Transcending Contempt
January – February 2023
Led by The Reverend Christopher H. Martin
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, San Rafael, CA
415-456-4842
Welcome to Transcending Contempt, a six-session weekly seminar at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, San Rafael, California. The purpose of this class is to help us all become beacons of light and love in a stressful election year, sure to be filled with expressions of contempt for our fellow Americans. Each week, Christopher will be offering a practice to help us transcend our own temptations to begin treating others with contempt. Although the practices are based on the writings of great thinkers, reading or understanding those thinkers is not required for the seminar.
Register at: Transcending Contempt All are welcome; free.
You can participate in one of three ways.
- The best is to come in person to Duncan Hall on our campus on 1123 Court St. in downtown San Rafael on Saturday mornings beginning January 6th. Hospitality is at 8:30am and the one-hour session begins at 9am. There will be hard copy handouts with the agenda, the outlines of the talks and a few supporting pages of texts by or about the writers that inspired the teaching.
- The second best is to join us live on Zoom for sessions two through six. The first session, on January 6th, will only be on YouTube and you can access the live presentation either from this web site or on our YouTube Channel, St. Paul’s, San Rafael. The remaining sessions are on Zoom where St. Paul’s parishioner Walter Tanner will be facilitating discussion for the first half and then transition to Christopher’s live teaching for the second half. A PDF of the handout will be uploaded to this web page two hours before each session.
- Finally, the teaching each week will be available live on YouTube just after 9:30am Pacific time. You can then access the YouTube recording of the teaching and the PDF of the handout at any time on this Transcending Contempt web page.
• My goal for each of these sessions is to have you leave each session eager to try out a new practice.
• The teaching of each session is aimed toward getting you to understand the practice and to trust that the practice is rooted in great thinking.
• Each packet also has quotes, brief essays or brief descriptions by or about our great thinkers. These materials are there to support you if you choose to use them. This is not a reading course.
Below, please find the Zoom link and the YouTube recordings and the PDF for each session as they occur. Finally, in two of the sessions Christopher refers to his two previous books. You can find the link to his books on Amazon at:
The Restoration Project by Christopher Martin
With Gladness; Answering God’s Call in our Daily Lives by Christopher Martin
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwdMKliDwgkJ7b-gqXpbS-A
Clink on this Zoom Link to join each session.
Access the current PDF below for each session (when available).
Session One: The Gifts of Wonder, Attention and Gratitude
Plato, Simone Weil, Aquinas
January 6th
Session Two: Learning to Be Good
Aquinas
January 13th
Session Three: Separating from the Crowd
Kierkegaard
January 20th
Session Four: Evil is Privation, Goodness is Creativity
Plato and Kierkegaard
January 27th
Session Five: Replace Contempt with Regard
Simone Weil, James Baldwin
February 3rd
Session Six: Living Towards Heaven
Dante
February 10th
Session Seven: Practices for Lent
February 17th
We look forward to welcoming you!