Fables and Faith: Understanding the Gospel with Aesop's Fables
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A NOW YOU KNOW MEDI A STUDY GUIDE Fables and Faith: Understanding the Gospel with Aesop’s Fables Presented by Rev. Gregory I. Carlson, S.J., D.Phil. FABLES AND FAITH: UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL WITH AESOP’S FABLES STUDY GUIDE Now You Know Media Copyright Notice: This document is protected by copyright law. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You are permitted to view, copy, print and distribute this document (up to seven copies), subject to your agreement that: Your use of the information is for informational, personal and noncommercial purposes only. You will not modify the documents or graphics. You will not copy or distribute graphics separate from their accompanying text and you will not quote materials out of their context. You agree that Now You Know Media may revoke this permission at any time and you shall immediately stop your activities related to this permission upon notice from Now You Know Media. WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 3 2 FABLES AND FAITH: UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL WITH AESOP’S FABLES STUDY GUIDE Table of Contents Program Summary ............................................................................................................... 4 About Your Presenter ........................................................................................................... 5 Conference 1: Christian Life Invites Gratitude .................................................................. 6 Conference 2: Who Is This God? ..................................................................................... 16 Conference 3: The Human Train Wreck: What Happens When We Do Not Let Ourselves Be Loved by God as We Are .................................................. 28 Conference 4: The School of Hard Knocks: Discernment and Decision ........................ 38 Conference 5: Let’s Be Honest: See and Come ............................................................... 51 Conference 6: Please Tell Me Who I Am ........................................................................ 63 Conference 7: I’m Nobody! Are You Nobody Too? ....................................................... 74 Conference 8: Me First, It’s All About Me...................................................................... 86 Conference 9: Whose Ox Is Getting Gored? ................................................................... 96 Conference 10: Make Me a Channel of Your Peace ..................................................... 105 Conference 11: He Ran Then, and He Is Still Running Now: Freedom from and Freedom For ......................................................................................... 113 Conference 12: What Western Fables Do Not Stress .................................................... 125 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 135 WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 3 3 FABLES AND FAITH: UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL WITH AESOP’S FABLES STUDY GUIDE Program Summary Fables delight us and teach us the most important lessons about our lives. As this retreat shows, they also illuminate the message of the Gospel. You will join one of the leading experts on fables on a 12-part retreat that uses the fables of Aesop, Fontaine, and others to help you deepen and enjoy your Christian spiritual life. Underneath their seemingly simple narratives, fables demonstrate the most universal themes of existence. Your presenter is Rev. Gregory Carlson, S.J., a Jesuit priest, professor, and the founder of the Fable Collection at Creighton University, possibly the largest collection of fable materials in the world. His delightful renditions of such timeless Aesop stories as “The Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Fox and the Grapes” will draw you in and delight you. As you listen to and interpret these fables, you will come to a deeper spirituality of gratitude and fuller image of God. Steeped in the tradition of Ignatian spirituality, Rev. Carlson invites you to discernment in your daily life. You will also explore the dynamics of the Ignatian Two Standards. In them, you will encounter a healthy Christian identity and freedom from the common traps of egocentrism. As you explore the fables, you will discover novel and engaging methods of understanding humility. You will look at the ways in which the Christian life is magnified by Aesop’s fables, but you will also see how the Gospel expounds on virtues that are sometimes absent in fables. By looking at both fables and the Gospels, you will enjoy a truly unique and moving retreat. We especially recommend the video version of this course, as Fr. Carlson integrates many images of Aesop’s fables. We have also included these images in the free study guide, which accompanies this program. If you are looking to deepen your spiritual life while enjoying delightful stories, you will love this engaging retreat. WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 3 4 FABLES AND FAITH: UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL WITH AESOP’S FABLES STUDY GUIDE About Your Presenter A priest of the Society of Jesus, Rev. Carlson is one of the leading Ignatian retreat leaders in the United States. He received his Master of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg. Rev. Carlson is Associate Professor of English and Associate Director of the Deglman Center for Spirituality at Creighton University. Previously, he taught classics at the College of the Holy Cross, Marquette University, the Jesuit School of Theology, and Georgetown University. He was the President of the Vergilian Society from 1999–2001 and was awarded Georgetown University President’s Medal in 1991. As one of the world’s leading experts on fables, Rev. Carlson has published extensively on the subject, and he maintains the Carlson Fable Collection at Creighton, which hosts over 6,000 books and 4,000 artifacts. He is the author of numerous articles, including “Spiritual Direction and the Paschal Mystery” (Review for Religious) and “Shepherd and Host: A Literary Look at Psalm 23” (The Bible Today). WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 3 5 FABLES AND FAITH: UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL WITH AESOP’S FABLES STUDY GUIDE Conference 1: Christian Life Invites Gratitude I. Who is invited to enjoy these conferences? A) Christians who want to pay attention to and to develop their spirituality. B) Spirituality = how we live among the tensions caused by our beliefs 1) We may have had an idea that spirituality stops tensions. But that is incorrect; it starts plenty of them! C) This retreat is meant for Christian believers, but others can find valuable things here, too. 1) Anyone interested in spirituality can profit. You will know how to adapt to your faith. 2) Every belief, including Christian belief, is a boat floating on a sea of doubt and question. 3) Many of us, within Christianity and outside of it, are like St. Thomas, finding God within our doubts and questions and not by suppressing them. D) People who have encountered Ignatian spirituality in one way or another will recognize familiar turns here, and those who find this approach congenial may want to go further, especially by making or remaking the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. II. Five Invitations A) Life invites us to relate to God now. 1) Let God meet you where you are now. (a) We need to relate to the central mystery of our life! 2) Spirituality grows up in people who take time to relate to the mystery at the heart of life. 3) Relating to God—to the mystery at the heart of life—is the most important and central thing. 4) Jesus’ question: “What does it profit a man . ?” 5) The Principle and Foundation of St. Ignatius: We are made by God for God. 6) Gerard Manley Hopkins compared each of us to a mote of dust. (a) Thee God I come from, to thee go All day long I like fountain flow From thy hand out, swayed about, Motelike in thy mighty glow. (b) The biggest danger for spirituality is to postpone this address. (i) “I’ll do it when I have my life better together.” WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 3 6 FABLES AND FAITH: UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL WITH AESOP’S FABLES STUDY GUIDE (ii) “Let me put God on hold until . .” 7) The God Jesus presents as His Father is ready to meet people where they are and accompany them there, just as Jesus does. 8) Attending to spirituality always involves a conversion like Dante’s at the beginning of the Divine Comedy: we find ourselves lost and alone in the midst of a dark wood, and we come to ourselves. (a) The way to come to ourselves is to turn to the God who made and makes us, who loves us as we are right now. (b) Don't wait! “Now is the time of salvation.” B) Life invites us to pay attention to what is in front of us. 1) It’s not always easy to notice and to pay attention to what's there in front of us. 2) Growing often includes noticing some things maybe for the first time. 3) Krylov’s Sightseer (elephant in the museum) 4) The Travellers and the Plane-Tree (Perry 175) 5) Oedipus Rex: The evidence is right before us, but we sometimes don't know how to read it. 6) Features become furniture, especially if we have lived with them for a long time. C) Life invites us to notice and to do what we can do. 1) We will notice key areas in our life where we need to hear “it’s not about you!” 2) But some things in life, though they are not necessarily about you, are up to you. (a) You find what you are ready to find. A lot of life is how you look at it and whether you’re willing to do something. (b) Aesop: The Oracle and the Rogue. It depends on you whether it’s alive or dead (Perry 36). 3) In Ignatian spirituality, desire precedes the gift. (a) You will see what you seek. (b) That is why it is worth asking for what you want or need. 4) If you are watching and listening to these tapes because you want to grow, it is worth asking God to help you grow. (a) Experienced directors would probably say that that is a sign that the gift is on its way, though the form in which it will appear may surprise both us and our directors.