Tapestry of Faith: Exploring Our Values Through Poetry: A Program for High School Youth

Opening

Activity time: 5 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Chalice and matches

Description of Activity

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 word "love" in silence. After about fifteen seconds, invite participants to speak freely into the space a word or two that they associate with the word "love." 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.

Introduce today's workshop with these words:

From the moment we can toddle around and give sloppy kisses, we are presented with attractive, compelling images of love. These images suggest what love should look like, what love can do for us, and how necessary love is to complete us. As we move through our lives, the fantasy of the perfect, romantic love often comes into conflict with our experiences. Our own sexuality and our impossibly high expectations for what another person can give us are just two of many complicating factors. This workshop seeks to help us understand why romantic love is so compelling and to challenge us to be more conscious about how we define, experience, and conduct ourselves in love.