflections; for the publication of apt sermons, heard and submitted by people in the pews; for the exchange of information about how natural spirituality programs are conducted in different places; and for the announcement of upcoming speakers, conferences, and retreats, and reports on the same after they have taken place.
To be added to the mailing list for The Rose, send your name and address to the Editor by email (
) or by snailmail (The Rose at Emmanuel Church, 498 Prince Avenue, Athens, GA 30601). Your free subscription will begin with the next issue of The Rose. If you would like a copy of the most recent issue, please send in $1 for postage.
04/06/07