Adult Education Series: Hard Conversations

Adult Education Series: HARD CONVERSATIONS… on suffering and loss

Sundays of Advent (11/28, 12/5, 12/12, 12/19) at 2:00 pm

The Buxton Room

(with Zoom access, if preferred)

Next in our Adult Education series called “Hard Conversations,” we’ll be asking some tough, perennial questions: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” and “Where is God in the midst of my suffering?”

This isn’t a class that offers any solid answers, rather a class that dares to ask and listen and to pay attention to God. We’ll divide our time into two 45-minute segments: Reading and Reflection.

Reading

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler. (Books available through the church office.) Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School who was diagnosed with stage-4 colon cancer at age 35. Her memoir unfolds with fearless questions, incisive wit, poignant vulnerability – and a hard-won confidence in God, without platitudes or any whitewashing of her pain and loss.

Reflection

How well do you listen to your own story? No, really. And how well do you pay attention to God's activity in your own days? Through a combination of journaling and some playful, mixed-media art, we’ll be looking at the people and events that have shaped us, the convictions and principles we cherish, and the trajectory on which our daily actions place us today. Think some combination of prayer journal, scrapbook and vision board! No art expertise required.

Bring a journal or notebook made with heavy paper (mixed media or watercolor paper works best). I’ll provide artist markers and colored pencils, creative papers, embellishments and adhesives.