Stanley Marrow 2.

The gospel is not a series of don’ts. It is a call to live life, following G-d.. each convert has a unique faith. And each Convert follows G-d uniquely"

Stanley Marrow

I was going through my old notes and found this.... Stanley you will never know how profound your classes were to me. Even more you will never know how profound you as a person were to me.... "Our love remains"....

I’m sitting in my Thessalonians class with another real, authentic person Dr. Stanley Marrow SJ is a 80 something, Iraqi born, Jesuit, profoundly intelligent, professor. He is one of the people in my life, who if he were to ask me to follow him, like Jesus did the apostles, I would say… Absolutely

Stanley never forces his beliefs or his ideas on us. He just speaks and gives all that he is. If we choose to go where he is going, then great; if not, he is fine with that too, because it is part of us that is keeping us from going with him. And unlike most of humanity Stanley Loves people as they are.

He has given me a security that it is ok to just spout one’s beliefs. In actuality by spouting them just don’t try to force people to accept them. If they do, they do. If they don’t, they don’t. It is all Grace.

He has taught me that we have to realize our theology says more about us than it does about G-d. Thus when we talk about G-d don’t force Him (sic) to be who our neo-Platonist ideas are trying to make him to be.

G-d is G-d. Let him(sic) be.

Finished Bittersweet

I really like the way that Niequest writes. That being said bittersweet left me wanting. From the introduction I thought Niequest was going to allow us into her pain to allow us to experience, or at least empathize with the bitter realities of her life. She would open the door a crack and allow the darkness to escape just enough to draw you into the next short story. There were beautiful pieces about friendship and grace. Grace is new math, is a remarkable chapter. She challenged me to examine if the grace I live is similar to the grace I've received. "Grace is smashing the calculator and using all the broken buttons and pieces to make a mosaic....Grace isn't about having a second chance, grace is having so many chances that you could use them through all eternity and ver come up empty." (21) Niequest shares about a miscarriage that you can tell has deeply shaped her and her family and you can feel that her and her husband have traveled some rough roads. But I feel like I was kept at such a distance from her pain that I couldn't feel the bitterness that the book is intending its reader to experience. I felt like I bought a dark chocolate bar but when I ate it someone had switched it with milk chocolate. It was a bit to sweet for me. It left me craving 75% coaco.

That being said you will see my next few posts will be questions that I gleaned from Neiquest's book. She creates some beautiful word pictures.