We gather every two weeks beginning on February 27, 2025 from 12-1:30 pm ET for four months to discover our ground of confidence. There are four modules, each with a specific theme. The theme is developed in two sessions: The first session is Teaching and Contemplation on the theme. Interim practices offer practices and questions to make visible your own trustworthy experiences. The next session is for Learning and Sharing; what did you learn from doing the practices? These will be shared in small groups.

February 27, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching & Contemplation #1: Where Do Our Gifts Originate?

What is your cosmology or theology that explains you are the recipient of your talents, synchronicities, opportunities? There are many ways people describe this:

• God, Source, Mystery
• Christ
• Karma
• “The Universe”
• Deities, angels, guides
• Victor Frankl “Meaning precedes being”

Whatever the source, “Those who deny the gifts deny the giver.”

This teaching and contemplation reveals our relationship with Life, Sacred World and realms beyond the five material senses. Thus it clarifies and strengthens our faith. 

Interim Practices to discern personal meaning and faith

• When have you been surprised by the human spirit?
• What experiences support your faith that gifts are given from beyond yourself?

March 13, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Session for Learning and Sharing:  Where Do Our Gifts Originate?

What did you learn about the source of our gifts. ? Has your awareness of Sacred World shifted? Has your faith been strengthened?                               

March 27, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching & Contemplation #2: What Are Our Gifts, and How Do We Name Them?

How do we identify our gifts? In the context of today’s reality, where have you been called to offer them? Have you been surprised by new skills appearing? Have you become more confident of what you have to offer?

Contemplation: what are the gifts you’ve received over your life?

• People, teachers, events, life
• Name those gifts 
• Can you see their relevance to what’s needed now, that they were given to prepare you to contribute for this time?

 Interim Practices:

• Recall experiences where you felt you truly contributed something useful. Identify specific gifts that you were able to contribute, and people’s response to you.
• Ask those who care about you to identify some of your gifts. Were you surprised by any of them?

April 10, 2025, 12-1:30pm ET - Session for Learning and Sharing: Naming Our Gifts

What did we learn about our gifts? Where we werre we surprised? Where were we confirmed? What’s our level of confidence now? What specific gifts might we want to develop further?

April 24, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching & Contemplation #3:  How Can We Offer Our Gifts with True Generosity

Generosity requires a very different orientation to relationships, needs, and how we do our work. In Buddhism, Generosity is the virtue from which all other virtues are possible. Whatever we offer, we willingly give without needing thanks, reciprocity, or price tags. We offer with a clean open heart free of expectations or demands. When we offer without expectations, we are freed from hope and fear. And true offerings have their own power: people are attracted to us—magnetized is reliable and profound ways. We don’t have to market ourselves, or strengthen our demands. We can learn to trust that true presence and compassion create the conditions for people to want to be with us.

Interim Practices:

• Take a current situation—a difficult relationship, conflict, or stuck problem-- and use the practice of evaluating the needs of everyone
• Recall personal experiences with spontaneous generosity
• Contemplate the power of magnetizing with this Buddhist quote: “The teacher summons her students by the strength of her vow.”

May 8, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Session for Learning and Sharing: The Practice of Generosity

What did you learn from your past experiences with generosity? What did you learn when you took everyone’s needs into account, freeing you from personal demands and price tags? What did you learn about the power of magnetizing rather than marketing?

May 22, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching and Contemplation #4: Where and How Should We Offer Our Gifts?

As we gladly choose to be of service, certain behaviors are required to discern wisely where and how to best offer our gifts. Here are the critical ones:

• We practice wide angle vision, seeing as clearly as possible so we can act wisely.
• We engage with a spirit of experimentation—when it doesn’t work, we learn and try something else. We learn rather than blame.
• We stay adaptive. Our gifts remain steady, but the environment keeps changing.
• We persevere. We stay vigilant and discerning for when to stay and when to let go.
• We develop patience. It takes a long time for people to accept our gifts--if they don’t ignore or deny them. St Augustine said: “The reward of patience is patience.” 

Interim Practices:

• Opening our perceptions-Practice seeing the familiar with new eyes
• Analyze any situation, relationship, or crisis: What’s needed here? How might I contribute to this?

June 5, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Final Course Session: Into the World with Our Offerings

How will you take these learnings into practice? How will you continue to strengthen your faith, your awareness, and your open generous heart?