London Spring

London Spring: where people can come together

London Spring

Our hopes and plans for 2018 – 19

We have been working on plans to develop a new initiative, London Spring,  in No 74 Castlebar Road that could,

  1. Offer a low cost counselling service to clients
  2. Offer placements for student therapists with supervision.
  3. Help Ealing Abbey community be more restorative for the past in its core mission
  4. Use the asset of the building at no 74: and may bring in new people.
  5. Host training / counselling for work with children.
  6. Make rooms available for groups, counsellors and therapists.

We invite readers to make your comments and let us know if you like the name “London Spring” for this work. We have created a survey on Surveymonkey (https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/H9PMPMK) asking 3 questions to canvass public opinion around whether this project for Counselling would be a good service to the wider community. We also enquire whether you feel you have something to contribute to such a project and if so can you spell it out.

There are two rooms for counselling and psychotherapy.

D James has provided financial plans for 2018 to give accountability and transparency to support this work. We hope that refurbishment of rooms on first floor will take place in September and October so that London Spring can open in November.

So far in 2017 and 2018 we have looked at experiences of social isolation and fragmentation in the culture of the London we love. Together we have lots of contacts with people of faith, no faith and with social activists.

London Spring is the name for an initiative at 74 Castlebar Road begun in 2017. The name calls to mind the spring of water that bubbles beneath the property. It also evokes memories of the Prague Spring in 1968, the Arab Spring in 2011 and the world wide hope for a deeper democracy. We have a dream for such events to take place in this underused and partially restored property. We want to create a “dense spot”, perhaps for just a short time. Here people from many different backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities can meet in a Worldwork sort of way.

Spring boarding development, support and practice of Counselling and Therapy, with hopes to offer therapy for victims of all kinds of abuse and discrimination: religious, racial, sexual, orientation, age.

In 2017 we began by focussing on the sources of wisdom in different religious traditions. Spring boarding inter-faith dialogue Our activites translate Catholic and Benedictine values into language and expressions more accessible to post Christian generations. One of the interpretive tools we have used for some time is toolkit of  ‘human strengths’ of the Eriksonian system of psychology; trust, hope, overcoming obstacles, competence, fidelity and love.

London Spring: “A Meeting of Different Traditions of Wisdom”  We can move to a more open framework where a broader group of people can get together; facilitated by members of Deep Democracy Forum

London Spring: A Safe Space

A safe space where the wisdom of the monastic tradition can be in conversation with the wisdom of other religious tradition, psychology, sociology, law, government. We do this in order to establish unity, connection and respect in diversity.

In this way people from many different faiths and none, with social activists will be able to meet and work in an atmosphere of peace and trust

We want to explore both unity and disunity in the context of our shared humanity and the realisation of our  ideals and vision. We want to look at the varying levels of our human, cultural, religious, spiritual & mystical experience in the cultures of the London we love. Together as believers and non-faith activists we hope to develop unity as sisters and brothers in our shared humanity.

Another aim is to discuss our shared and new insights, our rich diversity and our shared hopes (not forgetting the parts we find  difficult to speak about) in order to open a door to a new future. And yet another aim of London Spring is to help more people to remember just how easy it was for Europeans to slide into barbarism, only 70 years ago and we want to prevent something similar and dreadful from happening again.

We welcome proposals from different faith groups and from social activists for initiatives that with help make London a safer place for everyone.

London Spring: Helping to make London safer for everyone

Dom James Leachman is a priest-monk of Ealing Abbey.

Please email info AT benedictine-institute DOT org

tel: 020 8862 2156

 

past events:

Trump – Brexit – 18 March 2017
Muslim – Christian Understanding – 13 June 2017
Sikhi – Christian Understanding and Deep Democracy Forum – 22 July 2017

created Tuesday 29 June 2017,
edited JL 30 September 2018