Week 1 Reflection Questions
Unitarian Church, 2008
PRACTICES AND REFLECTIONS FOR HOME:
FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS
Six Weeks of Going Deeper
Water Communion, September 7, 2008
Through Sukkot, October 19, 2008
Week 1: Home
“You will know you are home when you no longer feel divided within yourself.” Rev. John Morgan
Week 1: Family Activity
Befriend a Tree
Find a tree in your yard or neighborhood. Befriend it. Do not learn its official name or necessarily scientifically try to understand it. But rather become its companion.
How?
Have the kids draw what the tree looks like.
Maybe if it is a dry season, give it a drink of water.
Build a birdhouse (so it will have a friend!)
Put a blanket under the tree and have a family picnic.
Throughout the year, see how the tree changes, see how it grows and what the leaves are doing.
Week 1: Individual Reflection
Water Communion Sunday (on September 7th) is an opportunity to come back together as a community, a church community, after the travels or activities of summer.
What part of community do you find most energizing?
What is your special gift to the community? What do you contribute that is uniquely yours alone to give?
Take a moment to give thanks for that special gift.
Take a moment to give thanks for the special gift that is YOU.
Speaking of you…
I will share with you now, a favorite spiritual exercise. It is from George Kimmich Beach’s book: For Love’s Sake Alone. Rev. Beach is a Unitarian Universalist minister.
Spiritual Exercises: Who are you?
The reader should imagine a dialogue in which the “spiritual director” asks the questions and listens while the respondent (you) answers, repeating the process until it is finished. Then questioner and respondent may reverse roles. I learned this from Rev. Laurel Hallman (also a Unitarian Universalist minister).
Who are you?
I am one who questions myself, who feels alarmed at the challenge to identify myself, who wishes to hide at least some part of myself and feels ashamed of the very wish. Is it something shameful that I want to hide? This very self-questioning opens a rift in my soul…
May God be merciful. Who else are you?
I am one who would be at one with myself. Becoming aware of the rift, the open longing in myself—remembering the blessing but being not yet at peace—I am one who wants to be healed, to be whole, to say to life shalom…
May God be merciful. And who else are you?
I am one who seeks reveries but seldom invites them, who imagines a place beyond self-consciousness and yet, taking thought, cannot imagine how to get there from here. I am one able to talk to myself—“you cannot get there from here!”—and then, unselfconsciously, to laugh at myself…
May God be merciful. And who else are you?
I am one who loves to dance, who wants to find out what stones will say to me, who enjoys enjoyment. I am one who works at accomplishing taks and earning a living and being in charge, who also seeks to escape all that. I am the social animal who also wants to be left alone…
May God be merciful. And who else are you?I am one who, though self-questioning, seeks the healing strength of self-confidence—though at odds with myself, is overcome by laughter—though “lost in the cosmos” finds God very near. I am a true unbeliever and an untrue believer…
May God be merciful. And who do you say that you are?
May God be merciful.
Amen.
Two reflections from Rev. John Morgan (Unitarian Universalist) about “home.”
Some of the earliest forms of being together with others in spiritual community were what were then called “conventicles” or small groups meeting together weekly to read the Bible, talk and pray. George DeBenneville’s house church in Pennsylvania was one such conventicle, bringing together people from various religious sects for worship. DeBenneville, and others after him, believed that this kind of gathering represents the form closest to the early Christian house church. Today, thse kinds of house churches continue, across denomination, bringing people together, in very small groups.
A question for you:
Can I envision being part of a house church or small group?
Where one or two are gathered together, there (we are told!) is more. Help me to find this depth in my life.
Finding a spiritual community in which you can be accepted for who you are while also being challenged to grow is one of the most important experiences in life. Unfortunately, the search can be frustrating. Some communities seem to take an “anything goes” stance, leaving participants confused and without support. Others favor a straight and narrow path but lack heart and expansiveness. You will know you are home when you no longer feel divided within yourself.
Where, if anywhere, do I feel divided no more?
Help me to find that community where my heart and mind are one and where I am restored and renewed for life.
PRACTICES AND REFLECTIONS FOR HOME:
FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS
Six Weeks of Going Deeper
Water Communion, September 7, 2008
Through Sukkot, October 19, 2008
Week 1: Home
“You will know you are home when you no longer feel divided within yourself.” Rev. John Morgan
Week 1: Family Activity
Befriend a Tree
Find a tree in your yard or neighborhood. Befriend it. Do not learn its official name or necessarily scientifically try to understand it. But rather become its companion.
How?
Have the kids draw what the tree looks like.
Maybe if it is a dry season, give it a drink of water.
Build a birdhouse (so it will have a friend!)
Put a blanket under the tree and have a family picnic.
Throughout the year, see how the tree changes, see how it grows and what the leaves are doing.
Week 1: Individual Reflection
Water Communion Sunday (on September 7th) is an opportunity to come back together as a community, a church community, after the travels or activities of summer.
What part of community do you find most energizing?
What is your special gift to the community? What do you contribute that is uniquely yours alone to give?
Take a moment to give thanks for that special gift.
Take a moment to give thanks for the special gift that is YOU.
Speaking of you…
I will share with you now, a favorite spiritual exercise. It is from George Kimmich Beach’s book: For Love’s Sake Alone. Rev. Beach is a Unitarian Universalist minister.
Spiritual Exercises: Who are you?
The reader should imagine a dialogue in which the “spiritual director” asks the questions and listens while the respondent (you) answers, repeating the process until it is finished. Then questioner and respondent may reverse roles. I learned this from Rev. Laurel Hallman (also a Unitarian Universalist minister).
Who are you?
I am one who questions myself, who feels alarmed at the challenge to identify myself, who wishes to hide at least some part of myself and feels ashamed of the very wish. Is it something shameful that I want to hide? This very self-questioning opens a rift in my soul…
May God be merciful. Who else are you?
I am one who would be at one with myself. Becoming aware of the rift, the open longing in myself—remembering the blessing but being not yet at peace—I am one who wants to be healed, to be whole, to say to life shalom…
May God be merciful. And who else are you?
I am one who seeks reveries but seldom invites them, who imagines a place beyond self-consciousness and yet, taking thought, cannot imagine how to get there from here. I am one able to talk to myself—“you cannot get there from here!”—and then, unselfconsciously, to laugh at myself…
May God be merciful. And who else are you?
I am one who loves to dance, who wants to find out what stones will say to me, who enjoys enjoyment. I am one who works at accomplishing taks and earning a living and being in charge, who also seeks to escape all that. I am the social animal who also wants to be left alone…
May God be merciful. And who else are you?I am one who, though self-questioning, seeks the healing strength of self-confidence—though at odds with myself, is overcome by laughter—though “lost in the cosmos” finds God very near. I am a true unbeliever and an untrue believer…
May God be merciful. And who do you say that you are?
May God be merciful.
Amen.
Two reflections from Rev. John Morgan (Unitarian Universalist) about “home.”
Some of the earliest forms of being together with others in spiritual community were what were then called “conventicles” or small groups meeting together weekly to read the Bible, talk and pray. George DeBenneville’s house church in Pennsylvania was one such conventicle, bringing together people from various religious sects for worship. DeBenneville, and others after him, believed that this kind of gathering represents the form closest to the early Christian house church. Today, thse kinds of house churches continue, across denomination, bringing people together, in very small groups.
A question for you:
Can I envision being part of a house church or small group?
Where one or two are gathered together, there (we are told!) is more. Help me to find this depth in my life.
Finding a spiritual community in which you can be accepted for who you are while also being challenged to grow is one of the most important experiences in life. Unfortunately, the search can be frustrating. Some communities seem to take an “anything goes” stance, leaving participants confused and without support. Others favor a straight and narrow path but lack heart and expansiveness. You will know you are home when you no longer feel divided within yourself.
Where, if anywhere, do I feel divided no more?
Help me to find that community where my heart and mind are one and where I am restored and renewed for life.
posted by Roger Butts @ 9:40 AM
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Enjoyed reading this blog. Thanks.
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