Course Description: Do you find it difficult to grow spiritually, even as a spiritual leader? If so, you are not alone. Understanding what is happening to us spiritually takes patience, discipline, self-awareness and grace. There are no shortcuts. God invites us to draw closer in a variety of ways, even in times of spiritual fatigue, confusion, temptation and over-stimulation. This class will explore these challenges and ways in which contemporary writers on the spiritual life have responded to them to these issues.
This elective is an ongoing blend of reading, reflection, writing and practice. Each week you will engage in a pattern of academic and spiritual practices that will support online interactions. You are expected to spend time praying daily and to share from your experience. You are also expected to read thoughtfully and critically ( approximately a week). We begin an introduction to one of the basic spiritual practices that will anchor this course, Cntering Prayer, and continue with reflections on the spiritualties found in the gospels and on to a diverse set of texts intended to stimulate our thinking about what it means to have a spiritual life. We will pay close attention how contemporary emphases on self-care and self-development intersect with perspectives found in the gospels. You will write a daily journal and weekly posts of several kinds.
This elective is an ongoing blend of reading, reflection, writing and practice. Each week you will engage in a pattern of academic and spiritual practices that will support online interactions. You are expected to spend time praying daily and to share from your experience. You are also expected to read thoughtfully and critically ( approximately a week). We begin an introduction to one of the basic spiritual practices that will anchor this course, Cntering Prayer, and continue with reflections on the spiritualties found in the gospels and on to a diverse set of texts intended to stimulate our thinking about what it means to have a spiritual life. We will pay close attention how contemporary emphases on self-care and self-development intersect with perspectives found in the gospels. You will write a daily journal and weekly posts of several kinds.
- Teacher: Elizabeth Liebert