March 12th - BQ Again!

I'm spreading the word that Big Questions will start again on March 12th, 2010. The program will be the usual 6:30 pm start time for a pot luck dinner, with a guided discussion beginning at 8:00.

For the pot luck, please bring enough for several. It is truly a pot luck so salads, main dishes, bread, and desserts are all welcome. Dishes and silverware are provided, as are most serving utensils. If you need to heat up your offering, an oven and microwave will be available.

The Greeks enjoyed a libation during discussions concerning philosophy, and so do members of our group. If you would like, red and white wines are both welcome. Soft drinks will be provided.

I am hoping for an influx of new attendees, so will likely recycle one of our tried and true topics. They always seem to do well, and generate some very interesting discussions. Perhaps we can pick from among several that have been fun to do in the past.

If the group is large we will break into smaller groups of 8-10. I feel this is very important for discussions, and has been a point of some difficulty in the past. Trying to get as many as 30 people into a singe discussion has posed significant problems. Smaller groups mean more intimate connections. After all, that's what we want.

If you want to read up on this group, I would recommend reading Christopher Phillip's Socrates Cafe. While I find this to be a bit stylized, it does set the right tone for our meeting. I am certainly not the Socratic scholar Phillip's portrays himself as being, I will do my best.

If you need directions or additional info, please give me a call.

Desmond 360 348-2220

Let's Get Started...

I get a lot of feedback about not doing Big Questions anymore. People miss it, and I miss it. People tell me they miss getting together, so I guess I need to ratchet it up a notch and restart the process again.

The customary time was the 3rd Friday of the month. That would land on March 19, which is the weekend of the Men's Retreat to Port Townsend, and the Women's Book Club Trip to Walla Walla. Not a good time. How about the previous Friday, March 12? I know that puts it 1 week after the Lord's Hill group's meeting, but that is the best time for me. Please look over your calendars and let me know if we can make that work.

Keep an eye peeled on this Blog for a discussion of the new format I would like to try out. I want there to be smaller groups, more intimate discussions, and hopefully more focused discussions. I can't be in two places at the same time (yet), so we will have to work out some sort of co-facilitator function that will need to be filled. If we have 2 groups, we will need at least one other facilitator. Maybe a group can nominate their own? Maybe not.

I will also need to identify a topic for this first re-encounter. Again, the Blog format should serve us well for this. I will issue another Post with this information.

Des

Welcome to the New Big Questions Site

After a stumbling attempt to create a new website, I am hopeful that this will prove to actually work, and deliver the content I intend. So far my desires to create something useful and wonderful, and the reality of the complexity of the internet have been working in opposite directions!

I have been missing the opportunity to get together with my philosophically-oriented friends and discuss the actual content of the compelling BIG Questions I love so much. I continue to read the sorts of texts that result in lots of questions, and I have been keeping a mental list. People love to ask about the sorts of questions I ask, and I have a ready supply to answer. However, after 10 years of more-or-less continuous monthly meetings, and now a half year's hiatus, I am ready to start in some new directions, with a smaller group, and hopefully more directed and focused discussions.

If you know of any way to help me create a list in this crazy new information medium, please leave me a note and let me know. I would ask that if you are interested in being invited to a BQ session, leave your name on this list thing we will create. I expect the format to be mostly like before, but with smaller groups (8 people max, plus Juruf and me) Judy and I will step forward and offer to prepare the main course dish for the pot luck part of the dinner, and guests can bring salads, desserts, condiments, and of course, wine.

I have been recently studying the Ethics of Aristotle, as an example. His Ethics is quite interesting, and full of ideas we might explore. I am currently studying the role of the Vikings in forming the political and social structure of Europe in the 7th - 11th centuries, and that is very interesting (more so than I had expected!). Having joined a Swedish company, it helps me understand a lot about the mindset behind what I experience from my co-workers. That, and learning that the Normans of western France were actually Vikings that decided to settle there, and also true for many parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, and so forth, makes for a different view of the surviving states of Europe. There is somewhat of a melting pot there, stretching back much further than you might expect, and involving Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes from 1,200 years ago!

Anyway, I have a lot on my mind that we might find a way to work into an interesting discussion, and I hope to find a way to make this happen.