Cry Pain - Cry Hope
WEEK 1 - CALLED TO FOLLOW: PAIN AND WORK
Meditate on Chapter 16, "The Hulled Heart." Elizabeth asks herself, "What are the wrappings that keep the essence of my life from becoming bread for the world?" As you meditate on this thought, what responses arise within you? Write a page or less on how you feel pain closed your heart and how prayer opened your heart.
Read Chapter 12 "Imaging Caring Institutions" What vision do you have for a better world? In what ways do you see yourself creating it?
Read Chapter 13, "No Place". Have you experienced a giving up of hope for another person? Has someone else given up hope for you?
Read Chapter 14, "Who Hears Prayer?" What are your reflections on the poor and of how God works on their behalf?
Read Chapter 15, "Being Old" Do you agree with Elizabeth that each new stage of life is harder than the one before? How do you feel about your own aging?
WEEK 2 - CALL
Read Chapter 19, "Two Worlds", Chapter 20 "On Hearing Call" and Chapter 3, "Moses, Paradigm for Vocation". Also, read as much as you can of the story of Moses in Exodus, with a view to understanding the role of pain in his life. How did pain teach him? How was pain a vehicle for him?
Looking back on your own life, name the works that you have done from the time you were a small child. What works were call for you? Do you discern connections between your works and your pain? If you have not experienced call in your life, what are the feelings around that?
WEEK 3 - RESISTANCE TO CALL
Read Chapter 21, "Resistance and Surrender to Call". Elizabeth named primary resistances in her life as she was hearing call: feelings of inadequacy, reluctance to being responsible, and unwillingness to give up the so called "good life". Have you struggled with these feelings as you contemplated the new? What other feelings did you experience?
WEEK 4 - LETTING GO
Read Chapter 2, "I Am Who I Am" and Chapter 37, "A Mature Spirituality". Chapter 37 seems to say that if God's work is to be done here on earth, we are the ones who must do it. Explore your feelings about this image of a God who needs us; a God whose power depends on us.
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