Upcoming Wednesdays

Ok, so change of plans- Rosemary Ruether is coming on November 12! She's one of the major feminist theologians, and was described to me last week as "the nicest, most down-to-earth person you'll ever meet"- I'm really looking forward to her talk!

It seems that November 12 will be an amazing night at McAlister, as Tom Moore is also going to be holding a Bible Study that night! Rumor has it that we will be reading the story of Abraham and Isaac, and continuing in the theme of "Bible stories that won't let you go," looking at familiar stories on a deeper level. If you went to the study on the Good Samaritan earlier this semester or any of the talks about the environment and the Hebrew Bible that Professor Moore held last semester, you know how informative and inspiring these discussions can be.

This Wednesday, Catharine Grier Carlson will be leading a discussion on the theme of forgiveness. Come ready for a thoughtful conversation on a personal level!

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A couple of weeks ago, we had a conversation about prayer, or communicating with God, extending beyond what we normally think of as praying. Alison Krauss has an amazing song about the idea of being a "living prayer"- here's the link: (as shown on Youtube with pictures of mountains!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9upE_PGJVq8


Also, a quotation from Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain, which explains some important ideas AND uses an analogy from mineralogy! What could be better?

What is "grace"? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is Love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely self-less love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. Indeed, outside of Him there is nothing, and whatever exists exists by His free gift of its being, so that one of the notions that is absolutely contradictory to the perfection of God is selfishness. It is metaphysically impossible for God to be selfish, because the existence of everything that is depends upon His gift, depends upon His unselfishness. When a ray of light strikes a crystal, it gives a new quality to the crystal. And when God's infinitely disinterested love plays upon a human soul, the same kind of thing takes place. And that is life called sanctifying grace. The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines on it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in it (169-70).