Adult Education
Meditation and the Hard Questions for an Authentic Life
April 6, 13, and 27, 9:30 a.m.
Led by Stan Lou in the Upstairs Education Room.
This three week class is based on the book, The Hard Questions for an Authentic Life: 100 Essential Questions for Designing Your Life by the Inside Out by Susan Piver. Piver defines living authentically as “what you’re doing when you find congruence between your inner world – your feelings, values, gifts, needs, spirituality, and passions – and your outer world – your job, relationships, home, and community. When you live an authentic life, these things support and synergize each other. For three Sundays, we will work through some of the 100 questions Piver
poses and incorporate the practice of meditation. Piver believes mediation clear our minds so that we may be open to identifying the voices inside of us offering thoughts, sensations, hopes, and fears that can establish unique qualities, direction, and real value. This class has a level of accountability. We hope participants will practice meditation through the week and the class will have some reflection homework based on the questions.
Reinhold Niebuhr: A Theologian for This Time
April 6, 13, 27, 9:30
Led by Jerry McPike downstairs in the Bird Room.
Reinhold Niebuhr was the most famous and influential theologian in American history. Niebuhr (B.1892, D. 1971) was a theologian who had no interest in discussing the Trinity or the dual nature of Jesus. His focus was on the events in this world and particularly the issue of social
justice. Much of his writing dealt with the inadequacies of theologies and ideologies which, although pro-social justice, were flawed to an extent that impeded any move toward a more just society. He emphasized the imperfections and sins that existed in our societal structures and our philosophies about the human situation. Self interest, in his opinion, permeated all our activities, and was the basic factor limiting any movement toward the kingdom of God. In the latter half of his career his focus moved toward foreign policy and he became a leader in the “realist” school of foreign policy. Much of what he had to say regarding both foreign and domestic policy has great applicability in our own time.
April 20, 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
Father Jean Monique Bruno, an Episcopal Priest from Haiti, with whom Church of the Pilgrims has had a long-term mission relationship, will be preaching during worship Sunday, April 20, and sharing during Adult Education at 9:30 a.m. Pilgrims contributed to the building of a vocational high school in Haiti, and participated in several mission trips to Haiti in the 80's and 90's.
