Centering (5 minutes)

This is a time to make the transition from the busy world to the group experience. This is a time to make the transition from the busy world to the group experience. A member of the group may read these words from British writer Karen Armstrong:

Many of the difficulties arise when religion is seen primarily as a quest for identity. One of the functions of faith is to help us build up a sense of self: to explain where we have come from and why our traditions are distinctive and special. But that is not the sole purpose of religion. All the major world faiths have insisted on the importance of transcending the fragile and voracious ego, which so often denigrates others in its yearning for security. Leaving the self behind is not only a mystical objective; it is required also by the disciplines of compassion, which demand that we put the rights of others before our own selfish desires.

Check-in (10 to 25 minutes)

Each person in the group has the opportunity to share something about his or her life. What significant events have taken place recently in your life? Have you accomplished something meaningful to you? Have you experienced any losses or setbacks? Have you had any insights or new ideas?

Group Discussion (45 to 70 minutes)

Our spiritual theme for this month is Freedom and Responsibility. What is the link between freedom and responsibility? What encourages us to use freedom in constructive ways and restrains us from using freedom in destructive ways?

For group discussion, please consider the questions associated with one or more of the following numbered sections. You need not address all of these sections, and you need not address them in this order.

1. What is the link between freedom and responsibility? Who says that freedom and responsibility must necessarily go together? Who says that our lives cannot be all freedom and no responsibility? Who says that we are our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper?

2. Is there a tension between freedom and responsibility within your covenant group?

3. Goethe wrote, “Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves is destructive.”

How would you restate this in your own words? Can you recall an instance when your spirit was liberated but you did not have mastery over yourself, and the result was destructive? Or can you recall an instance when this was true of someone else?

4. Marian Wright Edelman wrote, “Too many of us hold to the philosophy that ‘government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.’ If government is seen as an illegitimate enterprise, if the public purposes of one’s job are not considered a high calling, and if government has no purpose other than its own destruction, the restraints against unethical behavior in both the public and private sectors quickly erode.”

Would you agree? Is a major function of government to provide restraints against unethical behavior in the public and private sectors? In other words, is a major function of government to link responsibility with freedom – to insist that citizens accept some measure of responsibility along with their freedom? Do you feel resentful or grateful about that function of government?

5. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote: “Actually time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men [and women] willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

When is it irresponsible to do nothing? When is it irresponsible to be neutral? When is it irresponsible to be silent?

6. Viktor Frankl wrote, “The last of the human freedoms … to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”

Is this true? Would you say that this statement is true but just very difficult to practice in some especially challenging circumstances? Can you recall an instance when you chose your attitude in especially challenging circumstances?

Conclusion (5 to 10 minutes)

What will you take away from this discussion? What would have made this time together more meaningful or satisfying to you? What did you enjoy? A group member may share these words from Unitarian Universalist minister Paul Beattie:

May our freedom in religion, the freedom to seek the truth honestly as we know it, and to live by the truth, lead us to a freedom from fear. May we learn to be unafraid of the dangers and challenges of life, by learning we can grow beyond them. May we learn to be unafraid of public opinion, until the efforts of our lives rest secure and sure in the right as we perceive it, and not in the opinion of the world. May we learn to be unafraid of close personal relationships, unafraid to reveal ourselves, unafraid to show tenderness, liking, and love. May we learn to face tragedy fearlessly, when tragedy intervenes and then to grow beyond it. We cannot escape pain, but we can refuse to let it conquer us; we can refuse to let it destroy our commitment to goodness.