• DVD, The Awakening Universe, and DVD player/monitor

• Obtain and test equipment to show a DVD.
• Preview the 15-minute DVD. Consider showing it from where the screen is visually empty and the narrator says "Imagine nothing."

Show the group The Awakening Universe, a capsule summary of the past 14 billion years based on the work of Thomas Berry and cosmologist Brian Swimme. The DVD conveys some of the awesome wonder associated with the creation and evolution of life. Explain that Brian Swimme, the speaker with flowing gray hair, is a cosmologist (who studies the physical universe) at the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco. Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd base some of their "The Great Story" work on Swimme's ideas. Leave time for youth's comments.