• Chalice and matches

Use the Opening designed by your group or the one provided below.

Gather around the chalice. As a volunteer lights the chalice, ask the group to focus on the words "life's mission" in silence. After about fifteen seconds, invite participants to speak freely into the space a word or two that they associate with the words "life's mission." When everyone who wishes to speak has had a chance to do so, close by saying,

May the space we create here today be wide enough to hold all our individual ideas and deep enough to allow those ideas to grow, to fruit, and to provide seeds for new beginnings.

If you did not get a chance to share the poems that youth wrote during Workshop 4, Activity 2, Spiritual Guides Poems, share them now. Then introduce today's workshop by saying,

Even at an early age, we can feel a sense of flow, or rightness, when we are doing something in our lives that feels like it is meant to be; like it is simply ours to do. Whether playing a sport or music, making the right choices for ourselves, or just being with others in an authentic way, some things just feel natural. So how do we identify our talents? Will using our talents automatically lead us to the right path or mission in life? Must we look for our mission or will a mission find us? Does everyone have a mission? How do we "heed the call" to live our lives as authentically as possible and follow our own path?

Today we will use poetry, discussion, and writing to explore what it means to discover our talents and have a mission and to help us answer the question, How does having a mission in life affect your spirit?