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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.5 The banquet in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 1 month ago
What rule of your Church do you take seriously? Why is that rule important to you? Why is it equally important to approach that ordinance with humor and not take it seriously at all?
They probably aren’t written anywhere, but our church has standards that worship will be orderly and will offer the Eucharistic bread and wine to all who come to the…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.5 The banquet in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 1 month ago
Sheelah, thank you for your comments, and questions, which I very much appreciate. I could not attach this response to your questions, so I copied them below my answer.
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RICH’S ANSWER: Parts of some long ago sermons stick in my mind as if the preacher had just delivered…[Read more] -
Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.5 The banquet in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 1 month ago
What is the role of humor and laughter in the life of the Church?
What has your relationship been to rules coming from religious authority?Hilarity and pathos, James used these words to describe the kind of humor that recognizes personal shortcomings while carrying no mean-spirited intent. Healthy fun and laughter empower for service those in…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.5 The banquet in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 2 months ago
In the Discussion Forum of this unit, share your step-by-step guide for the process of hand washing. Then pick another person’s instructions, move to a sink and follow the instructions slowly, step by step. You will do exactly what the instructions say, exactly as they say it and nothing more!
A useful definition of handwashing needs an i…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.5 The banquet in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 2 months ago
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.
One of our church’s interim supply priests, Barb, asked me if I wanted to preach one Sunday next February. For some economic and some demographic reasons our small Episcopalian parish i…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.4 The portal and the embassy in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 2 months ago
What parts of life in “prison” do you find comforting? In what ways might your longing for the stability of the familiar prevent you from experiencing the new reality that is opening up?
I think the discussion question’s “longing for the stability of the familiar” highlights a significant aspect of the faith journey. God reveals God’s self to…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.4 The portal and the embassy in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 2 months ago
How does [the Our Father] change our pattern of desires towards “here?”
The just past Thanksgiving holiday preempted my Forgiving Victim study habits. Almost forty members of our extended family gathered for two days in late November at our Iowa country acreage. I ‘worked my tail off,’ as best a late-in-the-decade sexagenarian can work his tai…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.4 The portal and the embassy in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 3 months ago
Have you ever discovered a new perspective on your life while traveling?
Traveling has always been instructive for me. Dependable shortcuts making daily life easier are gone. What typically are easy tasks at home can become new and sometimes painful jobs on the road. I find that mundane travel difficulties can present fertile environments for…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.3 The restaurant and the halfway house in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 3 months ago
Sheelah, Thank you for your thoughtful, patient replies to my comments. I find your thoughts both reinforcing and reorienting (when I’ve gone off on a tangent) but always friendly and insightful! I think I’m getting close to the end of my two-year subscription period. However, I plan to ‘complete the meal’ trusting that if I need to re-subscribe…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.4 The portal and the embassy in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 3 months ago
4.4 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
“What is baptism?” Discussion around this topic absorbed about half of last Sunday’s book study in the hour between the eight and ten o’clock services at our small Episcopal parish.…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.3 The restaurant and the halfway house in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 4 months ago
What would help free you to be run by the Chef’s delight in you?
A restaurant customer’s pleasure in a meal completes the Chef’s delight. The Chef and the customer are yoked together in a holonic relationship. The restaurant is a holon, which is a whole that’s composed of distinct entities. For example, a molecule contains atoms; a corpo…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.3 The restaurant and the halfway house in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 4 months ago
What sort of role have the “waiters” in Church played in your sense of belonging to Church? Have they been a stumbling block for you? If so, in what way?
The subject and verb in the first question above do not agree. The singular subject, “sort,” needs the singular verb “has” rather than the plural “have.” I point this out not because it both…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.3 The restaurant and the halfway house in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 4 months ago
Describe a time you had a good restaurant experience.Explain what made the experience so good for you.
Thirty years ago this October, while traveling with my wife and two other friends in France’s meandering Lot River Valley, one evening we walked into the village of Anglars-Julliac for supper at La Palombiere restaurant. There were, of co…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.2 The Our Father in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 4 months ago
In the Discussion Forum of this unit, answer the following question: How does praying the Our Father prepare you to hear an unheard voice speaking to you?
I’m the lector every Sunday morning at St. John’s eight o’clock service, a ministry I enjoy. I always try to be open to the feelings of each character, whether prophet or apostle, in the morni…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.2 The Our Father in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 4 months ago
“How is God like a persistent smelly desire?” Were I asked to express smelly desire in sound, then I would find it in the opening notes of Schubert’s 9th Symphony. I hear those simple, very quiet notes flowing through Schubert’s entire opus, some times very quiet and at other times extraordinarily powerful. http://bit.ly/2dd4kfH
Whether we know…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.2 The Our Father in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 5 months ago
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” On page 426 of our text, James refers to the “… name of the Holy One” as “… a constantly flickering hologram of revelation.”
“Hallowed be your name” or “hologram of revelation,” anything more, James writes, would present the Holy One as an idol we can grasp rather than as a real respo…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.2 The Our Father in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 5 months ago
I’m finding that the insights offered in the Forgiving Victim course take some time to percolate into my life. James teaches that the social other recreates itself anew in each person. I get the concept, but integrating this understanding into practice does not come immediately or easily. The idea’s ‘behavioral rightness’ emerges only gradu…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.1 The working of desire in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 6 months ago
The morning light is hazy gradually revealing the details of the Hawthorn tree just outside the window while leaving the maples across the yard dark, gray-green and indistinct. I’m writing this from the room in my house I planned to describe as my ‘storeroom,’ As I began writing, I had no idea of sharing what follows.
Where is my “…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.1 The working of desire in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 6 months ago
Sheelah, thank you for reflecting on your Jerusalem experience and your thoughts about my post. At long last I find the poetry of scripture speaking to me more directly than its literal content. I ‘get it’ that Images of ‘Promised Land’ and ‘Wilderness’ paradoxically bring the reality of God’s real presence more effectively than those ideas…[Read more]
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Rich Paxson replied to the topic 4.1 The working of desire in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 6 months ago
I was ten or eleven in the late 1950s when my mother went into the hospital for a week for a pre-scheduled hysterectomy. My parents assigned us tasks to maintain our well-ordered if somewhat rigid home while mom was away. In return for good work, we could choose a reward, and I picked a brand new Sears Silvertone clock radio, which I had long…[Read more]
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