"Napa Valley" Brocken InaGlory. Licensed. Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
"Napa Valley" Brocken InaGlory. Licensed. Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
Welcome to LAST SUPPER RED!!
What if laughter and hilarity are sacred? Might prayer be less about words and more about how we position ourselves before Mystery? What if God is less like Santa Claus and more like air? What if we are defined more by "Original Blessing" than "Original Sin?" Would Christianity flourish if we followed Jesus instead of worshipping him? What if "the Kingdom of God" has much less to do with the hereafter and is instead a here-and-now countercultural idea and reality with political and economic consequences?
What if laughter and hilarity are sacred? Might prayer be less about words and more about how we position ourselves before Mystery? What if God is less like Santa Claus and more like air? What if we are defined more by "Original Blessing" than "Original Sin?" Would Christianity flourish if we followed Jesus instead of worshipping him? What if "the Kingdom of God" has much less to do with the hereafter and is instead a here-and-now countercultural idea and reality with political and economic consequences?
Q's characters share their responses to the daily litany of woe they read in the newspapers and what they do to keep from being overwhelmed by it. This Dialogue can provide much food for thought.
Do you resonate with their feelings of being overwhelmed by the news? If so, what do you do in response? Are you a news junkie . . . or do you get most of it from Stephen Colbert's and Jon Stewart's shows? Do you just put your head down and drop out? Other options?
Q again plunges his main characters into an extensive theological discussion. At least they don't end up alienating each other this time.
What do you make of Phyllis Tickle's idea about the church having a rummage sale on its doctrines every 500 years or so? (see Footnote 9 on Page 45.) If it's true, should it happen at all? Should it happen more often? Are we living in such a time today? If so, what do you think the church needs to get rid of?
Advocatus talks about The Seven Deadly Sins and how they were used to analyze aspects of the ego's movement through life. Have you heard of them before? Are they sometimes useful in examining what's happening? What do you make of them?
(Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, said that with a few exceptions, accidie among them, in our time most of the traditional Seven Deadlies wouldn't keep you from becoming a member in the local country club, let alone bar you from going to heaven! He proposed Seven Deadlier Sins, and in his Bond novel each villain represents one of them plus the sin of accidie, from which Bond and Fleming both persistently suffered. It's the only sin that shows up in each book. His Seven Deadlier Sins are: The Twins of Violence: Cruelty & Malice, Avarice, The Twins of Duplicity: Hypocrisy & Self-righteousness, Moral Cowardice, and Accidie. (See the book by W. Benjamin Pratt footnoted on page 112.)
Have you tried Snark's practice of keeping a daily gratitude list? If so, with what results?
Margaret speaks of how meditation helps her keep from being overwhelmed and teaches them her "Colorful Prayer" meditation. Is her view of prayer new to you? Old hat? Have you tried some forms of meditation? "Conventional" prayers that you say? Are your prayers "answered?" What do you think of praying for others and their situations (intercessory prayer)? Do you think about putting some parts of quantum physics together with intercessory prayer? Say what . . . ?
