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    • #1849
      Forgiving Victim
      Participant

      1.1 An odd beginning

      In this first module, James introduces the anthropology contained within theology. He describes Christians as people who learn to find themselves on the receiving end of an act of communication from God.  Please share your thoughts, comments, discoveries and responses to these questions.

      Welcome to Part One

      In the first video, James will be talking about Christians as people who learn to find themselves on the receiving end of an act of communication from God. To get started, let’s recall different ways God has communicated with human beings in the Bible.

      • After Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree, God put in a personal appearance. (Genesis 3:8)
      • God spoke directly with Abram, calling him to leave his country. (Genesis 12:1)
      • God sent a message to King David after he had Bathsheba’s husband killed through the prophet Nathan. (2 Samuel 12:7-12)
      • And to warn Joseph, Jesus’ father, of Herod’s plan to slaughter the infants, God sent an angel in a dream. (Matthew 2:13)

      Share the ways in which God is communicating with you today.

      Food for thought

      • James talks about Christianity having been thought of as grasping onto a theory about what God has done for us and then acting according to a moral code. Is that what Christianity has been like for you? How or how not?
      • What is your relationship to the Bible? Do you think of it as an act of communication from God? If so, what do you think God is communicating to us in our particular time and place?
      • James says that habits are what make excellence possible.
        • What beneficial practices have you been inducted into?
        • Who inducted you or how did you acquire your “stable dispositions”?
        • What impact might an act of communication from God have on your life?

      Wrap-up question

      Consider this quote from the first essay:

      “What I hope we are going to be doing together is to begin to become habituated to being the sort of people who might be able to hear God speaking through the Son whom he appointed heir to all things.”

      Why you think this course is subtitled, “Listening for the Unheard Voice”?

    • #4193
      Kathleen Kennard
      Participant

      Ways in which God is communicating with me today?

      First-off, I need to say that I do not perceive God as being “out-there”. I experience God as being with-in, so communication for me occurs as originating from a sense of well-being or peace, or some such positive state or feeling. It’s like an opening for the Divine. And it occurs to me that it is I who originates the communication, not the other way around! i.e. it seems like God is always there when I open myself to Him/Her/Oneness/Love (there seem to be many names for God today, and I embrace them all!), and that God has no hope of communicating with me if I am not thusly open.

      I feel that I am in the presence of God today, and the message is not in words, but a general feeling of happiness and gratitude that I have interpreted to mean that I am headed in the right direction, and that I am not alone. It seems like I positioned myself in a favorable space to receive this “message” after initiating an act of kindness to my husband. I took him out for coffee this morning, and I listened to the story of his progress in a creative project he is involved in. My point here is that acts o kindness to others can be a call into God, so to speak, and if I listen, I can be on the receiving end of a powerful inner sense of well-being. Btw, I also refer to Angel and any other messenger sent from God as God. I feel no need to distinguish, although I can if the desire arrises. To me they are all part of God and at a higher vibration than myself, so to speak, which warrants them the label of God (being one with God, is how I experience it). So, I could say that in many instances, a message from God means that I am being directed (in a direction) for the highest good.

    • #4194
      Kathleen Kennard
      Participant

      Yes, I get what is being said in the video about the human animal being inducted into habit over time.

      This is about context, and without context there is no meaning.

    • #5131
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      How is God communicating with me today?
      Through a thirst which does not leave me; a restlessness that keeps me searching and challenging what I have believed about God up to now. The rest is darkness because I am undoing and reframing but encounters with other open-hearted and open-minded people are also God communicating and carrying me/us forward.

    • #5132
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Christianity as theory and we respond with moral code – yes, James is giving language for my experience which I had not found. It fits perfectly and it brought me to a dead end to increasing struggles around prayer and the rest of my Catholic religious practice. This way of living Christianity leaves no real room for relationship for me regardless of the church affiliation. I reached a point where this image of God has to die and be replaced.
      My relationship to the Bible? It is very limited at present as I struggle NOT to hear the Word through the filters/lens of moralizing voices and hierarchical authority but the psalms remain easily accessible.It is an act of communication from God but not pure and unadulterated. There are many human projections as I think of Girard’s mimesis theory and the violence in many Old Testament stories. I am not ready to answer what God is communicating in this time and place as yet and I will come back for the habitus questions.

    • #5133
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Listening for the unheard voice – yes, this is true because as James says referring to the mysterious passage quoted from Hebrews 1, “we would never talk about anyone this way” and the voice is unheard because “it blows apart our normal frames of reference”. After 25 years walking the Christian path I am still longing for my normal frame of reference to be blown apart and no longer can accept to mimic all the God talk I hear.

    • #5139
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Christianity as theory and the resulting moral code seem to me to make God

        so

      small. I find it hard to equate this God with the images I have filled with lately of Unbounded Majesty and Dazzling Darkness.

    • #5141
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Listening for the unheard voice – Can it be that in our normal frame of reference we cannot hear God speaking. Do we need to be shown a radically different and new way of listening?

    • #5267
      Benjamin
      Participant

      As I get older, I understand G-d as far more a verb than a noun. As such, if I pay attention I have an acute sense of a Presence that is transforming me slowly and inexorably. Also, encountering this course is an act of communication from G-d, whom I’ve wrestled with most of my life.

    • #5290
      Benjamin
      Participant

      James talks about Christianity having been thought of as grasping onto a theory about what God has done for us and then acting according to a moral code. Is that what Christianity has been like for you? How or how not?

      Until relatively recently, Christianity has been a theory/belief system that was to inform my behavior, exactly as James articulates.

      What is your relationship to the Bible? Do you think of it as an act of communication from God?

      My understanding of the Bible has (and continues) to evolve. I see it as a human record of human beings wrestling with their understanding of G-d, and I also see it as G-d’s attempt to communicate with us something about us and something about G-d. I see G-d as the still, small voice that is beckoning us to do justice and mercy.

      James says that habits are what make excellence possible.
      What beneficial practices have you been inducted into?

      Prayer, meditation, recovery, service, forgiveness.

      Who inducted you or how did you acquire your “stable dispositions”?

      I believe wholeheartedly that, “we desire according to the desire of another.” As such, much of my personality has been shaped by my family of origin, American consumer culture, and such. More positively, I find that I am increasing drawn (or being drawn) into another disposition, one that I believe is Christianity.

      What impact might an act of communication from God have on your life?

      A profound impact, in that it is capable of reorienting me utterly to an understanding of myself (and humanity) being liked and loved into a new way of being. That’s AWESOME.

    • #5291
      Benjamin
      Participant

      I believe the course is called “The Forgiving Victim” because it says something about God and us. God came in human form, as revealed in Christ, and was murdered by us, and even in our most atrocious of acts, forgives us and reconciles us to a mode of being that is life-giving.

    • #5301
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Benjamin, this is a wonderful description of the conversion process and of how the Gospel works in our lives as a gradual revelation.

    • #5307
      Charles Hill
      Participant

      My first thought is that a better question for me is, is God communicating with me? Because, I really don’t know. I have a strange suspicion that I am being led, especially these past few years. So if God is communicating with me, it is through external events that eeriely correspond with internal thoughts and feelings I am having.

    • #5308
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Charles, I think that so much of our spiritual development is the result of our life experience and interaction with others. You say that you feel that you are being led, and no doubt you are, especially when you consider “external events that eerily correspond with internal thoughts and feelings”. Being inducted into new patterns of desire is so much about the recognition of the other. So is God communicating with you through these external events and even perhaps through persons with whom there is little affinity?

    • #5339
      Charles Hill
      Participant

      I have watched the first video, and first of all, I think it is fantastic. What Father James is saying is genius in its simplicity. I have never thought of approaching Christianity as an inculcation of new habits. Yet this fits perfectly with my understanding of Girard’s mimetic desire theory. Thank you Father James!

      My first thought in regards to the idea of starting with theory and then working with morals is to remember that it is precisely this method which has led me here. Reading about scapegoat mechanism and how the crucifixtion reveals it definitely led me to begin thinking intellectually about how this all may be true.

      So, I am now thinking that theory and morals may lead one to the door of faith, but it is in “relaxing into a practice over time” which will take me through.

    • #5340
      Charles Hill
      Participant

      “What I hope we are going to be doing together is to begin to become habituated to being the sort of people who might be able to hear God speaking through the Son whom he appointed heir to all things.”

      In the Discussion Forum for this session, share why you think this course is subtitled, “Listening for the Unheard Voice”?”

      So, who I am is my accumulation of habits (Aristotle). These habits have been formulated in response to the experiences I had as a child with others around me (mimetic desire/conflict). To change, I must change those with whom I shape myself. Listening for the unheard voice (of God), becomes the first step in the process of becoming a new person.

    • #5342
      Charles Hill
      Participant

      Food For Thought
      1. My relationship with the Bible? It has been difficult, I often have gotten frustrated while reading various passages. I have largely read it piecemeal, but am looking forward to reading with new eyes gained from this course. I read somewhere the idea of separating the God OF the Bible from the God IN the Bible and this has helped me a lot.

      2. The word “beneficial” is throwing me off when I try to think of beneficial practices I have been inducted into. If I change it to “not beneficial” I can come up with a huge list! I am thinking that following this thought of mimetic desire to conflict to scapegoat to release via the atonement, Father James will lead us to the idea of opening ourselves to being induced to new habits in relation with God. With this, I am sure that an act of communication from God would have a massive impact on my life.

    • #5351
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Yes, Charles, I think that the “relaxing into a practice over time” is a wonderful way of expressing our need to link our heads to our hearts. Christianity is not a set of rules to be kept, but a powerhouse of spirituality, a process of finding ourselves on the inside of an act of communication that is developing in us a new set of practices. You seem to be well on the journey!

    • #5610
      Michael Barberi
      Participant

      Like so many Catholics, I was taught Catholic theology in elementary school (in my case in the 1950s) and it was a moral theory that I had to memorize and then put into practice according to certain moral practices. I really never read the Bible until I was an adult in my 30s. I tried to understand the spirit of the word, not necessarily the word as law. Over the last 5-8 years, I have been studying moral theology and have learned to think differently. God’s law and love is not a series of negative injunctions and legalistic norms.

      The habits I enjoy is frequent prayer and education. The education is not limited to a traditionalist orthodox perspective which is a repeat of doctrine and rules, but also of different perspectives on how to determine what is right and wrong actions, and good and evil dispositions, ends and intentions. This has opened me to think about things differently and responsibly question how I was “taught things” and to “do things” while still staying faithful. I can now say that I am more comfortable in my belief that God, his Holy Spirit, leads us to truth in agreement and disagreement, especially if one has an well informed conscience and good reasons for questioning a specific teaching. This is an on-going process.

      I look forward to more from Fr. Allison.

      • #5835
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Yes, Michael this is indeed an on-going process. I am sure you will find it thrilling as you come to know more of James’s teaching, how he gives such a life changing way of looking at our faith, without creating in any way conflict with traditional ways of thought. This is a God who is coming towards us with unconditional love, not a set of rules. As James frequently reminds us, God not only loves us, he also likes us warts and all!

    • #5611
      Michael Barberi
      Participant

      I think that to become the man or woman God wants us to become, we need to put him in the center of our lives and listen. We can do this through prayer and by frequent sacrament and also by asking or questioning how our actions are in accordance with or in contradiction with the Gospels. Many times, this is not so apparent because the answers and not so obvious. We often are faced with moral dilemma, with teachings that are in tension with our lived experience and our reasoning. When this happens we need to listen not only to our spiritual advisors, but to others with similar perspectives and others with a different opinion. If we close off the conversation to only those with a similar perspective, we might not be listening as broadly or deeply enough. This does not mean we have to agree with a certain perspective, but we need to reflect upon them and pray for the guidance of God which will be given.

      • #5834
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Michael, James has entitled the first part of the course “Starting human, staying human” where he accentuates the anthropology of the Christian message. We find God through our rapport with our fellow man, that is, the recognition of the “other” as also made in the image and likeness of God. In practical terms where there is no rivalry or scapegoating of others. James introduces us to his concept of “the social other” and “the Other other”, and in so doing, he subtly makes us aware of René Girard’s thinking on desire. We learn from childhood patterns of desire and we learn to desire what the other desires. When we desire what our neighbour, “the social other” desires, we expose ourselves to the rivalry, violence and scapegoating of the world. But “the Other other”, that is God, is beyond all rivalry and comes toward us in an act of communication to which we become a part.

    • #5831
      Sue Kemple
      Participant

      Christianity… my Catholic faith… has been exactly like grasping onto a theory and then acting according to a moral code. I’ve always suspected that God is much bigger than how I’ve received my faith, even the little I’ve read of Augustine and Aquinas in my attempts to be more serious. To this point, my relationship with the Bible has been one where I’ve always felt there is much more beneath the surface that I wasn’t understanding, and that there are irrelevant parts I ought to just dismiss. I now see from reading this book and going through the course that the Bible is so much richer than this. I wish I had better habits, as I always start then stop practices such as prayer, meditation, reading Scripture, attending daily Mass, etc. I hope that this course will help me relax into spiritually beneficial and desirable habits for life.

      What impact might an act of communication from God have on my life? The last clear communication was when I was confirmed, 31 years ago. It was such a powerful communication that I told God if I never had such an experience again, that would be okay… this was enough. Indeed, I can recall no such acts of communication since then to which I’ve been open… and I think this concept of being open is the key. He’s been communicating all along, no doubt. But now, I hope to have the mind and heart to receive what He wants to share.

    • #5833
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      James does indeed give us a much richer reading of Scripture Sue, and it is totally life changing. You ask what might an act of communication with God have on your life? In this very first part of the course we learn that “Christianity is the process of finding ourselves on the inside of an act of communication that is developing in us a new set if practices.” We find that we are gradually, almost inperceptivly evolving into quite another person. It is the beginning of a wonderful journey.

    • #5851
      Tom Stave
      Participant

      How is God communicating with me? Lately, through what I take to be prompts or nudges, which (if I’m alert and willing) I try to obey; then watch what follows.

      • #5868
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        As you say Tom, the communication comes in strange and mysterious ways! It might be helpful for you to think that instead of obeying the communication, you are in effect, being inducted into God’s plan for us. God is actually coming towards us with unconditional love and understanding; we just have to allow ourselves to go with the flow.

    • #5887
      Sue Kemple
      Participant

      Why is the subtitle, “Listening for the Unheard Voice”?

      In reading James’s book, I realize that there is much I’ve not heard in Scripture. Always suspecting there was something much deeper and more profound, I’ve never quite been able to grasp it. But changing my perception and mindset, and opening my heart, I have already heard the voice quite differently…

      • #5888
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Sue, you ask what is the meaning of the subtitle “Listening for the Unheard Voice”? It seems to me that you then answer your own question! I suspect that each one of us finds the unheard voice in different ways, but you have put it beautifully. “….but changing my perception and mindset, I have already heard the voice quite differently”.

    • #5918
      Tony Z
      Participant

      I haven’t watched or read any of the materials yet, but the site asks me to join the forum “by sharing the ways in which God is communicating with you today”. I feel like I have to admit that’s language I’m uncomfortable with. I suppose my discomfort stems from the question whether, if someone takes it that God is communicating with them, how to know if it’s God or not? So I’m looking forward to see if the course will give me some context to think this through further.

      • #5921
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        I think it is very human to feel uncomfortable at the beginning, as what James is proposing is truly ‘odd’ when we consider the tradition in which most up us grew up. Tony you describe in your next post ‘a moralistic God’ and I think that most of us would also be acquainted with this God as well as the idea that Christianity is about morals and ‘being good’. Welcome to a wonderful journey Tony.

    • #5919
      Tony Z
      Participant

      “James talks about Christianity having been thought of as grasping onto a theory about what God has done for us and then acting according to a moral code. Is that what Christianity has been like for you? How or how not?”

      I think that is what Christianity has been like for me, in the sense of having a picture of God as a moralistic judge, and reacting against that.

      “What is your relationship to the Bible? Do you think of it as an act of communication from God? If so, what do you think God is communicating to us in our particular time and place?”

      I seldom read the Bible, but a small, perhaps increasing part of me is intrigued. I understand the Christian view that it is a communication from God. What I think of in that context is the question of interpretation — how humans interpret the text. However we interpret it, I do agree that it is a striking text.

      “James says that habits are what make excellence possible.
      What beneficial practices have you been inducted into?
      Who inducted you or how did you acquire your “stable dispositions”?
      What impact might an act of communication from God have on your life?”

      I like to think I have an open mind, and I’m sure I’ve inherited such a trait from my parents. What impact might an act of communication from God have on my life? I don’t know!

      • #5922
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        James’s course is teaching us to become used to hearing God through the Son. He tells us that ‘God is communicating as someone who appeared in the middle of history but who is also somehow involved in the creation of the world.’ And, that being truly Christian is to find oneself on the inside of a marvellous project, an act of divine communication that is calling us to a new way of being. In the Bible God communicates in difference ways, speaking in person, or as a voice speaking to Abraham, through the Prophets and as an angel in a dream and of course through the Son. James also tells us that this ‘odd beginning’ is basic anthropology in that we ‘learn by being inducted into a set of practices over time such that we find ourselves knowing from within how they work’ as we find ourselves becoming something or someone we scarcely knew before. Tony I think that this act of communication will change your life!

    • #5920
      Tony Z
      Participant

      I think the course is subtitled “Listening for the Unheard Voice” to put forward the idea that it’s not that God hasn’t been speaking, it’s that God has been speaking to us all along, but we haven’t yet heard.

      • #5923
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Exactly Tony, we haven’t heard or understood.

    • #5931
      Leigh
      Participant

      I’m coming out of a reformed tradition. Calvimist. So I wonder if the question about grasping a doctrine and then performing up to standards reflects what I’ve always been taught about Catholics, namely, that they’re legalists trying to climb the ladder of performance to heaven. We knew that was impossible, but our way out took a very dark and more terrible turn. The measure of how awful a failure to perform God’s demand for absolute perfection was not the deed itself but the status and nature of the one whom you offended thereby. God is infinitely holy so that the slightest disobedience or disrespect is infinitely offensive to God. Gods firestorm of wrath against any and all sin was exhausted on Christ. Had to be human; had to be divine. So while we Protestants escaped the presumption of ever being able to please God through our own efforts that escape was accomplished through something even worse then blackmail: a hostage exchange. We were done with anthropology right from the beginning. It’s a dead issue. Don’t waste your time. We are utterly abominable to God and only the sacrifice of Jesus could satisfy God’s infinite wrath.

      • #5937
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Thank you Leigh for an extremely interesting post. Yes, you are right, Catholicism has a legalistic aspect, as the institution of the Church stepped into the vacuum left by the Roman Empire and adopted its structures and language and, of course, its formidable legal system. A fine example of how the institution sometimes deformed certain aspects of Christ’s message is the fact that Christian justice is restorative (see Matt 18:15) while Roman justice is retributive. But this is by no means the whole story as the tradition of mysticism and contemplative prayer has also permeated Catholic life and thinking. By mysticism, I do not mean some arcane, esoteric practice involving secret knowledge known only to the initiated few, fed by visions and trances as is frequently thought, but put simply, it is the realisation of the mystery of God. ‘No one has ever seen God’ as John’s gospel tells us, we only know the Father through the Son who taught love and forgiveness. James is initiating us into Christianity as a process of finding ourselves on the inside of an act of communication that is developing in us a new set of practices. The new creation in Christ, where the God of unconditional and endless love is coming towards us. The traditional doctrine of Atonement has no real place here, as the great 13th century Dominican mystical theologian taught us, all our conceptions of God are reflections of ourselves. There is no angry, vengeful God, just angry vengeful people!

    • #5932
      Leigh
      Participant

      Is “listening for the unheard voice” that part of the mimetic that describes the usual rivalry we fall into with those from whom we have been receiving? The voice is there; we owe our existence to it; we now desire according to that other voice (or the voice of the other) but seek to appropriate or grasp or possess the desired object. Somehow that grasping wants to believe that the desire itself only comes from within – and that’s why we don’t hear the other voice, rather we suppress that other voice: it has become our adversary. We claim for outsells not merely the desired object but also the desire itself. So, ironically, we don’t hear the other voice because we did hear the other voice.

    • #5938
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      René Girard describes the conversion process as ‘the redirection of desire towards God’ or the ‘other other’. And yes Leigh, you have expressed it very well, we frequently desire according to the desires of the ‘social’ other as James so interestingly describes it. And as you say, we then imagine that our desires are autonomous, initiating within ourselves. I found your last sentence is extremely insightful.

    • #6002
      Lee
      Participant

      I may be the only person actively going through Module 1 (no new posts since Oct 2014) but here goes anyway:

      James talks about Christianity having been thought of as grasping onto a theory about what God has done for us and then acting according to a moral code. Is that what Christianity has been like for you? How or how not?

      12 years ago Christianity became a life-changer (even though I am a cradle Catholic but the faith was rarely expressed in the family). So much good news, new material to read, things to do, people to meet, etc. But then I have been struggling the past few years with Where is God now? What is Jesus truly doing with and for me? It seemed that the entire responsibility of the relationship was on me. If I didn’t think/do anything then nothing happened. And that very much meant acting to a moral code; virtues to perfect, bad habits to eradicate, nightly examination of conscience (and in my reflection I rarely could accuse myself of doing anything perfectly), faithfulness to particular acts of piety, etc. I suppose this is truly the nature of the relationship but there had to be a presence outside of myself. The other way was mentally exhausting.

      • #6009
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        I can well imagine that ‘the other way was mentally exhausting’, Lee. James entitles this Part One as “Starting Human, staying human”, by which he means that while theology is the academic discipline of making sense of who God is and what God is about, ‘Jesus the Forgiving Victim’ from the very beginning makes us realise that theology is also an anthropology, it is God speaking with us on a very human level. James explains that God is communicating as someone who appeared in the middle of history, but who is also involved somehow in the creation of the world. In other words, God is communicating through Jesus. And yes, the quote about ‘grasping onto a theory about what God has done for us’ with which you began this post, is very familiar to most of us. James takes us on a journey which explains Christianity as the process of finding ourselves on the inside of an act of communication that is leading us into a new set of practices. This results in our discovering from within what Jesus is saying, which has the power to transform us into becoming something, or someone we did not know before. And to understand how God is speaking to us through Jesus and the Bible is a formidable journey of self discovery.

        And yes, Lee, do feel free to send me posts whenever you like. We may even be able to have three-way conversations with Rich who wrote a little time after you and to whom I will respond very soon.

    • #6003
      Lee
      Participant

      James says that habits are what make excellence possible.

      What beneficial practices have you been inducted into?
      Who inducted you or how did you acquire your “stable dispositions”?
      What impact might an act of communication from God have on your life?

      I do understand what James was implying about habits being good. The example of the car driver and doctor made his point clear. But what about being inducted into “unstable dispositions” such as frequent anger/impatience, addictions, selfishness? (things we would normally call sins) Am I already crossing into morality?

      I used to regularly pray for an “act of communication from God” because it would solidify my faith and enable me to experience a joy (assuming the act of communication wasn’t a lightning bolt or millions of gnats) that would forever light up my life.

      • #6010
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        I think that “listening for the unheard voice” describes the gradual evolution we undergo Lee, rather than a lightening bolt or a fanfare of trumpets. I have a very good Muslim friend who taught me the phrase “Let go; let God”.

    • #6005
      Rich Paxson
      Participant

      How does God communicate? Where is the evidence of God’s constant reaching towards us in love? I think of the refrain in Leonard Cohen’s ‘Anthem’: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” In other words, I think God uses any and every event in a person’s life as occasions of communication. They may be ‘lightening bolts,’ but most often I find much subtlety in the experience of God’s communication: small aha’s – now I get it – kinds of experiences. James writes about ‘relaxing into new relationship; a life with God.’ It takes time to listen for the unheard voice, for new moral direction to be apparent, for behaviors to change.

      I’m new to this course and this forum too. I’ve been reading Forgiving Victim: Listening for the Unheard Voice for a while. I decided to take the course for access to the videos, and to write here, I guess. Except, I didn’t know about this particular venue. I just knew that I wanted to ‘talk about’ the change I been experiencing through engaging with the book, and other or James’ writings and videos.

      • #6011
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Welcome to our Forum Rich, it seems that you are beginning very well. Do share your thoughts with us as often as possible. I suggested in a post to Lee (see above) that we could perhaps have a three way conversation. I much appreciated your reference to Leonard Cohen’s thoughts of the crack letting in the light, this is indeed listening for the unheard voice. I look forward to future conversations.

    • #6013
      Rich Paxson
      Participant

      Sheelah,

      Thank you for your comments. I’m glad you appreciated the Leonard Cohen reference. Yesterday I finished the first Forgiving Victim video, which got me thinking about a lot of things, but primarily about the notion that we are ‘time soaked’ or ‘time laden’ beings; and about how time-laden and mentalist relate with each other.

      Alan Watts, somewhere in ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity,’ writes that ‘we’ve fallen in love with the inch.’ That is, we confuse our experiences of real things and events with our representations of those realities. This morning I substitute clock for inch in Watt’s phrase, as in: we’ve fallen in love with the clock rather than being in time.

      Now, after finishing the first Forgiving Victim video, it’s a strange feeling, but I find that thinking about time-laden being is somehow grounding. The idea itself, I think, permits me to slow down, to be here thinking through writing this.

      Time and love is a universal musical theme. No Leonard Cohen song comes immediately to mind, and yet on this January morning I hear the never-out-of-season Byrds singing ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ from Ecclesiastes 3: “Everything has its time.”

      http://grooveshark.com/s/Turn+Turn+Turn+To+Everything+There+Is+A+Season/5bQTmb?src=5

      Rich

      • #6018
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Yes Rich, “silence and stillness” as the ancient Christian sages taught us! I am so glad that James teaching on being “time soaked” has left you feeling more grounded. It’s quite a revolution that enters our lives with this course, is it not?

    • #6022
      Rich Paxson
      Participant

      I’m not exactly sure what “listening for the unheard voice” means. Based on my reading though, I think the phrase means listening and responding to the needs of the poor, the outcast; those rejected by the domination systems of our world.

      Their voices are difficult to hear, or are not heard at all by those of us enmeshed in systems based on violent conflict. Jesus identified squarely with the rejected of his time. Jesus listened and responded to the unheard voices. Therefore if we are fully to encounter our Lord, then we must seek out the despised and rejected.

      This task encompasses cultural and moralistic ideas and practices: who deserves to be heard; where God is to be found; what cultural transcendence looks and feels like; what practices will balance personal needs with those of the other person.

      Rather than continue the list, I remember the notion that humanity is time-soaked, which helps me re-frame what initially appear as insurmountable obstacles; as mentalist, conditioned responses. Rather than analyzing the meaning of the unheard voice, I wonder:

      Who is listening?

      The question responds to my hunch that “the unheard voice” is as much my own silent voice, as it is the speaking, but unheard voices of those whom society excludes. Where is the grace-ful harmony merging my yet-to-be heard voice into the dance of compassionate language with healing change?

      • #6041
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        God communicates in strange and mysterious ways Rich; Moses who drew near to the thick darkness where God was, or the “still small voice” in the theophany to Elijah. I think you are quite right in saying that listening to the poor, the outcast and the powerless of this world is listening to the unheard voice of God, if we see in these people the figure of Jesus the Forgiving Victim. I think that unheard voice can also be an experience that seems quite unimportant until we realise later that it has been life changing. It can happen in so many different ways.

    • #6033
      Lee
      Participant

      Hi Rich

      Glad to see that we have another voice in our conversation.

      Thank you for your comments on our being “time-laden”. As a working man with a family, I often think, “so much to do with so little time” which relates so much with your comment “we’ve fallen in love with the clock rather than being in time.” You’re right…thinking about our time-laden being does help me to slow down. Thank you for helping me understand that it’s moments that are passing by not seconds, minutes, hours, days,…

    • #6062
      Matthew
      Participant

      I found the first talk very interesting. What James has to say about habits and skills resonates with me. I work in the field of mental health and have found that there is a world of difference between understanding something in your head (such as why I have a unhelpful way of relating to another person for example) and feeling and experiencing it in my bones. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to develop more healthy habits and we often need someone to model that different way of being or induct us into it.

      • #6063
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Simone Weil, the French writer who was a very important influence on René Girard, wrote that the Gospels are more an anthropology than a theology, and this is very much the thrust of James’s teaching. He explains the Gospels and the teachings of Christ in terms of human relationships, not in terms of abstract concepts or cerebral theological teachings. So Matthew what you have to say about feeling and experiencing in your bones rather that rational knowledge is a wonderful way of beginning the journey that James is leading us on.

    • #6146
      Gerald Madison
      Participant

      True learning depends on trust. Broken trust for whatever reason makes us suspicious and much less likely to really learn. I can recall the times when I was thrown into confusion when life as I experienced it was nothing like life as I had expected it to be. Even the brightest person can withdraw into himself and still continue to learn, but without a relationship with a trusted model to mentor and guide him it is nearly impossible to develop the art of being human.
      I learned the difficult skill of flying and ultimately becoming a military jet pilot and then, later on, an airline pilot. This is the development of proficiency which is mostly a matter of practice, repetition, and ultimately habit. It’s Just a higher level of the bicycle and driving examples James presented.
      The social purpose of my two flying careers were exact opposites. Flying a weapons platform designed to destroy was one thing. Flying people to their destinations was quite another.
      I am still recovering from the soul damage of the first. I am grateful to have found the second which allowed me serve others by helping them travel to maintain their personal and professional relationships.
      This course is to me the answer to so many of life’s questions. Not that it will answer them for me, which would be quite unhelpful. But it is leading me to ask the questions of myself that I have avoided and that can only be answered in my heart.

      • #6147
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        I find your description of your two flying careers very touching Gerald and I am delighted that you have discovered James and “Jesus the Forgiving Victim”. I am sure that you will find, as we all have, that James turns our lives around and revitalises our faith in a very gentle and immensely authentic way. It does point you to the questions “that can only be answered in the heart.” Welcome!

      • #6151
        Rich Paxson
        Participant

        Gerald, thank you for your intriguing observation about the ‘exact oppositeness’ of your two flying careers. Welcome to the course; and I second Sheelah’s comments, as I am finding ‘my life turning around and my faith revitalized in gentle and immensely authentic ways.’

        The online course venue gives me the time for what I learn to ‘soak into’ my daily living. I find little ‘aha’s’ along the way adding up to bigger responses, like: ‘Ah! So that’s what James meant!’ Each person’s response to the course is unique, of course. I think a common element though must be letting-go of Observations and Orientations that no longer work and then Deciding to Act by following new pathways yet to emerge. Welcome Aboard!

    • #6217
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I appreciate the thoughtful nature of these questions.

      From outside Christianity it seems that yes, there is a theme of “god has done this for you… god has done that for you…” I was raised without any religion by the way so I’m an outsider to all of them. Christianity seems concerned with behavior – I have noticed that. For me this is not so much the kind of Christianity I am interested in – which is why I have to research and find courses like this to find a different presentation of Christianity.

      I am trying on the bible in very small doses. My initial impression is noticing the challenge it presents to the Christian thinkers that I am drawn to and the vastly varying ways of interpreting passages – even among the same seeming umbrella of “emergent” or “progressive” Christians. I kind of wonder – what a lot of work these people are doing – they seem burdened with a difficult text. And I find it difficult myself. I certainly don’t – at the moment – pick up the bible and read it straight up and feel inspired . Once different authors I’m reading quote or discuss certain passages then I can go back and read those and feel a connection to them. When I read it myself I don’t understand the insistence on constantly elevating Jesus, and how he continually elevates himself. I don’t understand the personification of God as a human (particularly in the old testament) and the awful ways he behaves sometimes. I don’t understand the necessity to demand particular behavior around marriage, sexuality, place of women. I’m hoping that doing this course will help me connect more deeply with the bible. No, I don’t think it is an act of communication from God. I think it is testimony written by a Jewish and then Christian community which has become authoritative.

      I think a lot about habits. I am happy to hear James talk about them. I am an educator and I agree about the vital importance of habits and the way that they are somewhat maligned in the way we think about thinking and learning. I also am happy to hear James name the importance of imitation as a way we form habits. I have a lot of bad habits right now, so its hard for me to think of ones that are beneficial….

      Let’s see – I think that I have developed a beneficial habit of interest in other people and trust that they will not hurt me. I have a habit of smiling and making eye contact with people, and this physical gesture made me notice that it is connected with a general trust of other human beings, at least initially. This I think I copied from my parents who are generally positive and trusting people. I have a habit of pausing before I eat and giving thanks. This habit I consciously developed in myself but it was supported by being involved in a community that always said grace before eating. I have a habit of yielding to other people, which I’m not sure is always beneficial and this I learned from my parents as well, particularly my mother.

      I think an act of communication from God could help me feel more solid in my relationship with God, it would help me identify the “channel” of communication that I can tune into to receive more.

      • #46482
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Jenny, welcome to the Forum. And thank you for your very thoughtful reflections. You have brought up some very fundamental questions and I think that as you progress with the course and know more of James thinking, you will see as you commented yourself, that Christianity “seems concerned with behaviour”. Yes, that is James teaching, Christianity is essentially relational. Or as the great French thinker Simone Weil wrote “the Gospels are more an anthropology than a theology”.

    • #6218
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      In the Discussion Forum for this session, share why you think this course is subtitled, “Listening for the Unheard Voice”?

      So – taking a stab at this – one of the main reasons why I am drawn to James’ course is that his ideas seem embedded in relationship. For me the Christianity I would want to have would flow out of a relationship between myself and God/Jesus. At the moment I don’t hear this voice. But hearing it would help shape a relationship, out of which the virtues then can come.

      Also I think there’s something in there about Christ’s voice being unheard, in his time, that he died unrecognized. What is unrecognized in me that I can listen to?

      • #46487
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Exactly, Jenny, James’ thoughts are embedded in relationship. As to the “unheard voice”, this can be perplexing at the beginning of the course, so let me repeat some thoughts I sent to Rich some months ago.
        “God communicates in strange and mysterious ways. Moses who drew near to the thick darkness where God was, or the “still small voice” in the theophany to Elijah. I think that listening to the poor, the outcast and the powerless of this world is listening to the unheard voice of God, if we see in these people the figure of Jesus the Forgiving Victim. I think the unheard voice can also be an experience that seems quite unimportant until we realise later that it has been life changing. It can happen in so many different ways.

    • #46770
      Michael R. Bartley
      Participant

      It is hard for theologians to stay committed to anthropology. I think James has tagged some really significant elements of human communication but I am not sure he stayed away from the abstraction of God as much as I wish he might.

      Likewise, I would like, and he might in the coming studies, to look at the relationship between what he is calling habit and ritual. I am not convinced within my context of working in a University setting that we have negative view of habit but we have a very negative view of ritual.

      • #46793
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Thank you Michael, and welcome to the Forum. Apologies for being so late in replying, but I have been travelling a great deal over the last few weeks.
        I think that James concentration at the beginning of this study with the anthropological aspects of the Christian story, is essential in demonstrating the importance of one of the the basic tenets of Girard’s thought, that is, ‘we desire according to the desire of another’. In other words, we are not autonomous individuals, but very social ‘interdividuals’. I believe that as you read on you will see that James does not make an abstraction of God, but rather as he expresses it, we are the recipients of ‘an odd form of communication from God, speaking through the Son’. And, that habits are stable dispositions which we acquire over time to be able to behave in certain ways. They are what makes excellence possible. Ritual as you know is something quite different.

    • #46771
      Michael R. Bartley
      Participant

      The Phrase, “Listening to the Unheard Voice” if I take Jame’s commitment that he wants to make to anthropology serious should not begin with the out there divine voice but may that intimate personal voice of the human-self and the human-other in the person of the Victim Christ!

      It is at this point that I have to admit that, as one trained in anthrology that I am having struggles seeing what Jame’s is calling “anthropology.” If all he is referring to the referential constructions about communication as well as formation I suspect he is talking more about pedagogy and how it is that people learn. I will continue to hold on looking for what he means when he says anthropology.

      • #46794
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Yes, Michael, again James is referring to the question of desire, and how we are inculturated into so much from the milieu in which we live, beginning with our parents and intimates and later from society in general. This is not to be confused with our biological needs, which are innate and not learned. Does this make sense to you?

    • #47018
      Ben Turner
      Member

      How is God communicating with me today?

      Since very early last year I feel like God has been speaking to me very closely, I’ve had a genuine sense of communication and awareness of God’s presence from day to day.
      I am a young man and for the past several years I have suffered from a chronic mental health condition. At the end of 2015 I had a set back, a return of (psychotic) symptoms. When I had recovered ( was back on medication) and feeling more stable again at the beginning of 2016 I started reading some books on Christian spirituality and contemplative prayer. Halfway through one of the first books that I read which was about the fundamental meaning of the contemplative tradition I genuinely felt this comforting presence and completely loving and gentle voice reassuring me saying “its ok, I’ve got you” and giving me this true sense of peace. Now I know that this might sound concerning coming from someone who has suffered from a bad and very debilitating mental health condition for a long time. But as a result of having suffered I know how much better this presence feels than the stuff I have experienced in the past, I know what bad feels like and I know how much indescribably better and more true this feels. Reading Genesis 3:8 where God addresses Adam and Eve and they hide themselves “amongst the trees of the garden” a couple of idioms came to mind- “seeing the wood for the trees” and emerging “out of the woods”. I feel as if I am now starting to see more clearly and I hope to continue to learn how to welcome “the voice of the God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”

      • #47019
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Welcome to the “Jesus the Forgiving victim” Forum, Ben, and thank you for sharing such thoughtful insights into your life. It is delightful to know that your have discovered the gift of the Christian contemplative tradition, which I have practised for many years now, so I am sure that we will have some fruitful and I hope enlightening conversations. I look forward to your reflections and queries about “an odd beginning”. I am sure that you will find the JFV course life changing.

    • #47020
      Ben Turner
      Member

      Hi Sheelah, Thank you for the welcome.

      As I said, I have been suffering a lot over the last few years but I have always had a deep inclination towards the spiritual side of life, indeed I was brought up in the church ( both Anglican and sometimes more evangelical)- I feel there has always been a strong spiritual undercurrent to my appreciation of reality (and this was encouraged by my study of Fine Art at Uni which is one of my main “beneficial practices”). This I know has left me with some sense of the reality and tenacity of hope and I think at some deep level this has helped carry me through the very tricky times I have gone through like some kind of tacit buoyancy aid. Yet in terms of trying to let speak and then flesh out and fully define this sense of spiritual, quiet almost unconscious deep flowing contact I have felt which I have found has fairly recently become more properly pronounced as an act of communication, “a call” I guess, I have realised that its the sheer Strangeness of God, almost “what God is” as much as who He is that we need time to deal with. And as James gets across in the video how paradoxically “out there” this whole process is hypothetically, these burning bush moments of communication are despite, as the contemplative tradition shows, being so “in here”, so close and within.
      In relation to our religious problem of moral theory vs intimate communication/revelation I suppose I realise now that “God is always greater” God is so total that in order to be humble and become part of this Bigger Picture we need to become less of a “blur”, let the most dimly lit parts of us be exposed to the full colour of God if you like, to be still and a more focused part of the divine light and life. So I suppose its about learning to accept all this paradox in the context love:
      For me with regards to Christianity it has always been a case of asking the question, If we really take the Gospels and Scripture as a whole as seriously and credibly as they seem to come across as upending historical narratives and great mythical stories then this is either too good to be true or for want of a better phrase, completely amazing. All about relationship. The last year and a half have shown me that the latter is the case and I don’t know why it has taken me so long to begin to receive this gift properly as it were. But no doubt, I think I will learn to become more habituated to being able to fully hear the healing voice of the Son as I do this course.

      • #47021
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Yes, Ben, as you have discovered, the Gospels and Scripture are “completely amazing, all about relationship”. And I assure you that you will hear ‘the healing voice of the Son’ in James’s reading of them. I truly look forward to your reflections on Part 1.

    • #47026
      andrew
      Member

      My first inclination is to skip this prompt altogether because it seems to require a bit more anthropomorphizing of God than I am comfortable with. But then I focus in on the last word of the sentence and realize I don’t have to comment on the nature of God; I only need to share what happened to me ‘today’. Today is still early (9:07am); this shouldn’t take long. I awoke before the alarm with my mind somersaulting over whether or not Javier Bardem’s character in _mother!_ is a transcendent deity or merely the personification of all humanity—as Jenifer Lawrence’s character’s seems to be less of a goddess and more a simple personification of the natural environment. I thought I had it all figured out—then realized I just wasn’t completely awake yet. I wandered downstairs and watered the Christmas tree. I hate breakfast out, with my father—mostly in silence. I scanned the first section of the paper. Then I went online to see if I could find the ‘essays’ the Forgiving Victim curriculum keeps referring to but doesn’t ever provide a link to. Then I realized we’re supposed to purchase those separately.

      Has God been communicating with me today? I want to say ‘no,’ and therefore the list of ways in which God is communicating with me today would appear to be an empty set.

      Today is still early. The optimist could anticipate future missives, but my inclinations drift pessimistic. So when I think ‘Today is still early,’ I think, ‘So what? That doesn’t mean I didn’t have time to turn a deaf ear to God.’ So I retrace my steps.

      There was an article in the paper entitled _‘The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.’ Father forgives two for death of his son._ A grieving father tells the two men who were convicted of crimes related to the shooting of his son, “If we are forgiven in Christ, we must also forgive … As difficult as this is, and trust me, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, we forgive you both … In doing so, let me make this perfectly clear: In no way do we excuse or ever forget what you have done … You created a permanent hole in our family … Both of your punishments must be long and severe; therefore, we’ve asked the judge and the courts to give you guys the maximum terms of your sentences and for all charges to run consecutively … It’s not just us who lost somebody. You destroyed so much for so little. But you still have life. You still have choices. While we hate what you did, we don’t hate you … We also pray that you all find the strength to reach out to the next generation so that they don’t make the same mistakes.”

      My heart sank when I read this. Is this the kind of press forgiveness is getting in the papers nowadays? How can someone say he forgives people and so clearly not forgive them at the same time? I turn snarky and wonder if it was this blatant inconsistency that made his courtroom utterance “the hardest thing” he ever did? But how can I fault a grieving father? Perhaps I can I criticize the columnist at the Herald-Leader for not providing the full context of what Jesus actually teaches about forgiveness in his parables, and how it differs from what took place in a Fayette County courthouse? But of course not—reporters are just called on to report what people say and do (inconsistencies and all); they aren’t expected to make sense of what they report to us.

      I read an article, I see forgiveness itself marred, and I wonder who is to blame? Then I stop wondering and start writing this post. God may be saying to me that it isn’t anyone’s fault that we don’t completely understand forgiveness yet. In what ‘way’ did God communicate this? I don’t know, but I got the message—it’s just so exhausting trying to root out who’s to blame!

    • #47027
      andrew
      Member

      “Share the ways in which God is communicating with you today.”

    • #47030
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Andrew, welcome to the JFV Forum, it is good to have you on board! The essence of what James is teaching is that Christianity is the process of finding ourselves on the inside of an act of communication that is developing in us a new set of practices. This means that we discover from within what the ideas really mean as we discover ourselves becoming something, or someone, we scarcely knew before. It seems to me that you are teetering on the brink of getting it – the whole point is to give up the search for someone to blame. You’re on the right track, and this insight will serve you well in the course. I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

    • #47036
      andrew
      Member

      “? James talks about Christianity having been thought of as grasping onto a theory about what God has done for us and then acting according to a moral code. Is that what Christianity has been like for you? How or how not?”

      Yes, this conception of Christianity has and continues to confront me frequently.

      “? What is your relationship to the Bible? Do you think of it as an act of communication from God? If so, what do you think God is communicating to us in our particular time and place?”

      I have a hard to thinking of the Bible as an “act of a communication from God,” because communication seems to imply that the parties communicating are on equal footing. Yes, superiors and subordinates communicate all the time—I’m not questioning the possibility of that—but, when we communicators communicate, it seems that we all become equal in service to the content of our communication. In other words, we can all bumble the message—superiors and subordinates alike—just as we can all achieve eloquent clarity. So, to think of communicating with God is, for me, to think of putting ourselves on par with God is some sort of exchange among peers—which seems presumptuous and farfetched. Although I admittedly don’t have a clear conception of God’s nature, I am strongly inclined to affirm divine transcendence.

      Of course, I realize that I can hardly fault Christians for affirming that we are in some respects on the same level as God and therefore capable of communicating with the divine, because the incarnation is a fundamental Christian tenant. All the same, I am in good faith attempting to remain within Christian doctrine when I say that, at the time and place of God’s incarnation, we do NOT see Jesus writing an early manuscript of the Bible. At that moment at which humanity possesses the parity with God that would permit communication, it is not the Bible that appears—rather, it’s a ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. This is why I struggle to think of the Bible as an act of communication from God; it seems to carry inside it a seed for the destruction of God’s transcendence. (The partner in crime to this destructive view of scripture—at least in the circles I run in—is the misconception of prayer as when you just talk to God as you would anyone else in the room. In fact, ‘personal devotions’—if you are familiar with the term—are when people deliberately foster the habit of conjoining these two assaults on divine transcendence.)

      Perhaps I don’t understand what is meant by “communication” in the prompt above; maybe it doesn’t imply any sort of parity among the interlocutors. Now, if “communication” did NOT imply not anything like what happens (sobremesa) between my Dad and I when we drink coffee, but rather if “communication” is likened to what happens when I cough in my Dad’s proximity and he contracts my bug—then I could perhaps start to see the Bible as an act of “communication,” i.e. as an instantiation of “communicability.” With communicable diseases there is no parity in contagion; there is always a clear distinction between the source the microbes and the one who contracts them, and this spares God a peerless position among the acts of communication, viz. patient zero.

      On account of the ambiguity I tried to unpack above, I can’t answer the question “what do you think God is communicating to us (through the Bible) in our particular time and place?” without risking confusion. For the sake of clarity, I prefer to be asked “What do you think God is infecting us with (through the Bible) at this particular time and place?” That isn’t an easy question but I’ll take a stab (and maybe I’m missing the point because I think this is what God is doing with the Bible at all times everywhere): the Bible infects us with a manner of living that is impervious to death.

    • #47037
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Andrew, thank you for your very interesting comment. I do agree that communication is only real between equals, and that this is included in the reason for the incarnation: we are being addressed by God as by an equal.
       
      We aren’t supposed to have any image of God other than the one we are given, that of an equal. And your notion of our being “infected” is a good one, even though that is a subhuman form of communication (a communicable disease). I suspect that part of what we are learning is that, ironically if we think of “God” as an unequal or a superior, then in fact we tend to imagine the effect on us of communication as happening in an “inferior” way. To think of God as an equal is actually a much greater challenge.
       

    • #47039
      andrew
      Member

      – James says that habits are what make excellence possible.
      – What beneficial practices have you been inducted into?
      – Who inducted you or how did you acquire your “stable dispositions”?

      Reading is a beneficial practice. I suppose my induction into this practice began with my parents. I have early memories of my mother reading my older sister and I bedtime stories. It certainly didn’t end there. There were no shortage of grade school teachers who guided my classmates and I through drills. When I was older, Bible study at church youth activities introduced me to reading for the purpose of group interaction. Thomas Merton wrote that if you can’t put a book down, then you are not reading contemplatively. I read that in high school and I have often since tried to remind myself to be ever-ready to pause when reading—or doing anything. I took a speed reading class; but it didn’t take. College coursework introduced the process of extracting argumentation and implicit assumptions from texts. There was one particular professor who absolutely eviscerated the arguments of a book that several students were fond of; and so I learned the power plays readers can make, not just by reading texts but by readings other people’s readings. I was a bit too taken by his example and have since tried to unlearn the habit of hyper-critical readings that offer nothing more than staking out a position of authority.

      Except for the most basic component of the practice, viz. cognition of words on the page, my ability to read has changed no small amount over time. I certainly wouldn’t call it “unstable,” since there appears to be a consistent trend in a relatively positive direction—but I wouldn’t want the “stable” in “stable disposition” to imply stasis.

      • #47040
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        I like very much your reflections on the “habit’ of reading Andrew, and it seems to me that you have followed Thomas Merton’s wise words perfectly. We live in a world of instant everything, of which speed reading would be an excellent example. Your high school habit of pausing and contemplating has no doubt a lot to do with your mature attitude towards ” hyper-critical readings that offer nothing more than staking out a position of authority.” And you are correct in thinking that “stable disposition” does not imply stasis, but rather an evolutionary process of change, just as you described it.

    • #47041
      andrew
      Member

      – What impact might an act of communication from God have on your life?

      When God speaks, we are invited to act. I am unfamiliar with a divine voice that just wants to chitchat. My position here, like my post on Jan 20, stems from a belief that humans are always and only subordinate to God. By that I mean only that God is always acting first when God relates to humans; while humans are only ever responding when we relate to God. I would not have used the word “inferior” to describe this. I meant only to speak of the structure (not quality) of our relationship with God. While humans can experience God’s grace and then respond in kind, God—when confronted with the utter lack of grace humans can all too easily display—will never ever respond in kind to us. Nor is God ever in need of some human to be gracious first. Humans, on the other hand, always need someone to go first.

      Sheelah, you were quite right to say that it is a great challenge to think of God as an equal. If that is so, then not only can we ask our discussion question “What impact might an act of communication from God have on my life?” but—to get the complete picture of equality—we must also ask “What impact might an act of communication from me have on God’s life?” While I do hope to participate in the divine life, I am reluctant to embrace the idea that I can participate in defining it. How far does our equality go? When Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” is he only telling part of the story? Should he have added “… and you, also, are the way, the truth, and the life … and Andrew from Kentucky, him too … and anybody else really since there is nothing to distinguish any of us as we are all equal to one another.”

      Since I’ve only just started this program, I don’t yet know much about the theological assumptions affirmed by the people operating it. Someone with a more conservative view of scripture might take offense at what I just did: extrapolating on your position to make it look like you don’t think scripture got it completely right. It might come across as if I was saying with a snide sneer, “To say what you want to say, you’ll need to supplement scripture with your own material!” Please know that I was NOT trying to deliver a “low blow” or accuse you of something scandalous; I ONLY wanted to communicate precisely how much difficulty I’ll have in accepting your Jan 21 comment as tenable. Perhaps I’ll overcome that difficulty someday—I don’t yet know.

      On the other hand, someone with a more liberal view of scripture might think it is fine and dandy if we need to fill in some gaps here and there where the Bible doesn’t get it completely right. If that is closer to your position, I’d like to point out that, if we add the “you, too, are the way/truth/light …” statement to John 14, we aren’t just filling in a gap the Bible might have skipped over—it’s opposing what Jesus says explicitly in the next line: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

      Whatever your take on reading scripture may be, let me thank you, Sheelah, for checking in on this message board. I didn’t know that there would be any discussion opportunities when I signed up, and I am thrilled to find there are people involved—and not just videos. It can’t be easy field responses from all us wackos who inhabit the Internet. I see you have been at it at least since Feb 2014, so you no doubt have encountered variegated comments of the most peculiar stripes and speckles. Thank you for your time and work. If I didn’t know someone was reading these responses, I could have easily thumbed my nose at Fr Merton and raced through Fr Alison’s videos at a galloping (and pointless) clip–I’ve done such things before. Thanks for helping me do better.

    • #47042
      andrew
      Member

      – Why do you think this course is subtitled, “Listening for the Unheard Voice”?

      I’m guessing it’s because people effortlessly fall into the habit of ignoring the voice of God, and this course is designed to develop a conscious practice to replace this habituation of which we are unaware.

      • #47045
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Why do you think this course is subtitled, “Listening for the Unheard Voice”?
        I’m guessing it’s because people effortlessly fall into the habit of ignoring the voice of God, and this course is designed to develop a conscious practice to replace this habituation of which we are unaware.

        Yes Andrew, and also because I think that God’s message can come from the most unexpected circumstances and the most unlikely people. once we become spiritually awakened.

    • #47044
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Andrew, there is a great deal here to think about. So, let’s begin with a response to your query “Since I’ve only just started this program, I don’t yet know much about the theological assumptions affirmed by the people operating it.” Well, the course is completely the work of the theologian James Alison, and the “people operating it” to my knowledge come from many different traditions, all of whom are united in James wonderfully anthropological reading of Scripture. You will observe as you progress with the course, that Jesus is constantly referring to the Hebrew scriptures and explaining them in a manner that is completely different to the interpretation held by his listeners. What he is saying is new to their ears and very revealing of the misdirected desire and scapegoating that is underpinning the violence in the texts.
      As for our rapport with God. God is mystery, and as you say, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” So permit me to give you a contemplative reading of this. The spiritual path, is our striving for union with God, or ‘theosis’, that is, being transformed by aiming to be in the likeness of God, hence the medieval concept of the Imitation of Christ. In practical terms, this is complete submission to the will of God, an active rather than a passive way of being, which results in a tremendous freedom and detachment, not be confused with indifference.
      So, where do we find God? We find God in relationship with the ‘other’. In the family, the work place, our social contacts, etc.etc. Here we have to handle the usual scapegoating with the resentments, conflicts, anger, judgemental attitudes, unhealthy competitions etc. etc. of our daily lives. As we come to realise that we are all broken and wounded people who are unconditionally loved by God, we gradually come to handle all these problems with love, which is God.
      And, as we continue to listen to James’ interpretation of Scripture though the lens of René Girard’s thought, we come to understand the true meaning of the “New Creation in Christ”.
      Does this make sense?

      • #47046
        andrew
        Member

        Yes, Sheelah, much of what you say makes good sense. A few parts did leave me a little puzzled, but that only serves to whet my appetite for more of Fr Alison’s lessons. I am very excited about this class and (for whatever it’s worth) it has already far exceeded my expectations. There is, however, one particular point of confusion that was not addressed in your last post; I’m going to try highlight it below:

        Even though theosis and incarnation are doctrinal terms (by that I mean only “terms we use to teach stuff”), we probably shouldn’t insist that they be disposable to comprehensive explication. After all, what makes a mystery mysterious is that stymies demystification.

        If mystery is stuff we must pass over in silence, then this post could be a category mistake, viz. I’m analyzing theosis and incarnation as if there actually are similarities and differences between them that can be spoken about. I persist while hoping that, even if I persist in error, at least it will carry the benefit of specifying the precise point of my confusion to someone who can then clarify the matter to me. [Although, this is likely evidence of my vanity; it is shifty for me to first feign the humility of someone who knows he is in error and then turn around and insist that I—more than anyone else—know exactly where I went wrong!! … but here goes an anyway…]

        If we receive and transmit the teaching that (i) God became human and (ii) humans can become divine, then we tacitly affirm some manner of equality. After all, when God became human, God didn’t cease to be divine; nor must humans, when we become divine, cease to be human.

        Be that as it may, over and above whatever equality may be entailed in these doctrines, Christian tradition provides good reason to believe that this equality is not absolute. This reason being: we are afforded two terms—not one. “Theosis” and “incarnation” are not synonyms. There is something different between God becoming human and humans becoming divine. Whereas humans (in theosis) become a new creation—with the old passing away, God (incarnated) did not become a new creator—and no old god was superseded.

        The distinction I make here is roundly rejected by some who study the Bible quite seriously. They contend that, in response to what people do, God is open to becoming new. I’m not familiar enough with the scholarship to know whether the label “Open Theism” was coined by adherents or critics of this position, but the name seems apt.

        When I truly communicate with others, I open myself up to becoming someone new. If God were to communicate with us in entirely the same manner that I communicate with others, then—with each truly communicative act—God opens godself up to becoming somegod new. Here, the open theist chimes in, “But of course, God speaks.” I protest, “By no means, God doesn’t speak like humans do.” We both think the Bible corroborates our position.

        I do not want to scapegoat Open Theism by sneering: “Unless those wronged-headed pseudo-theologians be jettisoned with prejudice right here at the start, I can’t in good faith be a part of this conversation!” Nor am I secretly rooting for a moderator to say, “Of course, we don’t let those bastards in here, Andrew, come on in now and know you are among compatriots who’ll fight to defend the honor of God’s sovereignty!” That manner of speech is sinful.

        I only want clarity. Alison frames this course on Christian theology around the conception of God as one who communicates and around the conception of humans as ones who, by their mimetic nature, are inescapably communicated-to. Does Alison’s position imply the inverse? Does Alison’s theology present God as one who is communicated-to by humans? Do humans impart being to God, as we impart selves to one another (c.f. the discussion of babies becoming through deferment and imitation in Module 1.2, and then ask if we do to our God what we do to our babies and friends)? Or—and this is a big fat disjunctive “or”—is God, being unique, an actual instance of a self-starting “I”?

        Perhaps this post is vanity. Maybe defining the precise nature of God is not the sort of theology we are after in this class. I maintain that God is one who communicates being and yet God is never one to whom being is communicated. Whether that is accurate or inaccurate could be beside the point; you may just hear me spouting a mere factoid comparable to the population of Mexico City (c.f. module 1.3). Am I barking up a tree with no squirrel when I ask whether Fr Alison believes that God’s own being is inducted to God through mimetic exchanges with human interlocutors?

        It seems to me like a revelatory matter and not an inane fact, because I want to say that, when humans do manage to induct a god into becoming, the Bible condemns it as idolatry.

    • #47317
      Phillip
      Member

      I don’t know how God has been communicating with me today. I used to have a Jesuit priest as a spiritual director, and I used to practice the examen pretty regularly as a means of trying to discern God’s presence in my life, but I could never tell when I was just engaging in wishful thinking. Is a feeling of consolation always a sign of God’s communication? Or desolation, a failure of communication? These and other doubts and questions accompany throughout most of my days. It was reassuring, then, when I found the entry on “Crisis of Faith” in our glossary, which reads:

      “or Crisis of Self, a normal and expected part of faith. It’s precisely because you are
      relaxed about someone bigger than you holding you that you are relaxed enough to undergo
      crises of self. If there isn’t anyone bigger than you holding you in being, then you have to hold
      tight to yourself, and not allow yourself the luxury of being re?worked from within.”

      So I hope that it’s through these doubts I’ve been having that God is communicating with me today. I suppose that in hindsight, most of the spiritual growth I’ve experienced has been because of my doubts. I used to be a very, very rigid, conservative, legalistic sort of Catholic, and honestly, I’m embarrassed by a lot of the views I once held, many of which came mainly from a place of insecurity. I’m grateful to have moved past those kinds of views, but a lot of the feelings of insecurity and unease still remain. I suppose that’s one big reason for my being in this course. I hope that somehow it will help me continue to grow and eventually reach a point where I can just relax into our faith and do without these negative feelings.

    • #47318
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Phillip, welcome. I don’t think that we have met before, but I see that your spiritual journey resembles mine immensely. Relaxing into our faith is a very James phrase, and yes, you will find that.

      Some years ago I studied Deuteronomy with a Hebrew speaking Jesuit, and it was a true revelation. ‘The Wilderness’ and ‘The Promised Land’ were not two strips of territory, but the absence and the presence of God. And it is in the wilderness, that is absence of God, that we grow spiritually.

      James also has a remarkable anthropological aspect to his teaching which makes us realise that we find God, not only in Jesus, but also in the ‘other’. To quote him: ” Rather than grasping onto a theory, human beings learn by being inducted into a set of practices over time such that we find ourselves knowing from within how they work. ?  Christianity is the process of finding ourselves on the inside of an act of communication that is developing in us a new set of practices. This means that we discover from within what the ideas really mean as we discover ourselves becoming something, or someone, we scarcely knew before.”

      I hope this helps, and I look forward to further conversations.?

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