SING TO THE POWER
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 14: THE POWER OF PERSISTENCE
BY REV. LYNN UNGAR
© Copyright 2012 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/8/2014 2:53:06 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Step by step the longest march can be won, can be won.
Many stones can form an arch, singly none, singly none.
And by union what we will can be accomplished still.
Drops of water turn a mill, singly none, singly none.
— Traditional union song
The power of water is the power of persistence, of moving past all barriers one drop at a time, until a flood collects that can break down walls. In this session participants learn about Universalist minister Phebe Hanaford, who devoted 60 years of her life to working for women's suffrage, and finally won the right to vote at the age of 90. Participants experience persistence and patience in an art project, by carving soap. The Burmese story "The Old Alchemist, which the children perform as a play, offers a fun twist on how persistence can turn dirt into gold.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Story — Phebe Hanaford Gets the Vote | 10 |
Activity 2: Soap Carving | 25 |
Activity 3: The Old Alchemist — A Play | 15 |
Faith in Action: Planning Ways to Exercise Water Power | |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Sharing Joys and Sorrows | 5 |
Alternate Activity 2: Drip Sand Castles | 20 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Find a place where you can be quiet with your thoughts. Close your eyes and breathe deeply for about five minutes, perhaps repeating a word or phrase to separate yourself from the activities of the day. When you feel settled and relaxed, consider:
SESSION PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
The opening ritual for this program invites children to practice leadership and experience the power of a group coming together in sacred space.
Gather the children in a circle around the chalice. Invite them to take a deep breath and release it, and create a deep silence for a moment.
Invite the day's worship leader to select a reading from the Opening Words Basket and read it aloud. Place the water symbol on the cloth, saying, "I bring this symbol of water, of flexibility and creativity, of always moving forward, whatever the obstacles might be."
As needed, assist the worship leader to light the chalice.
Sing "Sing to the Power." Include the zipper words from previous sessions and add today's zipper words, "flowing deep within."
Invite participants to hold hands in a circle. Explain, in these words or your own:
Each time the group meets, we focus on ways we find and express our power. As part of each opening circle, we send a pulse of energy, or power, around the circle.
Begin the power pulse by squeezing the hand of the person to your left, who will then squeeze the hand of the person to their left, followed by each person in rapid succession. Send the power pulse around the circle several times.
Conclude the power pulse. While still holding hands, ask the group to take a deep breath together, bringing their hands up as they breathe in, and bringing their hands down as they breathe out.
Return the reading to the Opening Words Basket and extinguish the chalice.
Including All Participants
Some participants may be uncomfortable being touched. Offer the opportunity to opt out of the circle during the time when participants are holding hands for the power pulse.
ACTIVITY 1: STORY — PHEBE HANAFORD GETS THE VOTE (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Read or tell the story to the group.
After the story, invite the group to be silent for a moment to think about the story.
Then, ask participants to recap the story in their own words. What they recall indicates what they found most meaningful or memorable.
Say something like:
Can you imagine spending more than 60 years trying to change something in the world? Of course, Phebe Hanaford was only one of many, many people, men and women, who worked for decades to win women the right to vote. You could think of each thing that each of these people did—every time they made plans at a meeting, or went to a march for women's suffrage, or spoke up about what they thought was right—as being like small drops of water. A single drop of water doesn't make much difference. But if enough drops trickle in, over enough time, then you have a river's worth of water that can change a whole landscape.
Lead a discussion using these questions:
ACTIVITY 2: SOAP CARVING (25 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Tell the group:
Trying to take off too much at once will cause the bar of soap to break. Carving soap requires patience and persistence. Let's see how much of these "water power" qualities we have.
Make sure that participants' hands are dry before they touch their bar of soap; water will make the soap slippery and difficult to handle. Distribute bars of soap and invite the group to each think of an object or shape to carve. Encourage participants to come up with a plan before they start carving. Suggest that a fish or turtle shape tends to work well, as does a sun or a face.
Invite the children to use a pencil to lightly carve the desired shape into the surface of their bar of soap, and then use tools such as a table knife or screwdriver to gently carve the soap.
This activity lends itself to conversation. Use some discussion questions from Activity 1 to help the group continue processing the story, "Phebe Hanaford Gets the Vote." Or, invite participants to think about other social justice movements besides the women's suffrage movement in which people showed great persistence. For instance, during the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, protesters walked to work and school every day for over a year before they won the right to sit anywhere on the bus they chose.
Including All Participants
Choose carving implements that are safe for all members of the group. Although some children this age are adept with a small kitchen knife, do not provide any utensils you think could challenge the dexterity or safe behavior of any group members.
ACTIVITY 3: THE OLD ALCHEMIST — A PLAY (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants perform a play based on a story from Myanmar/Burma about a man who will try anything to turn dirt into gold.
Assign parts or ask for volunteer. Have the participants read/act out the play.
At the end of the play, ask participants to reflect on the story with questions such as:
Including All Participants
Allow participants who are uncomfortable performing in front of a group to fill the important role of audience members. If you are aware that a child has discomfort or difficult reading, assign them to act out a role while another participant reads the words.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain that the session is almost over and the group will now work together as a community to clean the meeting space. Ask everyone to clean their own area and put away the materials they were using, then clean another area or help someone else. No one should sit in the circle until the meeting space is clean.
Gather the group in a circle. Tape the "Persistence" circle outside the "Water" quadrant of the Circle of Elements mural, in the position shown on Session 1, Leader Resource 3. Say:
Water power is power that keeps moving in spite of obstacles, that doesn't give up, that keeps looking for a way.
Invite each participant to take a bead and string it on the elastic and, as they do so, to take a deep breath and then let it out.
Ask the the day's closing worship leader to choose a reading from the Closing Words Basket and read it aloud (or, to read aloud the reading they prepared after the previous session).
Ask for (and record) volunteers to lead the opening and closing readings for the next session. Offer the volunteers a copy of Session 1, Leader Resource 1, Opening Words for Basket or Session 1, Leader Resource 5, Closing Words for Basket that they may take home to choose and practice their readings. Tell them they are also welcome to choose their reading from a basket when they come next time.
You may wish to invite the Opening volunteer to bring a symbol of water for the centering space, as well.
Invite participants to put the bracelets in the Closing Words Basket. Distribute Taking It Home. Thank and dismiss participants.
FAITH IN ACTION: PLANNING OUR WATER POWER
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This Faith in Action activity follows the Session 13 Faith in Action activity, Exploring Ways to Exercise Water Power, as the second step in a four-session process that leads the group through (1) identifying a way to exercise water power, (2) planning how to exercise water power, (3) engaging in the planned activity, and (4) reflecting on the experience. After selecting a water power activity, the next step is to plan exactly how the project will take place: Who will take part? Who needs to be invited, and who will invite them? What supplies will you need? How much time do you anticipate the project will take? When is the best time to work on the project? Who needs to be contacted for the project to move forward? What resources do you have available? What resources will you need to bring in?
Define the steps to bring the project to completion. Make plans as a group. Identify and assign action items for co-leaders or participants to complete before the next session.
After the session, follow up with your religious educator to determine how to communicate the project details to families and, if needed, the wider congregation.
Including All Participants
Make sure the plan is as inclusive as possible of the differing needs and abilities in your group.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Reflect on and discuss with your co-leader(s):
Approach the director of religious education for guidance, as needed.
TAKING IT HOME
Step by step the longest march can be won, can be won.
Many stones can form an arch, singly none, singly none.
And by union what we will can be accomplished still.
Drops of water turn a mill, singly none, singly none.
— Traditional union song
IN TODAY'S SESSION... the children learned about Phebe Hanaford, a Universalist minister born in 1829 who worked for women's suffrage for more than 60 years. They carved soap as an experience of slow, careful persistence, and they acted out the story of the Old Alchemist, in which a man finds a surprising way of turning dirt into gold after much effort.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. What sorts of things do members of your family work hard for over time? Do family members have hobbies, musical or athletic pursuits, or social/political causes that that they have persisted at over years? What have you gained from sticking with something that matters to you?
FAMILY RITUAL. All of us can use encouragement when we are feeling the challenge of sticking to the work of achieving a goal, whether it is a homework assignment, a hobby, or a lifestyle change. Have a few ritual words to share when the going gets tough. For example, saying "step by step" can be a blessing as well as a reminder that significant goals take time and attention.
FAMILY ADVENTURE. A lengthy or challenging hike or bike ride is a good way to experience both the difficulties and rewards that come with persistence. Plan a hike or excursion that is not overwhelming, but which pushes family members' typical assumptions about their stamina, their ability to persist.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: SHARING JOYS AND SORROWS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Say:
Our community is like a bowl that holds all of our lives. The joys and sorrows which affect each person's life send ripples through all of our lives.
Invite participants, as they are moved, to pick up a stone, drop it gently (!) in the bowl of water, and share aloud a joy or a sorrow which has affected their life in recent days. Say they may drop their stone in silence, instead; tell them it is okay to keep their joys or sorrows private. You might go first, to model.
Once all who wish to have shared, affirm all the words people have spoken and the thoughts and feelings that remain inside each person's head and heart.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: DRIP SAND CASTLES (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Ask the children if they know a way to make a sand castle on the beach. Affirm that one can heap up piles of sand, or form large shapes with buckets. Tell them that patience and persistence, added to sand and water, can build beautiful, delicate fairy castles.
Give each participant a plate to build on, and a bowl of sand, with enough water added to cover the sand. Demonstrate: Take a handful of wet sand and hold it over a plate in a loose fist with the thumb up. Squeeze drops of very wet sand onto the plate so they accumulate to build a structure. Encourage participants to experiment with how much water to allow to drain from their hand, back into the bowl, before dripping the sand onto the castle. After participants have experimented with creating individual sand castles, they may wish to work jointly on building a larger castle on a cookie sheet or baking tray.
As participants work, or after they are done building the castles, invite them to reflect on the experience:
Invite participants to think of building justice in their community or in the world as an activity like building a drip sand castle. Why does it sometimes go slowly? What individual drips of effort have you seen people make toward building justice?
Including All Participants
Participants who are uncomfortable getting their hands wet and sandy can try the activity using a scoop and a turkey baster or funnel.
SING TO THE POWER: SESSION 14:
STORY: PHEBE HANAFORD GETS THE VOTE
Young Phebe Coffin stood on a box in the barn, playing preacher to the group of friends she had gathered. Of course, in the 1830s, when Phebe was a child, women ministers were unusual, if there were any at all. Women couldn't vote, didn't have the right to own property, and couldn't attend most universities. But Phebe was raised in a Quaker family that believed in equality for men and women, and her cousin, Lucretia Mott, was a famous advocate for women's rights. So perhaps it's not too surprising that the highly intelligent Phebe grew up expecting to make her voice heard. At 13 she started to get her writing published, and at 16 she became a teacher.
When she was 20, Phebe married a Baptist doctor named Joseph Hanaford, and became a Baptist herself. She started writing books to help support her family, which included two children. Eventually she wrote a total of 14 books, many of which were quite popular. But over time Phebe decided she couldn't accept Baptist beliefs, and she became a Universalist.
At her father's request, Phebe preached a couple of times at the schoolhouse on the island of Nantucket where she had once been a teacher. But it came as a surprise and a rather scary honor when she was asked to fill in preaching for her hero, the Universalist minister Olympia Brown, who was the first woman to be ordained as a minister in the U.S.
With Olympia's encouragement, Phebe became a Universalist minister herself. She eventually left her husband, who wouldn't follow her to Connecticut, when she was called to serve as a minister there. After separating from her husband, Phebe fell in love with a woman named Ellen Miles, and they lived together for over 40 years, until Ellen died.
While Phebe was serving as a busy and successful minister, she was also very active in working for women's rights. Her church in Jersey City, New Jersey decided to fire her after her first three years of ministry, even though the church had doubled in size. The church leaders said it was because she was spending too much time working on women's issues, but Phebe's letters make it clear that the church was also upset by her relationship with Ellen Miles, who they called "the minister's wife." They insisted that Phebe give up both her work for women's rights and her relationship with Ellen. In response, Phebe, and the people in the church who supported her, set up a church in a hall across the street, and she preached there for several years.
Phebe continued in active ministry until she retired in 1891, and she spoke at conventions for women's rights around the country, doing everything in her power to bring women the right to vote. It says something about both her gifts as a speaker and her importance to the women's movement that she was asked to conduct the funeral services for both Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the two most famous leaders of the movement.
Even after she retired from ministry, Phebe remained active and interested political issues. Before she died, at the age of 92, Phebe had the joy of being one of the few women's suffrage leaders of her generation who lived see the passage of the 19th Amendment. After more than 60 years of work, Phebe finally won the right to vote.
SING TO THE POWER: SESSION 14:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: THE OLD ALCHEMIST — A PLAY
A story from Myanmar/Burma.
NARRATOR:
Once upon a time, there was an old man whose daughter was married to a handsome young lad. The young couple led a happy life, except for one problem. The new husband spent all his time dreaming of a way to turn dirt into gold. In those days people who tried such transformations were known as alchemists. Soon enough, the young man spent all of his inheritance, and the young wife had to struggle to buy food each day.
WIFE:
Your obsession with turning dirt into gold is going to kill us all! We have no money for food, and what little money I can earn is paying for your chemicals rather than feeding and clothing our children. Please, please, can't you give this all up and find a regular job?
YOUNG ALCHEMIST:
But I am on the verge of a breakthrough! When I succeed in turning dirt into gold, we'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams!
NARRATOR:
Finally the young wife went to her father about the problem.
WIFE:
Daddy, what am I to do? My husband spends all day messing around with his silly chemicals, trying to turn dirt into gold. It will never work, and in the meantime we're all starving.
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Really? Your husband is an alchemist? What a surprising path for a young man who seems so sensible. Let me talk to him and see if I can help.
WIFE:
I've talked until I'm blue in the face, but he just won't listen and he won't let it go!
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Well, you never know, I might be able to help. I'll go see him tomorrow.
NARRATOR:
And so the father went to visit his son-in-law, who looked none to happy to see him, since the young man expected a scolding. But what he heard was a complete surprise.
OLD ALCHEMIST:
So, my dear, my daughter has shared with me the interesting news that you are an alchemist.
YOUNG ALCHEMIST:
That's true... .
OLD ALCHEMIST:
It might surprise you to know that I, too, was an alchemist when I was young. What could be more exciting than the prospect of turning dirt into gold? What have you tried so far?
NARRATOR:
So the two men spent the afternoon in excited conversation about the young man's experiments. Finally, the old man threw his hands up in the air.
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Why, you have done everything I did when I was your age! You are surely on the verge of a breakthrough. But you need one more ingredient in order to change dirt into gold, and I have only recently discovered this secret. I am too old to undertake the task, as it requires too much work.
YOUNG ALCHEMIST:
I can do it, dear father!
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Hmm, perhaps you can. The secret ingredient is a silver powder that grows on the back of banana leaves. You must plant the bananas yourself because it's important that you cast certain spells on plants. Then when the plant grows, the powder on the leaves will become magical.
YOUNG ALCHEMIST:
How much powder do we need?
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Two pounds.
YOUNG ALCHEMIST:
Why, that would require hundreds of banana plants!
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Yes, and that is why I cannot complete the work myself.
YOUNG ALCHEMIST:
Do not fear! I will do it. I know I can!
NARRATOR: [Throughout this section, as the Narrator speaks, the Young Alchemist acts out the Narrator's words.]
And so the old man taught his son-in-law the magic spells and loaned him enough money to start the project.
The next day, the young man bought some land and cleared it. He planted the banana shoots just as the old man had told him to do and murmured over them the magic spells.
Each day he examined the seedlings, keeping weeds and pests away. Months later, when the plants bore fruit, he gently brushed the silver powder from the banana leaves. But there was scarcely any powder on each plant so the young man had to buy more land and cultivate more bananas. It took several years, but finally the young man collected two pounds of the magic dust. He rushed to his father-in-law's house.
YOUNG ALCHEMIST:
I have the magic powder!
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Wonderful! Now I can show you how to turn dirt into gold! But first you must bring your wife here. We need her presence.
NARRATOR:
The young man was puzzled, but obeyed, and brought his wife to join them.
OLD ALCHEMIST:
While your husband was collecting the banana powder, what did you do with the bananas?
WIFE:
Why, I sold them. That's how we've earned a living all this time.
OLD ALCHEMIST:
Did you save any money?
WIFE:
Yes.
OLD ALCHEMIST:
May I see it?
NARRATOR:
So his daughter hurried home and returned with several bags. The old man opened them, saw that they were full of gold, and poured the coins on the floor. Then he took a handful of dirt, and put it next to the gold.
OLD ALCHEMIST:
You see, my son? That is how you have changed dirt into gold!
SING TO THE POWER: SESSION 14:
LEADER RESOURCE 2: "PERSISTENCE" CIRCLE
FIND OUT MORE
Read more about Phebe Hanaford. The Nantucket Historical Society posts an article by Lisa M. Tetrault (at www.nha.org/history/hn/HNhanaford.htm). On the Harvard Square Library Review website, find an article Rosemarie C. Smurzynski prepared (at www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/hsr/Phebe-Hanford.php) for the Greenfield Group of Unitarian Universalist Ministers.
On online search for images of "drip castles" will show some stunning examples you may wish to share with the group.