EXPLORING OUR VALUES THROUGH POETRY
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Youth
WORKSHOP 8: ON A LIGHTER NOTE
BY KAREN HARRIS
© Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 6:53:34 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
The gods, too, are fond of a joke.
— Edward Albee, from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
This workshop gives participants a chance to have fun, and it comes at just the right time. In the next three workshops, youth examine the fairly solemn topics of faith, identity, and transformation, and after that it is time to prepare for the Poetry Slam. Now is a good time to lighten things up a bit; do not be afraid to have fun in this workshop.
This workshop offers the alternate activity of journal reviewing, which will also appear in the remaining workshops that lead up to the Poetry Slam. If you believe the group can benefit from journal review, build in time to do it during the next four meetings.
The Faith in Action activity features a guest speaker who will talk about ways to be a good ally to traditionally marginalized or oppressed groups. Locate a speaker several weeks ahead of time, work with her/him to design this activity during the ensuing time, and confirm his/her participation in the days before the activity.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
ACTIVITY | MINUTES |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Apple Acting | 15 |
Activity 2: Fruity Whine | 10 |
Activity 3: UU Humor | 15 |
Activity 4: The Kiss Off | 10 |
Faith in Action: Allied in Humor | 30 |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: The Great Debate | 15 |
Alternate Activity 2: Journal Review | |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Humor is such an individual characteristic. We do not all find the same things funny. Luckily, most of us find humor somewhere. Humor can be an effective tool for dealing with some of the challenging situations you discussed in Workshop 7, Difficult Times. When in your life has humor been a saving grace?
WORKSHOP PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
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 "funny" in silence. After about fifteen seconds, invite participants to speak freely into the space a word or two that they associate with the word "funny." 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.
To introduce today's workshop, say,
Today we are going to read humorous poems, tell UU jokes, and have some fun. Some of your earliest memories of poetry might include humorous poems. How many of you have read books by Lewis Carroll, like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or books by Eric Carle? Children love silly rhymes, and adults do too. We also enjoy poems that are not only funny, but have some deeper meaning. Many humorous poems have a message or a moral, like The Lorax and some other Dr. Seuss's poems. They show us that poetry can be both funny and serious. The question we face in this workshop is, can something be both funny and spiritual?
ACTIVITY 1: APPLE ACTING (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
In this activity, participants play a game with apple allusions.
Invite the group to play a pantomime game. Explain that pantomime is what mimes do: it is acting something out without sound, like charades. Form teams of no more than four participants each. Instruct the groups to come up with several cultural allusions to apples. These can be sayings or proverbs about apples, famous stories we all know about apples, or other common apple words. Offer newsprint and markers to groups for listing their ideas. Give groups several minutes to brainstorm, and then gather everyone together.
Explain that the groups will take turns pantomiming their apple allusions for the other groups. The audience will guess the allusions that the groups perform. The goal of the performing group is not to stump the audience, but to pantomime the allusion so well that the audience can instantly guess what the allusion is. Make sure everyone understands the instructions. If the groups need an example, pantomime someone working on a computer (for Apple Mac).
Choose which group will go first. As the audience correctly guesses the apple allusions, note the allusions on newsprint. Have the participants continue performing, alternating groups, until you run out of time or allusions.
Including All Participants
If there are youth in the group who are differently abled, make sure they are actively involved in the pantomime.
ACTIVITY 2: FRUITY WHINE (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite two or more volunteers to read Handout 1, "Pear's Complaint," aloud, pausing for thirty seconds between readings and after the last reading. Then ask this question to lead a "What do we have here?" discussion:
Lead a "What's the big idea?" discussion, using these questions:
ACTIVITY 3: UU HUMOR (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants share UU humor and reflect upon the place of humor in religion.
Gather participants in a circle. Say,
Sometimes we all need time to defuse, to let go of the stress and seriousness of life and just be silly. Laughter is food for the soul, so it is feeding time!
Pass around the container holding the UU jokes and have each youth take one. After the container goes around the circle once, ask participants to read aloud the joke they selected, one at a time. When all participants have read their joke, or when you have just a few minutes before the end of the activity, ask the following questions:
Share this joke with the group:
Conversation overheard: Person A (Mainstream Protestant Denomination): I hear that you allow all sorts of weirdos in your church. Atheists, Buddhists, Pagans...
Person B (Unitarian Universalist): We allow Christians too—we're very open-minded!
Ask:
ACTIVITY 4: THE KISS OFF (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Ask one or two volunteers to read Handout 2, "Bladder Song," aloud. Allow about thirty seconds between readings and before delving into the questions below.
Lead a "What do we have here?" discussion to draw out what happens in the poem:
Lead a "What's the big idea?" discussion, using these questions:
NOTE: A Few Words about the Poem
The odd, optimistic, and humorous short poem "Bladder Song" can be read as an ode to our human interconnectedness. Its last line, "Ah, nothing's wasted, if it's human," celebrates a sort of faith in the signals and signs the universe sends to us.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Use the Closing designed by your group or the one provided below.
Recite together Reading 712 from Singing the Living Tradition:
Do not be conformed to this world,
But be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
— Romans 12
Extinguish the chalice.
FAITH IN ACTION: ALLIED IN HUMOR (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants learn about one way to be an ally of traditionally marginalized or oppressed groups.
Say to participants,
Speaking out when you hear someone tell a hurtful joke is one way to be an ally to traditionally marginalized or oppressed groups. How do you confront someone who uses a joke to indulge in Christian bashing, sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, or homophobism?
Introduce the guest speaker. During or after the discussion, distribute resources such as the list, Becoming a Strong Ally 101: Guidelines for Dealing with Oppression in the Community, which you can find at the UUA's Leaders' Library (at www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/leaderslibrary/26942.shtml). Bring other resources for youth to see, such as Come Out and Win: Organizing Yourself, Your Community, and Your World, by Sue Hyde (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007), available at the UUA Bookstore (at www.uuabookstore.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=236).
After the event, discuss with participants what the conversation was like for them and what they gained from the experience. Invite them to write, in their journals, one tip they will use to be a good ally.
Including All Participants
This activity focuses on being an ally to an oppressed group of people. Be sensitive to members of the Poetry workshop who identify with or belong to an oppressed group. Be aware, however, that members of one oppressed group might be actively working as allies of another group. Try not to make assumptions. Do make sure that individuals from marginalized groups are not singled out in this activity or asked to speak as the authority for the group to which they belong. For example, a remark such as, "Hey, Stacy, you are black. Would you find this joke offensive?" could make Stacy question how safe the space is for her. Monitor the group for any such reactions.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Review today's workshop with your co-leader. Did participants have fun? Fun can be a strong bonding experience. The next few workshops will ask youth to share in a deeper way. Do you think the group is ready?
TAKING IT HOME
The gods, too, are fond of a joke.
— Edward Albee, from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
DURING TODAY'S WORKSHOP...
We read humorous poems and played a game based on apple allusions. We heard UU jokes and thought about the roles stereotypes and put-downs play in humor. We also asked ourselves what is spiritual about laughing.
REFLECTION QUESTION:
How has your sense of humor changed since childhood?
EXPLORE THE TOPICS FURTHER WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS...
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: THE GREAT DEBATE (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Youth debate the merits of apples versus pears, for fun.
Only use this activity if you are also doing Activity 2, Fruity Whine. Divide the group into two teams. Tell the teams that you want them to prepare arguments in order to debate the statement, "Pears are superior to apples." Assign one team to argue in the affirmative and another to argue in the negative. Give teams ten minutes to prepare, and then gather the entire group for the debate. Let each team have two turns speaking, alternating between the teams. Consider asking a few youths to volunteer as judges instead of being on a team. To avoid a stalemate in the debate, make sure you have an uneven number of judges.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: JOURNAL REVIEW
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants review their journals and finish incomplete work.
As the date for the Poetry Slam approaches, encourage participants to use whatever time remains at the end of the workshops to review the writing in their journals, with an eye to completing any work they would consider performing.
EXPLORING OUR VALUES THROUGH POETRY: WORKSHOP 8:
HANDOUT 1: PEAR'S COMPLAINT
Greg Youmans
I have raged for thousands of years.
I was on the other tree in Eden
and I escaped Greece unexploited by the Gods.
I never was fruit of fantasy for seers and bards,
nor the food of tales for old wives.
For I am not so red, not so self-contained,
no so easily held or thrown.
Never have poets said "the pear of mine eyes,"
nor any of my kind served homage to the teacher's desk
and I keep no children from the dentist's drill.
Yet my veins run sweeter
and my flesh more tender.
Slit my skin with baby's teeth
and run my juice down your throat.
I will feed your cells and your soul;
I will satiate your hunger.
But an hour later, I will not dance in your dreams.
You cannot grasp my complexity.
I am not ordinary enough to be your small miracle.
I am not shaped in a friendly red ball.
I am too esoteric to play roles in your myths.
So imprison me in your still life—
In a timeless bowl with the banana and grapes—
Frozen in a moment—attainable.
At other times, feed on me when passions blur sense:
In these epiphanies, I am a treat—
exotic but common, tangy but sweet, long but round.
Savor me then in the ways you can.
Then, tomorrow, return to your apple
with its insidious worm.
EXPLORING OUR VALUES THROUGH POETRY: WORKSHOP 8:
HANDOUT 2: BLADDER SONG
Leonard Nathan, "Bladder Song" from The Day the Perfect Speakers Left (C)1969 by Leonard Nathan and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
On a piece of toilet paper
Afloat in the unflushed piss,
The fully printed lips of a woman.
Nathan, cheer up! The sewer
Sends you a big red kiss.
Ah, nothing's wasted, if it's human.
FIND OUT MORE
"Pear's Complaint" is from the anthology, FromTotems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry across the Americas, 1900-2002, edited by Ishmael Reed (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003).
You can find "Bladder Song" in A Book of Luminous Things: An Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1996). Leonard Nathan died in 2007. You can get biographical information from his obituary on the San Francisco Chronicle (at www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/09/BAG4AQCGKG1.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea) website.
A good source for apple allusions is the Allusions — Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary (at www.faqs.org/allusions/A-As/Apple.html).