Beginning March 1, 2010, A Spacious Place will offer online arts/spirituality courses through our website. The first course, When God Walks Away: Exploring and Enduring the Dark Night of the Soul, has Dr. Kaye McKee as its guide.
John of the Cross coined the poetic term "dark night" for a painful, perturbing, and ultimately blessed stretch on the spiritual journey. The experiential 7-week course will explore metaphors for aspects of the dark night as depicted in film, music, visual art pieces, and literature. We will differentiate the Night of the Senses from the Night of the Spirit; we will also differentiate the dark night from depression. Course participants will engage in spiritual practices designed for dark night endurance.
The classes run from March 1 - April 17 (You log on at your convenience each week. Course includes PowerPointTM lecture, spiritual practice options, arts options, weekly chat room, and discussion questions.)
Click here to register online for the course.
A writing workshop with Nathan Brown.
Nathan Brown is a poet, musician, photographer, or problem... depending on who's talking. His mission is to take back poetry from the hard, academic grip of the ivory tower and the brooding, beret-sporting-village-types who all too often use poetry for personal therapy and the exorcism of parental issues... both being good reasons audiences for poetry have run for the hills in the United States.
Nathan has published five (5) books of poetry. He worked as a professional songwriter and musician for fifteen years in and around Oklahoma City, Nashville, and Austin.
Nathan holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Oklahoma. He currently teaches for the Human Relations and Liberal Studies departments at the University of Oklahoma and has also served as the Artist-in-Residence at the University of Central Oklahoma.
It was a lively creative time.
Click here for more information on Spiritual Direction.
A study of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. Facilitated by David Gentiles, "Roar of Love" was a five week class that involved discussion of the Chronicles with a comical pretest to begin each session. To view the pretests and test your knowledge, click here.
David is a graduate of Baylor University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is currently the associate pastor at Journey Imperfect Faith Community, the father of three amazing daughters—Ariele, Hannah and Calla—, an incurable Cleveland Indians baseball fan and a lover of chocolate milk.
Through the lens of an ordinary point-and-shoot camera, we learned how to explore the beauty that surrounds us every day and how to use the computer to transform your photos into works of art.
Jim Sipowicz was the arts guide for this course. Jim is a graphic artist and the owner of Shell Media, a fine art print company. Jim is also a gifted photographer.
Using visual and musical art pieces that depict the redemptive power of suffering, we journeyed through the agonies and ecstasies of the human soul.
Our guide for this course was Carlye Brookshire. Carlye has a degree in art studies and has been an art teacher for both elementary and high school-aged students.
Nathan came down to Austin,
looking for a workshop to lead.
We all had pen and paper;
He got us up to speed.
Oh well, bad verse aside, our participants explored questions like "What makes a great title or first line?" "Are poets born or bred?" and "What is art?" They wrote and they read. They described the weekend as inspiring and transformative. Thanks, Nathan! Click here to view testimonials and creative writing pieces from attendees of our previous writing weekend.
Our thanks to Jane Manning who did a dramatic reading of her original play and to Cy Young, her husband, for composing the musical score.
Thank you to the food artists who provided us delicious treats with a story side dish and to our visual artists who displayed their work and shared their proceeds with A Spacious Place.
Thanks to our performing musicians and all who came to support creative people in their creative work.