SPIRIT OF LIFE
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 2: SING IN MY HEART: CELEBRATIONS AND RITUALS
REVISED
BY REVEREND BARBARA HAMILTON-HOLWAY
© Copyright 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 9:22:47 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
We covenant to affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
The living tradition we share draws from... Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life... — Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association
In this workshop, participants focus attention on spiritual moments experienced in celebrations and rituals. Discussion helps participants name and explore experiences of wonder, awe, and connection they have had as individuals, as well as in family, group, and congregational life. The activities help participants recognize and claim their ability to create meaningful ritual, without props and in a short amount of time.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | 0 |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Singing "Spirit of Life" | 5 |
Activity 2: Celebrations and Rituals | 20 |
Activity 3: Grounding | 5 |
Activity 4: Creating Ritual Together | 30 |
Activity 5: Story — The Gates of the Forest | 5 |
Activity 6: Reflecting on Ritual | 15 |
Faith in Action: Rituals in Social Justice Work | |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Ritual in the Congregation | 30 |
Alternate Activity 2: Ritual in Your Life | 15 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Reflection. Before leading this workshop, you may wish to set aside some time to reflect on your personal experiences and understanding of ritual. Either individually or together, co-leaders can use the workshop activities to spark and structure your reflection. Doing so will also prepare you to explain and lead the activities.
Practice. Setting aside some moments to pray, to meditate, or to envision your good intentions for the workshop can help you to center yourself before you begin leading. A centered leader who is present and responsive while facilitating is likely to lead an effective workshop.
Review Workshop 1, Leader Resource 1, Accessibility Guidelines for Workshop Presenters, for general tips to make your workshop welcoming to people with physical disabilities and sensitivities.
WORKSHOP PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
As participants enter, invite them to sign in and create nametags.
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 1. Indicate the unison chalice-lighting words on the handout.
Welcome participants and offer a brief introduction to this workshop. Use these words, or your own:
Welcome to this program on Unitarian Universalist spirituality as expressed in the celebration and rituals we use in our congregational life and in our home lives. Celebrations and rituals are ways to appreciate life, face grief and sorrow, share joy and gratitude, and deepen relationships and core commitments.
In this workshop, we will explore how celebration and ritual can support our spirituality and spiritual growth. I am so glad you are here!
Tell participants that the opening for this workshop includes some additional elements to enrich the group's investigation of celebrations and rituals. If you have added objects to your altar or centering table, explain that you have added these objects to provide an example of how someone might personalize an altar for ritual.
Light the dripless candle from the votive candle flame, and secure the dripless candle in its heatproof holder or prepare the LED battery-operated candle. Say:
Unitarian Universalists believe the flame of truth, the spark of divinity, the light of knowledge, the warmth of love, and the energy of action are present in every person. In celebration of that affirmation, we will pass this candle around the room to each person.
When the candle comes to you, please call out your name clearly and slowly, so we have time to hear each name and see each face. After this candle has been passed among all our hands and connected to all our voices and faces, we will light our chalice and join together in a unison chalice-lighting reading.
Allow participants to pass the candle, each saying their names. After all participants have said their names, invite a participant to light the chalice using the dripless candle or to place the LED battery-operated candle in the chalice and lead the group in reciting the unison chalice-lighting words.
Invite participants to read silently with you as you read aloud the Unitarian Universalist Principle and Source that this workshop highlights.
ACTIVITY 1: SINGING "SPIRIT OF LIFE" (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain that this workshop focuses on the line "Sing in my heart."
Invite participants to rise in body or spirit and sing "Spirit of Life," by Carolyn McDade, Hymn 123 in Singing the Living Tradition.
If your congregation has a tradition of using body movement or sign language to accompany this song, you may invite participants to share in this movement while they sing together.
Including All Participants
The invitation to "rise in body or spirit" accommodates participants of all physical abilities.
ACTIVITY 2: CELEBRATIONS AND RITUALS (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain that this workshop explores rituals and celebrations in both our congregational and personal lives. Ask:
What are rituals?
After the group proposes some ideas, you may communicate your own idea of ritual, or share this one:
Rituals are customary observances or practices. In a religious context, a ritual can be thought of as a set of actions infused with symbolic value. They mark both the transient and the permanent in the sacred journey of living—they can highlight changes in our lives or highlight those things that don't change.
Invite participants to name a few rituals and celebrations in the congregation's life. You may offer examples, such as lighting the chalice, a child dedication, or a Coming of Age ceremony.
Distribute writing paper and pens and pencils. Invite participants to position themselves comfortably for reflection and writing.
Say:
Unitarian Universalist minister Frances West says, "Human beings have a desire to worship because it scratches what itches in the human condition."
Take a moment to remember a worship service, a rite of passage, a celebration with friends, a family ritual, or a holiday celebration that addressed a need in your soul.
Pause for a moment, giving participants time to recall a memory. Then say:
What are the sights, sounds, smells, touches, tastes, actions, silence, words, motions you remember? What was the need, or longing, that was addressed?
Explain that participants have two minutes to make some notes about the ritual or celebration they remember. After two minutes, ring the bell.
Ask participants to form pairs. Encourage them to partner with people whom they do not know well. Offer these instructions:
You are invited to discuss the experiences that you just spent time recalling and writing about. You can share whatever is comfortable. If you remembered things that you would rather keep private, that is fine. Each person will have three minutes to talk while the other listens. When it is your turn to listen, simply listen and do not speak. Listening can be a spiritual practice in and of itself.
I will ring the bell when it is time to switch roles.
Time the discussions. Ring the bell at three minutes, and again at six minutes to conclude the sharing. Bring participants' attention back to the large group. Lead the whole group in discussion with these questions:
ACTIVITY 3: GROUNDING (5 MINUTES)
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite participants to rise to their feet or sit up in their chairs. Tell them that the group will try some simple movements, as each person is willing and able. Speak slowly, allowing pauses for stretching and centering.
Using these instructions or your own, lead the exercise:
Many rituals involve body movement. As we get started with creating our own ritual today, let's engage our bodies and help ourselves get grounded. Please move only as you are able and comfortable.
Feel your feet on the ground. Imagine them solidly on the ground, rooted. Feel your physical center—your core. Breathe into your core. Feel it as strong and solid. Feel your center.
Much that happens in this world can make us feel off balance. Yet, in this moment, we can feel grounded. We can feel centered.
Imagine roots going down from your feet through the floor, deep into the ground. You are a mighty tree in a mighty forest.
As we can, let's gently move our heads. Move our shoulders. Move our arms. Move our hands.
Let's free up and shake out our upper bodies, while keeping our sense of having roots.
Take a deep breath. Now let it out. How about some more deep breaths? Let out a sound as you release the breath.
Demonstrate deep breathing with exhaled sound and repeat several times. You may wish to encourage deeper breaths and louder sounds. Allow plenty of time for all participants to experience their own breathing.
Invite participants to relax their bodies into stillness. Thank participants and invite them to come back to their chairs.
Including All Participants
Be sensitive to the range of physical abilities in the group as you lead the activity. Pay attention to the volume of your own voice as you move. Some participants may be unable to hear you if your face and voice are directed away from them. Deliver instructions when you are upright and facing the group.
ACTIVITY 4: CREATING RITUAL TOGETHER (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain the activity using these or your own words:
Meaningful worship and rituals do not necessarily require a lot of props or extensive planning. In the next fifteen minutes, you will create a ritual together that celebrates the loving community we can have in our congregation. It is connected to today's Principle, "Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations." Each of five small groups will be responsible for one section of the ritual.
Using Leader Resource 1, describe the five elements of a ritual. You may wish to read aloud from the leader resource, or use these brief descriptions:
"Centering" opens the ritual, calling participants to pay attention and ground themselves in the ritual's purpose.
"Sharing the journey" tells or enacts a story.
"Meditating or praying" allows a time for naming hopes and connecting with the Spirit of Life.
"Moving" uses body movement to express transition and emotion.
"Closing" expresses gratitude and closes the ritual in a way that helps participants carry its spirit forward.
Invite participants to move to areas of the room you designate for work on each stage of the ritual, according to their preferences. Ask for volunteers to join smaller groups to equalize the sizes of all five groups. Give each group its instruction slip for Part I, II, III, IV or V that you have cut out from Leader Resource 1.
Explain that groups will have ten minutes to plan their part of a ritual and that the entire group will enact the ritual together when the planning time is up. Each element of the ritual should last no longer than two minutes.
Make yourself available to answer groups' questions and to help them generate ideas.
When ten minutes have passed, re-gather the group to enact the ritual.
Remind participants of the flow of the events: Centering, Sharing the Journey, Meditating or Praying, Moving, and Closing. Explain that silence will link the five stages of the ritual; small groups must be ready to move the ritual forward without prompting. Ask participants to pay attention to the flow of the ritual as a whole, and to observe how their small group's work contributes to the overall experience.
Invite participants to get comfortable in their chairs, take some deep breaths, and prepare to receive the ritual. Signal the first small group to begin.
After the ritual, guide a discussion with these questions:
Including All Participants
Encourage small groups to be sensitive to the range of physical ability among participants and to create ritual that includes all.
ACTIVITY 5: STORY — THE GATES OF THE FOREST (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Tell participants that you will share a story that will guide a discussion about the purpose of ritual in our lives.
Invite participants to sit comfortably and listen to a story from the preface to Elie Wiesel's novel, The Gates of the Forest. You may wish to use a cordless microphone to ensure that all participants can hear you.
Pause at the conclusion. Then, invite comment and conversation in response to the story.
ACTIVITY 6: REFLECTING ON RITUAL (15 MINUTES)
Description of Activity
Explore the purposes and functions of celebration and ritual. Use these questions:
Note participants' responses, and listen for the reasons listed below; if you do not hear these, you may wish to contribute them.
Rituals and ceremonies:
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather participants around the altar or centering table.
Affirm the good work that participants have done in this workshop. Invite participants to "take the workshop home" and explain the activities on the Taking It Home handout, as needed.
Invite participants to rise in body or spirit. Ask participants to link arms as willing and able, holding Handout 1 in readiness. Lead the group in reading the closing words together.
Extinguish the chalice.
Including All Participants
Be sure to be inclusive of people with a variety of living situations—living alone, with a significant other, in a family, with housemates, etc.—in the way you explain the Taking It Home activities.
FAITH IN ACTION: RITUALS IN SOCIAL JUSTICE WORK
Description of Activity
Invite participants to reflect upon the ways in which communal rituals can be used to celebrate, honor, or deepen social justice work. Suggest rituals in which participants may have taken part, such as a Jewish Seder ritual remembering our responsibility to work for freedom for all or an Earth Day ritual that reminds renews our commitment to the interdependent web or existence.
As a group or as individuals, consider working with your parish minister, religious educator, or worship committee to create a ritual honoring, celebrating, or deepening the congregation's commitment to a justice-making or service project. For example, some congregations bless the feet of those who participate in pledge walks. Consider creating rituals to honor the beginning of a project, significant milestones, or a project's completion.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
After the workshop, co-facilitators should make a time to get together to evaluate this workshop and plan future workshops. Use these questions to guide your shared reflection and planning:
TAKING IT HOME
We covenant to affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
The living tradition we share draws from... Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life. — Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Discuss some of your ideas about ritual and celebration with people who are important to you.
If you have begun to plan a ritual in this workshop, consider enacting the ritual. You could do this on your own or with your family, your household members, or another group. Or, discuss with members of the congregation how you can include the new ritual in your congregational practices.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: RITUAL IN YOUR CONGREGATION (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite participants to name rituals that are part of their congregational life (e.g. Christmas Eve candlelight service, Coming of Age service, water ceremony) Distribute Handout 2 and read it aloud.
Invite participants to move into groups of four to explore how the described elements of ritual appear in the congregational rituals they have named. Invite each group to consider one of the named congregational rituals and use Handout 2 as a guide to help them explore the way in which the ritual is created. Allow ten minutes for groups to work together. Gather the whole group and invite the small groups to share their thoughts about the elements of the congregational ritual they examined.
After all groups have shared, allow time for general comment, observation, and conversation.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: RITUAL IN YOUR LIFE (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite participants into a time for individual, silent reflection and writing on the three questions. Distribute writing paper and pens or pencils. Pose the questions aloud that you have posted on newsprint.
Ring a bell to open the time for silent reflection and writing. After ten minutes, ring the bell again.
SPIRIT OF LIFE: WORKSHOP 2:
STORY: THE GATES OF THE FOREST
By Elie Wiesel, from The Gates of the Forest.
When the great Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light the fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.
Years later when a disciple of the Ba'al Shem-Tov, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer," and again the miracle would be accomplished.
Still later, another rabbi, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say, "I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.
The years passed. And it fell to Rabbi Israel of Ryzhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.
SPIRIT OF LIFE: WORKSHOP 2:
HANDOUT 1: SING IN MY HEART
UNISON CHALICE LIGHTING
We light this chalice in affirmation and acceptance of one another.
Each of us has a piece of the truth
and we need one another to be more whole.
May we each bring to our gathering an openness
to the forces that create and uphold life.
May our time together in ritual and celebration
renew our spirits, deepen our community,
and inspire us to lead lives of wholeness, justice and joy.
UNISON CLOSING WORDS
We give thanks for this time together,
for one another's ideas, for our creativity and shared ritual.
May our affirmation and acceptance of one another
and our common celebration of life make us strong.
As we extinguish this chalice,
the flame of truth, the spark of divinity, the light of knowledge,
the warmth of love, the energy of action glow on in each of us
and together the radiance grows brighter.
May it ever be so.
FOCUSING PRINCIPLE AND SOURCE
This workshop is grounded in the following Principle and Source from the Purposes and Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association:
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.
SPIRIT OF LIFE: WORKSHOP 2:
HANDOUT 2: WORKSHEET FOR CREATING SACRED SPACE AND RITUAL SPACE
As you create a sacred space or centering place for a ritual or celebration, you might like to consider these questions:
STRUCTURE
In The Art of Ritual (Celestial Arts, 2003), authors Sydney Barbara Metrick and Renee Beck identify three stages of effective rituals and rites of passage. Make some notes about what you might do at each of these stages.
Preparation: includes naming intentions for the ritual, planning it, choosing the objects that will be involved, and finding the space and the time.
Manifestation: includes building a sacred space, declaring intentions, invoking the Spirit of Life, enacting the ritual, offering blessing, and providing closure.
Grounding: involves integrating the results of the ritual into day-to-day life. Includes taking down the altar, evaluating the experience, and emotionally integrating the experience.
SPIRIT OF LIFE: WORKSHOP 2:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: A RITUAL CELEBRATING A LOVING COMMUNITY
Cut sheet into 5 strips along dotted lines.
A Ritual Celebrating a Loving Community
Part I
Centering: Create a simple opening to the ritual, with words, song, movement, candle light, or whatever your imagination calls to you, for the purpose of calling us together around the theme of celebrating a loving community.
A Ritual Celebrating a Loving Community
Part II
Sharing the Journey: Tell or enact a short story of an experience of loving community within the congregation. First, you may quickly share experience and then come to agreement on what to share in the ritual. How will you share it? Can more than one person tell the story? Can all of you tell the story?
A Ritual Celebrating a Loving Community
Part III
Meditation or Prayer: Create a reflective, meditative or prayerful expression of hope for loving community among us. How will you present this? With one voice? In unison? With several voices speaking in turn? Where will you locate yourselves?
A Ritual Celebrating a Loving Community
Part IV
Moving into Loving Community: Create poses that embody loving community with the congregation. Pick a series of poses, and put them in an order, and create transitions. Think of this as movement and body sculpture that expresses loving community. Will you "present" this, or is there a way to involve all of us in this movement?
A Ritual Celebrating a Loving Community
Part V
Closing: Create a closing to our ritual celebrating loving community. What are the images you want us to take with us? How can you use your voices, or simple movements, to express these images? How can you help us to end this ritual with a feeling of gratitude?
FIND OUT MORE
Recommended reading:
The Art of Ritual: Creating and Performing Ceremonies for Growth and Change by Renee Beck and Sydney Barbara Metrick (Berkeley, California: Celestial Arts, 2004).
Transforming Rituals: Daily Practices for Changing Lives by Roy M. Oswald with Jean Morris Trumbauer (Herndon, Virginia: Alban Institute, 1999).