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 George Bernard Shaw:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

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 Mortality. Finitude, Transience, and Mortality are three challenging existential realities we all face as human beings. We can explore the theme of mortality by asking questions such as these: Does the fact of mortality necessarily imply anxiety or despair? Can we turn our knowledge of mortality into an urgency to get on with life, an urgency to set aside what is distracting and unimportant and instead move ahead with our personal “bucket list”? What ground can we stand on if our own lives are subject to end? Where can we find refuge from mortality?

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 her poem “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver wrote:

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

2. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.”

When you think about death, do you experience a challenging emotion such as fear, anxiety, or sadness? Are you fearful of someday discovering that you had not really lived, as Thoreau notes? Are you anxious about not completing some project or life work? Are you sad about missing loved ones? Do you wish you could see how the human story turns out over the next few hundred years? Or does some other prospect leave you troubled with regard to death?

3. Alfred North Whitehead wrote that “God is the great companion – the fellow-sufferer who understands.”

Who understands how you feel about death? Is the entire universe indifferent? Does someone offer you a refuge of compassionate understanding with regard to your personal mortality?

4. Shortly before his death, First Unitarian Church member Clarence Zener wondered aloud, “What will become of me?”

What do you think will become of you after you die?

5. Unitarian Universalist poet Ric Masten wrote:

I turned forty a while ago
and came dribbling out of the locker room
ready to start the second half
glancing up at the scoreboard
I saw that we were behind
7 to 84
and it came to me then
we ain’t gonna win
and considering the score
I’m beginning to be damn glad
this particular game ain’t gonna go on
forever

but don’t take this to mean I’m ready
for the showers
take it to mean I’m probably gonna play
one helluva second half

I told this to some kids in the court
next to mine and they laughed
but I don’t think they understood
how could they
playing in the first quarter only one point
behind

What quarter of your life are you now living? Are you winning? Are you playing with heart and zest and purpose?

6. What is on your personal “bucket list”?

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 Robert Weston:

Autumn, we know, 
Is life en route to death.
The asters are but harbingers of frost.
The trees, flaunting their colors at the sky,
In other times will follow where the leaves have fallen,
And so shall we.
Yet other lives will come.
So may we know, accept, embrace,
The mystery of life we hold a while
Nor mourn that it outgrows each separate self,
But still rejoice that we may have our day.
Lift high our colors to the sky! And give,
In our time, fresh glory to the earth.