Hi Friends,

This morning we are announcing Koinonia Spring 2023, A Day Of Peaceful Living through singing, reflective prayer, inspiration and community discussion. We gather on Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 8:30, meet from 9-4 and we provide lunch at noon.

The location is The Gramercy Mansion Estate, adjacent to Koinonia Farm, in Stevenson, Maryland, north Baltimore County. We have the Carriage House conference facilities rented for the day, providing plenty of room for our gathering and a second room for sharing books and fliers relating to peaceful living, community organizations and wholistic living. You are welcome to walk the gardens of this beautiful estate, meet friends and connect with people in what we hope to be an annual or semi-annual gathering.

Let me explain why it’s important, what has inspired this gathering, who it is for and how you can join us.

It’s important because many people want to live more peacefully. It just may be that the essential components of peaceful living are, in no particular order, a daily time of inspiration, reflective prayer, heartfelt discussions with others, and singing in some form or fashion. Koinonia is a day devoted to these four essentials. Both our morning and afternoon sessions include heartfelt singing and an extended reflective prayer and meditation, an inspirational speaker, and a time to share insights about living more peacefully.

Inspiration for this day has come through people who have been inspired by: the Unity movement, a positive, practical, progressive approach to Christianity based on the teachings of Jesus and the power of prayer; Journey Farthest Out, a movement of camping experiences where people find balance physically, mentally and spiritually by steeping themselves in prayer so deeply that it becomes integrated into our very bodies and manifested in all we say and do; The Church of Conscious Harmony, a community dedicated to facilitating the spiritual journey for people who want to make God-devotion the center of their lives while living in the ordinary world; and The Arbinger Institute, publisher of The Anatomy of Peace, a book about helping people resolve conflict with a heart at peace.

Inspiration for our location has come from The Koinonia Foundation, which acquired a 44-acre estate in the Green Spring Valley north of Baltimore, and soon launched a program, and community life, featuring retreat, study, spiritual community–and training to take literacy, agriculture, health, and similar practical skills into the undeveloped world. Much of the Peace Corps’ program was modeled after Koinonia’s. The community’s center of gravity was nonsectarian Christianity, with strong Quaker influences.

You are welcome to come and participate, regardless of where you may be in life and how your life is going. We believe people who will find Koinonia a blessing include individuals in the mid-Atlantic area who wish to establish spiritual friendships, wives and husbands who want to get away for a peaceful day, pastors and prayer teams who wish to explore spiritual pathways, community volunteers, counselors, wholistic health providers, and creative writers, musicians, and artists who wish to expand their network and share their offerings. If the $25 cost is a difficulty for you, please let me know. Bring your stories to share, your books to swap, your fliers to distribute, and your instruments to play. Most important, bring your Self.

Right now, we are looking for people who will manage or help with: welcoming and sign-in, catering for lunch, publicity and social media, audio equipment setup, and organizing the book swap room. Please email me to let me know you can help. If it’s convenient for you, I’ll arrange to meet with you at the location to get acquainted, see the grounds, and discuss the setup.

St Paul wrote “to set the mind on Spirit is peace and life.” We affirm that singing, reflective prayer and meditation, inspiration, and community discussion will set our mind and heart on Spirit and we will find ourselves living more peacefully. Registration is open now. Please let us know you're coming.

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Download 8.5"x11" flyer for Koinonia 2023

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Photos taken December 28, 2022

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