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 Unitarian Universalist minister Harold Babcock:

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.
No, it isn’t a gull.
A gull always has a raucous touch about him.
This is some sort of duck, and he cuddles in the swells.
He isn’t cold, and he is thinking things over.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic.
And he is part of it.
He looks a bit like a mandarin,
Or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree.
But he has hardly enough about the eyes to be a philosopher.
He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have.
He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.
Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.
And neither do you.
But he realizes it.
And what does he do, I ask you. He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.
He has made himself part of the boundless, by easing himself into it
Just where it touches him.

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 Service. So many things may get in the way of serving the needs of others: Preoccupation. Hurry. Boredom. Stress. Discouragement. Yet service is at the heart of what we do as a congregation: We serve one another within our religious community, and we serve other people in the larger community. What qualities might we develop within ourselves and within our congregation so that we could become more capable of service? Within our religious tradition, what exemplary stores of service can we find?

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 what ways do you offer service to the larger community? Do you believe that you offer enough service to the larger community? If not, what holds you back from offering more service?

2. Does our church offer enough opportunities for service within our church community? Does our church offer enough opportunities for service to the larger community? Does the culture of Unitarian Universalism (as you have experienced it) encourage enough service to the larger community?

3. Would you describe your motivation to offer service as a desire to give back out of a sense of gratitude, or as a desire to work for justice and human rights out of a sense of fairness, or as a desire to preserve something for future generations out of a sense of stewardship? Or are you motivated in some other way?

4. For you, what is the most frustrating thing about service?

5. Marian Wright Edelman wrote that “service is the rent we pay for living.”

Do you believe that you have an obligation to offer service to the larger community? Do you believe that everyone has an obligation to contribute to the life and health and survival of the human community?

6. Consider again the centering words by Harold Babcock.

In what ways are you connected with the local world immediately around you? How do you use your connections with the local world immediately around you to offer service?

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 Albert Schweitzer:

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.