Community participation offers a person a sense of connection, support and belonging. It's important for each person to have their voice heard, and to find meaning and purpose. The expressive arts and meditation are ideal vehicles for community formation and outreach.
Please contact Marion for more information about creating a program for your community.
Bringing arts modalities to undeserved communities: Artful Intervention is a curriculum designed from an outreach program at Church of the Holy Apostles SoupKitchen in Manhattan, funded by Trinity Church Wall Street and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Employing drumming and art making, this program worked to form meaningful community with soup kitchen guests as well as bridge the soup kitchen community with the parish and other churches in the diocese, as seen on CBS Religion within the Arts. Please contact Marion if you are interested in this program.
Using the arts for peacemaking: The arts are a natural way to bridge divides and form community amongst diverse populations and viewpoints. This peacemaking workshop, is based on the mandala form, representing unity. This workshop was facilitated in New York for the International Day of Peace at Riverside Church, then after a training of trainers for peacemakers in 2005, the curriculum was facilitated with peacemakers and youth in several countries at risk including the Republic of Georgia,
Uganda, Chile and Bolivia. The prayers and drawings were collected and visually archived into an interactive website featuring each participants vision and words about peace.
Exploring expressive arts programming in your own parish community: The Arts in Spiritual Direction curriculum is based on an ongoing program at Church of the Epiphany in Manhattan. Combining basic process orients expressive art and writing techniques with Evening Prayer and the following church calender, a group of dedicated people from the community engaged in deepening spiritual exploration and community, enriching themselves and the parish. A grant from the Education Society of the Episcopal Church aided in the development of this program.
