DESCRIPTION:

In this course we will explore the fundamental connection between spirituality and everyday life. While spirituality is always oriented to an individual's personal life and often touches on certain features of daily life, such as saying grace before meals, the daily discipline of personal devotions, etc., it frequently overlooks many other routine and fundamental activities. These activities include walking, chores, conversation, work, and recreation. While creation is regarded as a context for spiritual exercises, other contexts like the home and workplace are rarely understood as potentially sacred places. Also, while spirituality is seen as an element in family life and friendship, these are rarely viewed as spiritual disciplines in themselves. This course will seek an integration of spirituality and these everyday places and activities of life.

Participants will gain a clearer understanding of the vital connection between holiness and ordinary life, the opportunity to transform various everyday activities and relationships into spiritual disciplines, and an ability to communicate the essence of the Christian life more effectively with the people of God.

A combination of lectures, individual and group exercises, field reflections, communal meals, and student presentations. The course will meet daily for four-hour sessions for two weeks.

Banks, Robert. God the Worker: Journeys into the Mind, Heart and Imagination of God. Judson, 1994.

Boyer, Ernest Jr. Finding God at Home: Family life as a Spiritual Discipline. Harper & Row, 1988.

Dreyer, Elizabeth. Earth Crammed with Heaven: A Spirituality of Everyday Life. Paulist, 1994.

Bass, Dorothy. Practicing Our Faith. Jossey Bass, 1997.

Moore, Thomas. The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life. HarperCollins, 1996.

Norris, Kathleen. Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. Tickner & Fields, 1993.

1. A journal kept throughout the course, with at least one substantial entry each day, reflecting on class sessions, required reading and one additional recommended book, field meditations, and serendipitous experiences that come your way. Excerpts from this up to ten pages in length will be typed up and handed in. This will be worth 40% of the grade for the course.

2. A reflection paper dealing with any one of the main areas of everyday life presented during the course, or to three related other aspects of life which were the focus of class or field exercises. This will take account of relevant reading from the bibliography accompanying the course and should be around 12 pages in length. The paper will be worth 40% of the grade for the course.

3. Completing required reading and out-of-class field exercises (10%), and interaction within the class, including involvement in class exercises (10%).

None.

Meets M.A.T. (General Format) requirement in Spirituality (SPIR).

FINAL EXAMINATION: None.