Although moses was raised as the grandson of the Pharaoh, he still thought of himself as a Hebrew. Once, when he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, Moses tried to stop the Egyptian. In the struggle, the Egyptian was killed. This made the Pharaoh very angry, and Moses had to go into hiding.

While he was in hiding, he married and started to raise a family. Once, while tending his father-in-law’s sheep, he saw a bush that burned without being burned down. Moses went closer to look at this amazing bush, up on the side of a mountain. As Moses came closer, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses."

Moses answered, "Here I am," and covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

God told Moses that the suffering Hebrews at the hands of the Egyptians had not gone unnoticed: God had heard the Hebrews’ cries. Indeed, God had come to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey. Thus God was sending Moses to the Pharaoh to free the Hebrew people from Egypt.

But Moses protested, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Hebrew people out of Egypt? If they ask, ‘What is the name of the one who has sent you!?’ what shall I say?"

God said to Moses, "I am who I am. Say, ‘I am has sent me to you. The God of your fathers and mothers, the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Isaac and Rebekah, the God of Jacob and Rachel has sent me to you.’" Moses still protested that people would not believe him. God told Moses to throw the staff he had in his hand on the ground. When Moses did so, the staff turned into a snake, and Moses drew back from it. God told him to grab the snake by the tail, and when Moses did, the snake turned back into a staff.

Then God told Moses to put his hand inside his cloak and then take it out. When Moses did so, his hand developed a very bad disease called leprosy. Then God told Moses to put his hand back inside his cloak and take it out. When Moses did, his hand was restored to health.

God told Moses, "If they will not believe you, or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign. If they will not believe these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground."

Still Moses protested. He reminded God that he stuttered and wouldn’t be able to speak well. God assured Moses that his speech would be taken care of. Moses still begged God to send someone else.

Finally God got angry and told Moses that Moses’ brother, Aaron, would be there to speak for him, but that Moses must go. And so Moses and his family went to Egypt. Four times he had tried to get out of going. But he believed it was God who was calling him, so he went.

We have been asking very large questions. How did everything begin? We have asked, how did people begin? We have asked, how did our earth begin,how did our solar system begin, how did our galaxy begin? And we have even asked, how did all galaxies and all suns and all worlds begin?

We have read the answers given by different people from different lands and different times. We have asked both primitive people of long ago and the scientists of today. It has been a stirring adventure. We understand now how other people have felt. We see why they thought as they did, and we know why the scientists keep asking more and more questions. For like Kofi in Africa, we too can "go on thinking and thinking and never stop."

But let us come back to some of the smaller questions. How did you and I begin? How will we end, or will we ever end? These intimate questions about ourselves may have been waiting quietly all this time behind big questions.

When did you begin? Ten years ago? Fifteen years ago, did you say? Do you mean you began to be you the day you were born? How can that be? Did you not begin nine months before you were born? Doesn’t the thought start a wondering in your mind? Nine months before you were born, you were a small one-celled gelatin-like ball of life– not as big as the period at the end of this sentence. Was that speck you? How could you come out of that? It took the human race at least two billion years to evolve from one-celled protozoa into people. How is it you could make such a big change from a small one-celled animal into a human baby with billions and billions of cells in your body in so short a time as nine months?

The answer is that your one-celled beginning had in it something that the first protozoa did not have. It had already in it a much larger number of patterns to grow by. Those patterns were strung together in tiny strings inside your one-celled egg. The biologists call these patterns genes. Very wonderful microscopic pieces of life these genes are! For they had in them all the patterns your egg needed in order to grow into you. It is a mystery how these very tiny specks can hold such patterns and how they make the egg follow the patterns. It is as if these little genes could talk and say, "You are to be a boy with brown eyes and dark hair and dark skin," or just the opposite, whatever was needed to make you. Yet who ever heard of a one-celled living thing talking?

Probably in that long-ago time, when there were no living animals except the tiny one-celled protozoa, each of these tiny living things had at least one of those wondrous genes inside its cell. It needed something to show it how to be even just another protozoa. But your tiny egg, that began growing inside your mother’s body, needed thou- sands of patterns or genes to grow by if it was to know how to grow and grow in order to become you.

And where, we ask, did that little speck of life, that was your egg in the beginning, get those patterns to grow by? They came from two germ cells, one a male cell from your father’s body and the other a female cell from your mother’s body.When you were conceived (nine months before you were born), those two cells blended into one cell–into the beginning of you.

And where,we ask, did your father and mother get those small containers of life that could form together and make you? These thousands of special kinds of genes that were needed to make you had been kept alive ever since your father and your mother themselves were single cells inside their mothers. Again it is hard to imagine (but the scientists have good reason for believing it).

And how did your father and mother get their genes that told their eggs how to grow? From their four parents, that is, from your grandparents. And where did your grandparents get their genes to grow by? From their parents, that is from your great-grandparents. And where did your great-grandparents get their genes? How far back must we go to find your very first beglnnlng? We cannot stop, can we, until we have reached the very first living things that were in the beginning of time.Had not these living things lived in the long, long line of ancestors before you, the small egg that began to be you would never have known how to become you. For it was from them that your egg had slowly gathered the patterns for making you.It was because millions and millions of years ago male and female creatures began joining their dlfferent kind of germ cells together that you began, rather than an amoeba. Each new baby creature that was born was a little different from its parents, and some began trying out new ways of doing things. After a while these new ways became firm habits, so firm that new patterns were given to the new eggs to grow by.

The writers of the Hebrew Bible had an interesting way to report how persons have been connected with the people before them. They used a word that we seldom use now: begat. It means brought into being. For example, we read in the Bible, "Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judah, etc." So we might describe your connections with those who have lived before you in this way. But we must think of large groups of living things as if they were one single living thing in order to keep your very long story short enough to tell. So this, we may say, is the story of the beginning of you.

The Protozoa begat the Volvox. The Volvox begat the Worm with Brains. The Worm with Brains begat the Fish. The Fish begat the Amphibian. The Amphibian begat the Reptile. The Reptile begat the Mammal. The Mammal begat the Ape. The Ape begat the Human. And the Human begat You.

These are the chapter titles in the long, long story of you. We feel the wonder of it, but who can explain it? In some way, something in all these kinds of living creatures is still living in you, and in every person now alive. You- or a part of you- are much, much older than you seem. You feel young. You look young. You have no memory of the ages before you were born. Yet you brought with you on your birthday some tell-tale signs that you already had inside you a number of patterns to grow by. The millions of cells in your baby body knew how to do thousands of things you have never consciously thought about. Their ancestor cells had gotten used to doing these things "without thinking" thousands of years before you were born. You belong in a living chain, a spiral millions of years old and millions of people and animals long.

And will some of these patterns-to-grow-by that are in you go on living in your children and in your children’s children after your body dies? Surely, we cannot imagine this living chain as ending with you. What kinds of patterns for growing will you and your mate be passing on to your children? Can you do anything about improving these patterns? How?

The past has been long. The future may be even longer. We began with questions. We continue with other and harder questions still unanswered.

Goal: 1) To consider the idea that the spirit of God is with people throughout their lives, including when they die; and 2) To hear an ancient story that explains life and death and to talk about the reality of death.

Activities:

1) Make collage:

Preparation:
1. Read Background for The Spirit of God Is There When Someone Dies
2. Cut out a large circle (24” in diameter) from posterboard or heavy craft paper.
3. Draw an inner circle about 8” in diameter.
4. Cut out several circles 3” in diameter from light-colored construction paper.
5. Gather magazines with pictures of people of all ages, scissors, and glue.

Begin by going through the magazines you collected and cut out pictures of people of all ages from babies to elderly. Make piles by approximate ages: babies, children, teenagers, adults, elders.
Place pictures on the outer edge of the large circle you cut out: start with babies, then progress around the circle with people getting progressively older, ending with the eldest beside the babies. Glue the pictures in place.

Read: “The Spirit of God Is There When Someone Dies.”

Discuss: The story said that the spirit of God was with the woman in her dying. What do you think happens when a person or an animal dies?

Service of Remembering:
Ask everyone to think of names of people or pets who they would like to remember and to write each names on one of the colored construction paper circles. Attach them to the inner ring of the large paper circle. As each small circle is placed on the larger one, ask everyone to join you in saying the following:
“We remember_______________. The spirit of God is with him (or her).
End the service by saying “The spirit of God is there when we remember loved ones who have died.”

2) Tell a Story
Introduce the story by telling the children that this story was told nearly two thousand years ago. It is a story from India (show on a map). Back then there were people who wondered and puzzled over the same questions the children were thinking about, and a certain man named Kassapa (Kas-sa’-pa) tried to put his ideas into a story.

Read: “A Musician and His Trumpet.”

Discuss:
If you have had a pet die, ask your children how they felt when the pet died? What was different about you pet after it had died?
How would you say, in your own words, what Kassapa meant to say about what happens when a person’s body dies?

From We Believe by Ann Fields and Joan Goodwin (UUA)

Goal:
To build self-esteem and recognize their own inherent worth

Materials:
1 game board (needs assembly) – Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4
playing pieces (need to personalize)
Life cards – Page 1, Page 2, Page 3
Basic cards (more on Life card & button pages)
In-Herent worth "buttons" (can be attached to clothing with sticky tape)
1 die

Preparation:
Everyone makes a playing piece by cutting out a strip with an outlined figure and drawing or coloring in features, then rolling and taping the strip so that the figure will stand up.

Cut out cards and place on game board where indicated. "In-HEREnt Worth Buttons" should be concealed until game ends.

How To Play:
The player or team with the most Experience Points wins. Eperience Points are won by landing on a Life space, drawing an age-appropriate Life card and discussing.

Leader beings game by having players palce their playing pieces at the School space, the Movies, or the Pizza space. It’s their choice!

1) Oldest player begins by rolling the die, taking the top Basic card, reading it aloud for discussion. (Leader’s Note: discussion is the real goal of the game, so get players involved. Ask questions like, "If this were you would it mean you were worth more or less as a person? Do you know anyone described by the card? Does this affect inherent worth?" Of course, the answer in all cases is a resounding "No!" Encourage a resounding response.)

2) Player then moves the number of spaces on the die. Players may move in any one direction, forward or backword. Younger players may be helped or may move forward only. Players will want to land where they can draw the most Life cards (to win Experience Points): when they land on Park or Mall, they get to draw two Life cards; on Life, only one.

3) When a player lands on a Life, Park, or Mall space, the player immediately draws a Life card (or cards) appropriate to his/her age. Read and discuss. (A discussion of feelings is appropriate. "If this were you, how would you feel? What might others think of you? Does this affect your inherent worth?") After discussion, the player gets one Experience Point for each Life card discussed. (Leader may wish to keep track of Experience scares — or players can keep their own scores.) The turn ends. Player to his/her right takes the next turn.

4) If player lands on a Go (Back) To space, s/he proceeds immediately to the space indicated and the turn ends, unless it is to the Park or the Mall where the player then draws two Life cards.

5) The game can continue indefinately. Shuffle and reuse cards as necessary.

6) When time is up, players check their scores. The player with the most Experience Points wins an In-HEREnt Worth Button. "Does winning or losing affect your inerent worth?" A resounding "NO!" So everyone gets a button.

Goals:
To become aware of how houses of worship differ in appearance
To understand the similar purpose of different religious communities

Materials for making your own church:
Large corrugated cardboard boxes, such as TV or appliance cartons and several sheets of corrugated cardboard
Several shoeboxes
Carpet squares, cloth scraps
Colored cellophane or tissue paper
Construction paper, poster paint, markers

Activities:
• Do an internet search of pictures of different places of worship: churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques; some links to try: Sacred Sites, AlltheWeb Picture Search (click on "Pictures" to start), Historic American Buildings search, UU architect, Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings
• Drive around your town, city or county and take pictures of all the houses of worship you find. Make a poster of your photos.
• Play “I spy” when you’re driving around town, or on a long trip. Who can find the most houses of worship?

Discussion Questions:
How were the places of worship you saw different?
Was there something about them that helped you know what they were?
Did you have a favorite building?
Was there anything about any of the buildings that you really liked?
Discuss what happens inside a house of worship and how these activities are similar despite the differences in the buildings.

Project:
What would a church building look like if you could make it? List ideas. Encourage kids’ thinking with questions like: What kind of outside would it have? Bricks? Shingles? Glass? Would it have a steeple? A bell? Would there be stained-glass windows? Clear ones? None at all? What would the front door look like? Dark? Bright? Painted?

Using the boxes and other materials you have collected, construct a church building. Insofar as possible, incorporate the features mentioned in your discussion. Begin by turning the cardboard carton on its side, so that the top becomes a set of doors. Attach two other sheets of cardboard to form a roof. Use small boxes to make a steeple if the children want one. Draw windows with black markers and fill in with colored markers to make a stained glass effect. Or cut flaps in the cardboard so they can be opened. Tape scraps of material inside for drapes or curtains. Paint the outside of the box to resemble painted clapboard, or draw bricks on it with markers. Paint the doors. Put carpet samples or bright colored construction papers inside for floor covering. Let imagination and the resources you’ve collected be the only limits to your creativity!