Author: Anne Doyle

Workshops-archival

Coming 13 December — Listening with Expectation

Anne DoyleLeave a comment

What is the Listening with Expectation Workshop?

  • The coming of Advent gives us the opportunity to Listen with Expectation, to experience the flow offered by the Spirit.
  • When the flow between speaker and listener is disrupted, the consequences often include sadness, anxiety or anger – and yet sometimes it is difficult to recognize where those feelings come from. Participants will learn about the Triangle of Attention and how it affects the flow between speaker and listener.
  • Each of us needs to speak and to be heard, and still we put up barriers to both telling and listening. Why? Participants will learn more about the barriers and about listening to what’s not said.
  • Those in attendance will practice listening to self, to each other, to the world, and to the Spirit.
  • The format will be informal with a blend of presentation, discussion, and small groups.

When will Listening with Expectation take place?
Saturday, 13 December from 9 a.m. until noon. The season of Advent (which means “coming”) is particularly appropriate for Listening with Expectation.

Where will the Listening with Expectation workshop be held?
The workshop will be held at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, 2425 Colorado Boulevard, Boulder, Colorado, 80302.

Who should come to Listening with Expectation?
All are invited to attend. Those involved in pastoral care, visiting ministries, listening and visiting programs will find the workshop relevant.

How does one register?
The workshop is free. Please register by Thursday, 11 December by sending an email with your name, contact info (email, phone, address), and church affiliation (none necessary) to Anne at attentiontolife.gmail.com. By signing up, you will help make certain there are enough refreshments, handouts and chairs, so please let us know if you plan to attend. If you have any questions, please email Anne.

Who is the facilitator?
Anne Doyle is a perceptive psychologist with a private practice focusing on personal formation. Anne uses Intensive Listening to help her clients become more perceptive in their experiences of the world, of others, and of themselves. Anne also works with groups nationally (e.g., at the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado) and internationally (e.g., the Convocation of American Episcopal Churches in Europe).

Words

Words

Anne Doyle2 Comments

The way this world works, people are very apt to use the words they speak not so much as a way of revealing but, rather, as a way of concealing who they really are and what they really think, and that is why more than a few moments of silence with people we do not know well are apt to make us so tense and uneasy.  Stripped of our verbal camouflage, we feel unarmed against the world and vulnerable, so we start babbling about anything just to keep the silence at bay.  But if we can bear to let it be, silence, of course, can be communion at a very deep level indeed.

–Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark, 1969.

On My Walks

On My Walks

Anne DoyleLeave a comment

I walked today with my fifteen year old daughter.  It’s nice to hit the trail together when she gets home from school so that we can catch up on the day’s activities.  She can get to the piles of homework when we get back, but while we are out, all of that is far away and of little concern.

When we were just around the corner from our house, we passed our neighbor putting stain on a deck.  His dog, Sam, was lying in the sun killing time until the job was done so we invited the pooch to join us.  Happy to oblige, Sam hopped up and headed off down the trail.

It’s a different walk with a dog, more stops for sniffing and marking and, well, dog duties.  But we had fun speculating what he was thinking about why we didn’t engage in these activities, what news he read with his nose, and so on.

Almost at the end of our jaunt, my daughter and Sam waited for me to cross the street so I could deposit the poop bag in the only garbage can nearby, and in those few minutes I missed the biggest adventure of all.  With my back turned, Sam pounced into the tall grass and emerged with a rodent clamped in his mighty jaws.  My daughter enticed Sam to drop the beast just as I was walking back and it looked huge…not a rat, though, maybe a vole?  It lay there wet with Sam’s saliva and looked for all intents and purposes, dead to the world.  We were amazed that this mild-mannered canine could catch such a fast moving thing in so short a time.  We managed to get away leaving it on the sidewalk hoping that Sam hadn’t received any nips or bites.  Of course, we reported all of this to our neighbor when we dropped Sam off and he couldn’t believe it.  “Sam?  Catch something?” and he scurried back to see if he could identify the species of the rodent.

The beast was gone when he arrived.  We hope the thing was just stunned when we left it motionless on the sidewalk.  As soon as we left, perhaps it shook itself back to life and headed home with grand stories of how he escaped a terrible fate.

We headed home too with tales of the rodent pounced by the pooch.  It all reminds me that even mild-mannered Sam still has a bit of the wild residing within.