• Newsprint, markers, and tape
• Notebooks with unlined pages, to be used as journals, for all participants
• Variety of writing and drawing implements
• Timepiece (minutes)

• Obtain notebooks with unlined pages, enough for all participants. Gather a variety of writing and drawing implements.

Introduce this activity using these or similar words:

George de Benneville used a Christian mystical motif to describe his feeling of being unconditionally loved by Christ. De Benneville realized that if he, who housed ignoble feelings of arrogance and pride in his heart, could be so loved, so, too, must other undeserving souls be loved and saved by Christ. This link between his contrite heart, his humility, and his experience of unconditional loved transformed de Benneville into a man who could no longer abide by the traditional Catholic and Protestant division of the world into the damned and the elect. De Benneville discovered through his own personal experience of emotional restoration to health and wholeness that everyone will be restored by, through, and to the eternal love of God.

Note that all of us in one way or another have felt loved or have a sense of what such a feeling of being loved and cherished would be like. Explain that these personal experiences can help us understand de Benneville's experience of feeling loved. Invite participants to recall one experience of being deeply loved. Suggest they find their story and jot notes or draw about it in their theology journals. Allow a couple of minutes, then invite them to form groups of three and each briefly share their experience of being loved or cherished.