What: Course
Who: Bill Dols
When: Six Wednesdays
Fees: $150.00, members; $175.00, nonmembers; $125.00, seniors over 65 and full-time students
James Hollis writes in What Matters Most of a "strange rhythm of exile and homecoming." Ralph Ellison suggests, "You have to leave home to find home." Is there perhaps a call to return to the "home" we have been leaving for a lifetime and thus to know it for the first time? But what is "home," and how is it more than place and parents? How do we leave home and what of the "homesickness" that Hermann Hesse says is our most trustworthy guide? How does leaving and exile happen physically, culturally, spiritually, and psychologically? What can we know of our return as a healing journey?
These six evenings include an exploration of biblical and Hasidic texts, hints from the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Julie Alvarez, Rilke, Tagore, and Yeats. Our conversation is enriched by novelists Agee, Hesse, and Marilynne Robinson. The film The Wizard of Oz promises to raise questions about where home is for us, the cost and promise of leaving, and what awaits us if we should return. The invitation is to gather in search of healing questions rather than right answers.
For this program, we intend to offer CEUs for Social Workers.
Bill Dols has served parishes in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina as an Episcopal priest for twenty-five years. While pursuing graduate studies in psychology and biblical studies in Berkeley in the 1980s, he began leading seminars for The Guild For Psychological Studies in San Francisco. After eight years as Director of The Educational Center in St. Louis, he moved to Charlotte where, until his retirement in 2001, he served as Minister of Adult Education at The Myers Park Baptist Church. Bill and Shirley now live in Alexandria, where they tutor public-school first graders, quilt and garden, paint and read. Bill continues to contribute to The Bible Workbench, which he created and edited for twenty years, and on occasion, he leads weekend retreats.
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