Activity time: 25 minutes

Materials for Activity

• Journals or notebooks, one for each participant
• Writing and drawing materials, such as pens, pencils, fine point color markers, and color pencils
• Newsprint, markers, and tape

Preparation for Activity

• Write this prompt on newsprint:
• Share a story from religious texts, personal experience, scientific understanding, contemporary culture, your family or community history and teachings, or another source that helps frame your ethical decision making.
• Set writing and drawing materials where participants can reach them.

Description of Activity

Distribute journals or notebooks. Explain that participants will have time to write or draw in their journals as part of each workshop. Encourage them to journal between workshops as well.

Point out the prompt you have posted. Invite participants to take a few minutes to find their story and write or draw in their journal before sharing it with others in a small group. Allow ten minutes for reflection and writing.

Invite participants to create groups of three and to share their stories with one another. Allow ten minutes for small group conversation, and then re-gather the large group. Ask:

• To what stories do we turn for guidance with moral issues?
• How does religion or spirituality inform those stories?

Including All Participants

Some participants may have a hard time hearing in a room with many groups speaking at once. Invite groups to move apart or provide areas for groups to meet outside the main room.