My thoughts from our last Spiritual Autobiography workshop:
- Ageism in terms of faith drives me totally out of my gourd. I'm really sad to hear the disrespect with which people speak about their younger selves. Mind, I'm guilty of the same damn thing.
- I have a bizarre liberal liturgical evangelical theology. It's a crazy quilt theology, but I absolutely believe that God is active in our lives.
- I feel really angry when Christians make disparaging remarks about other denominations. Seriously? Why do we need to do this? It's clearer than ever that I feel called to an ecumenical ministry. Whatever that looks like. *sigh*
- Clearly, I was cranky during class discussion, and not paying so much attention to the writing.
- I notice that it's not uncommon for me to learn something, not appreciate it immediately, but find more value in it later. I suspect that will be the last with the Spiritual Autobiography class. On the other hand, the instructor said that he's going to rewrite the course description, because the part that I was interested in is the part he doesn't do!
- We talked about the importance of "continuing bonds with the deceased, moving from a relationship of presence to a relationship of memory." This makes a LOT of sense to me, and somehow seems like a kinder, more whole way to be. The old way of erasing someone from our lives seems to erase part of our lives. (I guess that's redundant, but maybe still needs to be said.)
- One of my favorite suggestions: when someone grieving asks, "Why?!" consider that it may be a protest, rather than a question.
- We learned things about child development this week that help explain why sometimes I'm slow to warm up to people (and maybe workshops).
I'm curious what it was that you wanted from the SA class that you didn't get?
ReplyDeleteDavid Mellot's course description was as follows:
ReplyDeleteThis workshop invites us to "listen to our lives" by opening to God's presence in the ordinary as well as pivotal moments of our lives. As we listen and let our lives speak through contemplative writing, we discover the deeper movements of the Spirit. We discover that our lives and experiences reveal divine holiness. This course will integrate Contemplation, imaginative exercises, and theological reflection as means of enabling us to tell the stories of our lives.
That wasn't really the lens through which we operated, though. We were there to look more closely at ourselves (which is helpful, of course), but... well, maybe it comes down to a Catholic vs. Protestant argument of works vs. grace. He wanted to focus on what we're doing, I wanted to use the time to try to notice what God is doing. I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive, but they were definitely separated out in that workshop.