Lunch Time Chat at St James Ethics CentreWednesday November 10th
We were fortunate to have two new participants join us with some interesting perspectives on how the community has changed over the years. Our discussion covered some aspects of possible directions. Some people, and in particular, older people have to work hard to keep any contact with community. There is danger of people becoming isolated living in a large apartment complex where the younger people are working harder and longer hours. These folk are left with less time or energy for community activities and that is particularly felt by older people. While such an observation is purely anecdotal there was an intuitive agreement about the generalisation. The conversation centred mostly on this business of community and how so many of us are responding to the sense of separateness that comes out of this serious, business driven society. Even business itself has tried to take advantage of this sense by applying so called ‘customer service’ programmes that are meant to make us feel welcome and valued. Often they fail simply because they come from a manipulative standpoint and lack the sincerity that we are looking for. Example of “Have a nice day” accompanied with a plastic smile that comes from the customer service manual rather than the heart. A great hoot of recognition went up when somebody described the “Your call is important to us….” statement on a telephone service centre that is leading us through a series of impersonal automated options. One other item that drew serious thought from the group was the issue of unresolved grieving about our own loss of “place” that seems to be incipiently present in our culture. Perhaps we would be well served to meet with our own “place” however that may turn up for us. There is much more to be said about the spiritual aspects on this subject. There will be a slight change in the format of most new conversations in the new year. We are going to ask people to commit to a series of, say 3 or 4 Conversations where we will stay with one particular topic or issue. In this way it is envisioned that we will be able to get to a deeper level of discovery and learning. We rarely talk a subject out and come to too few conclusions or actions as we are at the moment. I will be calling for suggestions and comments via newsletter in December. The next conversation at the St James Ethics
Centre will be in on |
