Tapestry of Faith: Resistance and Transformation: An Adult Program on Unitarian Universalist Social Justice History

Closing

Activity time: 10 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Worship or centering table and chalice
  • Participant journals
  • Writing materials, including paper, pens, pencils, color pencils, and markers
  • Taking It Home handout

Preparation for Activity

  • Customize the Taking It Home section of this workshop and copy for all participants.

Description of Activity

Invite participants to respond in their journals, to these questions:

Are there people whom you have influenced due to your actions on behalf of peace and justice? What would you like your own justicemaking legacy to be?

Allow five minutes for writing.

Read this quote from Mary Livermore:

We are approaching the era when war shall be no more. The world is ready for it. Unconsciously, and unintentionally, the powers that be have been preparing for it. For they have increased the destructive power of the enginery of war so marvelously, that the nations employing it against each other will both suffer almost irreparable injury. When a handful of men can blow up a navy, and another handful can annihilate an army, war ceases to be war, and become assassination. If we should wake tomorrow to find that all civilized armies were to be disbanded, all fortifications to be dismantled, and the giant battleships transformed into vessels for peaceful uses, how much the world would gain by the change!... The prophecy of two thousand years ago that there should be "peace on earth and good-will to [all]" would begin to be verified. Between two and three billions of dollars, now wrung annually from the people for military purposes, would not then be called for, and would increase the resources of the masses, and add to their material comforts. How the certainty that war had ceased forever would loosen the brakes now held down on the wheels of the world's progress!

Distribute Taking It Home and encourage participants to continue to write in their journals between workshops.

Invite a participant to come forward and extinguish the chalice as you say the following words: "As we extinguish this chalice, may we let the light of our tradition kindle our hope for a better world."