When Virtue Is a Vice and Vice a Virtue: Two Purposes For Everything [AUDIOSTR]

Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.

The speech in Romeo and Juliet on the right- and wrong-minded use of herbs and plants is the framework for this class on changing our focus from the forms of our behaviors to their content, asking the question of everything in our lives: Does what I think, feel, say, or do express the purpose of furthering my path of Atonement or hindering it?  The purpose we have chosen therefore informs our thinking and makes the world a prison of hate, suffering, and death or a classroom of joy.  A prominent theme following through the class is that we are minds not bodies.  Among the topics discussed in the context-supported by a variety of readings- are death, emotions, pain, kindness, and being normal, with major emphasis on forgiveness and Jesus.  A reflection on the section “For They Have Come” closes this week-long class.

Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation.  Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours.  And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.