Opening
Part of Faith like a River
Activity time: 5 minutes
Materials for Activity
- Chalice, candle, and lighter or LED battery-operated candle
- Optional: Decorative cloth
Preparation for Activity
- Set up a worship or centering table with the chalice and (optional) decorative cloth.
Description of Activity
Light the chalice and share these words of Rabindrinath Tagore, a Bengali (Indian) poet who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Tell participants that Rabindrinath Tagore was a member of India's Brahmo Samaj religious movement, which was influenced by Unitarianism in the 19th century and retains connections to the Unitarian Universalist Association today.