Embracing Risk
This Sunday, TracyJ shares her journey of listening to her inner voice and taking bold steps toward her true calling. This talk is an opportunity to reflect on your own experiences and the risks that can lead to transformative change. TracyJ invites us to lean into courage, come out, engage, and
discover the power of embracing risks in your own life!
MEET TRACYJ
TracyJ is a Grenadian-born, Durham-based spoken word performer and tea enthusiast. She transforms her writing into a safe haven and healing space for herself and others, exploring themes of love, mental health, women’s empowerment, and the mysteries of life.
TracyJ has graced dynamic stages from local church groups, to Corporations, to the local municipality & community events.
She has successfully merged her passion for tea and poetry, creating a business that offers natural, caffeine-free teas that reflect the essence of her poetic work. This Sunday, we'll put on the kettle to share a few sips together. If you're online with us, be sure to bring your favourite blend too!
Watch the October 20 gathering
Readings - October 20, 2024
The first reading is from the works of Rollo May, an existential psychotherapist who promoted humanistic values and encouraged people to face their fears and fulfill their creative potential. His many works include the book The Courage to Create.
“Life comes from physical survival, but the good life comes from what we care about. Freedom is person’s capacity to take a hand in his or her own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.”
The second is from the works of Erich Fromm, a philosopher and psychologist who left his home and clinical practice in Berlin when the Nazis came to power. His writings promote love as a creative capacity for demonstrating care and respect for oneself and others. His best-known work is entitled The Art of Loving.
“One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often. A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet “for sale” who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his “normal” contemporaries.”
The third is by the French dramatist and literary critic, Jean Anouilh, who wrote both comedies and tragedies for the French theater. Creating during the Nazi occupation, a highly
vulnerable time for authentic artistic expression, he stressed the crucial importance of maintaining ones’ moral integrity and humanitarian values, especially when one is under
pressure to compromise them.
“To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life right up to the elbows. Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.”