2. The author writes, "The walk with God or toward God must have a purpose beyond escape from the harshness of life." Do you agree or disagree? Why?

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1 Walking Home: From Eden to Emmaus by Margaret Guenther Discussion Questions by Randall Warren Chapter 1: You Can't Go Home Again 1. What is exciting in your life? 2. What is risky, chaotic, or dangerous in your sources of excitement? 3. How do you balance safety and risk in your life? 4. When the author writes, "Growing up, accepting autonomy and maturity, means expulsion from paradise," she is implying that sin is developmental, a part of our maturation process. A. Do you agree? Why or why not? B. If you agree, how do we reconcile our human development with the command to avoid sin? C. If you do not agree, what is the purpose (if any) of temptation? 1. In the Garden of Eden? 2. In our lives? Chapter 2: Don't Look Back 1. Can you remember a time when you faced a change you really wanted and still felt afraid? 2. Are there different areas in your life where you feel differently about change? 3. What do you perceive to be the merits of predictability? 4. What do you perceive to be the merits of surprise? 5. The author posits a helpful and a not so helpful version of looking back. A. What are the characteristics of each? B. What does each feel like when you are the one who is looking back? Chapter 3: The God who Hears 1. In her story, it seems that Hagar is often seen as and treated as if she is just one thing: slave, fertile body, rival, problem to be dealt with. A. Have you ever been seen by someone as only one thing? B. Who sees you in your complexity? 2. The author writes, "The walk with God or toward God must have a purpose beyond escape from the harshness of life." Do you agree or disagree? Why? 3. have you ever been in a situation where God wanted you to go somewhere you did not want to go? 4. Has your story, like Hagar's, ever been one of going forth and being sent back? Chapter 4: Are We There Yet?

2 1. Have you ever had to take someone about whom you care to a place that person did not want to go? A. What was difficult about that journey? B. What was helpful? 2. The Catechism in our Book of Common Prayer asserts, "The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ" (p.855). Therefore our walk with, or towards, God always involves other people. How do you experience your spirituality as constitutionally involved with others? Chapter 5: Take Off Your Shoes 1. Have you ever been called aside, called off your course, by God? 2. When have you felt small and cautious before God? 3. When have you felt "at home," before God? 4. The burning bush shows that it is possible to be on fire with the presence of God and yet not be consumed. When have you felt the dynamic presence of God in your life? Chapter 6: The Way Out 1. Can you name a comfortable station in life that you were called to leave? 2. What about that comfortable station in life could be characterized as a kind of slavery? 3. Christian mystics have often characterized the spiritual life as a series of assents. These assents even continue after we die. Our catechism answers the question, "Why do we pray for the dead?"(bcp, p. 862), by asserting: "We pray for them, because we still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God's presence those who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love, until they see him as he is." Do you find anything discouraging in the idea of growth after we die? What is encouraging about this teaching? Chapter 7: Walking into Exile 1. When, if ever, have you felt far from home in a strange land? 2. In what ways did that experience effect you? Negatively? Positively? 3. The author writes, "It is the little things, the details, that count." Part of our sacramental theology is the assertion that little or common things, water, oil, a piece of bread, a cup of wine, can be imbued with great meaning, significance, and even divine presence. Our ancestors in faith called these events, when instituted by Christ as recorded in scripture, "sacraments". Our ancestors also understood that other little things sometimes remind us of the presence of Christ in our lives. They called these other little things, "sacramentals." Technically, some assert that a little thing is only a sacramental if it is blessed by the church. Whether or not you agree with that technicality, it is nevertheless true that little things can become symbolically and spiritually important to us. What are the sacramentals in your life?

3 Have you ever had to leave behind one of your sacramentals? Chapter 8: Head for the Hills 1. Whom do you think of first when you receive a message so powerful that it has to be shared? Why? 2. Have you ever gone on a clarifying quest? What was it like? How did it turn out? 3. How do you, or might you, share the joy of your life in Christ? Chapter 9: His First Walk 1. Have you ever moved far away to a place you'd never been before? If so, how, did that sojourn change you? 2. Have you ever had to move with a small child? What did you learn, if anything, from that journey? 3. Do you remember your dreams? If you do, what do you do with those memories? Chapter 10: A Day Trip with Consequences 1. Call to mind a mountain-top experience. Once you have a mountain-top experience in mind, spend some time thinking not of that experience, but of what it was like to go up the mountain and come back down it. 2. What led up to your mountain-top experience? 3. What followed your mountain-top experience? 4. From these reflections can you discern any guidelines to help others with the integration of a mountain-top experience into daily life? Chapter 11: Tips for Travelers 1. Have you ever gone on a journey where you didn't know the destination? Not the kind of journey where you know your destination but realize, en route, that you have no idea how to get there, but the kind of journey where you really don't know your destination. What was that like? What was difficult about that? What was rewarding? 2. Not including life itself or other people, of what thing would you have a very hard time letting go? 3. What idea or feeling about yourself would you like to leave behind? What do you think is keeping you from doing so? Chapter 12: A Walk Interrupted 1. Have you ever had an interrupted journey?

4 What happened? How did you feel? What did you learn? 2. Have you ever stopped to help someone whom you didn't know? 3. Who has interrupted his/her journey to help you? Chapter 13: Turning Around 1. Have you ever had to retrace your steps because it turned out that you went the wrong way? 2. What have you learned, not about the mistake, but about the work of turning around? 3. What do you find to be, or imagine to be, helpful for people feeling shame? 2. Have you ever been greeted with grace and joy when you were feeling shame? Chapter 14: No Turning Back 1. What unimportant goals have you had in life? 2. Which unimportant goals did you know where unimportant from the start? 3. Which goals did you discover were unimportant only after you started to pursue them? 4. Towards what or where have you "set your face"? Who's going with you? How can they help? Chapter 15: Just a Few Steps 1. Can you think of some seemingly insignificant steps by which you began your spiritual walk? 2. What gets you, "all tangled up and unable to step out boldly"? 3. Why do you think it is often difficult for us, or uncomfortable, to say what we really want? Chapter 16: Dead Man Walking 1. In General, what do you think are our crosses? 2. If our crosses are negative (problems, burdens, weaknesses, sins, etc.) why must we bear them daily? 3. If our crosses our positive (personal growth, spiritual development, etc.) why must we be reminded to bear them? 4. Beyond the fact that the command is in scripture, why do you think we must carry our crosses in order to walk with Jesus?

5 Chapter 17: The Miracle of the Chance Encounter 1. Have you ever had a chance encounter with the Holy? 2. We have scheduled encounters with the Holy, such as the weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Why do you think the Holy also appears in chance encounters? 3. What stories in your life, other than scripture, are stories of the Holy?