Closing
Activity time: 5 minutes
Materials for Activity
- Handout 1, Possible Next Actions
- Taking It Home
Preparation for Activity
- Copy Handout 1, Possible Next Actions and Taking It Home for workshop participants.
Description of Activity
Thank guests for coming to the service and discussion. Distribute Handout 1, Possible Next Actions and Taking it Home to workshop participants. Extinguish the chalice and close with these words from the Rev. Dr. Mark L. Belletini, used with permission:
For religion to be significant, it has to provide more than the comforts of community. It also has to provide opportunities for deepening, for what I call spiritual growth. It has to help us casting down the false images of stereotypes which hurt us all. A good religion has to open us to the real diversity of our modern world. For our work as liberal religious people is not to be competitive with others, and to find ways to supersede others, but rather to find ways to supersede ourselves, to grow beyond our limitations and our constrictive boundaries, each and every one of us. Diversity, you see, must not end up being some sort of feel good slogan, a word we keep in our back pocket to make us feel like we're broad minded. Diversity is a gift. But it cannot be a gift... unless it is received. It is only received when there are hands and hearts open enough to receive it. And the opening of fists into welcoming hands and welcoming hearts is our spiritual work....