I was happy to receive a link from Rick Heller about the Humanist Contemplatives of Houston, who

focus on self improvement, introspection, and achieving eudaimonia. They gather to meditate or contemplate in a serene setting, offer mutual moral support in meeting personal challenges, experience the profound in the arts, and share new ideas and traditional inspirations on spirituality in a naturalistic context. The tone of a Contemplative gathering is compassionate, patient, and listening rather than academic, boisterous, or debating. Social issues, politics, and religious criticism are avoided to concentrate on personal enlightenment and development.

Sounds a lot like something I’ve been trying to do in Boston, in a small way. In the winter and early spring I organized a few meditation sittings, essentially a liberal Quaker meeting minus the few remainders of religion. Moving and going on vacation, among other things, have distracted me from organizing more since then, but it looks like another might happen soon, and hopefully on a regular basis going forward.

The group I’ve been organizing (which is on Facebook) hasn’t been straightforwardly humanist with a capital H, because I’ve wanted reasonable religious people to feel welcome to come and sit too. But it’s been a queer balancing act, and I envy the comparative clarity and simplicity of the Houston group’s approach.

Perhaps one could have cake and eat it too by organizing as a humanist group, but not describing the meditation sittings themselves as humanistic – or at least not so prominently that it scares all others away. There’s a subtle but real difference between saying, “This is a meditation meeting of the Springfield Humanists,” and saying, “This is a meditation meeting” plus indicating that it happens to be organized by the same.