Progress Report: Mepkin Abbey Journaling Group

It was about a year ago that Father Guerric at Mepkin Abbey announced an interesting plan:  to create contemplative groups organized by way of zip codes.  An e-mail went out to everyone who had ever visited the Abbey inviting them to be part.  These groups would support us in our efforts to use contemplative practices in our regular lives.

Some groups meet in person--I imagine a zip code nearer to the Abbey that has 20 or more members.  Because I'm 9 hours away, my zip code group includes people in Orlando as well as people in my county, not zip code.  We meet by way of a Zoom meeting.

We've been working our way through an audio resource by Jungian Don Bisson.  We listen to a chunk in advance and do some journaling on our own.  When we're together by way of a Zoom session, we begin with prayer.  Then we each take 3 minutes to talk about what jumped out at us, what spoke to us.  Throughout the whole process, we don't have cross talk.  We then journal silently for 10 minutes, and then again, we each take 1-3 minutes to talk about what we just journaled.  Then we pray again and leave the Zoom meeting silently.

We first met virtually back in May to strategize, and if I'm remembering correctly, we did our first official session in June of 2019.  Somewhere in the fall, we started scheduling the Zoom session to start 15-30 minutes early, so that we had a chance to catch up on each other's lives.

It's interesting to think about how we "know" each other.  I now have been part of several communities that have only met virtually, and with some of these groups, I've felt like I know more about the members than I have some of my in-person friend groups.  There are members of my 2018 Grunewald Guild journaling group that I feel like I know more deeply than some of my friends I've kept in touch with since college.

Do I really know them?  Do we ever know each other?  In some ways, I only know what people reveal to me.  It could all be a fake persona.  I could get to know a person in real life only to find out that they're nothing at all like their online persona.

So I approached our Saturday in-person meeting with a bit of trepidation.  One of our Mepkin zip code contemplative group members has a house in Vero Beach that's in our geographical middle, which is a 2 hour drive for those of us in Broward county and 2 hours from Orlando.  As I drove up, I thought of how this scenario would play out if I was a character in a police procedural--I'd be the poor dupe about to be raped and murdered or sold into modern slavery.  I left the driving directions with my spouse, so they'd have some place to begin the search if I never returned.

Happily, there were no nefarious schemes afoot.  We met at our member's lovely house, in her huge screened room that looked out on a peaceful pasture.  We did our journaling session, and then we talked for hours.  We had a beautiful lunch of potato soup, open face veggie melt sandwiches, and chocolate chip cookies hot out of the oven.

I am amazed by how alike we are and yet how different.  I am the only one who is still working; the others are some degrees of retired.  I am a Lutheran, and the others are varieties of Catholic.  We all seem to be left of center politically--we're concerned with social justice in a way that certain Christians have historically been.  We are all older--I think I'm the youngest at 54.

It was a wonderful experience to meet in person.  It made me wish we lived closer.  And yet, I know that even if we lived closer to each other, it might be difficult to find time to meet in person regularly.  I am grateful for technology that makes it easier to meet.  I'm grateful for this Mepkin group.