A free set of gatherings, written down as they have actually been run, so that you can copy them and then change them.
This is not a course and it is not a curriculum. Take it as somewhere to start rather than as the correct version. Cut sessions, reorder them, replace the questions with better ones, run three instead of six. If you find yourself worrying about whether you are doing it properly, you have misread what this is.
1. Start Here
Two pages for whoever is going to hold the room — including if that turns out to be you, and you have never done anything like it before. What kind of evening this is, what you actually have to do, and the two places not to begin cold.
Read Start Here → · download the PDF (3 pages)
2. Gathering One
A complete thirty-five minute running order you can use on its own, with two or three people and no book. Every passage is printed in full and every pause is timed. Drop it into a retreat, a formation evening or a group that already meets.
Download Gathering One (PDF, 4 pages) · or read it here
3. Six Gatherings
The full sequence, one a month, in the order the book builds them. Each one has an abstract, the pages it draws on, texts to read aloud, questions, a practice for the month, and a note on what usually goes wrong. Three more are held in reserve for particular situations — a group that cannot decide something, a group carrying a loss, and one written for whoever leads rather than for everyone.
Download Six Gatherings (PDF, 8 pages)
What you need
Three people, one copy of the book, and an hour. Gathering One works without the book at all; from the third gathering onward you will want a copy in the room, because the sessions cite pages and read passages aloud. That is not a rule, just how it works out.
Using it and passing it on
All of this may be copied, printed and adapted for non-commercial formation, retreat and spiritual use. The book says the same on page 172: this practice is offered as a gift to the contemplative community — please share it freely. A simple attribution is all that is asked for:
Sacred Noticing by Michael J. Cunningham, OFS
If you run a gathering and something works better than what is written here, I would like to hear about it — mcunningham@spiritualbreak.com.