Preparing for Sunday May 4

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are enjoying the sunshine this week. We watched our youngest hit golf balls yesterday, so it is officially spring at our house. I wanted to give you a quick update about what we will discuss on Sunday. I stress the word "discuss" because Bryan and I are ready to talk less and listen more this week! For those of us (me, especially) who don't have degrees in philosophy we will have a very short outline of the ways we think differently in the age of "postmodernism" than we did in the "modern" era. One Methodist professor recently noted that this just means we are less confident that technology will lead to a perfect world, more willing to listen to other points of view about issues of ultimate truth and religion, and more committed to community than in the past. A lot of this is not new to Methodists who have long believed that as Christians we are called to think for ourselves (relying on scripture, tradition, reason and experience to guide us).

Her article can be found at: http://www.gbod.org/smallgroup/covenant/spring03/foursome.html

We are going to utilize Joe's suggested discussion topic: What do Methodist's think about the Pope and why don't we talk about him very often? Another interesting question is what the Pope thinks of Americans. If you have time this week, glance at some of his speeches online or check out the April 14 Time magazine article on "Why the Pope loves America."

The link is: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727724-3,00.html

We'll count on the many former Catholics in the group to help us. We'll also spend some time tossing out ideas for future issues to discuss so come with some ideas you would like to share. Until then, please let me know if you have questions or prayer requests. We are grateful for the chance to be in conversation with you all.

Peace,
Deb

PS: for those of you who would like to watch the video of Frederick Buechner introducing himself that we listened to last week the link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erAbpkQhuvM