Twenty years ago when the seed of the Temenos vision was planted, a friend encouraged and assisted me prayerfully to set down in words how I hoped the vision would enfold.
This last month, while in the process of renovating our reception and offices, I came across this vision statement which I had called ‘Our Little Way’. What joy to step back and see how marvellously the original intention has been blest. Of course this would never have happened without the love and support of countless friends who have throughout the years brought their beautiful energies and their own spiritual intentions to this garden of the Beloved.
As we approach the joyful season of Christmas and the New Year, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those Temenos friends for the years of their encouragement and friendship and especially for keeping the faith that a garden can exist where all are truly welcome to come and rest awhile and honour the sacred ground that surely exists in all of us. And may Our Little Way keep our hearts aglow.
Welcome to this garden where the gentle spirit of acceptance pervades, where we come to honour who we are and celebrate our differences
OUR LITTLE WAY
We acknowledge a spirituality rooted in the sacredness of our being – and respect and honour all forms of life as God-given and God-infused.
Temenos is precious to us for its respect for the dignity of personhood.
We support and nurture the gift of silence for in silence we begin to know ourselves and rediscover our deepest longings.
We believe that our spirituality may be expressed in intimacy, our body, our mind, our dreams and our actions. Whilst some of us may find expression through a specific spiritual path and or philosophy, we respect that there are individuals who find their own sense of spirituality. Temenos is a sacred space where all are welcome.
At Temenos we honour and celebrate the seasons of nature and of the heart. As a sacred space Temenos is a deeply intimate invitation to healing and wholeness.
We believe that the Beloved comes to us by way of everyone who enters this garden and especially by way of the poor in body and spirit, the broken, the rejected, the powerless – in order to speak of that which is human, and that which is most vulnerable within ourselves. Our response to this makes us signs of the Beloved’s tenderness in our own lives and the lives of those we encounter.
We believe that even if barriers go up around our differences, we must continue out little steps towards tolerance and unity.
We invite you to our little way, the gentler option.
The simple presence of this little way has value in being a sign or at least a question, like a little pathway which is kept usable by the very fact that we walk on it.
To all my Christian friends may your home be filled with the joy of the Christmas season. May you and your family cherish the wonderful memories of love, care and hope, and may you live life in joy and peace.
With Love
Billy and the Temenos Family
Billy, Thank You and all your team for being there. You improve the village. Temenos and Tebaldi's can always raise our spirits when they are becoming in the least depressed. I suspect this applies to many others too. Best wishes to you all from us both. Pam and Roger.