PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 9: COMMITMENT
BY MELANIE J. DAVIS STEPHANIE HAYMAKER, PH.D. CRAIG HIRSHBERG, M.DIV. RICHARD BELLINGHAM, ED.D.
© Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 9:05:38 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Loving involves commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. . . . Love is a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile.
— Rev. Carter Heyward, contemporary Episcopal priest and feminist theologian
Commitments give structure to life, imbuing life with meaning and higher purpose. Sincere commitments can be a source for growth and liberation, both relationally and religiously. Couples participating in Principled Commitment have all made some form of commitment as spouses or partners. This workshop invites couples to consider their commitments — to their relationship and to their values — in the contexts of work, family, and community.
Guiding Unitarian Universalist Principle
Sixth Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
Our loving relationships are intimately connected with what happens in the greater world. Relationships can teach us to value — or devalue — community, justice, liberty, and peace. When we enact love and justice in our relationships, we are better equipped to enact them in the wider world. The commitments couples make with one another can fuel commitments to live their values socially and politically. By taking charge of personal behaviors, by committing to principles, by learning to cope with difficulties and change in a constructive manner, by living a life of generosity and good intention through loving and compassionate relationships, we help ensure that a similarly positive world becomes a more realistic vision.
Considerations for Adaptation
Alternate activities present other ways to explore commitment. Alternate Activity 1, Faith in Action, highlights commitment to the congregation. (It works best directly following Activity 2, Signs of Commitment.) Alternate Activity 2, A Model for Managing Change, explores one of commitment's biggest challenges. Alternate Activity 3, Filling Your Bucket, helps participants reflect on the various commitments in their lives: commitments to self, partner, children, and the greater world. To accommodate alternate activities, Activity 3, Growing Together, can be shortened or the workshop can be extended.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Check-in | 10 |
Activity 2: Signs of Commitment | 30 |
Activity 3: Growing Together | 60 |
Closing | 10 |
Alternate Activity 1: Faith in Action — Commitment to the Congregation | 15 |
Alternative Activity 2: A Model for Managing Change | 20 |
Alternate Activity 3: Filling Your Bucket | 15 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Carter Heyward, in the passage included as Leader Resource 2 for this workshop, writes that "love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life." Set aside some time for personal reflection and meditation on the subject of commitment. In what ways do you choose and commit yourself to love — not just in big life decisions, like adopting a child or speaking wedding vows, but also in the smaller things you do in the everyday? What are your strongest commitments in life — those to which you devote the most time, treasure, and talent? Consider the guiding Principle for this workshop, "The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all." How do your commitments align with this goal? You may wish to say a prayer or meditate on those people you love, those things you are committed to, and your hopes for the world.
WORKSHOP PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
As participants enter, invite them to sign in, create name tags, and pick up a schedule for the workshop series if they have not already done so. Direct their attention to the agenda for this workshop.
OPENING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Refer to Leader Resource 1, Order of Service — Commitment, to conduct the opening. You may adapt the service to fit with your group's interest as well as your congregation's identity and customs. The Order of Service is provided as a starting point.
Including All Participants
Pay attention to the modulation of your voice throughout the opening, and particularly during the meditation. Make sure that your tone is gentle and meditative, but keep your volume high enough to be heard throughout the room. Note that some participants may need to keep their eyes open during the meditation in order to understand your words.
ACTIVITY 1: CHECK-IN (10 MINUTES)
Description of Activity
Invite participants to take turns briefly sharing insights they have had since the previous workshop on collaboration. Ask whether couples have tried some new ways of collaborating.
If desired, you can move this activity along briskly by asking participants to limit themselves to a one-sentence comment.
Once you feel participants know each other well enough, you may wish to offer an alternative check-in that is more meaningful to the group.
ACTIVITY 2: SIGNS OF COMMITMENT (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Ask participants to recall how they felt during the workshop opening's guided meditation, when they imagined themselves expressing their commitment to their partner. Invite volunteers to call out one word or phrase that describes how that experience made them feel. Quickly list the responses on a sheet of newsprint. No discussion is necessary. When a variety of words and phrases have been listed, post the sheet on the wall.
Share the reading "Loving Involves Commitment" by Carter Heyward (Leader Resource 2).
Invite participants to respond to the reading. Ask:
Explain that in long-term relationships, commitment can be seen as a "founding value" because it helps both partners feel safe and supported. Ask:
After participants have generated their ideas, display the list you prepared ahead of time:
Explain that these six skills can be nurtured through partners' mutual commitment. If similar ideas have already been identified by participants, point out correlations. Invite participants to add other skills to the list.
ACTIVITY 3: GROWING TOGETHER (60 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Introduce the activity with these or similar words:
We will now focus on one of the skills that commitment can nurture: growing together.
It is natural for humans to grow. Interpersonal growth occurs for people at different rates and at different times. Some people grow so slowly they appear unchanging, while others' personalities seem to change overnight.
When couples enter a relationship, they may be at similar points on their evolutionary journey. But sometimes one partner grows when the other doesn't. Or they may both grow, but in different directions.
Growth itself can put stress on a relationship. So can attempts to stifle growth. How can we be supportive of our own and our partners' growth, and continue to nurture our commitment to one another?
Ask participants to pair off with their partners at the tables. Distribute the newsprint or drawing paper; straightedge tools (if needed); and pens, pencils, or markers. Tell participants:
You will work together to create three timelines of your relationship: one for each of you as individuals and one for the two of you as a couple. Each line starts on the day your relationship began and ends with the present. On the lines, you will mark events and periods of personal growth: times when one or the other of you grew as an individual and times when you grew as a couple. You will have 15 minutes to draw your timelines.
After 15 minutes, or when you notice that couples have finished constructing their timelines, invite them to remain in their pairs and discuss their timelines with each other. Ask them to identify high-growth events or periods on each line and consider:
After 30 minutes of discussion, draw the group back together to process the activity. Ask:
CLOSING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Summarize the workshop, emphasizing the connection between growth, change, and commitment: that growth and change can be some of the biggest challenges to commitment. Ask participants whether they have any questions about the ideas discussed in this workshop.
Distribute the Taking It Home handout you have prepared.
Gather participants around the chalice. Invite each person to offer one thought or insight about commitment or this workshop.
As you extinguish the chalice, read the following closing words:
May our efforts here fuel the fires of connection in this world. May our individual efforts take us one step closer to creating a world of inherent worth and dignity for every person, beginning right here with our partners. Blessed be; may it be so; amen.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
With your co-leader, take some time after the workshop to evaluate the session and plan for future sessions. Consider these questions:
Review and assign tasks for the next workshop, such as gathering materials and printing or photocopying handouts. Decide who will lead each section of the next workshop.
TAKING IT HOME
Affection Connection — Commitment
Extend your exploration of commitment by trying one or more of these activities on your own.
For Couples: Managing Change
With your partner, try applying the model explored in Alternate Activity 2, A Model for Managing Change, to one or more situations involving your relationship.
[Leaders: if you choose this option, include Leader Resource 3, A Model for Managing Change, as part of the Taking It Home materials.]
For Individuals: Reflecting on Commitment
Take some time to journal about the commitments you have made to yourself, your partner, your children (if applicable), and the greater world. What commitments — stated and unstated — have you made to each? Are there more or fewer commitments than you expected? Which commitments are most core to your identity? Which commitments are made more from necessity than desire? Which commitments do you most want to affirm, and how will you affirm them in the days to come?
For Couples with Children: Changes in the Family
Discuss "change" as a family. What has changed in your household recently? How did everyone respond? Try applying the model explored in Alternate Activity 2, A Model for Managing Change, to the situation.
[Leaders: If you choose this option, include Leader Resource 3, A Model for Managing Change, as part of the Taking It Home materials.]
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: FAITH IN ACTION — COMMITMENT TO THE CONGREGATION (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity can follow directly from Activity 2, Signs of Commitment.
Introduce the discussion with these or similar words:
Being a member of a congregation involves a big commitment. You commit to sharing in the mission and the vision of the congregation — to personal growth, stewardship, service, and shared ministry. You may be asked to share your time, talent, and treasure often. In return, you are part of a large support system that ministers to you, celebrates the positive occasions in your life, and comforts you in particularly hard times.
Take a few moments to think about your personal commitment to the congregation: ways that you are committed to give, receive, and participate in the mission and vision of this congregation. Perhaps you are an active member of the congregation; perhaps you're brand new and don't know if you're committed. Whatever your level of commitment is, we honor that.
While participants are reflecting, re-post the bulleted list of skills from Activity 2, Signs of Commitment. Ask participants to review that list. Invite discussion by asking:
Ask participants to consider acting upon these thoughts by becoming involved in the congregation in ways that express their commitments.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: A MODEL FOR MANAGING CHANGE (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Present the material from Leader Resource 3, A Model for Managing Change, in a lively and engaging manner. Use the newsprint sheet to refer to the steps in the process. You may wish to intersperse these questions at appropriate times throughout your presentation to further engage participants:
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 3: FILLING YOUR BUCKET (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 1, Filling Your Bucket, and self-adhesive colored dots. Explain:
The buckets on the handout represent commitments made to oneself, to one's partner, to one's children (if any), and to the greater world. These commitments can range from major ones such as "to love, honor, and cherish," to smaller ones such as "eat organic foods." Here are some examples:
My Personal Bucket (things I do for myself): Exercise, read for pleasure, get enough sleep
My Partner Bucket (things I do for my partner): Listen to his/her feelings, do the dishes, be faithful physically and emotionally
My Child Bucket (things I do for my children, if any): Provide food and shelter, nurture their education
My Greater World Bucket (things I do for the community or world): Do social justice work, vote, use fuel-efficient vehicles
Ask participants to write words and short phrases in the appropriate buckets to represent the different types of commitments they have made. Or, if you are using colored dots, participants will write the words or phrases on the dots and place them on the buckets.
Once the majority of the participants are done writing or placing their dots, invite participants to objectively examine the chart they have created for themselves. Ask:
Explain:
Ideally, we would achieve a rough balance between the types of commitments we make. If we promise ourselves too little, we risk feeling neglected. If we focus too much on a partner's happiness and neglect our own, we may eventually feel cheated.
Ask participants to reflect on any patterns they observe in their bucket charts. If they are missing a sense of balance, encourage them to carefully monitor their time and values to see if change is necessary.
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 9:
HANDOUT 1: FILLING YOUR BUCKET PAGE 1
My Personal Bucket
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 9:
HANDOUT 1 PAGE 2
My Partner Bucket
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 9:
HANDOUT 1 PAGE 3
My Child Bucket
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 9:
HANDOUT 1 PAGE 4
My Greater World Bucket
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 9:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: ORDER OF SERVICE — COMMITMENT
Follow this Order of Service as you lead the opening of Workshop 9, Commitment.
Welcome
Chalice Lighting
Principle
Guided Meditation
Reading
Welcome
Welcome participants. Explain that this workshop is devoted to the concept of commitment. Participants will explore different forms of commitment and learn skills to help them protect and enhance their commitment to each other.
Chalice Lighting
Light the chalice while reading the following words:
We light this chalice as a symbol of our faith: to seek truth and honesty, to build respect, and to foster greater trust among all people, beginning with ourselves. May we dedicate our time together to these purposes.
Principle
Introduce the guiding Unitarian Universalist Principle for this workshop:
We covenant to affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
Our loving relationships are intimately connected with what happens in the greater world. Relationships can teach us to value — or devalue — community, justice, liberty, and peace. When we enact love and justice in our relationships, we are better equipped to enact them in the wider world. The commitments couples make with one another can fuel commitments to live their values socially and politically. By taking charge of personal behaviors, by committing to principles, by learning to cope with difficulties and change in a constructive manner, by living a life of generosity and good intention through loving and compassionate relationships, we help ensure that a similarly positive world becomes a more realistic vision.
Guided Meditation
Lead participants through the following guided meditation to center them for the rest of the workshop. Read the words slowly, pausing between phrases.
I invite you into a time of silence. Try to sit with your spine straight, with your feet flat on the floor. Perhaps close your eyes. Take a deep breath, inhale . . . and exhale. Take another deep breath . . . and exhale. Again; this time, as you exhale, let go of all the pressures of the day. Let go of the "to dos," the "should haves" . . . just let them float out of the room. You can return to them later. Take another deep breath. As you inhale, take in the energy of this place. As you exhale, let go of any tension or stress you might be feeling.
[Long pause]
Come into this place of connection. Envision yourself expressing your commitment to your partner. It is a gift you are giving each other. What does it feel like? What does it look like?
[Sit in silence for two to three minutes.]
Please maintain this spirit during the reading.
Reading
Read words by Judith Meyer, 672 in Singing the Living Tradition.
Sit in silence for a few moments before saying:
When you are ready, please bring your focus back into this room and join our check-in.
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 9:
LEADER RESOURCE 2: LOVING INVOLVES COMMITMENT
Offer these words on love from the Reverend Carter Heyward, a feminist and lesbian woman who was among the first women ordained as an Episcopal priest.
Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward." Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies. Love creates righteousness, or justice, here on earth. To make love is to make justice. As advocates and activists for justice know, loving involves struggle, resistance, and risk. People working today on behalf of women, blacks, lesbians and gay men, the aging, the poor in this country and elsewhere know that making justice is not a warm, fuzzy experience. I think also that sexual lovers and good friends know that the most compelling relationships demand hard work, patience, and a willingness to endure tensions and anxiety in creating mutually empowering bonds.
For this reason, loving involves commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called "love." Love is a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity — a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or as a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh.
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 9:
LEADER RESOURCE 3: A MODEL FOR MANAGING CHANGE
One of the most challenging aspects of a committed relationship is the need to manage change, whether that change is perceived as positive, negative, or neutral. In a simple sense, change means that things are no longer and may never again be the same. It disrupts existing activities and feelings, and it may require learning new ways of doing things. Managing change often means letting go of illusions, accepting a new reality, and focusing on new possibilities. Change may require working out new agreements and finding tools to move forward.
Change is inevitable, and its impact can range from devastating to thrilling. When a significant life event occurs, a couple can manage the change and enrich their relationship, or they can choose not to manage it, thereby decreasing their odds of attaining satisfaction.
Change of any kind usually requires some sacrifice and the experience of loss, even if it is simply a matter of giving up something familiar. Not everyone is comfortable with change. Those who aren't may offer resistance temporarily or for a prolonged and potentially disruptive period.
One way of getting more comfortable with change is to learn to respond to it in four phases:
Understand What Has Happened
The first step involves describing the event and identifying how you feel about it. What occurred, and what was its significance? Does it create new demands on you, your partner, or your relationship?
Events can be unexpected or anticipated; positive, negative, or neutral. Unexpected events may include sudden death, job loss, or a disabling illness. Anticipated events may include getting married, getting a promotion, buying a car, or becoming a parent. Soon after these events occur, the demands they create become evident. These demands include learning new skills, finding support, or letting go of old beliefs or behaviors.
Identifying how you feel requires the ability to label your inner experience in relation to what's happening. Most events that create a demand for change bring about strong feelings. A death in the family can call forth uncontrollable feelings of grief, while a change in work responsibilities might bring out feelings of excitement, fear, or both.
Accept What Can't Be Changed
Many life events are outside of our control: the process of aging and dying; the inevitable demands of life transitions; the coming of disease, disruptions, and disasters. Events can challenge people's assumptions about the world and themselves. By their very nature, life-changing events mean that things cannot continue the way they were. Responding to such changes in a healthy manner requires accepting the actuality of the event and its meaning before moving on.
Put the Past Behind You
Putting the past behind you involves accepting it without being trapped by it. Accepting means more than letting the event sink in emotionally; it means letting go. Putting the past behind you takes time and often includes a recycling of the acceptance and understanding processes.
Recommit to the Relationship
Understanding without action is rarely productive. Beginning again means acting on the desire to make something happen. Taking action decreases the odds that you will go through the rest of your life anchored in the past. It increases your chances of creating a new vision of what's possible for you as an individual and as part of a couple. It is an expression of your commitment to your future and to your relationship.