Tim Gabrielli: Hey, Kelly.
Kelly Johnson: Hey, how are you
Tim Gabrielli: Sorry about that. I was just wrapping up with the, the second year doctoral students
Kelly Johnson: No, it's fine.
Tim Gabrielli: They're all getting ready for Monday, the first crack at
Kelly Johnson: 1230. Well, bless their hearts. I mean, I'm terrified. I can't
Tim Gabrielli: This is what I've said to them, you know that they've been getting into their classroom this week and you know one of them like the projector would go on for three minutes and then just shut off and God. It was like, I will put that in the log. Why don't know when we'll get there and
Kelly Johnson: Well, in good news. I just had my meeting with Jason and Monty.
Kelly Johnson: How did it go. Good.
Tim Gabrielli: Okay, good.
Kelly Johnson: Very good. Yes. So I was my imaginings, which I thought I was going high figuring lets you know go high, and let them tell me to come down and they were like, okay, this is good go a little higher. So that's
Tim Gabrielli: Good, yeah. That was my experience with Jason I haven't had I think I had my meeting next week. But when I chatted with Jason, a month and a half ago or so he was sort of like you should go you know with this stuff things. Yeah, yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Yeah, I had been thinking I should stay at 10% of my budget and use more like half go go for like, okay.
Kelly Johnson: That's exciting. Okay, so I have my old notes out or might not my
Bill Johnston: Old notes.
Kelly Johnson: I made notes.
Tim Gabrielli: Okay, let's see, Bill.
Damn.
Tim Gabrielli: Good to see
Kelly Johnson: You too. Oh.
Yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Okay, no, I've got a cat.
Kelly Johnson: Crying for his long lost love in the background. Let's see if that goes on.
Tim Gabrielli: You know who's lost you to zoom or she
Bill Johnston: Me. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Such as he is. I'm gonna need to go get some water, but I'm right. So I can do the little introduction tell people to keep themselves.
Kelly Johnson: Muted and that will invite them to unmute themselves for conversation. I'll do a little like I did for a little opening setup about
Kelly Johnson: What what caused me to be thinking about the question and inviting you guys and then the same just the same little introductions. I did for you guys before which are not elaborate, but students don't need that.
Kelly Johnson: And then, and then Tim
Kelly Johnson: Takes it from there. Right.
Tim Gabrielli: John but first
Kelly Johnson: What do you, what do you think about inviting students to unmute and introduce themselves. I mean, I don't want to slow things down and it can take so long to get through a set of introductions like that.
Kelly Johnson: But it is nice to let them, you know, be
Kelly Johnson: Active in the call early on. Do you have a preference.
Tim Gabrielli: It does make it listen to meeting for them to then jump in later because they've already jumped in and maybe like your idea.
Tim Gabrielli: You know, if we end up with just a handful, then maybe it's okay. And if we end up with, you know, more than 10 maybe your idea earlier of just saying, can we just give us a name and major a year or something like that. Yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Bill Johnston: Yeah, I mean, even if it takes 15 minutes
Kelly Johnson: Yeah.
Bill Johnston: It's okay. Yeah.
Kelly Johnson: It changes the whole quality of the thing doesn't
Kelly Johnson: I'm gonna go get a little water how I got up here with hot water.
Kelly Johnson: This is my Wait, let me think about this 911 12
Kelly Johnson: One. This is my sixth zoom call today.
Kelly Johnson: Yeah, okay. I'll be right back.
Bill Johnston: Have you been into a classroom to see how things work.
Tim Gabrielli: To two nights. This week I think I've spent a total of. I mean, it's been a couple hours. I've been in there.
Tim Gabrielli: tinkering around and I'm very glad that I did. I just got off a call with the second year doctoral students. I've been working with this summer, getting them ready to step into one of three for the first time, but boy, I feel bad for them.
Tim Gabrielli: You know, we were talking about how important that is. Several of them had been in as well. But yeah, I was having some sound issues that I was finally able to work out.
Tim Gabrielli: How about you.
Bill Johnston: I just kind of walked in and saw the spacing and and the setup. I haven't actually tried to use the equipment.
Bill Johnston: One of the things I read online said they would rather that we not put things on a thumb drive and use that to
Bill Johnston: Display them. We just would have always done so.
Bill Johnston: Yeah, maybe, maybe tonight, and if not, then over the weekend. I really have to do that to go see how it works. Amy and I with the MA student orientation promo. Why would they were feedback issues of
Bill Johnston: Which microphones are working
Bill Johnston: You know, is it does the students microphones on their computers work. And then there's the microphone on the camera and
Bill Johnston: So anyway, I've got
Bill Johnston: Have have a feeling, you know. Yeah. The first couple of classes are going to be
Bill Johnston: Technology oriented. Yeah.
Tim Gabrielli: The in the classroom. I'm in at least I don't know what what you saw in the one you went into, but I think it would be virtually impossible for me to use the
Tim Gabrielli: Webcam they've provided on the podium, the way it's set up so I, you know, have a little desk at the front and I set up my laptop and I have everything kind of plugged into that.
Tim Gabrielli: Which I think is just going to make it go much more smoothly than trying to use the desktop that's in there.
Bill Johnston: Um, well.
Bill Johnston: Yeah, that's so that's a good question. I was I was
Bill Johnston: Yes. So which which computer
Bill Johnston: Runs the show.
Tim Gabrielli: If you
Tim Gabrielli: If you plug in the there should be one of those like 15 pin things that comes out of the podium and you can plug it into your computer.
Tim Gabrielli: I have a Mac. So I have a converter for that and I plug it into my little converter and then
Tim Gabrielli: The laptop runs everything so I can run the PowerPoint for my laptop on the end, it connects to the projector and the sound and I put the sound cord into my microphone jack and the sound comes out and everything then runs from my laptop.
Bill Johnston: Okay, okay. So you got to know which which is
Bill Johnston: On
Bill Johnston: But then you also
Kelly Johnson: Some is hilarious, Tim.
Kelly Johnson: Did you want us there you go, oh, we are recording. Okay, fine. We'll edit this out later.
Tim Gabrielli: Right, yeah. Every, every meeting, I have. I've said it the default record because I will always forget. So it just records by
Kelly Johnson: You're less self conscious than I am.
Tim Gabrielli: And I usually end up stopping it. And then I, you know, get a clip.
Bill Johnston: And then it ends up getting saved into
Bill Johnston: Zoom. Yes. Yeah, near the door. Yeah, somewhere. Yeah.
Tim Gabrielli: Not necessarily. It is it the word
Tim Gabrielli: Is not tied to the class.
Tim Gabrielli: Okay, to my zoom account.
Bill Johnston: Hello, honey.
Meghan Henning: How are you all
Tim Gabrielli: Are you
Meghan Henning: I'm okay. I'm having a pretty good week. All things considered.
Meghan Henning: I mean, it's totally chaotic and I'm not sure where I am. Most of the time anymore. That's the thing about this, but having a great time getting lots of good things.
Tim Gabrielli: Good.
Kelly Johnson: I'm I have a lot of really great things going on. And if I had another month before my classes started I would feel really good about it.
Meghan Henning: Yeah, I mean, that's what I should say that's a more honest answer.
Kelly Johnson: I mean,
Kelly Johnson: Many I had lots of great conversations today about many things that I urgently need to do in the next week, none of which have to do with the fact that I'm about to start teaching so
Meghan Henning: I understand.
Meghan Henning: Yeah, I'd love
Kelly Johnson: To complain about that. I am not in a position to complain about that.
Kelly Johnson: I mean, I
Kelly Johnson: I do. I still do, of course, but
Meghan Henning: Whoa, what I think is the thing is that
Meghan Henning: It's not, no matter how much teaching, you're doing it still requires like, I mean, it's still a like embodied practice that require like it's, you have to kind of
Meghan Henning: Have you ever been. I've been thinking today about like how you have to
Meghan Henning: shift your attention. You have to be attentive. Mm hmm. In a different way when you're thinking about teaching it. That's what makes it fun and reflective and engaging, but also when you can't do that.
Meghan Henning: That makes you feel divided. That's right.
Kelly Johnson: Yeah, it's some sustained attention right and there's and there's that old thing. I mean, I know, having multiple sections of the same class.
Kelly Johnson: Is significantly more work. Anybody who tells you it's not significantly more work to have more sections of the same class has never tried that. But it is still the case that the leap.
Kelly Johnson: From nothing to one class.
Kelly Johnson: Is, is I'm not
Kelly Johnson: I'm
Kelly Johnson: It's bigger than one third of teaching three classes. Right.
Kelly Johnson: Again, right. The the
Kelly Johnson: Elite preparing one classes is still
Kelly Johnson: But, um, but it'll be good. I just need to find the time to actually sit down and focus. I think that's the thing, right.
Kelly Johnson: Yeah, really, really focus attention on it. Yeah, working, working with isn't or site really takes that because you have to simultaneously think okay
Kelly Johnson: Assignment calendar gradebook. Where is this on my schedule, right. Where's the video that goes with right and all. And you have to be able to hold all the pieces together and you can't drop in and out very well.
Kelly Johnson: At least
Kelly Johnson: For me,
Kelly Johnson: It's hard to find in the zone and I'm there for three hours and I'm concentrated tonight, then I can have the whole picture working but if I'm dropping in and out.
Meghan Henning: No, I've been actually just doing one piece at a time because I have to drop in and out with the way that my household is structured right now so
Meghan Henning: I'm I am like, so I like today, I just made all of my quizzes live and then tomorrow I'll fix the calendar and like that kind of like I am doing it sort of piece.
Kelly Johnson: Right, that's
Meghan Henning: Only because I'm afraid that if I do
Meghan Henning: Those tasks are continually contained
Meghan Henning: Can like keep at it until I finished one. Whereas if I try to just like do each module at a time. Then I like I won't remember what I've left off. And that's where I feel like I'm likely to
Sing. Yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Anyway, that is the problem. Yeah, yeah.
Hey, people
Kelly Johnson: See people on this call.
You guys
Kelly Johnson: So Tim, what's your advice, give it another minute to let people get logged on
Tim Gabrielli: I think that's a good idea.
Kelly Johnson: You know, hang hang with us for another minute or so while people navigate through zoom to get here.
Kelly Johnson: And you can keep listening to your professors complain about
Meghan Henning: Learning class.
Kelly Johnson: Live on the first day of class looking haggard, you'll know that's
Meghan Henning: Only because we want it to be perfect.
Tim Gabrielli: Right.
Kelly Johnson: Well, there's that thing. It isn't our staffs and this this notice that's like, if you take the time to set up your Isidore site right you won't get 1000 emails from students saying
Kelly Johnson: There's this other thing which creates a lot of incentive to try to just
Kelly Johnson: Set up right and it's so true. Right. If you set it up wrong you pay for it later.
Meghan Henning: Oh, I appreciate the emails from students because then I can just, I like they're following along, I've got
Meghan Henning: That they've caught it. And now we can fix it. And, but it is true.
Meghan Henning: It is easier to start knowing that you have most of the boxes ticked because you can stop the Isidore ticker tape in your brain. It's like, it's like until it's done right, you have this like running taping brain of like community this
Meghan Henning: Release or list maker, like me, I think for people that don't make lists, it's fine.
Meghan Henning: Like different
Bill Johnston: The global sense of uncertainty and developing your own brand.
Kelly Johnson: Cheering
Tim Gabrielli: The list and my brain are always, you know, more pressing than the ones I write down I write it down. And it's over there. But the things that are like
Meghan Henning: Yeah.
Tim Gabrielli: Now hammering away in my head, those
Tim Gabrielli: Yeah.
Meghan Henning: Maybe that's the trick knew what I should have done was right down the pieces of what I need to do on a list, instead of having it be like this. A Morpheus thing that's like
Meghan Henning: Finish your site. Yeah, that's the trick my grandma always use is that she would just shoot break down her tasks into these absurdly small nuggets, so that she felt like she had accomplished something finalist in her house that was like brush teeth.
Meghan Henning: Today,
Kelly Johnson: Where that is so
Meghan Henning: Especially now. I mean, what's the incentive
Kelly Johnson: I'm thinking maybe what we should do is go ahead and introduce ourselves and then we can cut that'll that'll give us, we can start doing introductions and if a few more people come in and then we'll be ready to sort of start our
Kelly Johnson: Start our deal our content a bit after that. So since I said this, I'll introduce myself first. I'm Dr. Kelly Johnson. I'm the father free Chair of social justice.
Tim Gabrielli: And I'm faculty Department of Religious Studies
Kelly Johnson: And that's enough about me. I teach Cynthia. I teach theology and ethics and to me, to my left is Dr. Gabrielle, so you're going next.
Tim Gabrielli: So I'm Dr. Timothy Bradley and I'm the good work chair and Catholic intellectual traditions in religious studies department.
Tim Gabrielli: And I teach courses in theology, including our introductions religious studies and theological stirred into religious and theological studies and other courses in in in theology. So good to be here with you all.
Tim Gabrielli: About to Dr. Henry next. Okay.
Meghan Henning: So I am
Meghan Henning: I am the professor of SS Associate Professor of Christian origin. So I teach Bible New Testament history of early Christianity.
Meghan Henning: And I'm also the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Religious Studies. So if you are a major or minor or thinking about it. Come talk to me. I'm happy to chat anytime
Bill Johnston: And I'm Dr. Bill Johnston, Associate Professor in the Religious Studies Department and I teach courses like liturgy and sacraments theology of ministry with the MA students and a new course in CS Lewis.
Kelly Johnson: OK, I see Landry next
Landry McVicker: Year, and I'm
Kelly Johnson: Welcome to you, D.
Kelly Johnson: You're so your, your audio is kind of breaking up.
Kelly Johnson: No.
Kelly Johnson: Okay, don't let that hold you back. Just say it loud. Okay.
Kelly Johnson: Anyway, we got that first year discover arts
Kelly Johnson: And you were going to tell us something interesting about yourself and then I think we lost it. Yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Anyway, okay, it's all good.
Kelly Johnson: Um, so, Mira
Kelly Johnson: How about you.
Mira Wilson: I'm here, I'm the first year as well. And right now I'm religious studies and theology major
Kelly Johnson: Right.
GDuchak: Hello everybody.
GDuchak: I'm Greg, do, check, I am a senior religious studies and secondary education with social studies concentration and
GDuchak: Happy to be here. Happy see some familiar faces second Johnson, Dr. Johnston, and an interesting thing about me. I love Batman.
GDuchak: One of my favorite characters fictional character.
Kelly Johnson: About Anna.
Anna Kopsick: I'm hi I'm Anna. I'm a freshman and I'm in the theater program, but I am thinking of adding a religious studies double major or minor, so we'll see.
And
Anna Kopsick: Have Fun fact I think a grandma, but I like to sew and embroider so
Tim Gabrielli: That's lovely.
Anna Kopsick: Thank you.
Meghan Henning: And I know
Meghan Henning: That's not grandma at all.
Anna Kopsick: Oh, yeah.
Meghan Henning: My
Tim Gabrielli: My eight or nine year old loves it, too. So she's not a grandma.
Anna Kopsick: It's exactly. And it's so fun. Exactly.
Kelly Johnson: By the way, Anna. I'm in a local Shakespeare troop. So we'll talk
Anna Kopsick: I think the. Oh my goodness. Yes. Great, great companion so
Anna Kopsick: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Kelly Johnson: Sophia
Sophia Lopez-Navarijo: Hi I'm Sofia. I'm also a first year student and I'm in the discovery teacher program.
Yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Thank you. So nice to meet you. Welcome to UT know I know you can actually hear me say it.
Kelly Johnson: About silly.
Zoe Borgman: I I'm Zoe my camera doesn't really work. So, it freezes like that. And so I just have it off, but I'm
Zoe Borgman: I am a religious studies major and
Zoe Borgman: Yeah. Fun fact about me is my favorite dinosaur is a stegosaurus. There we go.
Tim Gabrielli: My son's to he loves stinky.
Zoe Borgman: They're the best is good taste.
Kelly Johnson: Well, it's great to have you guys all here for this conversation.
Kelly Johnson: I got to thinking earlier, the summer about petition airy prayer why Christians pray for people who are
Kelly Johnson: sick or dying or out of work. Why do we pray for safety on the road or for God's intervention and overcoming in justice in society because
Kelly Johnson: If God knows better than we do what we actually need. Why are we asking for things right.
Kelly Johnson: And and it's interesting because Christians have always done this and it's a universally recommended practice, it's part of
Kelly Johnson: Our liturgy. It's not just something people do as an emotional response. It's like a practice of the church, but I think too many people, it's not really at all obvious why we do it once you phrase the question that way.
Kelly Johnson: And as important to practice as it is, it does actually take some theological work to figure out how to describe what it is we're actually doing when we offer Petitioner prayer.
Kelly Johnson: And I think it's important to come to. I mean, it's important to do the prayer. Anyway, but it is important to figure out what it is we're doing when we do that because that's how we can
Kelly Johnson: Determine whether we're doing well or we're doing it badly. And there are ways to do it badly and ways to do it. Well, right.
Kelly Johnson: So, um, I was particularly inspired by an article you guys may want to look up a friend of mine, Deborah Dean Murphy, who is also a theologian.
Kelly Johnson: Wrote a little piece in the Christian Century. You can find it online. Deborah Dean Murphy and the title of it is
Kelly Johnson: What are we doing when all we can do is pray
Kelly Johnson: Or not even
Kelly Johnson: What are we really doing when all we can do is pray or not even. It's a, it's a, it's a great little piece.
Kelly Johnson: And we may come back to that at some point in the course of the conversation. But that was part of what inspired me to want to talk about this and I am in the fabulous position of working with
Kelly Johnson: Brilliant thoughtful well trained people who have lots of things to say about questions like this. And so I
Kelly Johnson: Encouraged decided to get some people together and have this conversation. And I'm so glad that we have students who want to join us to talk about this so
Kelly Johnson: With no further ado, I'm going to ask Dr. Tim gabrielli how he would answer that question. What would you say when somebody says to you, why do we pray for things. If God already knows what we need.
Tim Gabrielli: Thanks, Dr. Johnson, so
Tim Gabrielli: The question about petition every prayer.
Tim Gabrielli: What we're doing with it and God's response to it. Let me first say that it's got a long history in the Jewish Christian tradition.
Tim Gabrielli: Doing it as Dr. Johnson said but also thinking about it and asking these questions. So, you know, just two examples.
Tim Gabrielli: That the clear indications in the Bible that God acts in the world for justice and with Mercy was sometimes seen in conflict with the more Greek sense of God is unchanging, eternal and simple.
Tim Gabrielli: And therefore, as in principle, God would be unable to respond to prayer right if God is unchanging, it would seem to be change.
Tim Gabrielli: And as a response to prayer even possible then right and what could it mean for God to change course to respond or is that the wrong way of thinking.
Tim Gabrielli: Many in the in the long tradition have written about these questions and argued about them. One other example, historically, is that
Tim Gabrielli: Is with monasteries. So, monks and monasteries have come under question at various points in Christian history because monks live apart from the world in work and prayer and their major contribution to the Church really is is prayer.
Tim Gabrielli: And and so are they praying at the expense of working for justice in the world, is that what is that
Tim Gabrielli: As a, as a form of the Christian life. How does that work, or rather does their prayer serve the community, and if so, how so these are these are questions that have been asked throughout the history of the church right they're not they they've been with us. And there's a long sort of
Tim Gabrielli: Tradition of asking a wrestling with these questions. So welcome to that conversation that long conversation is what I would first say
Tim Gabrielli: And so, in response. I'd like to just offer two broad headings for our consideration today. And I just want to say a little bit about each of them.
Tim Gabrielli: Were all just going to the three of us are just going to offer some some brief words and then with the hopes to open up the conversation for your thoughts and and a little bit of dialogue among us here. So first,
Tim Gabrielli: A point that Dr. Johnson alluded to, we learned what it means to pray. Well, that's the first point I want to offer we learn what it means to pray. Well,
Tim Gabrielli: So the launching point for discussions of prayer in the Christian tradition is as almost all things in the Christian tradition is Jesus. Right. So Jesus prayed and Jesus prayed repeatedly. We have lots of witness to this in the gospel texts.
Tim Gabrielli: He made petitions to the Father. Many of them.
Tim Gabrielli: In the garden get 70 before his death, let this cup pass, he said.
Tim Gabrielli: And in, in Matthew and Luke's Gospel right he followed that petition with yet not as I will. But as you will. So the petition, let this cup pass
Tim Gabrielli: And then an acknowledgement of God's will, right, is part of the model that Jesus gave us for prayer prayer oriented us then to the will of God. So, in the process of praying. We learn how to
Tim Gabrielli: become better prayers. Right. And that has to do with our orientation towards God as well.
Tim Gabrielli: And also when Jesus teaches his followers to pray, what we know is the Lord's Prayer, right, that's Jesus teaching his followers to pray. It includes petition every prayer.
Tim Gabrielli: Our father asked for things. It teaches us through what and how to ask. So speaking from the Christian tradition, again, right. The first reason that we asked God for things
Tim Gabrielli: Is because not only did Christ tells his disciples to ask God for what we need the same time Jesus told His disciples to give to others what was asked of them.
Tim Gabrielli: And in Matthew and Luke, at least those teachings are in relatively close proximity ask God for things and give to others when they ask you
Tim Gabrielli: Indeed, that's the shape of the Lord's Prayer how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Part of that is to ask for our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread is you might be familiar with.
Tim Gabrielli: Theologian Gerhard loafing paraphrases. Give us this day our daily bread.
Tim Gabrielli: As let us encounter people today who will receive us into their houses and give us something to eat, so that our lives and food can be insured for one more day
Tim Gabrielli: In other words, so this orientation toward God and toward others, right, is what the prayer is really trying to get us into it flow things correct that asking God
Tim Gabrielli: It flows for particular shape of life. And then the last sub point here on this first this first observation is of course the greatest commandments that Jesus offers right
Tim Gabrielli: When Jesus asked about the greatest commandments, or when he's proposed them by scholar of the law, it's love God, above all, and your neighbor as yourself.
Tim Gabrielli: Prayer is loving God even petition every prayer. I mean good prayer is honest. But Jesus says the second commandment is like the first
Tim Gabrielli: Honest prayer flows out into action. The second commandment being love your neighbor as yourself is like the first law of God. Right, so honest PR flows on the action they belong together and we learned that I think
Tim Gabrielli: In praying in the tradition. So that's the first major point. The second kind of follows from the first the prayer is a grace.
Tim Gabrielli: So I want to say a few words about that and then pass it off to my colleagues.
Tim Gabrielli: So as emboldened as we are to speak about God, even as theologians have our limits, we cannot definitively explain the inner life of God, otherwise.
Tim Gabrielli: If we could do that God would no longer be God, God would be subject to our own understanding imagination mind. So there are things we just cannot know about God's response, but
Tim Gabrielli: We can say that when we talk about God's will or God's action in human will, or human action, we're not talking about action on the same plane.
Tim Gabrielli: See sometimes what trips us up about prayer is that it's either God or us. So if we pray for healing either God's going to do it or doctors. We're going to do it right and that gets us. I think that that's a mistake because the view of God as in competition with us is a bit skewed.
Tim Gabrielli: In other words, by analogy, what am I mean by we're not operating on the same plane or will and God's will, if our plane of existence were two dimensional God's eternal existence is three dimensional. Right. So a sphere cannot explain itself to a square in the categories, a square has
Tim Gabrielli: Yet, both are real and neither is reducible to the other. Right. There's a dimension. So, so it's not as if we talk about God's will and human will. We're talking on the same plane, but rather on different planes.
Tim Gabrielli: And there's much more to be said about that, but I'll just, I'll just introduce that for more
Tim Gabrielli: So God is not that being said guys now outside of our world. And because of that, we're not trying to pull God in to get God into our world to some particular circumstance of experience or pain or suffering or what have you.
Tim Gabrielli: Rather, God is already at work in the world. And so we're asking to better see and participate in God's reign in the World Christian prayer is the life of the Trinity lived out in us.
Tim Gabrielli: And so this makes sense. Again, because of Jesus and Jesus God became human with human will completely aligned to God's will. Christ is God's clearest revelation and presence.
Tim Gabrielli: So true prayers. The Holy Spirit working within us drawing us into the life of God. It comes from God and will know it by its fruits
Tim Gabrielli: So come back to this point about grace, then right there's a grace. If it comes from God, then it's what theologians call grace, a gift of God's relationship.
Tim Gabrielli: So if there's a grace comes from God's gift from God, drawing into God's divine life then it requires that we receive it as grace as a gift and not as anything else.
Tim Gabrielli: As some way to manipulate, for example.
Tim Gabrielli: Other people right as a lever to shut down protests or legislation as a way to troll on social media and annoy people a way to guilt. Other people as a way to manipulate God
Tim Gabrielli: Whereas away from distancing ourselves from injustice or the need for change. It can't be any of those things. If it is, it's not prayer as a grace as a gift from God, right, if it goes in that direction that our reception of grace.
Tim Gabrielli: It must include our reception of prayer as a great must include our cooperation with God's making the world adjust more just merciful.
Tim Gabrielli: And loving place. And I'll just leave you with a quote from Pope Francis back in 2013 it's because of this that he could say, Pope Francis, that is
Tim Gabrielli: A prayer that does not lead you to practical action for your brother or sister, the poor, the sick, those in need of help a one in difficulty is a sterile and incomplete prayer.
Thanks.
Kelly Johnson: God I muted myself. Thanks. I'm gabrielli
Kelly Johnson: So you guys who are listening. I know how zoom sessions are so be keeping track of your kind of your questions or things if you want to raise something
Kelly Johnson: Because we are going to be going back and forth, but I want to give all of the professors a chance to say something because they're, they're very delicate if they don't get a chance to talk first right they their feelings get hurt.
Kelly Johnson: Yeah, we are. But you'll notice in the chat. Actually, I put a second link, you might be interested to which is a piece, written by Dr. Megan Henning
Kelly Johnson: Called prayer isn't a gumball machine. So you're heading. You want to talk to us a little bit about this.
Meghan Henning: Absolutely. My
Meghan Henning: My remarks won't have nearly so much geometry as dr galleys. But I do have a few numbers in here for you. So, and, and we, there is a lot of overlap between. So things that actually got rally. And I said, because
Meghan Henning: Well, Christian tradition. Alright, so
Meghan Henning: Three. First, this is my only number 43 I think there's three important things to think about with respect to traditionally prayer in this particular historical moment that we find ourselves in.
Meghan Henning: From the perspective of biblical studies and the history of early Christianity, which is what I study
Meghan Henning: So the first is that partition a prayer is net was never meant to be the only way that we pray
Meghan Henning: But it has become the most popular way that we talk about prayer in the US context. I think that's because of individualism, but also consumerism.
Meghan Henning: We live in a culture that values, having stuff and buying stuff. And so, asking God to give us things and do things for us or more properly with us as we will see in the tradition.
Meghan Henning: fits really well with our cultural context and the idea of prayer simply being about God giving us things which is this warped idea of dictionary, Paris, I forgot really talked about. I call the Santa model.
Meghan Henning: Right, you ask for stuff and then God gives it if you're good.
Meghan Henning: And that doesn't actually have a place in the early church. The Santa model doesn't work in a culture that's really diabetic and not individualistic and it also doesn't fit with a
Meghan Henning: Culture. That's really especially early Christians as they're developing are very interested in there being a seamless connection between prayer and life.
Meghan Henning: So in the New Testament, for instance supplication are asking for stuff is mentioned alongside Thanksgiving intercession and praise.
Meghan Henning: You see that in Philippines in first Timothy and in Hebrews, for example, um,
Meghan Henning: The second thing. So that's the first thing is that petition every prayer doesn't exist by itself. Second thing prayer in the New Testament and early Christian period is more about a way of life.
Meghan Henning: It's about an abundance spirituality. That is always connected and into and informed by God. It's a way of making yourself attentive.
Meghan Henning: And this is, I think what Paul is talking about.
Meghan Henning: And some of the Church Fathers agree with me when he tells Christians that they should pray without ceasing. And first Estonians 517 I always found that verse, like perplexing.
Meghan Henning: As a younger person. And I thought, okay, we, what am I supposed to help how, what are you talking about Paul. Pray without ceasing. That sounds like you might not get much else done
Meghan Henning: So I, I learned through study that this is about having a life that is informed by prayer and prayer that is informed by your life.
Meghan Henning: And this is really how Jesus teaches the disciples to pray on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew five to seven is Dr. Gabrielle, you mentioned
Meghan Henning: Their prayers tightly connected to the activities of the followers of Jesus and the things specifically that they can do to bring God's kingdom about on Earth. So the Thy kingdom come.
Meghan Henning: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's in a context or that gospel that is very focused on
Meghan Henning: eschatology, or the things that are going to happen next.
Meghan Henning: Is about human beings participating in bringing about that next phase of God's reign on her so there
Meghan Henning: The Lord's Prayer is more about aligning your world with God's than it is about desirable outcomes as Dr. Kimberly mentioned
Meghan Henning: So then the third thing. So that's the second thing is that prayer in the New Testament and early Christian period is about a way of life.
Meghan Henning: The third thing is that in this historical moment where we're faced with injustice and a global health crisis that is amplifying and justice all around us.
Meghan Henning: I think about prayer, and I think about how early Christians prayed and I asked myself, How do I pray in a way that will guide what I say and do in the world in this historical moment.
Meghan Henning: So we're Christians that I keep thinking about when I think about that question. Those questions are
Meghan Henning: The early Christians who
Meghan Henning: When they pray for those in prison. They showed up at the present to feed the prisoners so often that they were made fun of by the Roman comedian Lucian
Meghan Henning: This is not a Christian sources is actually a okay again author who is a comedian and he talks about in the passing of pair greatness. How
Meghan Henning: It's very frustrating when you're in prison and your Christian friends won't leave you alone because they keep coming and showing up to feed you and talk to you.
Meghan Henning: And the reason that this would be funny to his Roman audience is because Christians in the first and second centuries were so notorious for living out
Meghan Henning: The ethic of Matthew 25 and this idea that you should care for the prisoner among you and this makes a lot more sense if you also understand that in the Roman context, no food was served in prison. So if your friends didn't bring you food you died.
Meghan Henning: There was no meal service there as a part of it. So Christians took this very seriously. And so when they were taught to the gospels that they should feed the hungry and visit the prisoner. That's actually about making sure that those in prison, were able to live.
Meghan Henning: When they prayed for the sick, they didn't simply ask God for healing. They anointed, the sick with oil and a healing ritual.
Meghan Henning: In James five we read about this and it's hard for us to, again, get a full picture of this because we're like, okay.
Meghan Henning: Anointing with oil and we think about the contemporary practices of anointing and sacrament. But we also are either ritual practice, but we don't quite have a handle on the fact that in the ancient world.
Meghan Henning: That practice of using oil was also medicinal and an active way to bring about healing.
Meghan Henning: And then, and so this gets back to what Dr. Gabrielle, it was talking about, about how there's not this tension between God and us doing stuff right that those things that we are participating in God's activity in the world.
Meghan Henning: When we bring work to bring about healing or justice.
Meghan Henning: When they prayed. They also physically took on I think this is cool. The neurons pose. So this is actually part of the broader culture as well. But it's Emerson demonstrate for you that there's a lot of art that has Christians doing this. And that's not just like a cool way to depict saints.
Meghan Henning: It is explicitly a part of Christian liturgical practice around prayer because it imitates Jesus on the cross.
Meghan Henning: And so this is to remind themselves of their
Meghan Henning: Goal.
Meghan Henning: In prayer, which is to be imitating Christ.
Meghan Henning: In their life, and so they move their bodies in ways that reminds them of that purpose of prayer.
Meghan Henning: Origin of Alexandria defines prayer without ceasing as combining prayer with right actions throughout the day. So, similar to the quote we heard from
Meghan Henning: Pope Francis and coupling those right actions with prayer. So you're doing the right actions throughout the day.
Meghan Henning: And then when you're doing those reactions are also praying. So, the two are constantly together for origin McRae now one of the capital ocean mothers.
Meghan Henning: Defines prayer without ceasing as reciting the Psalms all day long. She did it when she got up when she was doing chores when she was resting eating.
Meghan Henning: Leaving the table going to bed waking up in the middle of the night.
Meghan Henning: And I just as I was reading that I thought, gosh, you know, recorded that's really smart. Maybe I should
Meghan Henning: memorize some songs and start reciting those when I wake up in the middle of the night, because I think it would be much easier to fall back asleep. I'm going to try to let you know, get back to you on that.
Meghan Henning: In all of these examples early Christians are attentive to God and the real physical needs of others who are marginalized in their society and prayer was a way to increase that attentiveness to bring yourself into alignment with God.
Meghan Henning: So those are my three things.
Kelly Johnson: I muted myself.
Kelly Johnson: Thanks Dr hunting.
Kelly Johnson: And rounding out theologians always do threes surrounding the three speakers Christian theologians you I'm is Dr. Bill Johnson. Johnson, you want to give us a word. Hey,
Bill Johnston: All right. Um, so thank you and and i will carry on the tradition of threes by offering three points and
Bill Johnston: Its reflection on prayers of petition. So the first one. And it's been made many times already, but I'll, I'll just call this make it again that we are to pray for things is crystal clear.
Bill Johnston: throughout the Bible lives of the saints Church teaching the liturgy popular piety, not least as Dr. Gabriel I pointed out the explicit teaching of Jesus and told us to pray always and not lose heart and 18
Bill Johnston: And by his own example in the garden to get 70 all of this gives us repeated and rock solid foundations for offering our prayers of petition intercession.
Bill Johnston: So whatever philosophical questions or theological complexities, we might find in thinking about this practice. The one thing we shouldn't do is stop praying this way.
Bill Johnston: For myself that this comes home to me with with particular force in a couple of ways I'm realizing that what Christ is doing now and that means now.
Bill Johnston: As we read in Hebrews seven and Romans eight is interceding for us. The Bible is very clear about that. Also in Romans eight, we read that the spirit is interceding for us with groans
Bill Johnston: too deep for words. And so it follows it would seem that when we pray in that same interceding way we are. When we do it entering into and sharing in the life of the Trinity.
Bill Johnston: Which I find very compelling.
Bill Johnston: And then if you think of the liturgy, when we pray Eucharistic prayer three and we refer to all the saints, on whose constant intercession in God's presence. We rely for unfailing help
Bill Johnston: That's what they're doing and we to as part of the communion of saints get to share in the same movement of intercession. So in view all that if you ever get the feeling
Bill Johnston: When you pray for someone and their needs, or for God's saving intervention in some way. If you ever get the feeling that you're you're
Bill Johnston: Posting words out into the wind or just talking to yourself, don't, what you're doing is joining a vast cosmic chorus of petition to God the Father that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is a wonderful privilege, we've been given to be able to pray in this way.
Bill Johnston: So that's, that's the first point.
Bill Johnston: The second point is just a brief reminder about existential crisis. It's one thing to discuss these matters as theological questions or problems and quite another to be in the midst of an existential crisis of real extreme need and be praying for help.
Bill Johnston: In such moments of the wilderness and theological discussions can feel dry as dust unreal and have no help whatsoever. So I guess might be respectful and acknowledge that reality a reality which would take our conversation in a different direction, then the third observations.
Bill Johnston: And the third one started goes to that question does prayer work does it change what God will do
Bill Johnston: And just to reaffirm that we get off on the wrong foot. If we pose the question in in in sort of here in in debt almost magical or as Dr. Gabriel, he said, manipulative or as Dr. Henning said
Bill Johnston: consumerist way of putting it.
Bill Johnston: We start walking down a dead end path. I don't like to think of it more in terms of God's providence and the overarching good work that God is doing in the world to bring all to fullness of life.
Bill Johnston: Sources ranging from St. Thomas Aquinas to CS Lewis to the Catechism of the Catholic Church all say it is characteristic of God's goodness to give created beings, the dignity of the causes of having an impact, making a difference in the real world.
Bill Johnston: Here's the way CS Lewis puts it in one place. He said, it may be a mystery why God should have allowed us to cause real events at all, but it is no order that he should allow us to cause them by praying than by any other method.
Bill Johnston: So what about our trade, does it change what God will do
Bill Johnston: in the broad sense, no.
Bill Johnston: God's life giving will and work for the world are unchanging.
Bill Johnston: In a more specific sense, maybe yes in that God gives us a chance. And that choice, yes or no to get on board with it.
Bill Johnston: And the more we say yes by are praying and living by our prayer and right actions. Well, God's Providence is carried out differently by are being part of it, rather than not by our praying and living by becoming in Paul's phrase God's co workers.
Bill Johnston: Which providential impacts the world in whatever way it does.
Bill Johnston: And which brings us increasingly into God's saving work sharing in God's life, which is what theologians call salvation or sales or demonisation all good things.
Bill Johnston: So back to the first point that whatever we do we not stop but be committed and encouraged that it is a good and worthy thing to pray and petition.
Kelly Johnson: It's really great. So
Kelly Johnson: Now comes the time when all those little mute signs I see out there.
Kelly Johnson: unmute yourself and
Kelly Johnson: Tell us what's up question you have or something. You heard somebody say that you'd like to hear them say more about or maybe you want to say more about it.
Tim Gabrielli: Well, everybody's thinking I noticed we had one more person. Join us Cheyenne, are you there. Do you want to say just a bit about
Tim Gabrielli: Your major in your year
Cheyenne Palmer: Hi.
Cheyenne Palmer: Um, yeah. So I'm. My name is Sharon Palmer, I am not a student anymore and I work full time as a campus Minister for Mary crest and for Latino X ministry. So I just kind of
Cheyenne Palmer: Saw this got sent out by crystal Sullivan to all of campus ministry and thought it'd be really great to check in and see what it was all about. But I did graduate with my masters in pastoral ministry. So if that kind of gives you an idea why I'm here.
Cheyenne Palmer: But yeah, thanks. Sorry came my to I had lots of things before, but I'll watch the recording for the beginning
Tim Gabrielli: What. Alright. Thanks for joining us, but happy.
Cheyenne Palmer: Thank you.
Kelly Johnson: Alright job, guys.
GDuchak: All right. We'll some oldest beside Chan. I'll start. So I loved all points you guys were very
GDuchak: Apt in your analysis of prayer and like, give me some really good stuff to chew on and take to heart and prayer. One thing that I felt like wasn't touched upon, whoever feels comfortable jump into it.
GDuchak: One of my favorite places I've visited last year was saying mine, read our JV and all the monks are such an inspiration for me and I just slept with they're praying for me. Can you say more about, like, why
GDuchak: Maybe give it like a short defense monasteries and monks and
GDuchak: Their, their, their work, their, their life as prayer until you know until they die or leave this earth. Can you say more about that, because if you didn't really hear much about that specifically
Meghan Henning: I wasn't explicit sorry when I said that McKenna is a desert and what are that was quite unclear. There she is considered to be the, the mother of monasticism in many ways because
Meghan Henning: The
Meghan Henning: The monastic order that is founded in Cappadocia by her brothers.
Meghan Henning: Is in some ways wouldn't have existed without her and her influence spiritually in their lives. And so when I talked about her saying the Psalms at all of those times a day, even in the middle of the night.
Meghan Henning: She thought that you prayed the songs all day long. As a way of bringing your life and your, your life's work into continuity with God's work in the world. So I think that a lot of the things that at least that we said about that kind of seamless understanding of prayer and line.
Meghan Henning: And attentiveness is really what is important about monastic prayer and the role that it has in our world is that by being attentive.
Meghan Henning: Not only in their spiritual life, but in the entire way they've constructed their lives.
Meghan Henning: The monastic life models for us what prayer lived out and life of prayer could be
Meghan Henning: On our panel, which is really captivating
Meghan Henning: I had a student once who was adamant that she had she wanted nothing to do with studying religion in an academic setting. She was so freaked out by taking my class, I can only doing this to fulfill my Capricorn.
Meghan Henning: And then we got to the section in the early history of early Christianity about monasticism and she just like dropped her book and said, Where can I learn more about this. I want to go. Can I join. Can I like, try this out. Can I
Meghan Henning: Um, and, and I think it was a way of being in the world, especially in our contemporary world where technology makes attentiveness kind of more complicated than perhaps other time periods where that that way of being, I do think that attended the attentiveness of prayers
Meghan Henning: Much more challenging and our own age, perhaps, than others maybe every generation has felt that I don't know, but I do
Meghan Henning: And and this student really articulated that well for me, she's like, I just think it would be so wonderful to have this experience, it would really help me think and be in the world in a way that I sometimes feel like I can't
Kelly Johnson: And I happen and say something else and I mean monks are all about prayer. That's true, but their life of prayer is happening in a life of obedience and poverty in community in
Kelly Johnson: manual labor and in being disarmed right they and monasteries are traditionally places of peace and refuge sanctuary.
Kelly Johnson: So they make present in the world. A life of prayer that is integrated into a particular kind of imitation of the life of Christ.
Kelly Johnson: Right. It's not like we're going to go off and just pray. I mean, what they're doing is establishing a place in the world where you can see a life of prayer as a as thesis right as becoming Christ that
Kelly Johnson: living the life of Christ.
Tim Gabrielli: Amen to all of that and and and also the kind of the fruits that flow from the mastic life to the wider church are many that emerge from this life lived in Theo says lives in prayer. And so not not only troposphere, right, there's that.
Tim Gabrielli: When I mean, but think about, you know, the praying of the Psalms and Liturgy of the Hours that has flown out of monastic prayer to the to the wider.
Tim Gabrielli: Church community theology particular approaches to theology that have come out of the mastic monastic life that have been a gift to us, you know, Dr. Heading was talking about approaching monastics in her course I
Tim Gabrielli: I've taught a course on God, a few times. I'm offering it this coming semester.
Tim Gabrielli: called, it's called this time. Does God exist, but we look at some of Anselm's writing, who's a Benedictine monk and we try to attune ourselves to the way that his writing.
Tim Gabrielli: Is this kind of prayer informed theology and as part of that. I'm not sure how we're going to pull this off this semester. But we spent watching this film, which was taken. It's kind of a documentary
Tim Gabrielli: Of integrate silence of a French monastery. I don't know if any of you are familiar with this, and students and and it is it is mostly silent for two and a half hours. So it's the
Tim Gabrielli: Cartesian monastery in in France in the Alps and it
Tim Gabrielli: One of the students said you know that it forced me. It forced me into mindfulness to force me into this way this rhythm, kind of like Dr. Heading was describing you know hearse to be treated.
Tim Gabrielli: And and and you know seems like, Well, that was something totally different. Just a film version. Right. And it would have you to sort of stay with the work that the that the monks are doing a sign would and you're there sewing would
Tim Gabrielli: So I would. And so, um, you know that that's that's also a gift. So then we took that back to thinking about n songs that that's something like what n Psalms life was like, and we do that right to understand these words, I'll shut up there but
GDuchak: No. That was excellent. Thank you.
GDuchak: Mr three well
Bill Johnston: This characteristic of of monasteries is hospitality. There are places that come people can come in and stay for time and and
Bill Johnston: Benefit from the form of blankets slip there and I've heard. I've heard monks say that they hear from recruitment on a on a on a regular basis.
Bill Johnston: Thank you. I'm so glad. So I the monasteries, I go to our, our monasteries event. So they say, I'm so glad you guys are here doing this, it gives me consolation and encouragement. When I lived the rest of my life to know that that you are here doing this. Thank you.
Bill Johnston: Another it's another contribution they make
Meghan Henning: They're also the foundation for the modern hospital in antiquity. They provided medical treatment. Some of it was the first one of the first Christian localized spaces.
GDuchak: Awesome, thank you all for your fonts and they were excellent. I have my my pointer and down for
Tim Gabrielli: Others.
Zoe Borgman: I actually had a question. Um, so Dr. Gabriel, he was talking about like the different planes of existence and summer and like how God's on a different
Zoe Borgman: Plane and stuff. So this is something I've thought about cuz like God exists outside of time.
Zoe Borgman: And I thought about this after my uncle was getting a serious surgery done I just kind of forgot to like they're just kind of pray about it to like just be like, yeah.
Zoe Borgman: Just for help. That goes well and stuff. And so after I knew it had been done, but I didn't know anything about it. I still prayed for, as if it hadn't happened yet.
Zoe Borgman: And so it's just something like it makes sense. Like if God exists out of time, you can pray for things in the past, but I don't know if you guys have more
Zoe Borgman: No more clear thoughts on that, I guess. Yeah.
Tim Gabrielli: I just think your experiences.
Tim Gabrielli: And that experience is fascinating. And when we talk about PR being drawn into life of God.
Tim Gabrielli: And we talked about that and kind of theological ways, but I don't know, it seems to me like there's there's a prayer experience of being drawn into life of God and and and aspect of that.
Meghan Henning: I'm resisting making a doctor who reference somebody
Kelly Johnson: Webley worldly
Kelly Johnson: wobbly timey whiny
Meghan Henning: Well,
Kelly Johnson: Here's what doctor who and Dorothy Day have in common, Dorothy Day had who is a very famous American Catholic social activists to how to
Kelly Johnson: A very personally disordered kind of youth, right, her, her early life was
Kelly Johnson: Pretty wild and she had a real devotion
Kelly Johnson: To praying for people who had committed suicide. She had attempted suicide herself at one point in her life and and her reasoning, for it was very much like what you're saying. So he that that
Kelly Johnson: A that nobody knows what's happening in the last moment right as someone is dying and she felt that it was right. She could continue to pray for someone who committed suicide, that there would be
Kelly Johnson: Openness to God's grace right in the final moments.
Zoe Borgman: Thank you guys.
Landry McVicker: I have a question.
Landry McVicker: Um, so with like with what Dr. Johnston said about prayer, not like changing God's will. Would it be correct in saying
Landry McVicker: That it changes how God's will is carried out, but not the final outcome.
Landry McVicker: Would that be correct, or any other insight.
Bill Johnston: Um,
Bill Johnston: It that that sort of puts me in mind of there was another
Bill Johnston: quote that I wrote down sort of pertaining to that topic. This one's. This one's from Aquinas, so he talks about secondary causes so so when we engage in the actions that we do these are
Bill Johnston: As I was saying, we're able to act as causes as agents who have an impact and
Bill Johnston: Aquinas address this question secondary causes like the things we do are not inconsistent with Providence, but rather carry Providence into effect.
Bill Johnston: Therefore, to say that we should not pray to gain anything of God because the order of His providence is unchangeable is like saying you should not walk to get to a place or each to support life.
Bill Johnston: So it's, it's like
Bill Johnston: I mean, one, one.
Bill Johnston: Providence is a huge topic that's that's that's way over my pay grade. To be able to talk about, but I've been, I think, I think, an element of it is
Bill Johnston: That that that it's it's all part of what of what God is doing and God all sort of sort of factors in our free participation in it.
Bill Johnston: If you will, by kind of a, you know, all time is now to God.
Bill Johnston: A great, great school none. Use this image. Imagine if you're in an airplane flying by a mountain, and there's a
Bill Johnston: There's a, there's a road winding around the mountain and you see a car coming up the road. Enter truck coming down the road and you see that they're gonna crash.
Bill Johnston: When you see that they're going to crash, but you don't you don't cause the crash so so so God doesn't cause us to participate doesn't cause us
Bill Johnston: To say yes, but but when we do say yes we're entering into what God is doing and what what God is bringing about is now brought about by our secondary causality within that process, so it's it's
Bill Johnston: Like I say, it's probably above everybody's pay grade to figure this out. But, but the thing is, the more that we seek to in this session. Talk about prayer, but as we've heard so often prayer and right action going together, the more we seek to live in accord with the
Bill Johnston: goodwill of God that we try to pray for
Bill Johnston: God packages that all together to bring about ultimately the good that God will bring about
Landry McVicker: Okay, thank
Bill Johnston: You so much
Kelly Johnson: Can I am
Kelly Johnson: I said faculty
Bill Johnston: Like to talk. So I'm gonna
Kelly Johnson: do my own thing. Um, but there is a sense. I don't know. Dr. Johnson, if you would agree with me in which God does cause it and add not here. I'm going to get all Webley wobbly timey why me
Kelly Johnson: On us
Kelly Johnson: But I mean, when I, when I think about so that the piece I fight for it in the beginning by my, my friend. There's a bit in it where she says when somebody asks, Does prayer work the correct answer to that question is move
Kelly Johnson: Which is a way of saying
Kelly Johnson: The question is too small for the reality you're trying to talk about
Kelly Johnson: And
Kelly Johnson: And when we're thinking about prayer we, the way we need to think about this is fundamentally what we're doing is
Kelly Johnson: Fulfilling God's will, by stepping into this relationship with God that God is asking us to take on. We're when we come into prayer. We're standing with Jesus.
Kelly Johnson: Who stands in the midst of the suffering of the world, praying before God and that in itself. The fact that we have stepped into that place is a grace as Gabrielle said right. It's a gift of God, that is, in fact,
Kelly Johnson: It's our free act, but it is also
Kelly Johnson: God's gift to make us free to do that act and that in itself. The coming of us into that relationship is what God wills.
Kelly Johnson: So,
Kelly Johnson: Yeah, just to just to kind of add a layer of publication to that. I think it is.
Yeah.
Kelly Johnson: Right, I'll stop there.
Landry McVicker: Thank you.
Tim Gabrielli: Other observations questions ideas.
Anna Kopsick: Um, I guess I have a question or a thought or something that is maybe an extension of this lady was like prayer and God's plan and free will and all that I always kind of wondered like
Anna Kopsick: You know, is predestination really a thing or, you know, when does our free will stop and God's plan begin and vice versa. I'm kind of is almost like existential questions of, like, how much influence does God have in my life and
Anna Kopsick: All of that, I guess so.
Kelly Johnson: That's that is the big one and it's and it's what Dr. Gabrielle, he was talking about with a circle in the
Kelly Johnson: Sorry, the sphere and the plane right and and I think Dr. Johnson and I were just talking about it as well. There's, there's a line in terms of cornice that I spent years thinking about where he says, God makes us freely, will the good
Kelly Johnson: And and his point is when God acts on you, God's not like your brother pushing you down a flight of stairs, right, that would be if God's on the same plane with us. Then when God makes you do something God would be, you know, pushing you around.
Kelly Johnson: But God isn't on the same plane with us. So when God makes us God can make us do something freely because it's God who created us God who brings us to fulfillment. So
Kelly Johnson: I don't know, do you want to say something more about that but but this is, I mean, this is so like this is the big one.
Kelly Johnson: You get this, you can talk about Jesus as being divine and human right, you can tell I mean it. This. This will get you all kinds of places when you when you start thinking about the relationship of God's will and human freedom.
Tim Gabrielli: Yeah, so that so what Dr. Johnson was talking about earlier about acquaintances way of approaching this through causes which is really a kind of
Tim Gabrielli: What adaptation transformation Baptism of Aristotle's metaphysics. This kind of causality. God is the first cause and and final cause that which we is sort of stands at our beginning and our ultimate and and then there are the secondary causes
Tim Gabrielli: That, you know, so that's one way of
Meghan Henning: Of working it out.
Tim Gabrielli: I think that we have to also, however, we work that out. We have to remember that when we talk about God's action and this is you know what Dr. Johnson was driving out here, just a minute ago.
Tim Gabrielli: We talked about God's action, we have to remember, that's, that's an analogy. So when we talk about God acting or god that what we're talking about. There is not.
Tim Gabrielli: human action, there's there's connections to it like we use we use the language. And there are ways in which it tells us something about God, but there are ways
Tim Gabrielli: Many other ways that it does not tell us something about God and what's important is that it's not the same kind of thing as human action. And so because of that, then if these are different.
Tim Gabrielli: Manners of action or when we talk about action we're talking about an analogy for what God does which
Tim Gabrielli: Opens some things up, but
Tim Gabrielli: For closes others or leaves others not clear to us, then we can have those actions at the same time, right.
Tim Gabrielli: And so, and you know it's Dr. Johnson was saying, yeah, this is, this is the heart of the question of, of all sorts of things. For example,
Tim Gabrielli: The divine and human nature's of Christ, when we talk about that when we have this model of competition. We're on the same plane. It's like, you know, we've got
Tim Gabrielli: A divine nature here and we know what that is. And we've got a human nature here and we know what that is. And somehow we try to shove them together in Jesus.
Tim Gabrielli: Right, well, so that's got it all wrong rather that Christ lives out the fullness of what it means to be human, which is the image of God and as so aligned is human will, with God's will.
Tim Gabrielli: Is Christ has two natures human and I'm sorry it's human and divine nature, one person. He also has a divine will, and a human will and so therefore, his human will align so much with a divine will.
Tim Gabrielli: That he is the vine. So that's only possible if we're talking about divine action and human action is not precisely the word that the fancy word for it is you know what we're talking about the exact same kind of thing we're talking about different. Yeah.
Bill Johnston: That the theologians
Bill Johnston: think and speak in analogies and metaphors is. It's what we do all the time. It's how else can we talk about this on.
Bill Johnston: Reality that is so
Bill Johnston: Because it costs. Instead, more interior to me than my in most self and more higher than my utmost
Bill Johnston: So,
Bill Johnston: In that kind of analogy I think kind of one of the ways that I think it's fair to speak about kind of going back to the question. How's this interaction of God's working in my life. In my freedom and so on. Um, I, I think it's fair to say that God will work with us, as far as we allow
Bill Johnston: And if it's not much, then it's not much because we don't allow and if it's a lot, then it will be a lot because we allow and if if there's if there's a biblical on
Bill Johnston: Analog to that it's it's in Mark six in Matthew eight. So Mark six after doing some some wonder working around about Jesus comes back to his hometown and it says he could not do many many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith.
Bill Johnston: They said, you know, we know who this guy is, you know, his family down the street, his mother and his brothers and sisters, you know all about them and then mark that Matthew age.
Bill Johnston: It's it's Jesus encountering the Centurion who asks, you know, what will you come to my I forget if it's softer service. It's very like will you come here, Mike, my son.
Bill Johnston: And Jesus says, yes, other than this insurance is no no you don't. You don't have to come
Bill Johnston: Just say the word. I know what it's like to be an authority. I say go, and they go and come and they come. That's all you need to do. And Jesus says,
Bill Johnston: He hasn't seen such great faith in all Israel and his servant was healed from that very hour so it's like it's like the more the more we say yes and trust the more God can do with us.
Bill Johnston: And the less less
Kelly Johnson: Hey, we're, we're getting close to our time but mere you want to hop in and get a word to us.
Mira Wilson: I just want to say thank you all for talking, I find it really interesting. I went to a public or a public school so I didn't have a lot of like
Mira Wilson: Theology classes in high school and might like you through wasn't super great about like these discussion. So I like enjoy hearing all of your thoughts and your
Mira Wilson: Ideas and your questions and kind of the first time that I heard about like
Mira Wilson: Like kind of talking about like Petitioner prayer was when I did the Marian consecration. The 33 days to Morning Glory.
Mira Wilson: And kind of talks about like offering up your prayers for, however, God wants to use them rather than praying for like specific things that like you would like God to use his power for. So I just thought was interesting to hear more of your thoughts on that. Thank you.
Meghan Henning: We are. We're so glad you're here. It's great to get to meet you. And then now you're here. Yeah.
Meghan Henning: Wonderful.
Meghan Henning: I love. I mean, I think the idea of offering up prayers
Meghan Henning: Or like special intentions, right, that are under undisclosed and undeclared is that way of also ascending to the idea that there's something much greater going on when we pray
Meghan Henning: Then this vintage kind of transactional model right it reawakens that idea that there's something mysterious but also powerful happening and
Meghan Henning: It reminds us of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Right. There's the message in Scripture that we have to be careful not to quench the spirit. Right.
Meghan Henning: Yeah, we live in a culture that is really, really, really informed by Cartesian dualism that is this idea that there's a kind of binary relationship going on or
Meghan Henning: There's a real sharp divide between our body and our soul. And that's not something that's a part of the early part of the tradition in that kind of way.
Meghan Henning: When Christians thought about the Holy Spirit living in their body. They thought that it was God was straight up living in them.
Meghan Henning: And so that means that this idea about like where does my will begin and where it is God's will begin and and not like that is not that. Again, the answer is new.
Meghan Henning: Right.
Meghan Henning: It's a mystery. We don't really know how that works, but it also fits with this idea of there being this unspoken intention that God can interpret and intercede for because God is in the Christian tradition dwelling inside of us.
Meghan Henning: And and that means that our body is in some ways God body.
Meghan Henning: And the bodies of others are also
Meghan Henning: Part of God.
Kelly Johnson: Well that's been about an hour of talking about prayer. I think that was pretty great. Um, any. Anybody want to get something else in before we wrap it up this afternoon.
Anna Kopsick: Okay, thank you. I mean, this was fascinating. And it was so so interesting. And I mean, wow, like, my mind is kind of blown over here.
Anna Kopsick: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Tim Gabrielli: For being here.
Meghan Henning: Thank you so much for being here. My mind's blown to and this is my day job.
Meghan Henning: A lot of fun, but also a lot
Kelly Johnson: To have a day job where your mind gets flown on a regular basis.
Tim Gabrielli: And hurts only occasionally
Kelly Johnson: Yeah, well it's great to see everybody, and I hope this is a good kickoff of the year for you that it will be a year of intellectual and spiritual growth in that
Kelly Johnson: There will be health in mind and body for all of you. I'm going to keep praying for you guys and I hope that you will be praying for me and for all of us.
Kelly Johnson: All right, we'll be seeing you around.
GDuchak: Them. Thank you all. Thank you.
Landry McVicker: Thank you.
Tim Gabrielli: Thank you.
