Centering (5 minutes)

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 the American radio broadcaster Paul Harvey:

About one hundred years ago, the founder and executive general of the Salvation Army wanted to send out a Christmas greeting to Salvation Army staff members, who were stationed in many different places far from headquarters and far from one another. The Salvation Army had come through some hard times, and the founder and executive general was feeling a need to send a message that would remind them of the profound significance of their mission, and a message that would remind them of their core competencies. Eventually he settled on a one-word message. He sent out this one-word message by cablegram so that it would reach all staff members in a timely way, no matter where they were stationed. As it happened, this founder and executive general of the Salvation Army died the following year, and thus this one-word message was his last Christmas greeting. So straightforward and comprehensive was this single word that it could equally well have served as a summary of his life and his legacy. What was this message that the Salvation Army staff members heard from their leader that Christmas? As they unfolded their cablegrams, the staff members were greeted and challenged by this simple and memorable word: “Others.”

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 Incarnation. Incarnation means moving from theory, speculation, possibility, plans, hopes, and good intentions into actual existence. Envisioning may be an essential ingredient of incarnation, but bringing a vision into actual existence requires effort and determination and desire and confidence and resources and patience – and sometimes, according to many religious traditions, it also requires an openness to creative forces beyond ourselves.

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. In trinitarian Christian theology, incarnation is the doctrine that God became human in the person of Jesus. For Unitarian Universalists, incarnation can mean bringing a vision into actual existence; incarnation can also mean “deeds not creeds,” that is, living in accord with one’s religious commitments. When have you felt that you were most clearly living in accord with Unitarian Universalist principles?

2. Dorothy Day wrote, “As you come to know the seriousness of our situation – the war, the racism, the poverty in the world – you come to realize it is not going to be changed just by words or demonstrations. It’s a question of risking your life. It’s a question of living your life in dramatically different ways.”

Have you ever thought about living your life in a dramatically different way?

3. Danilo Dolci wrote, “There are moments when things go well and one feels encouraged. There are difficult moments and one feels overwhelmed. But it’s foolish to speak of optimism or pessimism. The only important thing to know is that if one works well in a potato field, the potatoes will grow. If one works well among people, they will grow. That’s reality. The rest is smoke. It’s important to know that words don’t move mountains. Work, exacting work, moves mountains.”

Sometimes we may believe that when we have talked about something we have done something about it. How can one move from ineffective activity that feels good to effective action that actually does good?

4. The nineteenth-century Unitarian writer Henry David Thoreau wrote, “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.”

Covenant groups are encouraged to engage in some sort of service project that serves our congregation or the larger community. If your covenant group has done this, how did it feel to be part of your covenant group when you were doing something practical? How was your covenant group different after you had done your service project?

5. Latin American liberation theologian Paolo Friere used the term praxis for the ongoing process of using action to guide reflection, then using reflection to guide action, then using action to guide reflection once again, and so on. In this way, theory and practice were understood as partners rather than antagonists in the quest for social justice.

Would you say that unreflective action can sometimes do more harm than good, while reflection that produces no practical action is useless?

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 the American religious leader Howard Thurman:

When the song of angels is stilled, 
When the star in the sky is gone, 
When the kings and princes are home, 
When the shepherds are back with their flock, 
The work of Christmas begins: 
To find the lost, 
To heal the broken, 
To feed the hungry, 
To release the prisoner, 
To rebuild the nations, 
To bring peace among all souls, 
To make music in the heart.