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.
“… showing up in your lives” The phrase is probably not intended for an online, self-study course, but written for delivery to a group.
Nevertheless, I’m coming to notice a common dynamic of scapegoating in all ‘my groups;’ more subtle in some than others. I wrote about Nora in an earlier post, who was scapegoated in one of my church committees. I’m also active in a local political party organization, where scapegoating is the norm. Group identity emerges in opposition to someone or some idea perceived as beyond the pale, outside the group’s circle of belonging.
Another way Forgiving Victim insights show up in my life comes Sunday mornings when I lector for our parish’s eight o’clock service. In last Sunday’s reading (2 Samuel 7:1-14a) Nathan delivered God’s message to David after he proposed to build a house for God to dwell in. I felt a kind of poignant awareness reading that passage, thinking: Where is the evidence for the existence of David? How do I hear God’s voice today in the reading of this scripture? Where really is God’s house today? This was the internal dialogue behind the public voice reading the passage for the congregation.
Insights from The Forgiving Victim accompany me into all the venues and cultures of my daily lives; manifesting both in the flux of the moment, and as lifelines tethering me to new locations for the timeless foundation of God’s house in embodied and lived reality.