Yr. B, Wk. 4: Early Israel and Colors

Class:  Yr. 3, Erica Anderson; Yr. 2, Tom Erb, Mariel Fox, Gene Taylor; Yr. 1, Christine Bondor. Mentors: Scott Smoot, Susan Rouse.  Absent: Tom.

Gene brought worship from the evening service of the English prayer book.  We told about the last week while we had our brown bag dinners.

Christine has begun to read the book that will accompany Collins's survey of the Hebrew scriptures, The Hebrew Bible: Feminist and International Perspectives edited by Gale A.Yee. Christine discovered many layers over the basic "feminism" that she knew from the 1960s.  She had heard of all these developments in isolation, and was excited to see how they developed and overlapped.

Gene found helpful the distinction between "exegesis" and "hermeneutics."  He confessed some trouble keeping straight the various critical approaches surveyed in Powell's chapter on "The New Testament Writings."  Mariel related this chapter to those "layers" Christine found in the survey of feminist thought.  She welcomed a proliferation of "different voices."

Erica first relayed parts that struck her in McDonough's chapter on ancient Israel:  "prophets" were never considered to be fortune-tellers, but truth - tellers who applied law and Scripture to contemporary conditions; "Israel" means "struggles with God," something she knew from the story of Jacob's wrestling one night, but had not connected with the nation; the book of Judges, for all its odd stories, contains the most corroborated datable events of any book in the Hebrew scriptures; that it was the educated leaders of Israel who were deported during the Babylonian exile, so their return naturally led to the priestly reforms and crackdown on "foreign influences."

Erica asked why the EfM program chose the book by an agnostic historian, albeit one "friendly to Christianity," when others are available from openly Christian authors?  We had a general discussion about the value of different voices.  Mariel made the analogy to children growing up into awareness of colors far beyond what they had in their first box of crayons.

Christine shared her spiritual autobiography.
Mariel prefaced hers with a metaphor of a prism that occurred to her as she was reading Powell's book.

Next week: Erica leads worship; Scott brings food; Tom will present his spiritual autobiography.

Yr. B, Wk. 3: Closing Gates and Re-opening Memories

Class: Year 1: Christine; Year 2: Tom, Mariel, Gene; Year 3: Erica; Year 4: Mentors Susan and Scott.  Absent: Tom

Mariel brought Sloppy Joes for dinner.   Before we enjoyed Mariel's Sloppy Joes and sweet potato chips, Scott led worship drawn from Jewish web sites for the evening of Yom Kippur (see picture), capping days of atonement with a "closing of the gate" on the temple.  We recited the Shema (Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One) with right hand over the eyes -- to exclude distractions and other gods.  The question during dinner was, "What gates have closed, or have you closed, these past few weeks?"

Our discussion of the readings found a lot in common in the content, which dealt with the world and culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans.  Feelings were positive about the texts in all three years.

Mariel recommended the web site mentioned in our Reading Reflection Guide,  http://kwokpuilan.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-read-theological-book.html.  We also discussed a book read with EfM a few years ago by Martin Luther King Jr.'s college professor Howard Thurman, a short theological work that struck Susan and Scott as something special. Scott's blogpost is here.

After a break, we repaired to the Pilgrimage room to hear spiritual autobiographies by Gene and Erica.  After hushed expressions of appreciation for both of these brief slices of life that we will all remember, we joined in the EfM liturgy of appreciation:  For what has been, Thanks be to God; For what is, Thanks be to God; For what will be, thanks be to God.

Next week:  We bring brown bag dinners.  Gene provides worship.  Mariel and Christine will share their spiritual autobiographies.  We will prepare by doing the readings assigned for week 4 in the RRG.
We heard

Yr. B, Wk. 2: Listening to Multiculturalism

Class: Year 1: Christine; Year 2: Tom, Mariel, Gene; Year 3: Erica; Year 4: Mentors Susan and Scott.  Absent: Tom

[Photos:  A famous movie was filmed in Tunisia, site of an incident in Susan's spiritual autobiography; canned food and asparagus both had significance in Scott's spiritual autobiography.]


Mariel brought worship inspired by the upcoming St. Francis Day, focused on God's creation, with scripture about the natural world selected from Psalm 104, Genesis 1, Revelation 22, and the Book of Common Prayer's Song of Creation.  Mariel posed a question for us to discuss during our meal, how nature had impacted our lives in the last week.  Answers included enjoyment of acres of woods, the red cardinal that delights the parent with dementia, the dog's smell walk, local produce, seeing a whale shark wait patiently to be fed at the aquarium, and the diversity of greenery around the church.

Erica shared some exciting personal news.

Our discussion of the reading coalesced around three topics, the first being "culture." We looked at the term broadly, to include pervasive sub-elements in American life, such as "sports culture" and the culture of the deaf, as well as our own Episcopal culture compared to, say, Baptist culture.  We were struck by the statistics that show how Muslims outnumber Episcopalians and Presbyterians in America.  After Gene, we shared some stories about how our best experiences of "multi - culturalism" have been those that made us feel uncomfortable. Susan was concerned that this topic of "multi-culturalism" might be something superficial and prescriptive, lacking the depth of metaphorical themes of other years in our course.

We were also struck by the essay's ideas about "listening." Mariel gave good advice, to breathe deeply!  Christine liked the five pillars of listening.  Scott repeated what Tom had said, about disciplining ourselves to put off thinking about our responses until we've heard the other person out. Scott, as a drama teacher, especially liked the idea of listening with our whole bodies.  Gene reminded us that "open mindedness" is not the same thing as neutrality: "You keep your commitments."

Of course, our spiritual autobiographies are a training ground for listening without judgement.

After a break, we repaired to the Pilgrimage Room to hear spiritual autobiographies by Susan and Scott.

Next week:  Worship is handled by Smoot; dinner will be Mariel's; Gene and Erica will prepare their short spiritual autobiographies from the perspective of cultural encounter.  We do the readings assigned for our respective years in the Reading Reflecting Guide, Week Three.

Here is a link to the text of Scott's spiritual autobiography, "A Spiritual Encounter with French Asparagus."

Yr. B, Wk. 1: Memories of Scharme; Night in the Lord's House

Christine's photo

Present:  Year 1: Christine;  Year 2:  Tom, Mariel, Gene; Year 3: Erica; Year 4: Mentors Susan and Scott

After a blessing from the prayer book, p. 831, Susan served pulled pork sandwiches with her own mango barbecue sauce, and cole slaw.  While we ate, we checked in on what's been going on over the summer.  Scott led worship from the Year B RRG book (Reading and Reflecting Guide on line), Gene reading the "leader" lines.

Our newest member, Christine, joined us during dinner.  We introduced ourselves through the discussion of summer.  She already knew of our loss:  Our year 4 student, Scharme Clower, has died, and her husband Greg is in our prayers.  We took some time to write memories of Scharme in our EfM class.  Following the worship provided in the RRG, we collected the memories, placed them inside a card for Greg that we had signed, and prayed for the bereaved (BCP p. 831) and heard this collect:

Collect for our Friend Scharme, and for her husband Greg:

Erica: The EfM room; "Be Thou My Vision"

Father, through the stories and letters written by your prophets and apostles, You touch us today, though they died long ago;  bless these memories that we've written about our friend Scharme, so they may keep her spirit alive in Greg and in us while she continues to live and grow in You; through Jesus' name we pray.   Amen.

We discussed what we had seen in the reading.  For Christine, our newest member, Mariel enlarged on what the RRG says about EfM.  "It's not ONLY an Bible study."  Gene added that we also apply our life and "the current situation" to what we read.  EfM is NOT a therapy group.  Tom advised that we should pay heed to the skill of "holy listening," not thinking of our responses while we listen to someone who disagrees with us.  Erica told Christine that "Theological Reflections" (TRs) might be a problem for her, but, "trust the process." Mariel added, "You won't know where it's going to end up."

Mariel - Icon of Mary

As a group, we

arrived at certain norms:

• be there, be on time
• "Leave your politics at the door"
• don't speak personal stories beyond our door
• be cell phone free (unless you tell us you're expecting a difficult call)
• Dinners:  We'll alternate brown bag nights with dinners prepared by members

After a dessert break, we had an "icebreaker" activity related to the prayer "At the End of the Day" We pray for those who "preserve: those who "stand" in "the House of the Lord" by night.   With our cell phones, we shared with each other our photos of objects in St. James Church that we would preserve, or that "preserve" us in some way. (See photos)  Presenting these was a sort of introduction to each other. We prayed the short service in the BCP.  

Gene - mission statement

Next Week:   We all read "WeekTwo" included in the digital RRG sent to us by Susan.   It's a "brown bag" night.  Mariel will prepare worship.  Scott and Susan will model "spiritual

autobiography" centered on living in a multicultural world.

Scott - one art pictures another art in worship

Susan - Nave at Night

Tom - His shadow on the door of the Lawrence Chapel