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PAGE 10—The Georgia Bulletin, August 18,1983
GOD 1983
in the
Human
Situation
The following outline provides an overview of the basic topics covered in the 1983-1984 Know
Your Faith series. Forty-five installments are included. Each week the series invites readers to think
about how the Christian message enters into their own lives.
-1984 Outline
of
KNOW YOUR
FAITH
Part I. Introduction
/. God Talk. Much has been said in our age about the
distance of God from humanity, God's absence. Yet the God
oi Christianity is a God who is present to human beings and
involved with human history.
This week our series introduces its basic theme. Is God
still present to modern people like us? What does Scripture
tell of God s presence and action?
2. What Do People Say They Want to Know About God?
Listening in on conversations about God.
This week our series listens as people tell what they
want to know about God and why. There is a sense that life
has meaning and value. People want to know that God af
firms that value. People want to know that God understands
their life's circumstances; forgives them; can be trusted;
that God s hopes for them are as big as their hopes for
themselves.
3. Divine Encounters. What Can We Tell About Contem
porary Experiences ol God? If God shares his life with peo
ple, what do members of the Christian community say about
how that life is actually shared now.
Are there stories to tell of God's activity in the lives of
the parish community, the family, the individual's life?
Part II. God and the Human
Predicament
(These installments look into experiences and needs
that are common to virtually all people in the course ol or
dinary, daily life. Does God address these real-life
situations?)
4. Your Human Life: Seeking the Balance, flow we view
ourselves is important. The God we meet in the Christian
community can strongly influence the way we view (and
value) ourselves.
Each person s life is a mix of important needs: the need
to be with others; the need for privacy. What makes it such
a challenge to discover a way of living that will allow life's
meaning to come into view?
5. Hope: necessary Ingredient. Hope is called a virtue
and with good reason!
If hope wanes, people may feel that an essential part
of them is wounded. But where should people look for hope?
Some people think hope is a way of glossing over life's
serious.problems. But hope can be a way to enter into the
midst of your own life s challenges.
lem is the stress almost anyone can experience.
Pressures can develop in family life and careers;
because of the cost of living or unemployment; even
because of apprehension over world events. Often stress
causes people to feel they are not what they hope to be as
persons. What are some Christian perspectives on stress?
7. Good (and not-So Good) Relationships. Tor Chris
tians. God's way of getting involved with people tells much
about the value of relationships.
Relationships can help people grow. But, common
wisdom holds that not all relationships do this. What creates
a life-giving relationship?
8. Handling Anger the Gace-full Way. Is anger a sign of
God s absence from a human situation?
People often find it difficult to speak of — or deal with
— anger. It may make them feel ashamed and guilty. Yet
anger is common in life's course. Is there a Christian way
to handle anger?
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9. Families. Creative Ways of Living at Home. Within a
home, family members know each other in special ways,
adapt to each other in special ways and — it is sometimes
complained — take each other for granted in special ways.
What keeps family life from falling victim to routine and
lack of communication?
10. The Pleasures of Life. For Christians, the "pleasures
of life" and the "pleasure principle" can be very separate
matters.
The pursuit of some pleasure in life is almost everyone's
pursuit. Does the Christian message cast light on this? Can
God be found in life's little pleasures?
11. Fear's Force. Are there positive and negative sides
of the fear people experience?
Fear takes a multitude of forms — the fear to trust
others, including God; the fear of becoming a victim', the
fear of the future; even the fear to hope. Often those involv
ed in church ministry find that fear has created an area of
need in someone's life — a need the person is not resolving
alone. What light does Scripture cast on the force of fear?
* 12. How to Observe Advent at Home. Each year our
series provides educational materials for the seasons of Ad
vent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. This week we explore ways
to take Advent seriously so that the coming celebration of
Christmas may be more meaningful.
13. Shaping Your Own Future. What view on your own
future possibilities in this world does Christianity propose?
Adults and teen-agers find it is necessary to plan for
the future — and that means making decisions about
finances, home life, values, education, etc. This is a time-
consuming factor in ordinary life. Our own future can
become a major preoccupation, But what does our Chris
tianity have to do with it?
14. Who Is Really Nature? Maturity for most people is
an ongoing process that is never complete.
One expects adults to be mature. But what does the
word "maturity" actually imply? Is maturity a state in life
or is it a goal? And what clues to the meaning of "maturi
ty" will be found in our church's tradition?
Part III. God's 20th Century
People of Prayer
(In this section our series takes on a biographical tone
as it explores forms prayer has taken in lives of 20th cen
tury people. Through people, we begin to see how prayer
emerges from the context of one's life, how it connects with
one s work and goals and relationships. We see that prayer
is not only possible, but takes many forms.)
15. Prayer: What Do You Mean by "Prayer"? Are we ever
at prayer almost without knowing it?
At the end of his biography of Jesus, a Japanese author
named Sliusaku Endo confessed he wanted to write another
biography of Jesus, then still another. It is Endo's work to
write. But is it his prayer? Perhaps a preoccupation with
Jesus and with God's meaning are forms of prayer.
16. Father John Chapman. What If Prayer Doesn't Come
Easily? This week we ll introduce an abbot from Downside
Abbey in England. He has special insights for people who
feel they don't get anything out of prayer, and advice for
those who sometimes feel God is absent.
Trappist Father Thomas Keating has said that the ex
perience of God is "quite common in the population." We ll
talk this week about his statement that the "capacity for
the transcendent Is precisely what distinguishes us most
from the rest of visible creation."
*17. Christmas and the People of Prayer This week our
series is all about Christmas.
We'll meet people of Scripture associated with this
special celebration, and we ll hear what their prayer was
What is the message of Christmas?"
18. Edith Stein: Victim of the Holocaust. Edith Stein
a convert from Judaism to Catholicism, was a victim of the
Mazi Holocaust.
This woman was a philosopher and a Carmelite nun. She
was also a woman of prayer. She once wrote that all who seek
truth seek God whether they know it or not. Is the search
for life's meaning the beginning of prayer? This week we
meet another woman of prayer from the Second World War:
Simone Weil. She never actually became a Catholic. But we ll
find that she discovered Christ in the Eucharist.
19. Dorothy Day: At Work Among the Very Poor. Dorothy
Day's service in Catholic Worker houses in New York and
other places was a way the spirit of prayer was expressed
for her. This was her vocation.
Vocations to family life, single life, a career, the
priesthood, religious life: How can every vocation be seen
as an expression of the spirit, even as a forth of prayer. Are
there really ways to pray in ordinary life?
20. Ncct the People in a Parish Prayer Group. In an age
when many people feel uprooted and alienated, prayer in
a group often serves the added purpose of providing a sense
of belonging, of putting people in contact with others whose
experiences help illuminate the road to spiritual discovery.
We ll introduce members of a parish prayer group. Why
do they meet, and what do they discover through their ex
perience together?
21. How Can Nodern Families Pray at Home? George
Vanier was a governor general of Canada. The story of how
he and his family prayed at home is intriguing.
Can typical families find ways to pray at home? We
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6. Stress. A most common — and complicating — prob
THIS GOD OF OURS
Without a God who takes a personal interest in his
people, Christianity just wouldn’t be Christianity. A
personal God who gets involved with human events and
history: That is the kind of God Christianity professes.
But how seriously is God’s presence taken today?
Does the idea of a God present in the midst of human
relationships and human longings sound in-credible?
Perhaps some people have learned to be firecely
independent. They don’t readily rely on anyone, God
included. Perhaps some people don’t understand a God
who doesn’t instantly solve all their problems. Perhaps
some people don’t take God’s presence seriously
because they wonder if God takes them seriously.
Is God present for a jobless person ... or when
stress and anxiety seem to prevail in life?
Again, is God present when people try to set goals in
life ... when they are very happy ... when they find
prayer almost impossible?
What about God’s presence in the church? It is easy
to think God is present in worship. But what about
church structures and laws?
The presence of God: What does it really amount to
in the nitty gritty of human life? It amounts to very
much, undoubtedly. The task, and the challenge, of
this series is to re-search that presence.