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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.8 The grandeur in the everyday in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
It is very heartening to listen to someone like yourself who has completely grasped the message and who is living it, Rich. Yes, we find ourselves as part of a new family, as James says:
“The grandeur of Creation has erupted quietly into some very subtle changes of relationship among very ordinary people. What is being brought into being is a new…[Read more] -
Sheelah replied to the topic 4.8 The grandeur in the everyday in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
The story of your Aunt Dorothy is most impressive Rich, she obviously had a great influence on all who knew her.
I think that Mary is a symbol of the interior life, the loving, the compassionate, the intuitive, the ever faithful. As in the Magnificat “my soul doth magnify the Lord”. I advise you to read James on the Magnificat in Luke’s gospel.…[Read more] -
Sheelah replied to the topic 4.8 The grandeur in the everyday in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
Rich, I think that a great deal of these past habits were false or fake alternatives to the presence of the “Other” other in our lives, which with grace we come to recognise and gradually transform. I think the key word here is “grace”
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.8 The grandeur in the everyday in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
“My story leaves me with a question. Where in my life do today I find the knotted lines working no longer to save but now to harm?” Rich, I am not sure that I understand your question, could you elaborate a little?
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.8 The grandeur in the everyday in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
That is quite lovely Rich, truly “the grandeur in the everyday”. Or as James expresses it: “The grandeur of Creation has erupted quietly into some very subtle changes of relationship. What is being brought into being is a new family, one in which the elective has a huge priority over the biological. We find ourselves being brought into a new…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.7 The beginning in the middle in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
Rich, this is about patterns of desire. Girard saw something unique: the story of Adam and Eve makes clear that the desire for the forbidden fruit that both of the garden dwellers experience is not an innate desire. Adam and Eve had just been reveling in each other. The man had just looked at the first woman and said “this is bone of my bone a…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.7 The beginning in the middle in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
You have put this very well Rich. Relaxing into accepting God’s love is an evolutionary process, where we don’t need to constantly agonise over ‘what separates us, what my role is and what God’s role is’ as you expressed it. Your obviously have grasped James meaning very well.
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.7 The beginning in the middle in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
Yes I remember your reference to ‘holons’ quite some time ago. James defines ‘secondariness’ as ” a moment of someone else’s presence towards me which opens up for me my own relationship, simultaneously, to my past and my future. When trudging along by myself, my past is behind me and my future is before me. But undergoing something in the p…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
The phrase “my neighbour is all mankind”, is absolutely true Rich. We need to think of Jesus talking to tax collectors and prostitutes, both whom were the outcasts of society in Roman Palestine. These categories are just a metaphor for society’s dejected and yes, as you said ‘When he came down from his perch in the sycamore tree, Zacchaeus saw lif…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 1 month ago
The phrase “my neighbour is all mankind”, is absolutely true Rich. We need to think of Jesus talking to tax collectors and prostitutes, both whom were the outcasts of society in Roman Palestine. These categories are just a metaphor for society’s dejected and yes, as you said ‘When he came down from his perch in the sycamore tree, Zacchaeus saw…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
I’m delighted to hear this Rich. Yes, JFV is truly life changing is it not? I am hoping to reply to the rest of your outstanding posts in the next few days.
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
You began by speaking of a family situation Rich and I think your ending is similar except that it is the human family, Jamie and the prisoner. As James puts it “The change of perspective that occurs when what seemed like a not?particularly significant object in your ken moving towards you, turns out to be in fact a vastly superior force moving…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
You began by speaking of a family situation Rich and I think your ending is similar except that it is the human family, Jamie and the prisoner. As James puts it “The change of perspective that occurs when what seemed like a not?particularly significant object in your ken moving towards you, turns out to be in fact a vastly superior force moving…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
You have grasped all this very well Rich. “I am the boss of me” is so fundamental to Girard’s extraordinary insight that we are not autonomous beings. And as James illustrates so well in ‘Jesus the Forgiving Victim’ we are not individuals but interdividuals.
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
You have grasped all this very well Rich. “I am the boss of me” is so fundamental to Girard’s extraordinary insight that we are not autonomous beings. And as James illustrates so well in ‘Jesus the Forgiving Victim’ we are not individuals but interdividuals.
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
You have grasped all this very well Rich. “I am the boss of me” is so fundamental to Girard’s extraordinary insight that we are not autonomous beings. And as James illustrates so well in ‘Jesus the Forgiving Victim’ we are not individuals be interdividuals.
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
Keeping rules and being moral are not the aim of Christian life Chris, they are the means that allow us to find a deeper spirituality. Something akin to technique on an instruments for a musician. Technique is not the aim of the artist’s studies, but the means to freedom to interpret the music. As James tells us: “In our case, being forgiven…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
Keeping rules and being moral are not the aim of Christian life Rich, they are the means that allow us to find a deeper spirituality. Something akin to technique on an instruments for a musician. Technique is not the aim of the artist’s studies, but the means to freedom to interpret the music. As James tells us: “In our case, being forgiven is…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.6 A little family upheaval in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
Keeping rules and being moral are not the aim of Christian life Chris, they are the means that allow us to find a deeper spirituality. Something akin to technique on an instruments for a musician. Technique is not the aim of the artist’s studies, but the means to freedom to interpret the music. As James tells us: “In our case, being forgiven…[Read more]
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Sheelah replied to the topic 4.5 The banquet in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 7 years, 2 months ago
Yes James tells us that because all your freedom is for, to such an extent that you don’t really understand any more what freedom from is from: you are so entirely dedicated to what is constructively appropriate that all prohibitions are moot.
For some people, it is hard to imagine the world of freedom beyond the rules, that the restrictions a…[Read more] - Load More