Closing (5 minutes)
Materials for Activity
- Altar or centering table
- Cloth for covering altar or centering table
- Chalice and candle
- Chalice extinguisher
- Copies of the Taking It Home section for this workshop for all participants
- A copy of the closing words you want to use
Preparation for Activity
- Review the Taking It Home section for this workshop and decide which extension activities you will encourage participants to do.
- Download the Taking It Home section to your computer, customize it for your group, and print out and photocopy it.
- Review the closing words. Decide whether you wish to use these, or another closing. Print out a copy of the closing words you will use. Place your copy of the closing words near the chalice.
Description of Activity
Gather participants around the altar or centering table. Affirm the good work that participants have done in this workshop.Hand out the Taking It Home section you have prepared. Invite participants to "take the workshop home" and explain the activities, as needed. Be sure to be inclusive of people with a variety of living situations—living alone, with a significant other, in a family, with housemates, etc.—in the way you explain the Taking It Home activities.
Offer these or similar words:
In closing, I invite you to rise in body or spirit and join hands. We join hands with one another to remind ourselves of the truth that we are all connected, that we are one body, and that we depend upon one another more than we know.
As you feel moved, I invite you to call out a word or phrase for how you are feeling right now.
After participants call out words and phrases, offer this benediction to close the workshop:
Spirit of Life, we give thanks for this time together,
for our caring and sharing.
May we respect and love our selves and respect and love others.
May we trust that the intention we bring and the action we take matter.
Our good intention and respectful actions shape justice
and ripple out beyond our knowing.
May we bring joy to our living and to our loving.
May we be supported in our commitments,
by our spiritual practices, by one another,
by community, and by the Spirit of Life.
Amen.
Extinguish the chalice. Thank and dismiss participants.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
