The Mustard-Seed Medicine
KISA GOTAMI was a beautiful young woman with neither father nor mother to care for her. In the city market one day, a rich young man saw her as she stood in a booth selling flowers. He fell in love with her at first sight. Later he married her. Everyone thought: "What a happy life Kisa Gotami will now have. Some time after that a baby was born, a beautiful little boy, and Kisa Gotami was completely happy. The days slipped by very fast as she watched her little son grow and learn. Almost before she knew it, he could run about and talk. She loved him more than anyone else in all the world. She loved him when he was obedient and when he was stub-born. She loved him when he laughed and when he cried. But one day the little boy suddenly became very sick. Even though his mother and father did everything they knew how to do for him, the little boy did not get well. In a few days he died.
Kisa Gotami could not believe her little boy was really dead. She thought his sickness had only put him to sleep. Some kind of medicine would surely wake him up. So she wrapped the little body in its baby sheet and lifted it up in her arms. She carried it to her neighbor’s door.
"Please, my friend," she begged, "give me some medicine that will cure my child." But when her neighbor lifted the sheet and saw the baby’s face, she shook her head sadly. She knew there was no medicine that could cure him.
Kisa Gotami was not easily discouraged. She went from door to door. She begged each neighbor she saw: "Please give me some medicine to cure my little boy." But each neighbor in turn looked at the baby’s sleeping face and shook her head sadly. The neighbors all felt very sorry for Kisa Gotami. When she was gone, they said:
"Poor Kisa Gotami! Has she lost her sensesl" Finally she met a man on the street who said:
"My good woman, I cannot give you any medicine for your child, but I know a man who can help you.
"Oh, tell me, please, who is he and where may I find him
"Go to Buddha," said the man encouragingly. "He canalways help people." So Kisa Gotami hurried to the home of Buddha. She stood before the great man and said:
"Good Buddha, I am told you are always able to help people in trouble. Please give me some medicine that will cure my child."
Buddha looked tenderly at the anxious mother. He knew the child was dead. He knew he could not bring the dead back to life again, but he knew also that he could help the mother to feel peaceful and comforted. "My good woman, you must help me find the medicine," said Buddha kindly. "Go and bring me a handful of mustard seed."
"Surely I can easily find a handful of mustard seed, "said Kisa Gotami eagerly. "Do as 1 tell you," said Buddha, ‘hut remember this: The mustard seed must be taken from a house where no one has ever died or it will be of no use."
Believing she could find the mustard seed in some house where no one had ever died, Kisa Gotami thanked Buddha and went back home. There she gently laid her child’s lifeless body on its little bed. Then she went out alone to find the handful of mustard seed.
First she went hopefully to her next-door neighbor. "Have you a handful of mustard seed" she asked. "Buddha says it will cure my child."
"Certainly I have mustard seed. I will gladly give you a handful and more."
"Thank you so much, kind neighbor," said Kisa Gotami, "but before taking the seed I must ask you a question. Has anyone ever died in your house–a father or grandfather or grandmother or anyone else?"
"O Kisa dear, have you forgotten?" said the neighbor in surprise. "Our dear grandfather died here scarcely more than a year ago."
"Then your mustard seed cannot cure my child," said Kisa Cotami sadly. "Buddha said that I must find the seed in a home where no one has ever died."
Hopefully Kisa Gotami went to another house. She went from door to door, to every house in the village, asking for a handful of mustard seed. When she asked the question: "Has anyone ever died in this house?" one said:
"Yes, our oldest son died here. It was ten years ago, but we still miss him." Another said:
"Both our grandparents died in this house." Another said:
"My husband died here many years ago." At every door it was the same. Someone would say:
"Good woman, why remind us of our sorrow? How can you expect to find a house where no one has died? Don’t you know that the living are few but the dead are many?"
At last, tired and discouraged, Kisa Gotami went outside the village and sat down alone on a rock under a banyan tree. She knew now that even Buddha had no medicine for her child. Nothing could bring him back to life again. Tears blinded her eyes. Although it was broad daylight, it seemed as though the darkness of night had fallen over her.
As she sat quietly under the banyan tree, she slowly began to feel peaceful. After all, she was not all alone and deserted. Nor did she feel that her little boy was all alone. The really real little boy she loved was gone. That was true. She did not know where he had gone or why he had gone, but she did know now that his body was dead. It had died, just as thousands of other persons’ bodies had died before. Just as her own body would sometime die. Just as everybody in all the world must sometime die. Kisa Gotami felt that all people were together in dying. No one was ever all alone.
But Kisa Gotami wanted to talk with Buddha again. She was beginning to understand why he had sent her to get the handful of mustard seed. But she wanted him to tell her. So she arose and went back to his home. Buddha greeted her in the same gentle way he had done before.
"Good woman, have you brought the mustard seed?" he asked.
"No, my lord. There is no house in all the village where someone has not at sometime died." "Sit down beside me" said Buddha. "Let us talk together a while." Kisa Gotami was glad to listen and be quiet.
"Our lives in this world are all short whether we live for one year or for a hundred years. Everyone who is born must sometime die–yes, everyone. There are no exceptions. We all have our times of happiness and also our times of pain and sorrow. Do not try to free yourself from suffering. Try rather to free yourself from hate and selfishness.
"Do not struggle, good woman," said Buddha. "Be at peace. Accept your life as a gift. Take the days as they come one by one. Fill them as full of kindness as you can."
Kisa Gotami went often to Buddha. The thoughts that he gave her to think about were the best kind of medicine for her loneliness. Now that she knew how much it hurt to be lonely, she began to learn how to comfort others who also were sad.
Kisa Gotami, now a rich man’s wife, went often to the homes of the poor. She brought them food. She played with their children. In these ways she slowly learned how to comfort herself.
A Spring Haggadah–Telling Stories
Passover and Easter are both celebrations which highlight the spring season. How do Unitarian Universalists respond to these deeply significant religious festivals? Some respond by turning with the secular culture to flowers, eggs, lambs and bunnies–all ancient symbols of the renewal of life, which is also a central message of Easter and Passover. The rich layers of human custom and belief come together now, and as we draw our living tradition from many sources, UUs may serve forth a generous slice that includes all those layers.
What follows, inspired by the Jewish Haggadah, or "telling" of the Passover story during the Seder meal, is an attempt to bring all the stories together in a celebration for UU families. The dialogue may take place around the dinner table where symbols of the season have been placed. The menu is of your choosing, with a glass of wine or juice for each person. The first question should be asked by the youngest person present and answered by the oldest person present. After that, you may take turns asking and answering in any order around the table. If you like, make copies of the dialogue available to everyone ahead of time, or simply pass this one copy from person to person for an impromptu reading.
First question: Why is this time of year different from other times?
First answer: This is the time when we remember that death is a natural part of life on earth and that all living things renew themselves over and over, year after year. This is the time when Passover and Easter are celebrated. It is the time of Easter bunnies and decorated eggs.
All: We lift our glasses in celebration of life everlasting!
Second question: What is the story of Passover?
Second answer: Long ago, the Hebrew people were slaves in the land of Egypt. Because the Pharaoh refused to free the slaves, Moses and Aaron and their god, Yahweh, brought one affliction after another to the Egyptians. Finally Yahweh passed through the land by night, bringing death to the firstborn son of every Egyptian family. So that the Hebrews would be spared, Yahweh told them to kill a lamb and mark their doorways with its blood. When Yahweh came to a door marked with the blood of the lamb, he would passover that house. The Hebrews were able to escape from Egypt, and after wandering for many years, finally came to a Promised Land of their own. At the time of Passover, Jewish people all over the world celebrate their freedom with a Seder dinner.
All: We lift our glasses in celebration of freedom from oppression!
Third question: What is the story of Easter?
Third answer: The Easter story happened many, many years after the Hebrews left Egypt. It is the story of a man named Jesus, a Jew who lived during the time of the Roman empire. Jesus brought new inspiration to his people. He talked about love and non-violence and respect for every person. Some of the Roman rulers were afraid he might start a rebellion, and some of the Jewish leaders were afraid he might change their religion. It was just after Jesus and his friends had celebrated a Passover Seder together that he was arrested and put to death on the cross. However, his teaching lived on, and today Christians all over the world celebrate Easter in his memory as a time of love and hope reborn.
All: We lift our glasses in celebration of love and hope reborn!
Fourth question: What is the story of the Easter bunny and colored eggs:
Fourth answer: This is the oldest story of all. Ancient people who lived in northern lands waited anxiously each year for spring to return.They saw the egg as a symbol of new life, and they noticed that rabbits had large and frequent families. They watched eagerly for the first green shoots of spring, which meant fresh food for their own families. Many people in all times and places have decorated eggs for spring celebrations. A roasted egg is one of the symbolic foods of Passover. Baby animals and flowers and green, growing things are also symbols of new life.
All: We lift our glasses in celebration of life everlasting!
Meet the Characters on " The Dangerous Journey"
Michael Servetus
Frances David & King Sigismund
UUism Comes to America
George deBenneville
John Murray
Joseph Priestley
Growth & Change
Michael Servetus (1511 – 1553)
Servetus was one of the first people to write down his ideas about Unitarianism in a book. It was called On the Errors of the Trinity. The “Trinity” is the Christian belief that God is made up of three parts: God the father, God the son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit. In the 1500’s the rulers of many countries were Christians who believed in this 3-part God and REQUIRED all people in those countries to believe the same thing. (QUESTION: Do you think a person can be required to believe something?) Michael Servetus believed that Christians should look to the Bible, not their rulers, for answers about God, and he could find no words in the Bible to support this idea of God in three parts. (“Uni” is a prefix meaning “one”, so the word “Unitarian” means belief in the “oneness” of God.) His book made many people angry and scared. Soon after it was published Servetus changed his name and went into hiding. He became a very good doctor and lived for quite awhile in peace and quiet. But he couldn’t hold back his strong religious feelings. He began writing again and when his real identity was revealed, he was arrested and eventually burned at the stake. Michael Servetus was a Unitarian martyr. His death led to increased interest in the debate about the nature of God and religious freedom.
Francis David (1510 – 1579) and King John Sigismund (1540 – 1571)
In the 1500’s Unitarian believers were scattered in many different countries. At one point they were a majority in Poland! In Transylvania (a country which no longer exists but included the area now known as Hungary and Romania), Francis David converted the Transylvanian King John Sigismund to Unitarianism. In 1568, King John declared total religious freedom in Transylvania. This meant that the government would not interfere with what people believed. Although this idea seems normal to us today, this was the only country at that time to allow religious freedom. Despite a lot of anger and abuse, even death threats, King John held fast to his ideas, and religious liberty remained the law of the land until his death in 1571. King John’s successors were Catholic, not Unitarian. Francis David was fired from his position as Court Preacher. This did not silence him, however, and he continued to preach around the country. Like Servetus, Francis David was eventually arrested for heresy (religious ideas that are different from those approved of by the official church or government) and died while in jail on that charge.
Unitarianism and Universalism Come to America
All three of the men most responsible for bringing Unitarianism and Universalism to America were raised in England during the time when the ideas of John Calvin were popular. Calvinism taught that God decided before you were even born whether, when you died, you would be “saved” and go to heaven, or go to hell to be tortured forever. According to the church, very few were chosen to go to heaven. People were told that if they go to church and if they work hard and make a good living that might be a sign that God had chosen them to go to heaven. This way of thinking made many people very nervous, especially in times of trouble. When bad things happened that might also be a sign—a sign that you were not chosen by God.
Calvinism was a very stern and harsh religion, and eventually people began to question it. They refused to believe that God would be so mean. They said, “God is loving and wants to save everyone in heaven.” They said, “God does not make people do good or bad things; people choose this themselves!” These people came to be called “Universalists” because they believed in universal (meaning everyone) salvation.
George deBenneville (1703-1793)
When George deBenneville was born, his mother died. Queen Anne of England, a good friend of his mother’s, took George into her home as an infant and raised him as a prince. As a young man George enjoyed the wealthy social life of London, and worried little about his own future. In fact, he felt superior to most people. Then, on a trip to Africa, he had an experience which would change him forever. He saw native peoples not acting as savages (a common view at the time) but with such kindness and brotherly love that they seemed more true to the teachings of Jesus than many so-called “Christians” back in England! He saw people putting faith in a loving God who wanted to save all creatures, great and small. George returned home feeling very sad about his old life. He had a terrible dream that he was burning in hell and for many months his friends thought he would never be happy again. Then one day he decided two things which would stay with him all his life: 1. that good and evil are things that start deep inside each person, not by God’s choosing, and 2. that God’s love is for everyone, not just a chosen few.
With these new ideas George got well again, became a doctor, and began traveling; doctoring and preaching his new faith. In France he was arrested for heresy, and because of his noble upbringing, just narrowly escaped beheading! From France he traveled to Germany and Holland and then finally to America in search of a place where he could think and speak freely about his religion. In America deBenneville made friends with the Native American Indians. He made a dictionary of Indian, German and English words so the colonists and natives could talk to each other. The Native Americans taught him about healing through plants. During the Revolutionary War, deBenneville doctored both the British and American soldiers. He died at the age of 90 having truly lived his Universalist principles of the loving kindness of God and the preciousness of every human life.
John Murray (1741 -1815)
Like George deBenneville, John Murray grew up in a Calvinist family. He tried hard to please his father and mother, to study and pray and do well in everything, to prove that God had chosen him to be “saved” and to go to heaven. As a married man, John and his wife Eliza became interested in the Universalist ideas which a small group of people were preaching in London. Together they studied the new ideas of a loving God and soon decided to join the Universalists. Although this caused them to lose many old friends, they found hope instead of stern judgement in their new religion. It brought them new friends and great happiness. Murray even preached from time to time in their small church.
Then tragedy struck. The next year both Eliza and their one-year old son got sick and died. Devastated by this loss and hoping to leave his old life behind, Murray sailed to America in1770. The ship struck a sandbar off the coast of New Jersey and while they waited for the tide to rise, John went ashore to get supplies. Standing beside the first cabin he came to was a small church. The farmer who owned the church, Thomas Potter, invited John to stay the night. That evening Potter told him how he had built the little church and was waiting for someone to come who would preach about a loving God who saves all people, not just a chosen few. Potter told John that when he saw the ship on the sandbar a small voice inside him said, “There, in that ship may be the preacher you are expecting.” He was right! Though Murray had intended never to preach again, he agreed to preach the next Sunday. That was the beginning of the Universalist Church in America! Murray settled in Gloucester, Massachusetts where despite angry protests from some, he preached to a growing number of people as the “good news” of Universalism began to spread.
Joseph Priestley (1733 – 1804)
You are more likely to hear the name Joseph Priestley in a science class than in most Sunday Schools in America. That’s because he is best known as the scientist who discovered oxygen. But he also started the first Unitarain Church in America!
As a young man Priestley studied ministry in England. Because he did not agree with the idea of the Trinity, the only churches which would hire him were small and poor and generally not very successful. For a livelihood, he turned to teaching and developed a fascination with scientific experimentation. He continued his interest in religion too, writing books and preaching in a Unitarian church in England. Then at age 58 Priestley was accused of being a traitor to England because he supported the idea of equality of all people and thought the laws should be changed to allow religious freedom. One night an angry mob burned both the Unitarian Church where Priestley spoke and Priestley’s home and beloved laboratory in Birmingham. He and his wife fled to London (about 100 miles away), traveling only at night so as not to be caught. But life in London was still very hard for the Priestleys. Many people would not associate with them. They decided to go to America. When they arrived in Philadelphia, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams all sent letters of welcome, because of Priestley’s fame as a scientist. Free to speak about his Unitarian beliefs, Priestley established the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia in 1776. It was the first official Unitarian church in America.
Growth and Change
Unitarian Universalists today honor the courage of these three men and their families. Many others followed in their footsteps as Unitarianism and Universalism grew, first in the New England states and then across the country with the pioneering ministry of many Unitarian and Universalist women. In 1961 the Unitarians and Universalists joined together to become one organization. More and more people join our churches every year. As we grow in numbers, so too do we grow as a religion, always responding to new ideas and changes in the world. Ours is a living tradition with a long history and a bright future!
Frequently Asked Questions about ISLAM
Islam is the name of the religion Muslims follow. Maybe you have a good friend who is Muslim, or a neighbor or family member and you know a lot about it. Maybe you’ve never thought about these words. Our thoughts are made up of the facts we know about something combined with our feelings about it. One feeling we often get when we don’t know very much about something is fear. I bet you can think of lots of examples of this-like little kids who are afraid of friendly clowns until they learn that a clown is a person dressed in a costume. The more we know about something the less afraid we are. Another thing that can happen when we don’t know very much about something is that we make assumptions, which is a big word for guessing and believing without really knowing.
This is a hard time to be a Muslim in America because many people don’t know very much about Islam. Read the FAQs (frequently asked questions) below. The more we learn about people who are different from us, the more respect we will have for them and the less afraid we will be of them. Respect and care for people who are different from us are important to Unitarian Universalist people.
Q. What do Muslims believe?
A. Muslims believe in one God, whom they call Allah. They believe that one man, Muhammad, was chosen by Allah in A.D. 610 to be the last prophet, the last person to bring God’s message to the people of earth. They believe that other prophets came before Muhammad, including the Jewish prophets (like Moses) and the Christian prophets (like Jesus). They believe that all the prophets were human beings put on earth to teach people how to live peacefully and how to worship one God. Muslim people believe that Muhammad was the last prophet and so his words are the final and most important words to live by today. Like Judaism and Christianity that came before it, Islam is a religion of peace, kindness, and forgiveness.
Q. What is the Koran?
A. The Koran, or Qur’an, is the Muslim holy book. Muslims believe it is the record of exact words God said to the Prophet Muhammad. It is written in Arabic, so all Muslims learn Arabic.
Q. What are the ‘Five Pillars’ of Islam?
A. Muslims believe that after death people will go to Paradise or to Hell depending on how well they have lived their lives as Muslims, how well they have followed Islamic laws and fulfilled their duties to God. Every Muslim has 5 duties, called the Five Pillars of Islam. They are:
First Pillar: Make a statement of belief that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah.
Second Pillar: Pray five times a day: at dawn, noon, afternoon, evening and nightfall. The prayer, called Salat, takes about 15 minutes and is done facing toward Mecca (the holiest place in Islam, in Saudi Arabia).
Third Pillar: Muslims must give part of their money or possessions to charity.
Fourth Pillar: Muslims must fast (not eat or drink) in the daytime during the month of Ramadan (The exact dates of Ramadan vary from year to year because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar. See pages 5 and 6 of the booklet, Cycle of Seasons* for more information about lunar calendars.)
Fifth Pillar: Muslims must try to make a pilgrimage (travel) to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes.
Q. Where do Muslims live today?
A. Muslims live all over the world. Many live in countries where people speak Arabic, like Saudi Arabia where Islam started. But millions of others, in fact most Muslims live in non-Arabic speaking countries. About 7 million Muslims live in the United States. Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions in the world.
Q. Why do some Muslim women wear scarves on their heads and veils over their faces?
A.Islam teaches both men and women to be modest, to wear clothes that cover their bodies loosely. In some Islamic countries, women are required to cover their bodies so only their faces and hands show. Muslims believe this protects women from being stared at and that helps people to give them respect. The scarf many Muslim women wear is called a "hijab." In only a few, very strict Islamic countries are Muslim women required to cover their faces.
Q.What is jihad? What does Islam say about terrorism?
A.In the Arabic language the word "jihad" means "struggle," to try your best and put out a great effort. In Islam, it means to struggle to be a good Muslim-sometimes to struggle within yourself to live by Islamic rules and to be the best Muslim you can be. Islam does not support terrorism! Muslims who commit terrorist acts are not following Islam. They are wrongly using the name of Islam to get more power.
Q.Can Jews or Christians live in Islamic countries?
A.Yes. Islamic law allows people to practice any religion they want. In general, Muslims are very tolerant of religious differences.
*If you are a member of CLF, your family got a copy of The Cycle of Seasons booklet when you joined. If you can’t find it, look lunar calendar up in the encyclopedia.
Exploring — Meditative Nature Walk
15 minutes
Introduce the meditative nature walk by saying something like, "We will be going to__________. It is a silent walk, so there is no talking. Each of us will walk alone."
As you walk, try to put your thoughts about the past and thefuture aside. Try to keep all of your attention right here and now on whatever you are seeing, hearing, feeling, and so on."
As you walk, look for a natural object that somehow catches your attention in a special way: a rock, a branch, a leaf, a pine cone, or whatever. Don’t pick anything that’s still alive, however, because a Hindu would not choose to act in that way.
"Once you have found a special object, sit down with that object before you or in your hands. Take the rest of the time to focus all of your attention just on that one object.
"That silent walk will last for ten minutes. After ten minutes I’ll ring the bell to let you know the time has gone by. Please come back to the gathering point when you hear the bell. Also, please be sure that you stay close enough to me so you can hear the bell."
Lead the group on an outdoor meditative walk.
LIST OF STAMPS and their NUMBERS
UNITED STATES
2146 Abigail Adams
806 John Adams
811 John Quincy Adams
862 Louisa May Alcott
2010 Horatio Alger
784 Susan B. Anthony
967 Clara Barton
1683 Telephone (Alexander Graham Bell)
1399 Elizabeth Blackwell
1781 Boston State House (Thomas Bulfinch)
876 Luther Burbank
1551 Christmas (Nathaniel Currier)
1844 Dorothea Dix
871 Charles W Eliot
861 Ralph Waldo Emerson
818 Millard Fillmore
1030 Benjamin Franklin
887 Daniel Chester French
1177 Horace Greeley
2047 Nathaniel Hawthorne
1288 Oliver Wendell Holmes
870 Mark Hopkins
2177 Julia Ward Howe
1278 Thomas Jefferson
864 Henry W Longfellow
866 James Russell Lowell
869 Horace Mann
1050 John Marshall
2094 Herman Melville
890 Samuel FB. Morse
1281 Francis Parkman
2038 Joseph Priestley
1048 Paul Revere
2055 Charles Steinmetz
1275 Adlai Stevenson
1293 Lucy Stone
884 Gilbert Stuart
685 William H. Taft
1327 Henry D. Thoreau
1380 Daniel Webster
2170 Paul Dudley White
1280 Frank Lloyd Wright
1875 Whitney Young
CANADIAN
274 Alexander Graham Bell
518 Arthur Lismer (painting)
879 Emily Stowe
858 Robert S. Weir (Three composers)
Are the stories in the Bible true?
Timeless Themes by Gowdy, Moore, and Skwire, and Connections by CLF
Goal: To understand that the Bible is a collection of stories, written long ago. To understand that “truth” can mean a story that is true for us in meaning but not necessarily historical fact.
Preparation:
• Read “Background for Teachers”
• Collect a variety of Bibles from your local library, family or friends. (If you are interested in purchasing a family resource, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible, by Jim Bell and Stan
Campbell—is very kid-friendly)
• Print Bible Trivia Questions and/or Bible Pictionary quotations and background and instructions. Cut into strips.
• Print “Beatitudes of Jesus” by Rev. F. Forrester Church
Activities:
Introduce the topic by saying something like the following.:
The Bible is not historically true and accurate like a dictionary, but it is not fiction, like Harry Potter books either. It is a mixture of history and stories that hold truth, like myths and poetry. As one girl said [a myth] “is something that is true on the inside, but maybe not the outside.” Stories in the Bible are not always true on the outside but there are parts that teach us something that is true on the inside.
Use the example of Jonah and the Whale. It probably couldn’t be true, but Hebrews used it to illustrate how someone who tried to avoid doing something unpleasant couldn’t escape it. Jonah tried to flee when Yahweh asked him to take a trip to Nineva and tell them about God’s message. The truth, the wisdom for us, is that when we try to avoid doing something unpleasant, it may well feel like we are being swallowed alive. Finally when we realize that we might as well just DO IT, we are released.
Think of a time when you felt “swallowed alive” by some issue—avoiding an unpleasant job or avoiding confessing the truth. Ask your kids to think of a time they did. Discuss.
UUs value wisdom and learning, changing and growing. By reading these stories and searching for the inside truth, we are being helped to learn and grow.
Play Bible Trivia Game:
Divide your family into 2 groups if possible and give each group a pile of trivia questions. One group pulls a question from their pile and poses it to the other group. Discuss among yourselves. If the group answers correctly, they try to answer another question. Continue until they are stumped, or until you want to switch roles. If you come on a question that no one knows the answer to, try to find the answer in the Bibles you have collected.
Play Bible Pictionary:
Like the popular Pictionary games, this one involves 2 teams and paper and pencils for drawing the word to be guessed. Place the quotes in a basket. Taking turns, teams draw a quote from the pile. Each quote has one key word in bold face type. The object of the game is to get your teammates to guess the key word in the quote using only pictures. After the word is guessed, the team finds the quote in one of the Bibles you have collected. Play a few rounds without a timer to see how you do and then add a time limit to make it more challenging.
Who owns water and air and the earth?
& We Believe by the UUA
Goal:
To think about possession and ownership as it relates to things that are essential to life and natural resources. To introduce the concept of stewardship.
Preparation:
If you choose to act out the story, you will need:
Copies of the script for each reader
Puppets for each animal character – puppet parts and body pattern
Clay or playdoh for making coils to be the well
Activites:
Read: The Chief of the Well, or
Act out the dramatic skit of this story in We Believe
Discuss:
Did the lizard, placed in charge of the well, own the water supply? Can you think of people who have the idea that they own something when they are placed in charge of it?
Why didn’t the lizard want the other animals to share the water? Did he want it it all for himself? Did he enjoy exerting power? Are people this way sometimes? What is the meaning of the expression ‘drunk with power.’
Is it possible, on the other hand, that the lizard was so concerned about his responsibility that he was too careful? Do you know of anyone who is this way?
Social Action:
Introduction: This story says that the water (and air and the earth) belong to God, that these belong to everyone. The earth is owned not by the biggest or the smartest or the richest, but by all who live on it, from the tiniest insect to the tallest tree. What’s more, we are all connected in ways we don’t even understand. People who study these connections between living things are called ecologists. One way to think about the earth and the air surrounding it is as an ark, like Noah’s. A man named Buckminster Fuller used a more modern image, the spaceship. “Spaceship Earth” was the title he used to describe the notion that we are like travelers on a spaceship. We can only carry so much of the things we need to survive, just like Noah on the Ark. Our life support system, so to speak, is limited. What do we need to survive? Food (plants and animals), clean air, clean water. On our “Spaceship Earth” we only have limited supplies of these necessary things. So, what do we need to do? Be careful not to wst, not to use them up, not to spoil them. We need to be good “stewards” of our spaceship. (A “steward” is one who manages or takes care of another’s property.)
Make a list of things you do, or could start doing, in your family to be good stewards. There are big things like recycling or boycotting potentially dangerous products and little things like conserving paper by using both sides, not letting the water run while you brush your teeth, and turning off the lights when you’re not using them.
Ask each member of the family to make a commitment to do at least one new thing to be a good steward of “Spaceship Earth.” Share with each other what you’re going to do. Decide on a group project that you could all work on together. Check out your local library (and the Resources section of this website) for ideas.
Background for Teachers for "Was Jesus really born on Christmas?"
"In our manner of telling the story of the birth of Jesus… we have tried to give some understanding of how the story first came to be told, and in addition we have placed it alongside the stories of the miraculous births of Buddha and Confucius. With the three stories side by side, it is hoped that children may be given a broader understanding which will enable them to think for themselves. We hope that the result will not be merely a negative disbelief; that it may rather be a new appreciation of the significance to humankind of a truly great person and a realization that all people everywhere feel touched by an unutterable mystery when in the presence of a newborn babe." – Sophia Lyons Fahs in From Long Ago and Many Lands
