Hi again everyone.
Here's a photo of Rodman House - our meeting place starting September 9. As you can see it's easy to miss because it just looks like a house along Beulah Road though it is on the campus of Holy Comforter. It is right opposite MacArthur Rd. - right before you get to the driveway into Holy Comforter if you're coming from Chain Bridge Rd. Probably you'll be able to find it on GPS using - it's right next to 543 Beulah Rd. SE Vienna, on the grounds of Holy Comforter Episcopal Church -- but just wanted you to know what it looks like. We'll be meeting on the lower level - you can go down the driveway next to the house and park there.
If you're new and need more in the way of directions/info about the group, please feel free to email me at kathleen.staudt@gmail.com I'd love to hear from you! I'm also on facebook.
See previous post for a little about what's ahead in our study of Isaiah.
Also SAVE THE DATE: November 14-16 for our retreat at Lost River retreat center in West VA. More info about this at our first two meetings!
Hi everyone
I'm really starting to look forward to seeing everyone when we gather again on September 9 to pick up another season of Bible Study. We will be meeting at "Rodman House," a house on the campus of Holy Comforter Episcopal Church, 543 Beulah Rd., Vienna. More on this soon.
As agreed, this year's topic will be the book of Isaiah, focusing mainly on passages that appear in the New Testament. I'm finding that as I remembered, this book of the Bible in some ways tells the "core story" of the whole Bible, coming out of the way that the people of Israel understood God's action when they found their temple destroyed and a large part of the population exiled into Babylon in the sixth century BCE. It contains some of the most beautiful poetry about the mercy of God in the whole Bible, especially in the later chapters that celebrate the return of the people to Jerusalem, where they came to understand in a new way their identity and role in the world. I'm hoping that by looking closely at some of these passages in Isaiah we'll find some new insights into what it means to think of ourselves as the "people of God" in any era, and how that deepens and challenges our sense of identity and our opennesss to hope and to growth in the spiritual life.
I found a handy list of quotations from Isaiah in the New Testament at this website: http://www.simplybible.com.au/f591.htm - a good guide to some of the passages we'll be talking about. I'm also hoping to be able to invite a rabbi and perhaps other readers of Isaiah to talk to us about all this over the course of the year. Lots of questions. Lots to learn.
We will be meeting SEPTEMBER 9, SEPTEMBER 23, and then, beginning OCTOBER 7, we'll meet on the first and third Tuesdays of each month. We start at 7PM with food and conversation, followed by Bible Study and ending by 9 with shared prayers.
Also please save the date for our fall retreat, November 14-16 at Lost River retreat center. I'll be sharing some further info about that at our first meeting!
Looking forward to seeing everyone on September 9!
KATHY
