1. What one thought or idea from today's lesson especially intrigued, provoked, disturbed, challenged, encouraged, warmed, warned, helped, or surprised you?
2. Share a story about a time when someone played god and judged you, or a time when you played god and judged someone else.
3. Tell us about a person who reflected God to you in some special way.
4. Think about your hands. What is something kind and creative you can do with your hands? What is something mean or harmful you can do with your hands? How can the same hands do both kind and mean things?
Activate
5. If part of being image bearers of God means that we represent God in caring for the Earth, it's important to learn about your corner of the Earth. You know your postal address (nation, state, city, postal code). What is your environmental address? Learn about your watershed, what makes it special, and the environmental issues it faces.
Meditate
6. Observe a few moments of silence. Let a silent prayer rise from within you.
6 comments:
Brian McLaren does something interesting in Chapter Two — he renames the Tree of Life and calls it the "Tree of Aliveness." Very interesting thought.
3. Tell us about a person who reflected God to you in some special way.
I hadn't thought of her for sometime, but one person whose Godly love shone through was the daughter of a former pastor. Although she did not share the beauty of her sisters, the love she had was apparent to all around her. When she was in my kindergarten Sunday School class, she shared how sad she was that her dog and died and that her dad told her that dogs didn't go to heaven. She said that she knew that God loved her dog and that he would be in heaven. I admired her for not letting her dad's small vision of God rob her of the comfort she needed. When I shared this story later with her mother, I was dismayed that her mother said that her daughter knew better than that.....
When she learned that I had a baby due the day after her birthday, she let me know that she hoped that the baby would be born on her birthday. My daughter arrived two minutes before midnight and on Becky's 9th birthday. My daughter couldn't have had a better "birthday twin".
Thank you, Shirley, for sharing Becky's story. It grieves me that anyone would tell a child their dog (or any other pet) wouldn't go to heaven. That just seems cruel to me and, as you said, made the little girl sad. We need to ask, what's the loving thing to do?
I was disheartened not only at the lack of compassion shown by her father who was the pastor of our church, but also of her mother. The incident gave me courage though that a child was able to override the negative thoughts and know that God is love not confined by the beliefs of mere humans even if they are church leaders.
Your question "what is the loving thing to do?" is one that I should focus on.
Shirley, that seems like letting his theology come before being loving. If God is love (as the Bible says in First John 4:8), that means your pastor's theology had become his god. Putting theological ideas before doing the loving thing would therefore be idolatry.
Was making his young child aware of his belief that only humans have souls and could "go to heaven" more important than to be loving and give her a hug after her loss of a beloved pet? We humans have some pretty stupid beliefs, if you ask me.
I have an on-line friend who is a moderator for a public forum that often has some truely mean-spirited folks who make very nasty comments. She is able to speak with them with compassion and at the same time she sets them straight about how to be kind to others online. If they will not calm themselves, she has no problem in banning them from the site, for the sake of the other participants. She shows God's love to us all.
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