Response to 'Model Behaviour' Article

The article on Kate Moss frequently provides a reason or excuse for unethical behaviour and how it might be 'diluted' so that some of the consequences or guilt that one might feel for being unethical may be decreased. I generally disagree. The extent to which someone engages in unethical activities and demonstrates unethical behaviour is irrelevant. If its unethical, it simply is unethical...despite how much human beings try to convince themselves otherwise for the sake of a clear conscious.

Ethics Exercise

Question: think about a time when you felt anger, or guilt or sadness or were offended by someone or something. Discuss the situation and why you felt the way you did?

Pain in Suffering

Isabelle Allende Interviewed by Andrew Denton

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/elders/

Watch the interview and respond to the following:

How has the author suffered in her life?

Isabelle has suffered through the painful process of losing everything dear to her; her house, her family, her in laws, her dog and most significantly her country (exiled) - where she felt completely at ease and understood every aspect of her culture. She later came to the conclusion that she and her husband no longer had anything in common and so they both came to a mutual agreement as to how their lives would be separated as opposed to involving a layer etc. All of the above aside, the death of Isabells daughter, Paula

How has she coped with the pain and suffering?

She wrote a book whilst she was in exile as an attempt to recover what she had lost. When her daughter passed away, that same night was her grandchild born. She came to the conclusion that life and death is much the same, 'transitioning into a threshold...another world'.

How has she benefited from the pain and suffering?

When her daughter died- she had lost the fear of death. When her grandchild was born- she lost the fear of life.

Is pain and suffering always a bad thing? Explain.

Isabelles desire to pass on what she had learnt to her daughter Paula was unfulfilled due to her death. She then explains that she is always looking out for young women and in a sense adopts them as her daughters to pass on the knowledge and resources that she has. She says, "so i have these other daughters, that are not blood-related, but the daughters of my soul'.

Some Christian Perspectives on Pain and Suffering

• Much suffering in the world is a result of human activity and sin
• God can intervene via miracles; however, generally, he doesn’t interfere with human activity and the consequences of sin
• God has given human beings free choice because he wants them to freely respond to his offer of a relationship
• If God were to interfere all the time humans would be less free, therefore less human and respond to Him for selfish reasons rather than out of a genuine quest for a relationship with him
• God’s is more concerned about human growth and development than its happiness
• Happiness is determined by circumstances; whereas, joy can be experienced at all times by humans in a relationship with God, even during times of the most grievous pain and suffering
• God promises to use the pain and suffering of those in a relationship with him for good
• God has experienced suffering in the extreme in both its physical and spiritual domains via the cross
• This world is far from perfect and this imperfection is related to the disharmony that has always existed between human beings and God
• This world is not all there is; in the course of time this earth and heaven will be renewed, so that pain and suffering will be a thing of the past and resurrected human beings in a relationship with God will enjoy its bounty
• God is active in the world through His believers; in many disasters and tragedies God is active through the hands, feet and skills of His people
  Student Task:

  Consider each of the above discussion points and indicate what resonates with you and what you still struggle with in relation to pain and suffering.

  
  

  I can both truly and comfortably say that i believe all of the above perspectives regarding the reason for pain and suffering listed above. I am a true follower of God and try to live by his word each day :)

  
  

Questions in relation to the DVD ‘Shadowlands’

1. What are the sources of the pain and suffering depicted?

2. What are the sources of the joy depicted?

3. How are suffering and joy related in the video and in the broader sense for everybody?

4. How can people ‘grow’ through suffering?

5. Perhaps the crucial period in Jack and Warnie’s early life - that bound them so closely as brothers - was the death in 1908 of their mother. C. S. Lewis later cited this trauma in explaining his own emotional reticence; the person he loved most in the world was taken from him. How does Jack describe this time in the film ‘Shadowlands’?

6. How is the pain of losing a parent “re-lived” for C. S. Lewis in ‘Shadowlands’?

7. How does Lewis say he copes differently with the death of Joy than the death of his mother?

8. What are the responsibilities of a parent to the children he or she is leaving? What does Joy mean by “old enough to hurt”?

9. In the film, what key lines from the C. S. Lewis speech below are used repeatedly to express his attitude to God’s plan in allowing suffering?

“When a loved one dies we think of this as love cut short; like a dance stopped in mid-career or a flower with its head unluckily snapped off - something truncated and therefore lacking its due shape, whereas it is really a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as marriage follows courtship, or as autumn follows summer. It is not a truncation of the process but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance but the next figure.”

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1. The death of his wife, Joy

2. Joy in fact brings joy/happiness to jack in conjunction with his interaction with others. The peace he finds in Christianity

3. Joy helps bring happiness to jack whilst she also brings him great pain knowing that she is soon to pass away.

4. Suffering can allow people to become more sympathetic, understanding and grow/develop.

5.-

6. His mother's death

7. Unlike his mothers death, Jack was prepared for the death of Joy making it that little bit easier to deal with.

8. I believe that it is a parents responsibility to allow the child to know of the situations so that they may also cope with the inevitable tragedy. They too can become stronger through such tragedy. Keeping the truth from them could cause them the most suffering of all. This may be what Joy means by 'old enough for suffering'.

9.'God allowing suffering' vs Love cut short