Minutes for Meeting 14 October 2008

As we start to talk, H has a suggestion - that we should go around the circle and see how we are all feeling. She says she needs to learn to listen more and talk less, so we should start with someone other than her!
M is next to her, so he starts. He says he is insanely busy, and is wondering if he can keep coming to our meetings, even though it is just once a month. He loves the calmness he finds here.
J likes the calmness too. She says she has less and less patience with people who just talk talk talk all the time, don't listen, and are freaked out by everything. She likes the quiet grounded atmosphere. She is busy organising Shahabuddin's visit.
K has been having intuitions for many months of a doom coming, in dreams and messages. He has been thinking about Shahabuddin and how Nizam has returned to Florida to be nearer to him.
U has had a diverse month. She went to the Abode for a meeting, and also to Baltimore. Then she went to the weekend with Gayan and that felt wonderful. She has been having a great time and has been ignoring the markets, although reading lots of politics and blogs. She is happy to be involved with the coming election, and is enthusiastic about the number of young voters.
T thought it was strange to watch the debates, she came away feeling that whatever happened we were doomed. She mentions some of the bad things she has heard - such as a story about an army brigade deployed in the US, and wonders what it is meant for? At work she is frustrated by her management who still think that 30 men can do in 1 day what several people could do in a month! She also talks about Anti-Columbus Day, and tells us some of the terrible things that Columbus did. We are dismayed and saddened by these truths which are not known generally.
F has found that she is very angry about the current financial crisis. She talks about the greed and selfishness of the bankers and financiers, how they have paid themselves so they are multimillionaires, and how they have happily allowed less knowledgeable people to make foolish mortgages, and get themselves deep in debt. J talks about how Yom Kippur is about forgiveness, and loving thy neighbor, and wonders if she can forgive Bush, or come to terms with her anger at the Israeli settlers. How can she be a peacemaker if she feels this way? She remembers reading "The Lemon Tree" and how it helped her to understand the whole history of the region. H is reminded of The Bereaved Families Group, and how they pass through the stages of grief, and somehow get to forgiveness, and how survivors can grow above their history. She thinks Judaism has the ability to hold on to the agony and ecstacy of life. Recently, when she was upset at home over some issues, she realized the problem was her own anger, so she spent 4 days doing as much "spiritual stuff" as she could, and happily the anger dissipated.
K talks about a book called "Women Who run with the Wolves", and remembers a section of it that is about forbearing, forgetting, forgiving. Some of his dreams have been about making reparation, and then being able to let go.
H goes back to the understanding that the evening before Yom Kippur, you are absolved from promises that you are unable to keep. If the promise did not take you nearer to God, then it is OK to let it go. Then you can forgive yourself, and you get to start over.
K says, we can allow ourselves to evolve, to forgive, to move on.
J says learn to be objective, not subjective,
K remembers something Shahabuddin said to him once, about not paying attention to the emotion, but to the energy. We start to try to clarify this idea. H talks about rightful emotions, like rightful anger, and clearing a space to feel the energy, not the ego attachment.
T says a very interesting site is Reality Sandwich, a web community, who are promoting a world wide meditation this Friday, to open the world.

I am getting too tired to understand what we are talking about! We say the Peace Prayer, and hug each other good night.