When I was a kid, my mom sat through church every week so she could send me to Sunday school, but my only experience with organized "religion" as an adult was with a short-lived Secular Humanist community. We met to listen to speakers every Sunday, and more importantly, ate snacks and hung out after.

There's really something to being with the same group of people every week. Some of them may become real friends, but even if they don't, if you keep showing up, you start to belong there. You find your place in the community, or others help find one for you. People start to notice when you're not there. The part of your brain that's always on alert shuts off for a little while while you actually belong somewhere.

I think the recipe for this near-miracle is something like the following: share a philosophy of life + be together over an extended period of time + share the truth about your life.

With that in mind, I'm announcing a new weekly event to be hosted here on locals called "Sunday Stoa." We'll start with 10 minutes of meditation, then journal or do a writing practice for 15 minutes. After that, we'll brainstorm topics and then breaking up into small groups discuss. I’ll be collecting all the best stuff that comes up in the 101 classes throughout the week and asking people to bring their own, so we'll have an excellent list.

I'm also going to try using a visual breakout group app so it will be easy to see who's in each group and move freely between discussions. I'm hoping this also gives me a chance to facilitate less, and participate more.

So that's the idea. Starting in a couple of weeks on Sunday, February 4th at 4pm EST, going until whenever. I'll make an post about the event and pin it to the top of the feed next week. I hope to see you there!