A.R.E. Meeting for 4/13/20

Hello dear Friends,

We held our first meeting via zoom tonight. It is a learning experience for us. We had challenges with broadband width, flickering pics at times, and lost bits of sound at other times. And we are in good company city wide and country wide. All of us are in Zoom together as well.

But we were able to meet! Without zoom we would have had to stay home off of the potentially slick, icy roads and challenging visibility while it's snowing here all night! As well as our Shelter in Place law of protection during this Covid-19 Pandemic. So we did succeed in overcoming two of our obstacles to meeting.

It was good to break our isolation, check in, to just see each other's faces and hear our voices as well. So many of us are feeling depressed and grieved at losses of daily contacts, the countless losses and griefs these changes have brought up upon us.

We discussed how we are being affected, what we are doing.  We discussed some dreams.

We discussed giving additional donations as per our letters on the ARE Crisis Relief Fund from ARE. When Kevin Todeshi last spoke in Denver years back, he said the ARE needed $20 thousand everyday to just keep the doors open.  So now the ARE is experiencing big losses financially due to the seminars and programs cancelled. ARE staff is feeling badly about all the employees they have had to let go. To keep the doors open and keep doing as much as they are doing electronically, they are asking us to see how much can we give as keepers of the light!

So I'm trusting we all value how much ARE has enriched our lives and are motivated to give additional amounts accordingly now. And support them with membership renewals and bookstore purchases.

Our Experiment is to reflect upon the Gratitude we are feeling about the positive results of the Shelter in Place for an undefined length of time the situation has brought about. For example, New Yorkers opening up their windows and cheering all their life risking heroic heath workers, the joy created and spread by people of Italy singing on their balconies, entertainers performing from their homes and posting on social media their vibration raising, morale boosting happiness to be singing for us. So this week our experiment is to write Our Gratitude List.

We are continuing to pray for each other. And for Bill Mays, now back at home from the hospital, for Dr. Chuck, Dr. Michelle, Monica, Chaplain Rev. Jim White, home alone 14 year old David, Sarah as they continue their work out among people they serve.

Those unable to attend tonight were missed. 

Remember: We have a Zoom meeting next Monday at 7:00 pm and will meet, icy streets, pandemic, or not.

I am GRATEFUL for EACH ONE of you. Your presence, participation, contributions to our discussions have been significant in our mental, physical, and spiritual growth. Not to mention spreading and holding the Light brightly across our city. And all the people and countries it has touched internationally with Greg's blogspot of many years. Thank you all.

Sylvia Raye