AMAZING GRACE
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 16: LOOK AT ME, WORLD
BY RICHARD KIMBALL
© Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/7/2014 8:34:15 AM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.
— Baltasar Graci
This final session of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong introduces the concepts of values and self-respect. It begins with a final round of Ethics Play and then asks what values make people virtuous. The story of Narcissus leads to a discussion of reasonable self-respect. The group talks about the values and respect their families share with other members of their congregation. Some wall-to-wall questions help the group review the four sessions that focused on ethical development. Faith in Action asks the group to create and sign an ethics covenant.
Note that Alternate Activity 3, Celebration suggests serving refreshments and having an amusing activity for the final group act of Amazing Grace. Doing this may require some extra advance planning.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
ACTIVITY | MINUTES |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Ethics Play | 15 |
Activity 2: Values and Virtues | 10 |
Activity 3: Story and Discussion – Narcissus | 10 |
Activity 4: Shared Values and Respect | 10 |
Activity 5: Wall-to-Wall Questions | 5 |
Faith in Action: Ethics Covenant | 10 |
Closing | 3 |
Alternate Activity 1: Matching in Motion | 10 |
Alternate Activity 2: Closing Celebration | 10 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
In the days before you present this session, think about your own values. Which values do you believe make a person virtuous? Which values contribute to your own self-esteem?
In the moments before you present this session, with all preparations made, make a peaceful moment for yourself and for your connections with all. Breathe deeply. Know that your efforts to assist youth are themselves virtuous. Breathe deeply. Connect with what is good and true. Breathe deeply. Relax. Connect again with your leadership team, and be ready to greet your youth.
SESSION PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Play "Amazing Grace" while participants gather. Use any version you like, bagpipe, voice, or another. As participants enter, greet them. If you have newcomers, greet them warmly and be sure they know others in the room. Give them nametags if others have them. Ask newcomers and old timers alike to look at the Conundrum Corner, but do not say anything more about it. In answer to any questions about it, say you will be talking about it later.
Stop the music, or reduce the volume to a very low background level.
Lead the group in the day's opening rituals—a chalice lighting, a moment of focusing silence, and a moment of sharing.
Light the chalice, or let a youth do so, and speak these words (asking the group to join you if you have posted them):
May this light help us understand and develop good values.
Ask the group to be silent for a moment as they reflect on the opening words and settle in for the session. End the silence by saying, "blessed be," or other appropriate words. Ask the youth to comment on the results of the random acts of kindness suggested for Faith in Action of Session 15. If the group did not do that activity, introduce the concept briefly now and challenge youth to try some random acts of kindness on their own.
Extinguish the chalice without ceremony and move the chalice table aside as necessary to allow movement in the room.
ACTIVITY 1: ETHICS PLAY (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants play a game replicating real-life situations involving ethical decisions.
At the end of the game, connect it to the themes of this session by asking participants to identify the values the various roles used to reach their decisions.
Option: Substitute the ethics challenges developed by your youth in Alternate Activity 2 of Session 15 for those on the leader resource pages. You might also use those challenges as a fun activity for Alternate Activity 3 of this session.
Including All Participants
If some participants have limited mobility, you might wish to have the group remain seated, or at least give individuals a choice between standing and sitting when they speak.
ACTIVITY 2: VALUES AND VIRTUES (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
In this activity, youth create the outline of a "virtuous" human figure by hanging sticky notes on which they have written personal values they consider important.
Ask the youth what the word "values" means to them. Help them understand the concept with ideas like these:
Values are personal characteristics that people think are good. Honesty and truthfulness are examples. You may go to a school where people think school spirit is a value. Boy Scouts say that loyalty and friendliness are two of twelve important character values. Other organizations often talk about different values and families have values, too.
Add that virtuous people, or people with good characters, have good values. Say that now you want the youth to create a list of values that make somebody a virtuous person.
Pass out sticky notes and pencils or markers; see below to determine the number of notes to use. Each youth should take some notes and write a different value on each one. If they are at a loss for ideas, suggest participants think of people they know who they think of as virtuous. What characteristics would they say describe that person? When they have finished, at a signal from you, they will bring the sticky notes to the wall and hang them together in the shape of a human figure.
The number of sticky notes you give each youth should depend on the size of your group and the time you have available. The more you have, the better the chances are that the group will create a good human figure, but more time will be required for writing.
Ask the youth to work separately so that the virtuous person they create will have many different values. Say that as they make the figure, they should think of cooperation as a value and work together until they get a reasonably accurate shape. If they do not have enough sticky notes to cover the full figure, they can build just an outline.
When the figure is finished, ask the group to stand back and read the notes. Are many of the words the same? Does everybody agree that the words reflect values commonly believed to be virtuous?
In the course of discussion, you might mention integrity, if youth have not already done so. One definition of integrity might be "living up to or honoring your own values." You might also add that integrity itself is a value.
Summarize the activity with words like these:
Good values make good characters. Good characters make virtuous people. Virtuous people do good things to make the world a better place. So it pays to think about our own values—what they are and whether they are making us the people we really want to be.
Option: Hang a large newsprint outline of a human figure and let participants attach their sticky notes to that.
ACTIVITY 3: STORY AND DISCUSSION – NARCISSUS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Preface this activity by pointing out the narcissus (real or photographed) in your Conundrum Corner. Ask the youth why they think it is there. You might need to name the flower for them. Accept a few guesses and then provide your own answer by reading the story. Alternately, you might ask for one or more volunteers to read it.
Explain that the story is a Greek myth. Say that there are many different versions of it. In some of them, Narcissus accidentally drowns. In others, he kills himself because he feels badly about how he treated Echo. All the stories agree that Narcissus loved himself too much and that the narcissus flower appeared in the place where his body should have been.
Lead a discussion that introduces the concept of healthy self-love. Offer ideas and questions like these:
You might conclude the activity by remarking that developing healthy self-respect is a challenge for some people. One way to do it is to do good things that help others. Often people who do wrong instead of right things regret it later, and then they do not feel good about themselves. You might also share a quote widely (but perhaps incorrectly) attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion."
ACTIVITY 4: SHARED VALUES AND RESPECT (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Help youth identify shared Unitarian Universalist values and understand the self- and mutual respect those values help to build.
Begin by asking why the youth and their families are members or friends of your congregation. "Why do you and your families come here? What draws you to this congregation instead of another one?"
Through further questions and discussion help the youth understand that Unitarian Universalists gather and are comfortable together because they share the same values.
Divide the youth into smaller groups of three or four participants. Give each group a sheet of newsprint and markers, and ask them to list some Unitarian Universalist values. If you think your group will benefit from some assistance, make available copies of the Unitarian Universalist hymnbooks, pamphlets, and magazines. Youth can look through them to get some ideas of what UU values are.
Allow three or four minutes for the groups to compile their lists. Then bring the full group together and ask each small group in turn to call out values for you or a co-leader to write on newsprint.
Remind the group as appropriate that one excellent example of Unitarian Universalist values is the statement of UU Principles that appears in the front of Singing the Living Tradition and on wall posters. Be sure that your group's lists reflect most if not all of those values.
Continue the activity with questions like these:
Help youth realize that respect for the views of others is a Unitarian Universalist value. This does not mean mindless acceptance of and respect for all ideas. Most UUs do not honor people whose values lead them to lives of violent crime. Ask participants how they would distinguish between differing values they respect and those they might actively oppose. One test might be whether the differing values cause hurt to anybody. It is one thing to respect differing ideas about the existence of God, another to respect values that cause intentional harm.
ACTIVITY 5: WALL-TO-WALL QUESTIONS (5 MINUTES)
Description of Activity
This activity asks youth to move around and show their answers to some belief questions based on Sessions 13 through 16 of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong.
Ask the youth to help move aside any chairs or other furniture that might prevent easy motion. Explain that you are going to play wall-to-wall questions. You will ask a series of questions and you want the youth to show their answers by choosing and moving to one of two opposite walls. Say that there are only two choices for each question; standing in the middle is not an option.
Show the youth the two walls where they are to go in response to the questions. Then ask the questions from the following list, stating after each question which wall represents which answer. Give youth a chance to talk about each question and their responses before moving on to the next one.
I believe...
CLOSING (3 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Briefly summarize what you have done in this session. Hand out any Taking It Home activity suggestions you have prepared. If you have not already done so, return to participants any items they may have created in the course of Amazing Grace.
Note that this is the final session of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong. Say you hope it has been both fun and helpful for the group, and that youth will always remember some of what they talked about and did, especially the ethics covenant they just made. Ask participants to take a few minutes to complete a feedback form on the entire program. Distribute copies of Handout 1, Feedback Form, and pens or pencils. After a few minutes, collect the forms.
If earlier you moved your chalice from its central position, retrieve it and re-light it without fanfare. Ask the group to sit and speak these closing words with you:
As we extinguish this chalice, may its light shine within so we may see the difference between right and wrong.
FAITH IN ACTION: ETHICS COVENANT (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Ask youth to create and sign an ethics covenant.
Begin by asking the group "What do you think an Ethics Covenant might be?" If participants experienced Session 3, Alternate Activity 2, Covenant Making to create a group covenant, refer to that process. If not, explain, if necessary, that a covenant is an agreement, a mutual promise. Mention that the UU Principles are a covenant. In fact, the introduction to the Principles says, "We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalists Association, covenant to affirm and promote" the seven Principles.
Consider reminding the group what the Principles say by pointing to a poster containing them or by passing out copies of the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook, Singing the Living Tradition, in which they appear (see the three unnumbered pages before the first hymn).
Say that the group's challenge is to create an ethics covenant suitable for sixth graders. In other words, how do they think youth of their age should agree to behave?
Give one sample possibility for the covenant: "We agree to be the best people we can be."
What else? Let the youth decide. Remember that youth are covenanting "to do" something and not just to believe it (i.e., "affirm AND promote"). Try to keep the covenant short and keep statements from getting too specific.
When they have completed the covenant, ask if everyone is comfortable signing it. If some participants are not comfortable, find out if there are specific statements that they feel do not belong in the covenant. If you sense any discomfort, do not ask the youth to sign it. If you feel that coming to a consensus on the covenant will be divisive, skip this activity.
Whether signed or unsigned, have a leader make copies for youth to take with them at the end of the session, if possible. This will probably require handwriting the ideas onto a sheet of paper and running it through a copier. If that is not possible, say that you will make copies and send them to the youth. Arrange to have the original covenant, signed or unsigned, displayed where other members of the congregation will see it in the days and weeks to come.
Ask the youth who else should get copies. Parents of the youth? Other religious-education groups in the congregation? The minister? Should the group publish it in the newsletter or share during a worship service?
Help the group decide how to distribute the covenant and then how to follow through.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Celebrate the completion of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong.
Review the feedback forms. Consider what you would change the next time you present the curriculum. Make a record of your ideas and give a copy to your director of religious education.
Congratulate yourselves for your efforts on behalf of Unitarian Universalist youth.
TAKING IT HOME
Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.
— Baltasar Graci
IN TODAY’S SESSION… Today was the last session of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong. We did Ethics Play, and we talked about what kind of values virtuous people have. We heard the story of Narcissus and thought about how much self-respect a person should have. We talked about how the members and friends of our congregation share their values and respect. We answered some wall-to-wall questions, and for Faith in Action, we wrote an ethics covenant. We completed a feedback form on the program.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about…
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Try…
MYSTERY AND ME
Today you gave feedback on the program, but you might have more personal feelings that you did not get an opportunity to share. Use this time to reflect upon the experience of doing this program with your group. Did you make new friends? Did the program answer any questions you had? Did it raise new questions? How will you go about getting answers to new questions?
A FAMILY RITUAL
Talk each day about the right and wrong you have experienced. Did you each do something good you want to share? Is there somebody in the family you want to thank for a virtuous act? Is there something you wish you had not done that you need to talk about? How can you make tomorrow a better day?
A FAMILY GAME
Play values charades. Think of a value that is important to you and act it out without talking for other people to guess what it is, then have other family members do the same thing.
FAMILY DISCOVERY
Find something new your family can do to help the world and build its own self-esteem at the same time. Prove that when people do good things they feel good about themselves.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: MATCHING IN MOTION (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity reinforces youth understanding of twelve terms introduced at different points during Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong. The terms and their definitions can be found (in unmatched order) in Leader Resource 2. If you use them all, you will have enough for 24 participants. If your group has fewer than that, either use fewer pairs of terms and definitions, consider doing the activity twice in order to use more of them, or ask youth to wear more than one name tag. If your group has more than 24 youth, you might divide it into two parts and give each smaller group a set of labels to use. If you have an uneven number of participants, have a leader join the activity by displaying a label and passively waiting for the appropriate youth to join them.
Before handing out the name tags, explain that the youth will now do a matching activity similar to one they may have done for Session 12, Activity 4, Matching in Motion. The difference here is that they will match up with each other in silence. Each person will have either a term or a definition. When you say to begin, they will move around in silence and match themselves up so that the terms and definitions are standing or sitting in pairs. If anybody has trouble finding a partner, others can help by moving the appropriate term and definition together—but they must do this without speaking.
Allow the matching to proceed. When all have paired off, take a quick look to see if all combinations are correct. If not, say that there is a problem and ask the youth to reconsider the pairs, again, by moving around in silence. If this process ends with another error, ask the youth to try again, this time with speaking allowed. If that, too, results in a mismatch, a leader should gently nudge participants around until they are all with the right partners.
Conclude by asking each pair to state its term and definition aloud. Add any information you think will be useful as they do so.
Less active options: You can do this activity more quickly and quietly—but with less fun—by copying Leader Resource 2, Terms and Definitions, handing the copies and pencils to the group, and letting each participant draw lines to match up the terms and definitions. Alternately, write the terms and definitions on index cards, mix them up, and place them on a table. Then invite the group to work together to arrange the cards in pairs. If your group is large, divide it and let smaller groups do the same activity.
Here are the matches youth should create and the session number and the activity number or name where the terms were introduced (FIA stands for Faith in Action and AA stands for Alternate Activity):
Term (Session/Activity) | Definition | Example |
Calling (S7/A3) | Feeling you must do or be something to be true to yourself | He felt called to teach children with special needs. |
Character (S13/A2) | The real you; the qualities that make you you | The way she responded to crisis demonstrated her true character. |
Conscience (S9/A1) | Voice of the soul; an internal sense of right and wrong | Although her friends thought skipping class was cool, her conscience told her it was not. |
Covenant (S16/FIA) | Agreement; mutual promise | They made a covenant not to repeat any personal information shared in the group. |
Faith (S1/FIA) | Spiritual and religious belief; the activity of making meaning; sense of what you trust or know to be true | He had faith that each person’s effort made a difference in the world. |
Golden Rule (S4/A4) | Treat others the way you want them to treat you | Sometimes she found it hard to practice the Golden Rule with her brother. |
Guilt (S6/A3) | Feeling you did something wrong | After he snapped at his mother, he was aware of the uncomfortable feeling of guilt. |
Moral relativity (S10/A3) | What is right depends on the situation | To some, killing a person is always wrong; to some, it depends on the situation—an example of moral relativity. |
Repent (S12/A1) | To feel remorse; to say you are sorry | Yom Kippur is a special Jewish holiday that gives people an opportunity to repent for any hurt they have caused others in the past year. |
Soul (S7/A2) | The deepest part of yourself; the human spirit | Making music always feeds her soul. |
Trinity (S6/A1) | Idea that God is in three parts, not one | Father, Son and Holy Ghost make up the trinity in Catholic theology. |
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: CLOSING CELEBRATION (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Celebrate your group's completion of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong.
Make as much of the occasion as you like, from a brief sharing of refreshments and ideas to a more active party. Consider one or two high-energy activities. Among the possibilities are the High-Energy Rope Pull (Session 1, Alternate Activity 1) and Sins and Virtues Relay Race (Session 2, Activity 3).
Return to your youth any items they may have created in the course of Amazing Grace.
Consider playing the music "Amazing Grace" as background for your event.
AMAZING GRACE: SESSION 16:
STORY: NARCISSUS
It is too bad that Dear Abby was not around in ancient Greece. Some of the characters in the old Greek myths could have used some good advice.
One of them was Narcissus. He was a youth of great beauty. Dazzling beauty. Wondrous beauty. Unimaginable beauty. So much beauty that people old and young fell in love with him at first sight.
Narcissus knew just how they felt, because he loved himself, too. In fact, he loved himself so much that there was no room for anybody else in his life. Not even Echo, who had such a crush on him that she followed him around, whether he wanted her to or not.
Echo was a wood nymph. She was attractive, too, but she had a big problem of her own. She could not stop talking. She repeated everything she heard and more. She seemed to talk all the time—at least until Hera got angry and stopped her. Hera was the queen of Olympus, the mountain where the gods lived, and the wife of Zeus, the head god.
Once, Hera went down from the mountain to search for Zeus. Echo stopped her and babbled on so long about practically nothing that Zeus was able to sneak off. Hera was furious, and took away Echo's power of speech.
"From now on," said Hera, "you can say nothing of your own. You can only repeat what other people say."
If you saw Echo and said, "Hello," she said, "Hello" back to you. If you asked, "How are you today," that is what she asked.
On a hot summer day, Echo followed Narcissus through the woods. They traveled so far in so much heat that Echo was not surprised when Narcissus stopped beside a quiet forest pool. He needed a good cool drink, she thought.
Perhaps he did. But when Narcissus looked into the pool he saw looking back the most beautiful youth he had ever seen. Narcissus opened his eyes wide and stared at the youth. The youth opened his eyes wide, too, and stared back.
"Hello," said Narcissus.
"Hello," said Echo behind him. Narcissus did not see her. He thought the words came from the youth in the pool. Not understanding that the face was his own reflection, Narcissus reached down to touch it. The face disappeared.
"I love you," said Narcissus. "I love you," said Echo, as the face came back.
Narcissus reached down again. The same thing happened. "Stay for me," Narcissus said. "Stay for me," said Echo. But every time Narcissus reached out, the youth went away.
Narcissus forgot to drink. He forgot to eat. He simply sat and stared, loving, and hoping, and wanting.
"I love you," he said, again and again. "I love you," the voice came back every time.
For days this continued. Narcissus sat and stared and spoke. Echo answered. Neither of them ate or drank. Narcissus began to weaken. Then he shriveled up and died. His body disappeared, but in its place, the beautiful Narcissus flower appeared.
Echo faded away and died, too. Her body also disappeared. The only thing left was her voice. You can still hear it today, bouncing off mountains and walls, rebounding in caves and canyons.
AMAZING GRACE: SESSION 16:
HANDOUT 1: FEEDBACK FORM
Please complete and return to a program leader.
My favorite part of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong was...
My least favorite part of Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong was...
I wish we had more time to...
Something that would have made this program better is...
When I started the program, I felt...
After completing the program, I feel...
Other comments:
AMAZING GRACE: SESSION 16:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: A NARCISSUS FLOWER
AMAZING GRACE: SESSION 16:
LEADER RESOURCE 2: TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
Calling | Treat others the way you want them to treat you |
Character | Agreement; mutual promise |
Conscience | The deepest part of yourself; the human spirit |
Covenant | The real you; the qualities that make you you |
Faith | Feeling you must do or be something to be true to yourself |
Golden Rule | Spiritual or religious belief; the activity of making meaning; sense of what you trust or know to be true |
Guilt | Everybody goes to heaven |
Moral relativity | Voice of the soul; an internal sense of right and wrong |
Soul | Feeling you did something wrong |
Repent | What is right depends on the situation |
Trinity | To feel remorse; to say you are sorry |
Universal Salvation | Idea that God is in three parts, not one |
FIND OUT MORE
The illustrated Book of Greek Myths by Ingri D’Aulaire and Edgar Parin (Delacorte Press, 1962) includes the myth of Narcissus.
See more “Kilroy Was Here” on the website of the Ohio Historical Society (at www.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/kilroy/).