Parish Forums

We invite you to explore our shared faith through Parish Forums throughout the year. On Sundays at 10 a.m. we meet in the Elizabethan Room.

Sep. 29: Lectio Divina and Visio Divina

Lectio Divina (“divine reading”, or perhaps more loosely “spiritual reading”) is a form of prayer that goes back to the early Church and was developed by medieval monasteries. It lies at the heart of Benedictine monasticism, with its meditative reading of Scripture. The Second Vatican Council recommended it as a form of prayer, and the twentieth century saw a revival of interest in its use. A parallel practice, Visio Divina, takes religious art rather than scriptural texts as its focus for meditation.

Facilitator: Peg Taylor

Oct. 6: Hymns as prayer

We pray with words, and we also pray with music. When we sing hymns, we are, in the spirit of St Augustine, “praying twice.” What do our hymns say about God and about us? How do we meet God in our hymns?

Facilitators: The Rev’d Anne Wrider & Jeremy McElroy

Oct. 13: Care for Real

For roughly fifty years, Care for Real has been providing services for the people of Edgewater and Rogers Park, and from the outset the Church of the Atonement has taken a leading role in its activities. Recently it has purchased a new location on North Broadway. In this forum we will learn what Care for Real is now doing, how it is changing, and how Atonement is and can be involved.

Oct. 27: Poetry in Public Life

There is a long history of poetry in public life, sometimes in support of regimes, often as a form of protest, sometimes as a mode of celebration. Present-day America is no exception. We have poetry commissioned for presidential inaugurations, and poems written by official poet laureates, and anti-war poetry set to music, and poetry on buses and L cars. Poetry is all around us, very much in the public sphere, very much alive in public life.

Facilitator: Aron Dunlap

Nov. 3: Trinitarian faith, E pluribus unum, and social polarization.

We live in a world of profound cultural, religious, and geopolitical shifts. All too often, we fear these changes and that fear often triggers our social polarization. At a time when social polarization is on the rise and its dehumanizing effects seen in human conflict and violence both at home and abroad, we are called as Christians to practice what we believe in ways that advance the common good. Living trinitarian faith means rejecting human othering and the evermore present danger to turn difference into division. This conversation will tap into trinitarian faith as a signpost that deepens, from our Christian point of view, the American democratic ideal to build unity out of diversity, e pluribus unum.

Facilitator: Miguel Díaz

Nov. 10: False confessions then and now

We have all seen news stories about people condemned to death row but then shown innocent. Several law schools have programs dealing with wrongful convictions. Often these convictions are based on false confessions, which may made under torture but can also elicited by manipulative forms of interrogation (such as the “Reid Technique”). What we may not be aware of is the parallel between false confessions today and false confessions in the historic witch trials of the late medieval and early modern West. Kieckhefer will be returning from a conference in Italy in which he is speaking on that parallel, and he will summarize his arguments in this forum.

Facilitator: Richard Kieckhefer

Nov. 17: The Jesus Prayer, centering prayer, and the Divine Mercy Prayer

These three approaches to prayer, grounded in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, are accessible to laity wishing to enrich their prayer lives. This is a sequel to Peg Taylor’s earlier forum dealing with Lectio Divina and Visio Divina.

Facilitator: Peg Taylor

Nov. 24: RefugeeOne

Every year, RefugeeOne welcomes hundreds of refugees through the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Admissions Program. Having fled violence, persecution, and war, vulnerable refugees from around the world come to the United States to rebuild their lives. Resettlement is a long and often difficult process. RefugeeOne provides resettlement services, English language training, workforce development, a sewing studio, a wellness program, a dental clinic, a program for youth and young adults, a program for women, and immigration assistance. A representative from this program will speak to us about their work.