In the Discussion Forum of this unit, share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous session showing up in your lives?

Sheelah, thank you for your kind words. I’m getting back to ‘life as usual’ after the stent procedure. ‘Life as usual,’ however, always seems to go off in many different directions at once, like T. S. Eliot’s “ribbon roads” metaphor in ‘Choruses From the Rock.’ However, I know the vision for this life comes alive only as I remember Jesus’s presence at its center.

The Forgiving Victim course disciplines me to return my gaze toward Jesus’s loving presence. And in that turning, I find the freedom and strength to grow into a living conduit of His presence. Jesus’s forgiving companionship is not just wishful thinking but reality incarnated in the chaos, retribution, and violence of daily life. Foolishly like a child, however, I look away from my center thinking Jesus disappears if I can’t see him. But no head-turning nor any other impediment can cut off God’s present and alive love in my life.