Make a time for individual reflection and discussion with your co-leader after the conclusion of the workshop. Consider these questions: What worked well in today's workshop? How can these elements or approaches be repeated or amplified in the future? What was most challenging?...

Activity time: 5 minutes Share these closing words from Kate Walker: Our beliefs are varied, but we are united by our mortality. We may not know death, but we know loss. We may not see what’s next, but we seek assurance. Let love both ease our death, and soothe our soul. Extinguish the chalice.

Activity time: 5 minutes Share with participants any updates on upcoming plans. Distribute Handout 1, Looking Ahead to Workshop 4, and Handout 2, All Our Losses....

Activity time: 20 minutes Invite participants to reflect on their own theology of death. What happens to a person after death? Allow five minutes for participants to reflect in silence or by drawing or making notes in their journal....

Activity time: 30 minutes Share this quote from “The Science of Near-Death Experiences” by Gideon Lichfield: As medical technology continues to improve, it’s bringing people back from ever closer to the brink of death. A small, lucky handful of people have made full or nearly full recoveries...

Activity time: 15 minutes Call attention to the available color pencils, markers, pens, and pencils. Invite participants to write or draw, responding individually in their journals to the questions and discussions in the group....

Activity time: 40 minutes Share this quote from "An Outline of Different Cultural Beliefs at the Time of Death," a resource for health-care workers in the Australian state of Victoria: The final authority on all of a dying person’s needs must come from the person themselves, with some guidance or...

Activity time: 5 minutes Light the chalice and share these words from the Omaha Nation: No one has found a way to avoid death, To pass around it; Those old ones who have met it, Who have reached their place where death stands waiting, Have not pointed out a way to circumvent it....

Read materials listed in Handout 1, Looking Ahead to Workshop 3, from Workshop 2. Post Our Covenant from Workshop 1. Customize and make copies of Handout 1 for all participants. Make copies of Handout 2, All Our Losses and, if desired, Handout 3, Loss: The Litmus Test of a Religious Faith....

Newsprint, markers, and tape Chalice, candle, and lighter or LED/battery-operated candle Our Covenant from Workshop 1 Handout 1, Looking Ahead to Workshop 4 Handout 2, All Our Losses Three-ring binders with clear plastic covers, one for each participant who does not already have one Three-hole...

In the wake of each loss we are inclined to curse the existence that deals out so many hardships, but many Unitarian Universalists emerge from their grieving with a sense of renewed faith in life, which offered them strength and hope when they most needed it. Life gives us more than it takes from...

Make a time for individual reflection and discussion with your co-leader after the conclusion of the workshop. Consider these questions: What worked well in today's workshop? How can these elements or approaches be repeated or amplified in the future? What was most challenging?...

Activity time: 10 minutes Go around in the circle and have participants share, one at a time, one word that describes an experience of death they have had. Be sure to advise that passing is an acceptable option....

Activity time: 5 minutes Share with participants any updates on upcoming plans. Distribute Handout 1, Looking Ahead to Workshop 3. Ask participants to read the articles listed for next time. Tell participants that Find Out More includes additional resources they may wish to explore.

Activity time: 35 minutes Ask participants one by one to share the objects they have brought representing who they are and what their values are. Ask them to share how each object represents what they would like to pass along to their family, tangible or intangible. Invite participants to share...

Activity time: 30 minutes Introduce the video, saying, “Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He was also a member of the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given a short time to live, he delivered his 'last...

Activity time: 20 minutes Share this quote from “Good Life, Good Death” by Laine Bergeson: Humans are gifted with the ability to contemplate their own demise, and this weird blessing infuses every moment of life with the inevitability of death. That said, we're remarkably good at making our date...

Activity time: 15 minutes Share this quote from Forrest Church’s sermon "Love and Death": When death or dying comes calling at the door, like a bracing wind it clears our being of pettiness. It connects us to others. More alert to life’s fragility, we reawaken to life’s preciousness. To be...

Activity time: 5 minutes Light the chalice and share these words from Lee Ann Wester: Autumn marches on, Mighty Oaks stand still and yet, Flaky, brittle oak leaves filter sunlight, Hanging on until, The frost bites and the rain drills. The leaves let go and surrender To their fate....

Read the articles listed under For Next Time in Workshop 1, Handout 2, Looking Ahead to Workshop 2. Post Our Covenant from Workshop 1. Customize and make copies of Handout 1, Looking Ahead to Workshop 3, for all participants....