The Santa Clarita Center for Spiritual Living welcomed its members to a book club gathering centered around the book “The Sermon on the Mount” on Sunday.
Each meeting, which draws a dozen or more visitors, provides the grounds for discussion and learning. This meeting looked at Emmet Fox’s 1934 book, “The Sermon on the Mount,” which examines the story of the sermon in the Bible and provided a modernized interpretation of it. Margie Rovarino, former board member at the center, said the book leads one away from judgment and fear and gives a more embracing and calming message to the faithful.
“There was a group of guys around that time – Emmet Fox, Ernest Holmes, the founders of the 12 step program – that were all coming into what they called New Thought, which is a different way of looking at spirituality and religion and things like that,” she said.
The book club previously looked at Homes’ book, “This Thing Called You,” which provided different methods of meditation and prayer intended to help the mind and one’s sense of spirituality.
Reverend Ron Blair led the gathering. Book ideas are suggested and accepted by Blair, and they can cover other religious concepts and approaches, which opens up the book club to people of other faiths outside of the center, Rovarino said.
“The book club is wonderful,” Blair said. “It’s a vibration of which we get to establish here in our center that can go out from here, and that’s been my intention, to create a space of which then we can go out into the community and reflect.”
