Jubilee! Circle: Where "Church"
Doesn't Mean What You Think it Means

Jubilee! Circle is a progressive, inclusive community, influenced by Creation Spirituality, ecumenical, feminist, and traditional Christian theologies.

We respect and value each person's spiritual path. Whether you come from a church background, a religious background other than Christianity, or no religious background at all, you are welcome here.

At each Celebration we express our faith through music, dance, poetry, prayer, evocative messages, and fellowship. No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome at Jubilee! Circle. Join us!

Meeting days: Sunday
(every first Sunday is Potluck!)

Meeting time: 11 a.m.

Meeting place: 2730 Millwood Avenue, Columbia, SC

Map and directions

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The Via Transformativa:
The Music of the Spheres

It was in the 1994 movie Reality Bites that Troy Dyer, played by Ethan Hawke, coined the famous quote, "I was told there would be no math."

Sadly for Troy Dyer, and the rest of us math-phobes here on planet Earth, math plays a crucial role in our lives every single day, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Get in the car? Math - right there on the speedometer, the metric and other measurements of the dimensions of the car, the calculations on wind resistance and gas mileage.

Turn on your computer? Math. All those ones and zeros being manipulated into words, images, and Facebook status posts.

Pick up a guitar or other musical instrument? It's all about the math - the meter, the rhyme, the "do, re, mi" of the scale, heck, the scale itself, all math.

It was that historical math nerd Pythagoras who discovered that the pitch of a musical note depended on the length of the string which produces it - so each of my guitar strings is either lengthened or shortened to get them into the pitch I need. It was also Pythagoras who recognized that the musical octave is the simplest and most profound expression of the relationship between spirit and matter.

His followers used music to heal the body and elevate the soul. But earthly music, they believed, was merely an echo of the universal "harmony" or "music of the spheres."

Astrologer David Plant explains that, "In ancient cosmology, the planetary spheres ascended from Earth to Heaven like the rungs of a ladder. Each sphere was said to correspond to a different note of a grand musical scale. The particular tones emitted by the planets depended upon the ratios of their respective orbits, just as the tone of a lyre-string depended upon its length."

What this means is that the entire world - from the largest galaxy to the smallest molecule is always singing and always invites us to sing along with the Holy music that swirls in, through and around us every moment of our lives.

We have a choice - we can continue to be like Troy Dyer and complain about all the math that we swim in, or we can embrace the mathematical sense of this world and immerse ourselves in the mysterious music it creates in each moment.

If we will calm our minds, and put aside our fear of math, then the world becomes a lyrical, musical, symphony of life. It is in that moment of awe, when we finally catch the rhythm of this Holy, awe-filled life that we find ourselves saying: "Oh, Yeah!"