"Feast or Fast? Living with the Heart's Hungers"

A Special Gathering for Clergy with

Mark S. Burrows
Professor of the History of Christianity
Andover Newton Theological School

"Everybody's got a hungry heart..."
-Bruce Springsteen

St. Paul insists in a letter to a troubled congregation that "since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart." (2 Cor. 4.1) Of course, he knew that heartbreak and "heartloss" are by no means uncommon. As clergy we know them both well. But what do we really know about finding our own heart? Inhabiting its textured landscape of desire?

Desire is at the core of our humanness, at the heart of our lives. Desire moves us by radiance or by shadows.

And we are both attracted by and terrified of this hunger, knowing that it wounds us and others as often as it brings healing and sustenance. What do we learn about this "heart hunger" from the witnesses of our tradition, from scripture and from the ancient prophets and mystics? In the places of the contemporary church's awkward silences on this subject, what might we also come to learn from the voices and visions of contemporary artists? Can we come to inhabit this landscape as a place not merely of peril but of extraordinary possibility?

Place and Time

Join us on Friday, October 20, 2000
Lunch at Noon, Presentation from 1:30-3:30 p.m.
at the United Church of Christ, Southbury
Main Street North, Southbury
(1/2 Mile North of Exit 15 off I-84)

Cost will be $15 with lunch/$10 without lunch
Registration form will be available in August