THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 12: SPIRITUAL PRACTICES IN A MATERIAL WORLD
BY PATRICIA HALL INFANTE AND DAVID H. MESSNER; DEVELOPMENTAL EDITOR: GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL
© Copyright 2013 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/30/2014 12:12:36 AM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. — Aldous Huxley, British author (Brave New World)
In this workshop, participants craft a personal theology of wealth and money and set a plan for sustainable, spiritually healthy financial practice at home, at work, and in their congregation. The workshop revisits prompt questions from previous workshops and guides participants to articulate a "credo" about money which states their personal beliefs, values, and intentions. Then, participants plan how they will transform their intentions into actions and make a commitment to follow through.
A week before the workshop, contact participants and remind them to bring with them any written, artistic, and/ or creative expressions and reflections from prior workshops or prepare some thoughts about their hopes, dreams, and intentions for their financial lives going forward.
You and workshop participants may decide as an alternate or additional activity to plan and lead a worship service which brings the spiritual work of The Wi$dom Path program into a community religious celebration.
Before leading the workshop, review the Accessibility guidelines in the program Introduction under Integrating All Participants.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 15 |
Activity 1: Taking Stock of the Journey | 20 |
Activity 2: Creating and Sharing Credos | 25 |
Activity 3: Moving from Credo to Action | 25 |
Faith in Action: Forming an Accountability Partnership/Group | |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Worship Planning | 60 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Reflect on your experience leading The Wi$dom Path program. Consider:
WORKSHOP PLAN
OPENING (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Welcome people into the circle. Sound the chime and invite participants into quiet reflection as you prepare to enter into a time of centering and sharing. Invite a volunteer to light the chalice as you share these words:
We light this chalice in acknowledgement of reaching a destination,
And the threshold of a new beginning together.
We light this chalice for the places we have been
And those where we have yet to go.
We light this chalice in gratitude for our time together,
that our lives may be better for it
Go around the circle, passing the talking stick if you have chosen to use one, and invite each participant to say their name and to check in by sharing one experience of giving money they have had since the last workshop. Coach them to try to connect their gift with what they learned about themselves and their values in previous workshops.
Sound the chime to signal the end of the centering time.
ACTIVITY 1: TAKING STOCK OF THE JOURNEY (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Say:
In the Wi$dom Path program we have paid close attention to the ways we have used and been affected by money, so that we might draw clearer connections between our financial choices and our values and perhaps change our financial behavior to better align with our religious and spiritual intentions. We have seen that money plays a complex role in our lives, our relationships, and our personal aspirations, dreams, and anxieties. We have seen how every financial decision we make reflects our core values. While sometimes our religious, spiritual, and ethical values make our financial decisions clear, sometimes the choices before us put some of our deeply held values in opposition to one another. In each of our financial decisions and actions, we carry myriad voices: those of our current communities, our communities of origin, our personal and familial experiences, and the inner voice which guides us to live more fully into our best aspirations for faithfully and ethically using the monetary resources available to us.
Invite participants to join you in turning inward for a guided reflection and meditation. Say it is designed to bring forward ideas and feelings from earlier program workshops. Ask them to take a moment to center themselves physically, connecting themselves in a comfortable way to the chair or floor beneath them, and to close their eyes if is comfortable. Invite them to focus on their breathing and simply to be present.
When everyone appears calm, centered, and ready, sound the chime and lead the guided meditation (Leader Resource 1).
Sound the chime to recall the group's attention. Ask participants to hold their thoughts, images, and feelings as you move to the next activity.
ACTIVITY 2: CREATING AND SHARING CREDOS (25 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Say that a credo is a declaration of belief, commitment, and aspiration. Ask if any participants have been involved with a Coming of Age program that concluded with youth preparing and sharing a credo. Invite anyone who has been part of such an experience, as a parent, mentor, participant, or attendee at a Coming of Age service to briefly comment on the value and power of the credo experience. Say:
Part of our commitment as Unitarian Universalists is to choose our own spiritual path. The act of declaring what we believe, value, hope, and aspire to is a powerful spiritual experience. You are invited to write your own money credo, expressing what you have learned about your relationship with money and what your commitments are for that relationship going forward.
Encourage participants to look for ideas in any written, visual, or creative expressions from prior workshops they have brought with them.
Distribute Handout 1, Four Credo Perspectives. Invite the volunteers to each read a definition aloud. Emphasize that credos are personal, may be incomplete and representative, may only be a statement for this moment in life, and can bring together both intellectual and emotional elements. Ask for other comments or observations.
Distribute paper and pens. Invite participants to take 15 minutes to begin writing their personal money credo. Ask them to keep in mind the ideas and images that arose during their reflection and meditation. Challenge them to articulate what they believe most fundamentally and deeply about money. What are the basic worldly truths about money they have discovered? What roles should it play in their spiritual life? Their family life? Their community life? How is it connected to their Unitarian Universalist faith? Call attention to the questions you have posted and invite participants to use them if they are helpful. After participants have finished writing, invite them to share any brief thoughts about the credo-writing experience.
ACTIVITY 3: MOVING FROM CREDO TO ACTION (25 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Ask participants: How could you best put your beliefs and commitments in to action? Call attention to the posted newsprint and invite participants to brainstorm concrete suggestions for putting beliefs into action in each category. Ask: What practices can bring our relationship with money more in line with our values and more supportive of our spiritual and physical well-being? Ask them to include in the brainstorm the actions that they personally plan to take.
After a time of brainstorming, invite participants to review the lists. Lead a discussion, asking:
Conclude the discussion, and then invite participants to use sticky dots to indicate one, two, or three actions to which they are willing to make a commitment. Ask them to consider enlisting a friend or family member to help them hold themselves accountable to that commitment.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Taking It Home, Singing the Journey, and Handout 2 (for those who need a copy). Lead participants or have a volunteer to lead them in singing "Building a New Way," Hymn 1017 in Singing the Journey.
Then, form a circle and join hands. Invite each participant to offer a blessing for the group to carry away from the program. Model a blessing using your own words or these:
May you go from here, into a life of shared abundance. May that which you receive and that which you give enrich your life beyond measure.
After everyone has shared a blessing, extinguish the chalice.
FAITH IN ACTION: FORMING AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERSHIP/GROUP
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Form an accountability group for support and encouragement with interested members of your workshop group.
Ask participants to consider and come to an understanding on these questions:
Create a covenant that includes your agreements about how you will work together and support one another. Document each agreement on newsprint. Before leaving, agree on when and where to hold the next meeting. Assign responsibilities for planning and communication.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Make a time for individual reflection and discussion with your co-facilitator after the conclusion of the workshop. You may also wish to share your reflections about The Wi$dom Path program with a religious educator, minister, or lay leader responsible for planning adult faith development programming in your congregation. Consider these questions:
TAKING IT HOME
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. — Aldous Huxley, British author (Brave New World)
Write a prayer that expresses your deepest wishes for your own financial well-being and the well-being of those dear to you.
Prepare yourself by reading "Meditation on Love" by Thich Nhat Hanh (Handout 2). Then, meditate or pray for a healthy relationship with money and wealth for ever-widening circles. Pray first for yourself. Begin with your deepest wish for your own relationship with money and wealth. Then, hold those in your family or close friends in thought or prayer. Then, the circle of your faith community. Then the community in which you live. Then, the larger world which surrounds you. Make this prayer a regular discipline as you strive to maintain your own spiritual and financial well-being.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: WORSHIP PLANNING (60 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Plan to lead a worship service for your faith community, congregation, or group. Set a date based on your conversations with congregational and/or group leadership. Distribute Handout 3, Sample Order of Service and read it together. Explain that the handout merely offers suggestions; the form and content of the worship are entirely up to the participants.
Ask participants to appoint a leader to facilitate the planning and role assignment process. Offer to serve as scribe for the group's planning. Suggest that they agree on assignments and deadlines, including a rehearsal time. Provide support as requested. When the time comes for the worship service, enjoy!
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 12:
HANDOUT 1: FOUR CREDO PERSPECTIVES
Credo. noun (pl. credos) a statement of the beliefs or aims that guide someone's actions...
— New Oxford American Dictionary (3rd edition)
A credo is a snapshot of your values, faith, identity, and belief at one point in time. As Unitarian Universalists, we understand that your religious ideas will evolve throughout your life... you credo is simply an expression of where you are now.
— Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh in the Coming of Age Handbook for Congregations (UUA, 2009)
Try writing a credo sometime. Writing out a credo can be helpful in the living of one's life. It puts your beliefs on the table. Once you get your major beliefs out of the way, other less well organized beliefs may surprise you by surfacing. You may find that these less extravagant beliefs may affect your life far more than whether you believe or don't believe in something so grand as God.
— Rev. Maureen Titchener in the 2003 Gould Discourse
The heart is another commonly mentioned analogy for what we are trying to identify. A heart is a source of sustaining life, a motivating force, a place from which energy emerges... .The concept of "credo," usually thought of as a statement of individual belief, can be traced etymologically to the notion of "that to which I give my heart"—a commitment that is more emotional than intellectual in nature.
— From "Engaging our Theological Diversity," the 2005 report of the UUA Commission on Appraisal
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 12:
HANDOUT 2: MEDITATION ON LOVE
Reprinted from Teachings on Love (1998, 2007 revised edition) by Thich Nhat Hanh with permission of Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, www.parallaxpress.org.
May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May she be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May he be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May they be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May I be safe and free from injury.
May she be safe and free from injury.
May he be safe and free from injury.
May they be safe and free from injury.
May I be free from anger, afflictions, fear and anxiety.
May she be free from anger, afflictions, fear and anxiety.
May he be free from anger, afflictions, fear and anxiety.
May they be free from anger, afflictions, fear and anxiety.
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 12:
HANDOUT 3: SAMPLE ORDER OF SERVICE
Prelude
Choose your favorite money-themed song. Workshop 1, Opening has suggestions.
Call to Worship
What calls us together in worship and what does it have to do with material wealth? It could be a poem or reading, possibly from The Wi$dom Path workshops or based on short snippets from participants' money stories shared in the program. Perhaps you can use the Call to Worship as an invitation to worship attendees to reflect on, discover, or even share their own money stories.
Opening Hymn
Possibilities include:
Introduction to The Wi$dom Path
Offer a brief description of The Wi$dom Path program. Include some key questions your workshop group explored.
Reflections
Two or three members of the workshop group share their credo statements. Offer a diversity of voices and perspectives. You might separate the credo statements with music.
Offering
Work with your governing board, professional staff, or another appropriate group to propose an organization, project, or cause to which the worship offering will be given. Plan a brief explanation to introduce the offering.
Reflections
Two or three members of your workshop group share their credo statements. Offer a diversity of voices and perspectives. You might separate the statements with music.
Joys and Concerns
Invite people to silently light candles of joy or concern, with a particular focus on money in their lives.
Meditation/Prayer
Hymn
Possibilities include:
Benediction/Closing Words
Look in the Closing words provided for each workshop of The Wi$dom Path.
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 12:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: GUIDED REFLECTION AND MEDITATION
Ask these questions slowly, allowing time for reflection after each set of questions:
Conclude the time of reflection and meditation by inviting participants to slowly return to the group, opening their eyes when they are ready.
FIND OUT MORE
Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1998)
"Faith Reduced to Three Questions — A Drive Time Essay (at www.uua.org/publications/drivetime/57464.shtml)" by Judith A. Frediani, June 2005
Coming of Age Handbook for Congregations (at www.uuabookstore.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=946) by Sarah Gibb Millspaugh (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, 2009)
The Generosity Path: Finding the Richness in Giving (at www.uuabookstore.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1864) by Mark V. Ewert (Boston: Skinner House, 2013)