Goal:
To talk about Principle One (The inherent worth and dignity of every person) adn the meaning of the words on the "bingo game"

Preparation:
Print & distribute bingo cards for each person – Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7
Collect & distribute beans or button tokens to every player

How to Play:
The leader will call out words from the list below, saying, for example, "We believe that you are awesome–‘A’ for awesome." The players will cover their words as they are called, using beans or buttons. Take time to discuss what the words mean, and how they relate to Principle 1. The game is finished when someone has three words covered going in a straight or diagonal line. Or you can decide to play "full house" (every word on a player’s board is covered). Play enough rounds to familiarize everyone with the words below.

Word list:

awesome
excellent
important
nice
remarkable
unique

Characters:
Siddhartha Guatama
Queen Maya
An elephant
A charioteer (Channa)
A sick man, an old man and a dead man (one person)
A monk
Siddhartha’s wife and child
A large tree
Mara, the evil spirit

Props:
an umbrella
a large tree
a belt with sword
paper flowers
cane
bathrobe

Scene 1: Buddha’s birth, 563 BCE in India
Characters: Queen Maya, elephant, Siddhartha
Props: paper flowers

One night Queen Maya had a wonderful dream in which an elephant with six tusks, carrying a lotus flower in its trunk, touched her right side. At that moment a child was miraculously conceived. When Queen Maya told her husband of this dream he called the Brahmins (or wise men) to interpret it. They predicted that a son would be born who would become either a great king or a great religious leader. His name would be Siddhartha, which means "he whose aim is accomplished." According to legend, Siddhartha later emerged as an infant from his mother’s right side, walked seven steps in the four directions of the compass and said, "No further births have I to endure, for this is my last body. Now shall I destroy and pluck out by the roots the sorrow that is caused by birth and death." According to tradition, it rained flowers at the time of Siddhartha’s birth.

Scene 2: Siddhartha grows up
Characters: Siddhartha
Props: umbrella

The King very much wanted Siddhartha to grow up to become a great king, not a religious leader. So he decided to give him everything he desired and protect him from all sorrows and trouble, so he would never want to leave the palace. The prince was never allowed to go alone outside the palace grounds. He never saw sick, injured, or old people, and he was never told of death. He learned all the arts of royalty: to shoot with a bow and arrow, drive a chariot. ride a horse. He wore silk clothes and always carried an umbrella over his head to protect him from the sun and dust. At age 16 he married a beautiful princess. In time they had a child and were very happy together.

Scene 3: The "Four Sights" that changed Siddhartha’s life
Characters: Siddhartha, Channa (charioteer), old man, monk
Props: cane, bathrobe

At age 29, Siddhartha called his faithful charioteer Channa to take him for a secret ride outside the palace grounds. As they drove through the city, Siddhartha saw three things he had never seen before. One was an old man lying on the road, groaning with pain. "What is the matter with this man?" he asked Channa. "He is sick and in pain," Channa answered. "But why should anyone have to suffer such pain?" Siddhartha asked. Channa shrugged his shoulders, "It is the way of life." And they traveled on. Soon they came to another man, all bent over and hobbling: along with a cane. "What is the matter with that man?" Siddhartha again asked. "He is old" answered Channa. "It is something that comes to all people who live a long time. Bodies become tired and weak." Finally, they came on a man in rags, Iying beside the road as if he were asleep. "What is wrong with this man?" asked Siddhartha. "He is dead," came the answer. "What does "dead" mean?" Channa answered, "I cannot tell you, but it happens to all people, rich or poor."

Later that same night, when Channa and Siddhartha returned to the city, they saw a man dressed in a yellow robe with a shaven head, begging for food. Siddhartha stopped the chariot and questioned the man, "I am a monk," he replied, "I have adopted a homeless life to win salvation. I search for the most blessed state in which suffering, old age, and death are unknown."

Scene 4: Siddhartha leaves the palace
Characters: Siddhartha, Channa, Siddhartha’s wife and child,
Props: belt with sword, bathrobe

Shocked, Siddhartha returned to the palace and thought about what he had seen. For the first time he was aware of suffering in life, and he felt he could no longer enjoy his own life of ease and riches. That very night Siddhartha decided to leave the palace. "If I were to live like one of these monks, perhaps I could learn the truth about suffering and how to end it." Silently kissing his wife and child goodbye. he asked Channa to drive him to the outskirts of the city. There he took off his jeweled sword and cut off his hair and beard. He took off his Princely clothes, put on the yellow robe of a monk, and told Channa to take his possessions back to his father.

Scene 5: Siddhartha’s wanderings
Characters: Siddhartha

For years Siddhartha wandered throughout northeast India, seeking holy men who taught him, among other things, techniques of meditation. He studied the teachings of Hinduism, the ancient religion of India. He was most interested in Samsara, or reincarnation, the idea that after death a person’s soul is born again in a new body. The common Hindu belief at the time was that only by leading a highly spiritual life (or several lives) could a person break the endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Siddhartha was attracted by this idea and he adopted a life of extreme self-denial, not eating or sleeping and meditating constantly. For six years he stayed along the bank of the Nairanjana River, eating and drinking only enough to stay alive. He was determined to force himself to this highest state of being through self-denial. But over time he only became extremely weak.

Scene 6: Under the Bo Tree
Characters: Siddhartha, evil spirit Mara, Siddhartha’s wife and child
props: large tree

One day, Siddhartha realized that his years of denial had weakened his body to the point where he could not think clearly about the world or religion. So he started to eat normally again. Refreshed by food, he sat down under a fig tree (known to Buddhists as the Bo Tree, the Tree of Enlightenment) and entered a state of very deep meditation. Buddhist scriptures say that during this meditation an evil spirit, Mara, tempted Siddhartha with all sorts of pleasures to distract him. But he was not swayed. His deep meditation continued until he had recalled all of his previous rebirths (550 previous states of existence). He gained knowledge of his cycles of births and deaths, and was able to cast off the things that bound him to the world. He had attained enlightenment, "Nirvana," the end of suffering.

From that day on Siddhartha was known as the Buddha, "the enlightened one," or "the one who has found the light." The light that Buddha found was not the kind that you see with your eyes. It was an inward light that makes you feel peaceful and helps you to think more clearly. Tradition says that when Buddha reached Nirvana, he could have cast off his body and his existence. Instead he turned back to the world, determined to share his enlightenment with others so that all living things could end the cycles of their own rebirth and suffering.

During his lifetime Buddha institutionalized his teachings by forming Sangha, a community of monks and nuns who practiced the religion and taught it to others. Buddha’s wife and son joined him in the Sangha, as well as other relatives. Today members of the Sangha continue this tradition and provide an important link with the religion’s founder.

THE END

The flaming chalice in a circle is the symbol of Unitarian Universalism. The flaming chalice is a flame burning the holy oil of helpfulness and sacrifice–spreading warmth and light and hope. The circles in which it is contained represents the Unitarian and Universalist heritages with its concept of worldwide community.

The chalice has been a symbol of liberal religion since the fifteenth century, dating to John Hus in Transylvania. The flaming chalice was adopted by the Unitarian Service Committee in 1941. Its modern story is an interesting one.

Hans Deutsch was an Austrian refugee who lived in Paris until France was invaded in 1940. He had worked in many European countries as a musician, drafter, and portrait artist. Having contributed many cartoons with unflattering content (about Nazism) to several newspapers in Vienna, he fled Paris and finally settled in Portugal. To earn a living he gave lessons in English, one of the eight languages he spoke, and drew portraits. In Portugal, Deutsch joined the staff of the Unitarian Service Committee for six months as secretary and assistant to Dr. Charles E. Joy, then the executive director of the USC.

Dr. Joy asked his new assistant to work in his spare time on designing a symbol for the Committee. The Flaming Chalice was created in response to this request and given to the Committee by Deutsch in appreciation of its humanitarian work.

When Hans Deutsch was threatened with imprisonment in Portugal in June 1941, the USC assisted him in escaping to the United States, where he resides under the name of John H. Derrick.
Recently, the chalice was redesigned and made the official symbol of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

The essence of the Christmas story is the birth of the baby Jesus. No one knows at what time of the year Jesus was born. Long after his death, stories of Jesus’ birth were collected and written down. The growing Christian Church wanted to celebrate his birth, and the church fathers decided that it should be during the most beloved and universal festivals celebrated by people around the world. The time of mid-winter celebrations– festivals of light–was decreed as the time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ–Christmas.

Old festivals and customs were added to the new celebrations of the Christmas story, of the child born in a manger, of shepherds and wise men who visited the manger, and of angels and heavenly hosts who sang and proclaimed the birth. Stories were gathered from many places and times and woven into story and song and poetry that is the magic of Christmas.

Unitarian Universalists are often concerned about interpreting the Christmas festival and all the legends and symbols that have grown up around the story of the birth of Jesus. You may wish to read the story from the Bible. There are two versions in the Gospels: Matthew 1:18-2:12 and Luke 2:1-20.

Or you may wish to tell the Christmas story with natural simplicity emphasizing the wonders of birth and the power of love. Christmas In the Stable or Christmas in the Barn are excellent books with this interpretation for young children. Another possible way of telling the Christmas story is to place it next to the birth stories of Buddha and Confucius as they appear in From Long Ago and Many Lands, edited by Sophia Lyon Fahs.

In this session there is a simple version of the Christmas story. You can select another story or stories you feel is most appropriate to the families in your religious education program and Unitarian Universalist congregation. Remember that it is very difficult for a child of this age to distinguish between fact and symbolic meanings. The messages of hope in times of darkness, hope in a violent world for peace on earth and good will to all people, and the importance and promise of every child born into this world are the central meanings of the Christmas story.

Goal:
To discover the origins of Shabbat/Sabbath as told in the biblical story and to learn the importance to both Judaism and Christianity of a day of rest and worship.

Materials:
A copy of the book The Creation by Stephen Mitchell (or another children’s book that tells the Biblical creation story)
Large piece of mural paper divided into 6 sections, or 6 separate pieces of paper labeled:
First day (light and darkness/day and night)
Second day (sky and earth and seas)
Third day (all kinds of plants
Fourth day (sun, moon, and stars)
Fifth day (living creatures of sky and sea)
Sixth day (living creatures of earth)

Preparation:
Read Background

Activities:
Conversation and Story

Make a mural of the story. Explain that a mural is a big picture with many parts that tells a story from beginning to end. You could divide the sections among family members and put your mural together at the end, or have each family member draw every section and create more than one mural.

When the mural is done and put together, invite everyone to sit and “rest” to affirm the creative efforts of all.