Join us for a discussion of Norman Wirzba's book This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World.

On April 3, we are discussing Chapter 5. Here are some questions for thought & discussion:

1. Think of a person, non-human creature, place or thing with which you have a relationship you consider sacred, and one where your relationship is not sacred. What qualities, feelings, etc. are different? Try to situate your response in terms of Wirzba’s discussion of how we assign value. (126-32)

2. What does Wirzba mean when he writes on pg. 139 that “transcendence does not oppose immanence”? (It may be helpful to refer back to his discussion of the “immanent frame” on pg. 126.) How is the sacred related for Wirzba both to generosity, and to the “global politics of hospitality” that he cites from the writing of Patrick Chamoiseau? (138-43)

3. Genesis 2:2-3 reads, “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.” What does Wirzba say was the reason God rested on the seventh day? How is this rest the opposite of “restlessness,” and an important element of a sacred life? In what ways is the practice of Sabbath rest an implicit critique of those who believe that sanctity can be found only in an “afterlife”? (143-54)

Join us for the conversation led by Steve Knight and Father Beddingfield. Join us in person or through Zoom at at https://zoom.us/j/8753617165 (for the password, type the numerals for eighteen ninety-nine, two thousand nineteen. No comma or space.)

Books can be bought from your favorite vender or downloaded online. The church has ordered some copies which also may be purchased.