Course Description
We will gather at an ocean front retreat center to better know (experience and critical reflection: mind, body and spirit) paradise in new and needed ways for more effective Christian leadership. This intensive course, graded only on pass/fail basis, will explore the notion of paradise as a Christian spiritual practice, with a focus on humor and ecstasy. An adage about teaching says, “You cannot teach what you do not know.” It is our contention that seminarians must have first-hand experience of and critical reflection of those practices of self-care and wellness that will serve them while pastoring. This course will assist pastors and church leaders with maintaining healthy and vibrant communities who are resilient by being personally better versed and experienced in the goodness of life and living – in the experience of paradise, joy, heaven, rapture, glory, bliss, delight. Previous experience of humor and ecstasy are required.
Teaching Team
Nancy Lynne Westfield, Lecturer
Heather Murray Elkins, Director
Charles Behm, Studio Mentor
Aiken Edwards, Studio Mentor
Ernie Rubenstein, Studio Mentor
Donna Powell, Student Artist
Learning Goals
1. To reflect holistically and theologically on the notion of humor, delight, ecstasy, and paradise.
2. To consider the role the body plays in the experience of paradise.
3. To plan to take paradise as a Christian practice into everydayness, i.e. in prayers, in preaching practices, in hospital visits, in teaching habits, etc.
Required Texts
· The Song of Solomon, Old Testament
· Honey, Hush!: An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor Edited by Daryl Cumber Dance
· The Soul of Sex: Cultivating Life as an Act of Love by Thomas Moore
· Energy Anatomy (Audiobook) (unabridged) by Caroline Myss, Ph.d.
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