Tapestry of Faith: Wonderful Welcome: A Program for Children Grades K-1

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Blue Boat Home

The song, "Blue Boat Home," Hymn 1064 in Singing the Journey: Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition. reflects the spirit of this session. Some of the lyrics, by Peter Mayer, are:

Far away from the rolling ocean
Still my dry land heart can say
I've been sailing all my life now
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home.

Mayer's CD, The Great Story, includes this song.

The Green Man

In Stories in Faith: Exploring Our UU Principles and Sources Through Wisdom Tales (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 2007), Gail Forsyth-Vail uses the story, "The Green Man," to illustrate the sixth Unitarian Universalist Source — spiritual teachings from Earth-centered traditions. She provides background about Green Man legends in different cultures and guidance for understanding and teaching the story. Her text reads, in part:

As this tale begins, a privileged young squire treats the natural world as his dominion, to be used solely for his own pleasure and purposes. In the course of the story, he learns to live in harmony with the natural world and care for the plants and creatures of the woodland. He becomes, for a time, the archetypal Green Man of ancient myth and legend. The longer he embodies the Green Man, the more he takes on those sensibilities. When he returns to his former life he is a changed person, one who respects rather than exploits the resources of the natural world.