When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. — John Muir

Talk about the quote. Do you agree with it? Can you think of anything that is not connected to something else in some way? Note that John Muir was a well known American naturalist and conservationist who lived from 1838 to 1914.

WHAT WE DID TODAY

Today's Big Question asks, "How am I connected with everything else?" We heard the story of Henry Bergh, a famous Unitarian who felt so strongly connected to animals that he started the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He also started the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, but that is another story. We talked about our connections to the whole universe, and drew concentric circles to show how connections spread out from each of us to family and community to nation and to the whole universe. When we drew some lines out from ourselves, the circles began to look like a web, with us in the center connected to everything else. In WCUU, we talked about connections, community and responsibility. Then we designed tee shirts to show our own ideas about connection.

REFLECT ON YOUR BELIEFS

Write some poems about how you are connected with something very far away—like the moon, or the Amazon River or a kangaroo in Australia. The poems can be silly and fun or very serious.

SHARED SEARCH

Play a connection game with your friends or family. Count the people you connect with in any one day. Include anyone you communicate with by phone or computer, in person... everybody you can think of. Compare the totals.

MAKE A RECONNECTION

Reconnect to somebody you have not seen for a long time. Maybe they moved away, or just got busy. Find out where they are and phone them to say hello or send an email or a postcard. Or, reconnect with a place you used to love but have not visited for some time. Think about how hard it would be to stay connected to every person you ever meet and every place you ever visit.

PHOTO CHALLENGE

Ask somebody else to take a picture of you connecting with someone or something in one of your concentric circles. Tell the person taking the picture why this connection is important to you.

FAMILY FAITH IN ACTION — BEING RESPONSIBLE

Find a new way to be responsible for helping the environment that connects everything and everybody. Maybe it is as simple as helping clean up part of the Earth near your home. Maybe you will decide to eat more local foods to help reduce the expense and pollution of importing foods to your area.