“Growth for Life: Learning and Growing” Creating a Christian Lifestyle Chapter Two “Growth for Life: Learning and Growing”

Section A: “Our Need to Grow” (Textbook pages 29—33.) To reach our full potential, we must constantly and purposely seek experiences that challenge us to grow beyond the familiar. This means using our God-given capacities to learn and to create. Each of us possesses an almost limitless capacity to develop ourselves and to travel our own unique path to learning and creativity. Jesus invites us to let these gifts transform us into his fully alive disciples. Page 33’s “For Review” questions and answers: 1. Explain the meaning of Gardner’s analogy of the abandoned gold mine. Gardener’s analogy suggests that developing ourselves begins with an acknowledgement that we are full of potential as learners and creators. We must not abandon our gold mine before fully exploring it.

2. According to St. Paul, what is the purpose of our gifts, and why should we develop our potential? Our gifts were given for the purpose of building a loving and faithful community. We should develop our potential so that we are transformed into fully alive disciples of Jesus. Ruts One of the worst foes of creativity is getting into (and staying in) ruts? Most of us fall into ruts of some kind, perhaps without even being aware of them. Let’s bring some of those possible ruts to awareness: friendships – e.g. (exempli gratia=for example) “I can’t cut loose from a friend who drags me down.” Or, “I don’t get out and meet other people.” attitudes Why is it so easy to slip into ruts? body image learning What happens to us if our life and actions eating are determined by ruts? language

Section B: “Growth by Learning” (Pages 33—38.) All of our life’s experiences provide us with opportunities to learn—to grow in knowledge, insight and skills. Learning is a marvelous natural capacity that frees us from the prison of security and sameness. It enables us to grow and have a full life by offering us choices, helping us overcome fears, giving us competence, and helping us cope with change. No one else can learn for us, however. Our learning and growth is our responsibility. Page 38’s “For Review” questions and answers: 1. What is learning? Learning is growth in knowledge, insight and skills. 2. Give an example from this chapter of learning in the school of life. Ted learns about the need to balance his checkbook when several checks bounce, costing him penalties and embarrassment.

Carmen uses her layoff from the factory as an opportunity to start her own small carpentry business. To make up for her lack of business experience, she gathers as much information as she can on the subject and gradually creates a very successful business. Through necessity and experience, Hien and Trung become experts in all the details associated with raising a young child. Len’s whole family enters counseling as part of his treatment program for a severe drug addiction. This helps everyone learn how to relate to one another in new, healthier ways. Chandra’s job as a nursing home aide teachers her about how music can speak to the hearts of older people and how it helps them to communicate feelings that would otherwise go unexpressed. The experience influences her decision to major in music therapy at college.

3. What is the meaning of the pashcal mystery? How does it relate to learning? We find life by apparently losing it, like when Jesus died on a cross and then experienced resurrection. The paschal mystery relates to learning in that if we meet Jesus’ challenge to learn and grow through all that happens to us, we will always find a fuller life. 4. What does learning do for us? Learning enables us to survive and to have a full life. It offers us choices, helps us overcome fear, gives us competence, and helps us cope with change. 5. List seven guidelines for taking responsibility for our own learning. 1. Form habits of learning: Listen and read carefully, develop self-discipline, and foster curiosity. 2. Set goals: Decide on a purpose for your life and then relate your learning to that purpose.

3. Take the initiative: Take the opportunities that are available for formal and informal learning. 4. Be open: Be receptive to the people and events around you as well as to your own inner world. 5. Be flexible: Be ready, if necessary, to change your way of thinking, to venture from the secure known to the insecure unknown. 6. Don’t simply settle for what’s expected: Learn what you want to learn, even if it is not what others expect of you. 7. Have courage: Be willing to go where learning leads you. (Delayed gratification.) Which of these 7 guidelines do you have to work on the most? What have you learned from the school of life? What are some goals for your own learning? 2 most important? Write an inventory of your intellectual, physical and social competencies.

Section C: “Growth through Creating” (Pages 39—45.) Growth to full potential also means expressing our creativity, our drive to bring something new into being. We tap into our creativity by being open to as much of life as possible—including our own feelings, ideas, intuitions, or images—and by developing skills. Essential to maintaining growth and creativity is leisure. The biblical command to observe the Sabbath tells us that taking time for renewal, free of work and other duties, is not a luxury, but a necessity to fulfill our potential as creative beings. Page 45’s “For Review” questions and answers: 1. What is creativity? Creativity is the drive to bring something new into being.

2. Besides the work of artists, what are some other ways that creativity is expressed? Creativity is expressed whenever people bring things together in a new unity, such as when a student writes an insightful paper for a class, or when a summer counselor at a recreation center dreams up a new game to use with the young kids. Creativity can be in every aspect of our life. 3. See text. Easy! Justin Lebo: junker bikes for orphan boys Joel Rubin: eliminate drift nets for catching tuna

4. List five steps in creating: 1. Preparation to innovate or create, during which a person gains the factual knowledge and skills needed to deal with the problem or idea. 2. Concentrated work on the problem or idea. (Creativity, as the saying goes, is “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration!”) 3. Rest and retreat from the problem or idea—a time to clear the mind and emotions, which usually ends up as a period for incubating new strategies. 4. An “Aha!” experience, during sudden new insight is gained, accompanied by exhilaration. 5. Trying out the insight or approach that is the result of the previous steps to see how it works, appears, or sound.

5. Give eight tips to foster creativity: 1. Give your intuition and imagination room to function. 2. Have a creative space. 3. Interact with innovative people. 4. Ask questions. 5. Break out of ruts. 6. Set and keep deadlines for yourself. 7. Focus your attention and dig deep. 8. See problems and conflicts as opportunities for creativity. 6. What is leisure? How does it relate to creativity? Leisure is time that is not filled up with work and other duties. Without periods of renewal, we lose the capacity to be creative. The empty times in life renew the passion and enthusialsm that fuel the creative process.

7. Why do we need the Sabbath? We need the Sabbath because it allows us the time for renewal that is our right as human beings. Ever have a creative impulse? Ever use your creative energy to resolve a problem/issue that bothered you? Name a change you would like to make that would bring new life to you, even in a small way. For example, “I’d like to…” What experiences of emptiness—times when you have been free of demands and tasks—have had great value to your development as a person or as a student? I personally could benefit from a real Sabbath every week! True or false? Why or why not?