Reading this was pretty interesting, actually. I especially liked the topic of darkness. The questions that arose really made me think about my faith. For example, Professor Corrigan asks us, "Where is God in the darkness?" We have to look for something beyond the darkness. We have to look for something that we can not see. Our faith comes into play and is truly tested when we can not see our own hand in front of us, and we have to trust that God knows what He is doing. And not only that, we have to trust that He even exists! That He really is there even though we can't see him...but I guess that comes in to play in general, this is not meaning just darkness.
Professor Corrigan had a quote in this that particularly struck my attention. It was a quote from Laurence Freeman that read, "“before trying to get the answer right . . . Important questions create silence." This reminded me of Lectio Divina. This practice has been coming up a lot in my life recently, actually. We practiced it at Renew Chapel, and in this class before. So it is quite funny that something similar is stated again here. Professor Corrigan says that Freeman in reminding us not to respond so eagerly and with the first thing that comes to our mind. Take some time ad reflect, repeat the question, and sit in silence with the question.
This "paper", I guess you could call it, helped me to see that darkness isn't necessarily a bad thing. God is still there. Like the Professor reminded us, the Lord says, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." He also stated, "Unless we face the darkness, we have nothing to offer those who are hurting and we have no resources for ourselves when we get our own turn at pain--except cheap religious clichés." When we go through darkness, hope can come from it. We can learn and grow in the Lord, and we can use our circumstances to reach out to others and help them.
Learning more and more from this class,
Anna Marie :)
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this is a great quote "We have to look for something that we can not see. Our faith comes into play and is truly tested when we can not see our own hand in front of us, and we have to trust that God knows what He is doing. And not only that, we have to trust that He even exists!" This is a great post dealing with a hard topic.
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