DEMONSTRATIONS OF JOY

Each week we focus on one of our seven community values. This morning we celebrated our community value of JOY by participants sharing how they are experiencing JOY in their lives.



Dale: I experienced JOY as a combination of spontaneity, acceptance, and open arms when I made a last-minute decision to go to a free celebration of Indigenous and the LGBTQIA+ people. There was Indian dancing and it was really a lovely celebration that brought me a lot of JOY.

Amon: JOY is showing up in my life in many ways. One is that a very close friend of mine has had the challenge of cancer for the last year and the treatments are really going very well and they're stronger, back at work and working out again. Another point of JOY in my life is the other day when I called to speak with my mom who has Alzheimer's and lives in a memory care facility, she was very present and engaged with me for over an hour. She was able to sing with me and knew many of the words. Just to share with her in this way and have that connection brought me JOY.

Nancy: This weekend, as we usually do, we spent some time with our granddaughters in Virginia. I brought my crocheting in the car on the way. Tom and I had just a lovely time listening to a Neil Young station and just singing to the 70s & 80s songs while I was crocheting. And then when we got there I felt so full of JOY and love. Then my eight-year-old granddaughter cuddled up next to me while we watched the other one in her lacrosse game. She took my crochet and she was doing a triple crochet right next to me. She was so happy, and she was cuddling into me, and I was just loving every minute of it. It brings me tears to share the JOY that these children bring. It's amazing.

MaryAnne: I experienced a great amount of JOY when my son, my daughter-in-law, and my two grandkids flew down from Chicago for about five days during Thanksgiving. We met up with my sister and her family, and that was a very special time. And then we met up with even more members of our extended blended family on Friday. It was just a lovely JOY filled time.

Marijane: I did a Zoom call with a creative project and realized that creativity and being creative and artistic brings me a great deal of JOY and I don't really do it often. So, I was reintroduced to how fun it is so I got a lot of my stuff out and reorganized it and will be doing that over the winter.

Robin: JOY showed up for me when it snowed but I didn't have to shovel. 

Rev. Rafe: I experienced JOY this week being able to easily find a Frasier Fir Christmas tree and putting the lights on it. Debra will experience JOY putting the ornaments because she loves to do that part. 

Melba: I experienced JOY at my sister Ada Lofton’s 90th birthday celebration. All of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren were there along with her brother and lots of friends, nieces and nephews, it was a filled LOVE and JOY.

How are you experiencing JOY? 

THE MOST RECENT UPDATE

This past week, with the assistance of Rev. Susan Overland, CSL Community Programs Manager, I filed the paperwork for our name change with Centers for Spiritual Living and it is being reviewed by the SOMARK Branding Committee. I'll let you know their decision as soon as I know.

A Recap of Our Journey and Our Next Steps

In August 2024 a conversation began with the leadership of Center for Spiritual Living Greater Baltimore exploring ways to collaborate and share resources between our small neighboring communities.

In the February of 2025, the Board of Trustees and the membership of Center for Spiritual Living Greater Baltimore made the difficult decision to close it's doors and transfer it's remaining resources and membership to Center for Spiritual Living Columbia.

In alignment with our Vision, Mission, Identify and Community Value of Inclusion, we recognized that bringing these two communities together created a whole new community, that joining the two under under either of our previous names would be assimilation rather than true inclusion, and we embarked on our journey to reveal Spirit's name for Itself AS this newly formed and expressing Center for Spiritual Living community.

We opened the floodgates of our imaginations and you poured forth 180 possibilities. Over the months that followed we met in Town Halls narrowing the list by the practice of consensus until we we had a more manageable list.

We then moved to the spiritual practice of :

1. Pray: “I affirm that Spirit’s perfect name for Itself as our spiritual community is already known in Consciousness and since I am Consciousness expressing in form this name is already present in me. I choose to be aware of it now.” 

2. Sit in the silence until you feel compelled to look at the list.

3. Allow your awareness of Consciousness expressing its perfect name as our CSL community to select the name that most resonates as “THIS ONE” when you read it.

We went through this process numerous times allowing for each participant to add any additional names that came into awareness through the process finally arriving at a list of five names.

Again, in an effort to be as inclusive as humanly possible, we engaged in our final prayerful practice of Spirit revealing It's new name throughout the month of November, well at least the first 28 days of it.

Spirit revealed It's new name as

Center for Spiritual Living Common Ground.

NEXT STEPS:

Now that the new name is revealed, there's a few steps we have to take BEFORE putting it to use, legally.

STEP 1: We will file the necessary paperwork with Centers for Spiritual Living (CSL) on Tuesday. DONE

STEP 2: Following CSL approval we will apply to the State of Maryland for a new Doing Business As (DBA) name, secure a new website domain name, begin making the necessary changes in our Google Account.

STEP 3: Following issuance of our new DBA, initiate banking changes... at this point we will change how checks are written to the Center... WE WILL LET YOU KNOW!!

STEP 4: Update ALL remaining business accounts.

We will keep you updated every step of the way and if you have ANY questions/concerns please reach out to Rev. Rafe (revrafe@columbiacsl.com) or Zita Johnson-Betts (zjbetts@gmail.com) - Board President.