TOOLBOX OF FAITH
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 10: COURAGE AND CONVICTION (SADDLEBAGS)
BY KATE TWEEDIE COVEY
© Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/8/2014 7:22:43 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
From caring comes courage.
— Lao Tzu
Conscience is the root of all true courage.
— James Freeman Clarke, nineteenth-century British abolitionist
This session addresses courage and conviction. Saddlebags symbolize the courage and conviction bequeathed us by the early Universalist circuit riders. Though they were often not welcomed, and sometimes even violently derided for their beliefs, they rode from town to town to preach their message of faith, hope, and love and to build Universalist communities.
Using, activities, reflection, and the example of the words and deeds of these prophetic women and men, participants explore courage and conviction in their own lives. They think about the challenges and the importance of taking a stand, and they learn how the resources of their Unitarian Universalist faith can help them discern what they feel strongly about and stand up for what they believe.
Make sure there is ample time for a discussion of how people can work in their spiritual lives to decide what is important enough to become a "conviction." If it proves difficult to obtain saddlebags to use as the Tool of the Day, bicycle panniers or a rucksack will do. In any case, you will need a photo or drawing of saddlebags to add to the Toolbox of Our Faith poster. You can prepare two copies of this image — one for the poster, and one to be the Tool of the Day.
Before the session, collect images of people showing courage and conviction and post them before participants arrive. Pictures may be obtained from magazines, newspapers, wall calendars, websites, and history picture books. Include images of itinerant preachers from North American Universalist history. Find sources for images in "Find Out More."
For Activity 3: Making Courage Stones, you will need a few stones for each participant. Look for stones that are large enough to draw or paint on, yet small enough to keep in a pocket.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
ACTIVITY | MINUTES |
Welcoming and Entering | |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Story — Eliza Tupper Wilkes: Riding for Faith, Hope, and Love | 10 |
Activity 2: Moments of Courage — Acting It Out | 15 |
Activity 3: Making Courage Stones | 15 |
Activity 4: Council Circle | 10 |
Faith in Action: Ideas | |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
After you have read the story, "Eliza Tupper Wilkes: Riding for Faith, Hope, and Love," think about the convictions you hold in your own life and moments of courage that you have experienced, or avoided.
Find some time to sit in a quiet place, even if only a few minutes, and reflect on these issues in your own life. What are your convictions? What are your resources for the courage to stand up for what you believe? What would you or do you stand up for, even if it might be dangerous or inconvenient to do so?
Use these questions, if you find them helpful:
Focus on the children who will be in the session today. What convictions do you hope a new generation of Unitarian Universalists will hold dear? What kinds of courageous actions would you wish for them to take? What resources do you wish them to have in their lives and in their faith community to support them in their courage and their convictions? Let your wishes for the group guide you in the session you are about to lead.
SESSION PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity is intended for the time before the session when children arrive individually, that is, "straggle in."
Welcome participants. Invite them to wander around the room, looking at the pictures, and thinking about what they see in them. Encourage participants to talk with one another about what they think is happening in the pictures.
OPENING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather the children in a circle in the Council Circle space. Light the chalice.
Indicate where the opening words are posted, for any children who are unfamiliar with them. Lead the group in reciting:
We are Unitarian Universalists
with minds that think,
hearts that love,
and hands that are ready to serve.
Hold up the saddlebags, bicycle panniers, or rucksack — or a photo/illustration of saddlebags — and tell the children what it is. Pass this Tool of the Day around. Invite children to share prior experiences with saddlebags.
Tell the group that saddlebags are the Tool of the Day because they were used by the early Universalist itinerant preachers. These preachers, male and female, showed the courage of their convictions by traveling from community to community, spreading a message of religion based on faith, hope, and love.
You may say:
The topic for today's session is courage and conviction.
A person's convictions are the beliefs and ideas that they feel are so important, that they are willing to stand up for them, even when it is hard to do so because acting on their beliefs might cause them a lot of inconvenience, or ridicule, or even harm.
Collect the tool. Invite a participant to attach the picture of saddlebags to the Toolbox of Our Faith poster, and write the words "Courage and Conviction" on the poster. Extinguish the chalice.
Now, engage the group in an experiential introduction to conviction and courage. Invite them to comment on the images they have seen around the room. If more structure would be useful, give each participant one image and invite the children to share their images with one another in pairs.
You may use these questions to spark discussion:
You need not try to make a particular point or dig deeply into any of the comments (unless the emotional safety of the group calls for it). This activity provides an opening, and sets the stage for the topic of the day.
If the group has dispersed, re-gather them in a circle and distribute scrap paper and pencils. To encourage them to think about their own convictions, ask participants to write down three or four things they feel strongly about, beliefs they might call their convictions. Tell them they can write whatever they like, and that they can change what they have written during the session. Tell them they will have an opportunity to share some or all of what they write in the Council Circle. Allow a minute or so for participants to write. Then, say:
Many people think "courage" means "not being afraid." But, courage is a quality that people can draw on when they must do something, even when they are afraid. Courage is what allows you to have convictions, and to stand up for what you believe, even when it is hard to do so. The images you have seen around our room today all represent times when people acted with courage.
If you have time, draw out participants' ideas about what might be called courageous in some of the images. Tell the group:
We will explore today the ideas of conviction and courage in our faith community, starting with the example of some courageous women and men from the earliest days of the Universalist movement in North America—itinerant preachers of the late 1700s and early 1800s.
An "itinerant" preacher was one who did not have a church of their own, but instead traveled from town to town preaching and gathering believers. If they were successful at starting a group, they might return to the same places over and over, in a particular order, or "circuit." Since they most often rode horses to get from place to place, they became known as "circuit riders." They carried all their clothes, some food, and a copy of the Bible in their saddlebags.
Being a circuit rider was hard work. Since they didn't have a regular job, they didn't have regular pay. What they did have was the fire of conviction—a fire that burned in their hearts. As Universalists, they had discovered through prayer, reading the Bible, and just plain reasonable thought that God was a force for love among all people. At that time, many other preachers spoke about God as a force bringing punishment and fear. Because the Universalist message was usually a new one, itinerant preachers risked being ridiculed, physically threatened, or even beat up for the beliefs they preached.
Our story today is about these early Universalists and their work, and the courage and convictions they carried with them in their hearts and in their saddlebags.
ACTIVITY 1: STORY — ELIZA TUPPER WILKES RIDING FOR FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather the group to hear a story. After the story, invite participants to share their reflections and initial thoughts about the story, the circuit riders, and their courage and convictions. The discussion will be continued in further depth in Council Circle.
Remind participants that they can update their own lists of convictions now, or later in the session.
ACTIVITY 2: MOMENTS OF COURAGE — ACTING IT OUT (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Form groups of three or four. If the group has fewer than six children, have them stay together as one group, with co-leaders as the audience.
Instruct each group to come up with a moment to enact in which a person shows particular courage and conviction. It can be a famous person or a famous moment, or an everyday moment.
Distribute copies of Handout 1: Moments of Courage Skit Rules and go over them with the group:
Give participants the time you have allotted to create a skit. Visit all the groups as they work to make sure they are on track and to offer help as needed.
When time is up, bring the groups together. Have each group perform, and invite the other groups to guess the moment of courage being acted out. Once an audience member has identified the moment of courage, ask the performing group what courage and convictions were displayed in their chosen moment.
Repeat for two or three rounds, as time allows.
Variations
If you feel that participants have appropriate experiences to draw from, ask them to choose moments from their own lives, or moments they have witnessed. If they have previously studied a particular time frame or area of Unitarian Universalist history, ask them to identify and enact a moment from our tradition. You may like to add a round in which groups act out a future moment that might call for their courage, including a demonstration of how they would hope to act.
ACTIVITY 3: MAKING COURAGE STONES (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants will create a tangible reminder of the support their Unitarian Universalist religious community provides for their actions of conviction and courage.
Invite the children to look at their list of convictions and choose one or two which are most important to them. Tell them they will then create an object they can use to focus their courage in a time of need.
If it is appropriate for the group, create a brief space of meditation or prayer. Lead participants to:
Invite participants to choose one or two stones that they can keep with them to remind them of their convictions and of the support of their religious community in helping them act with courage. Settle the group at the worktable and invite them to decorate the stone(s) in any way they choose. You might suggest they use a chalice or another symbol that will remind them of the conviction the stone represents.
If time is a constraint, participants can choose a stone to keep as a symbol of their convictions without decorating it. They could choose a stone now or at the Council Circle.
If appropriate for the group, when children finish decorating their stones, hold a brief ceremony. Here are some suggestions:
ACTIVITY 5: COUNCIL CIRCLE (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Each session closes with a Council Circle. The goal of the Council Circle is to share our stories, listen to each other, and grow in faith together. Listening to each other is a religious act. The Council Circle includes three rituals: Reflection, Sharing of Joys and Concerns, and a Closing.
Reflection
Gather the group in the Council Circle. Light the chalice. Offer words spoken routinely in your congregational worship, or these:
We are Unitarian Universalists
with minds that think,
hearts that love,
and hands that are ready to serve.
Invite participants to reflect on the story as they pass around the Tool of the Day as a talking stick. You may say:
The early Universalist circuit riders gave up the comforts of life to ride into villages and preach what they believed. What do you think kept them going in that hard work? What did they hope to accomplish? Do you think they were successful?
Has your courage ever been tested? What did you do or not do that was courageous? What did you do or not do that you wish you had done differently and with more courage?
What items would you want in your saddlebag if you were heading into our world in these days to live the courage of your convictions? How can you support others in keeping up their courage and their convictions?
Now ask participants to look at the list of convictions they have made during this session. Say:
Is there something on that list that you would hope to hold on to, even at the risk of your comfort or safety? If you are willing, share one item from your list with the group, and say a few words about what that conviction means to you.
Sharing of Joys and Concerns
After discussion has closed, invite participants to share important things in their lives. What they share may or may not be related to the session topic and discussion.
Invite participants to light a council candle from the chalice flame as they share. If there are not enough candles, it is OK to snuff out and re-light a candle. Save the candle of a different color for last. When all who want to share joys and concerns have done so, light this candle with the words, "For all the joys and concerns that remain unspoken."
If you are using a glass bowl, water, and stones instead of council candles, invite participants to drop a stone into the bowl when they share. End the sharing by adding one last stone for unspoken joys and concerns.
Closing
Extinguish the council candles. Gather participants around the chalice; if it has been extinguished, re-light it.
Close with an element (meditation, benediction, song) commonly used in your congregational worship, or use one or more of the suggestions below. Base your choice(s) on the needs and energy level of your group. With your co-leaders, you may elect to use the same ritual to close every session.
A. Lead the group in singing "Meditation on Breathing," Hymn 1009 in Singing the Journey: A Hymnbook Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition. Hear the simple tune online (at www.uua.org/publications/singingjourney/52328.shtml).
B. Have the group read in unison Reading 452 by Marjorie Montgomery in Singing the Living Tradition:
Life is a gift for which we are grateful.
We gather in community to celebrate
the glories
and mysteries
of this great gift.
C. Sing or say the words to "From You I Receive," Hymn 402 in Singing the Living Tradition. Teach the group the accompanying movements.
From you I receive | Scoop the air by reaching toward other participants, then bringing air toward yourself at chest level, that is, receiving it. |
To you I give | Opposite from above — scoop the air at chest level and push it outward to "give" to other participants. |
Together we share | All grasp hands. |
By this we live | Make fist of strength with each hand and stack one hand on top of the other at belly button level. |
D. Go around the circle — using the Tool of the Day as a talking stick again, if you like — and invite each participant to say one thing they will do to express their inner thoughts and selves. A higher-energy version of the above could involve the group repeating back, chant-style, the statement of each participant, and adding, "Go out into the world, find your convictions, and use your courage!"
E. Sing a familiar song. Suggestions: "Thula Klizeo," Hymn 1056 in Singing the Journey; "I Know This Rose Will Open," Hymn 396 in Singing the Living Tradition; or "Rejoice in Love," Hymn 380 in Singing the Living Tradition.
F. Use this team spirit chant, "Pump It Up!"
Leader: Pump, pump, pump it up!
Group: Pump, pump, pump it up!
Leader: Pump that UU spirit up!
Group: Pump that UU spirit up!
Instead of "Pump it up!" you may use "Fire it up!" or "Keep it up!"
Pass the Tool of the Day around the circle and invite participants, one at a time, to voice a way they plan to use the quality of faith that was explored today. Guide them to say:
With my UU [quality of faith, e.g., courage and conviction], I will...
Or, if you feel participants all will be willing and able to fill in their own blanks, you might have each child say:
I will fill my saddlebags with UU courage, and go out into the world and stand up for (a conviction they are willing to share with the group)!
Lead the group in responding to each participant's contribution:
Group: Go, UU, go!
If you have not yet done so, invite a participant to attach the photo or illustration of saddlebags to the Toolbox of Our Faith poster. Write "Courage and Conviction" on the poster.
Extinguish the chalice. Distribute Taking It Home handouts. If you have prepared it, also distribute Handout 2: Courage and Conviction Letter.
Thank and dismiss participants.
FAITH IN ACTION: IDEAS
Description of Activity
Plan a Faith in Action activity to help participants extend the core learning of this session into action in the congregation and wider world. Consider any action that allows participants either to develop and express their convictions, or to support others in courageously taking a stand.
Some suggestions include:
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Reflect on these questions and discuss them with your co-leaders:
You may want to reflect on the aspects of courage and conviction that seemed personally meaningful to you. If you have made your own list of convictions, what might you find useful to do with this list? As you asked the children to consider, which of these deserve the energy and attention of your life? What support for your courage and your convictions do you find in your religious community, your family and friends, or your work? How might you strengthen that support? How has leading this session changed you? How do you think this session may change the participants?
What follow-up conversations or activities would you like to engage in as a result of this session? With the Toolbox of Faith group? In your own life? In your congregation?
TAKING IT HOME
From caring comes courage.
— Lao Tzu
Conscience is the root of all true courage.
— James Freeman Clarke, nineteenth-century British abolitionist
IN TODAY'S SESSION...
Today's session in Toolbox of Faith focused on the qualities of courage and conviction in religious life. The session explored how:
Today's story, "Eliza Tupper Wilkes: Riding for Faith, Hope, and Love," included some scenes from the life of a Universalist circuit-riding minister who lived and rode and preached in the very early 1800s. We used the early Universalist itinerant preachers as an example of people who lived lives full of courage and conviction. These preachers were called "circuit riders" because they traveled particular routes or "circuits" on horseback, riding into small villages and preaching the Universalist gospel of God as a loving presence, rather than God as a punishing force to be feared. Their message was often not well received, particularly by the leaders of more orthodox churches.
The children learned that these itinerant preachers carried everything they needed in simple saddlebags, had very little money, and sometimes encountered opposition, and even violence, when they preached. They learned that Eliza Tupper Wilkes and others believed so strongly in the message of their Universalist faith that — even though it was hard and dangerous work — they felt they had to keep spreading the good news of Universalism.
In the session, we invited the children to begin to think consciously about their own convictions — the beliefs and ideas they feel to be so important they would stand up for them even when it was hard to do. We discussed the need to search your heart, with prayer or meditation, or thought, to discern the convictions that merit the energy and faith of a lifetime. We began to build a sense of our religious community as a source of courage.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about...
Take some time to contemplate, or refresh, your own sense of courage and conviction. Think about:
Find some time to talk with your child about your thoughts concerning these ideas. Tell your child about your own process of discernment that has led you to your convictions, and about the sources of courage that you have found in the course of your life. Your conversation will help your child develop their own essential Toolbox of Faith.
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Try...
Use the Internet, newspapers, or your local library to learn about contemporary or historical groups whose members have spoken out at the risk of ridicule or injury. Challenge the children to look for statements of personal commitment that shed light on individuals' sense of conviction and clues that suggest how these individuals maintain their courage. Try to articulate the convictions that motivate these courageous people, and talk about whether members of your family might share the same convictions. If they do, find out how you can stand up for them, too.
TOOLBOX OF FAITH: SESSION 10:
STORY: ELIZA TUPPER WILKES: RIDING FOR FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE
Written by Polly Peterson.
A useful visual aid for this story is a map of the United States to show Reverend Wilkes extensive travel all over the country. Other visual aids might include pictures of Universalist circuit riders and pictures of frontier life and transportation modes of the mid-nineteenth century. This story is long, and you may want to edit it before sharing it with the group.
Imagine traveling by horse and buggy along dusty dirt roads in summer heat, fording streams, swatting mosquitoes, wearing clothes with long sleeves and a high collar. Or, making the same trip on icy roads, beginning in the dark of a cold winter morning, whipped by bitter wind, with sleet stinging your face.
Imagine that a church congregation is waiting for you when you reach your destination. You preach a sermon, lead the hymns, meet with the church officers, give counsel to troubled parishioners, and help organize a church supper or an evening discussion group. Then, at the end of a long day, perhaps you receive news of a death in another town and know that you must soon be on the road again, to comfort the grieving family.
A day like this might have been a typical Sunday for a Universalist minister in the group known as the Iowa Sisterhood. These ministers were among the first female ministers in the United States. They endured many hardships to bring liberal religion to the small communities that were springing up throughout the Midwest after the Civil War.
Eliza Tupper Wilkes led the way in this new style of ministry. This is her story.
Eliza Tupper was born in Maine in 1844. Her father was a Baptist minister, and her mother was a writer and editor. Her mother's job was very unusual. In those days, married women rarely had a profession outside of housekeeping.
When Eliza was five, her family moved to Iowa, a territory that had gained statehood only a few years earlier. People were flocking to this promising new state on the rolling prairie; its population had doubled from about 75,000 when Eliza was born to more than 150,000 by the time her family moved there.
Pioneer life suited the Tupper family very well. A good high school education was hard to find on the frontier, though, so Eliza went back to Maine in 1860 to live with her grandfather and go to school. She returned to Iowa three years later and began studying at a new Baptist college. She wanted to become a missionary. After graduation, she took a job as a teacher in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. While she was there, her ideas about religion began to change. The Baptist religion's teachings about hellfire and damnation no longer seemed true to her. To the horror of her family, she decided to join the Universalists. When she was baptized in her new faith, she quipped that she had "left the devil behind."
The Universalist church was the first denomination to welcome women ministers. This was lucky, for Eliza Tupper. Her interest in missionary work was still strong. Soon she began preaching from the pulpit of the Mt. Pleasant Universalist church. She moved to Wisconsin where she had her own pulpit as a minister. While in Wisconsin, she met William Wilkes, a young law clerk, and she married him in 1869.
The United States was a country on the move in those days. By 1869, you could take a train across the entire continent, from the east coast to the west. More and more people were striking out for new territories in the West. Young people like Eliza and her husband William had a world of opportunity before them. The couple first moved to Rochester, Minnesota, where Eliza was ordained as a Universalist minister in 1871. She served as minister there for three years. Then they moved on, to Colorado. William became a lawyer and Eliza, now the mother of a young son, organized a new Universalist congregation in Colorado Springs and preached there regularly to get it started.
The high altitude of Colorado Springs proved to be bad for Eliza's health, though. In 1878, the family was on the move again. They traveled to the Dakota Territory and settled in the frontier town of Sioux Falls. The family eventually had six children. Unlike other prosperous husbands in those days, Eliza's husband approved of her career. He willingly paid for household help and tutors for the children so that Eliza could continue her missionary work.
Eliza was interested in many kinds of social reform, but she dedicated her life most of all to the establishment of new churches. She knew that among the pioneers on the frontier there were many freethinking people who hungered to hear the liberal message, and there were few places to hear it.
From her home base in Sioux Falls, Eliza organized seven churches in South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota. Her plan was to turn each one over to another minister after it was established, as she moved on to establishing the next. But ministers were in short supply. Often she needed to serve several churches at once. Reverend Eliza Tupper Wilkes spent many years "on the circuit," traveling from town to town, ministering to as many people as she could. On Sundays, she often preached in Rock Rapids, Iowa, in the morning, then traveled fifteen miles to Luverne, Minnesota, for an afternoon service. Nowadays such a trip would be a quick drive on the highway. For Eliza, it was a long, arduous journey over difficult roads.
Eliza Tupper Wilkes was a trailblazer, but she was not alone. Other women were establishing Unitarian congregations in Iowa and the surrounding states. Women ministers encouraged other women to come into the ministry, and the "sisterhood" grew. They often faced people who were hostile to the idea of women in the ministry, but they proved to be so effective that their congregations in the Midwest and the West quickly grew.
After Eliza had started a new congregation, she always preferred to turn it over to another woman minister. She believed that women from the local areas were more competent as prairie pastors than the men sent out from the East. The women worked harder and were more willing to accept the low wages that struggling homesteaders could pay. They better understood their parishioners' lives and were more likely to talk about things in the same kind of way as the people they served — unlike some of the young men sent out to the frontier, fresh from college. Along with their religious message of optimism and hope, the women ministers tended to bring a comforting, homelike quality to church meetings that attracted both women and men. And, beyond their religious duties, they often organized cultural and social events that were much appreciated by people living isolated rural lives.
Eliza was delighted when Carrie Bartlett, a dedicated, energetic, and well educated young minister, agreed to take over the pulpit of the Sioux Falls Unity Church. Eliza had founded the church, and it was where her family attended services. On Sundays when Rev. Carrie Bartlett was not in the pulpit, Eliza or a guest minister from the Iowa Sisterhood would usually preach in her place. One Sunday, Rev. Bartlett traded pulpits with a male colleague instead. Eliza's little daughter, Queenie, was astonished. She exclaimed in amazement, "Look, Mama! There's a man up there in the pulpit!"
Women ministers were still very rare in the rest of the world. Even among Unitarians and Universalists, many people still disapproved of them. But for the young congregation of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, female ministers had become the norm, thanks to the dedication and hard work of a few courageous women.
TOOLBOX OF FAITH: SESSION 10:
HANDOUT 1: MOMENT OF COURAGE SKIT RULES
TOOLBOX OF FAITH: SESSION 10:
HANDOUT 2: COURAGE AND CONVICTION LETTER
You had a chance today to think about some of your own convictions — the things you believe are so important you would stand up for them, even when it is hard to do. Keep your list of convictions, if you made one, or make one later, if you didn't. Keep thinking about the beliefs and concerns that are worth your energy and your commitment. Talk with the people you trust in your life about their convictions, and about what you're thinking of as your own.
Keep building your courage, as well — not your courage to be a daredevil or famous (though that may be OK too), but more importantly, your courage to be the person you want to be. You will need courage to be the kind of person who lives out their convictions, and stands up for what they believe. And remember, when you need it, your religious education group and your Unitarian Universalist religious community will help you along.
FIND OUT MORE
Images of Courage and Conviction
Cut out, photocopy, or print out images from magazines, newspapers, textbooks, websites, wall calendars, and/or non-profit organizations' annual reports and fund-raising appeals. Visit a library that has a photocopier and peruse history picture books. You may also find images among your congregation's photo archives, or your own.
Be sure to include everyday moments of courage, as well as heroic moments, and include images of children. Some suggestions:
The website of photographer David Bacon (at dbacon.igc.org/) has many social justice images, including workers' strikes and immigrant rights demonstrations. The International Longshore & Warehouse Union website has photos from a 1934 strike in San Francisco (at www.ilwu19.com/history/longshore.htm), and other, more recent labor protest images.
Universalist Itinerant Preachers
Reinforce the session theme by representing Universalist itinerant preachers among the images you collect. Find a drawing of Nathaniel Stacy (at www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/nathanielstacy.html) in the online Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography (at www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/listaf.html). Though they came somewhat later than the preachers portrayed here, you may like to include a photo of Olympia Brown (at www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/olympiabrown.html) or a photo of late nineteenth-century Universalist itinernant preacher Quillen Shinn, on his horse (at www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/quillenhamiltonshinn.html).
Read about Maria Cook (at www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/mariacook.html), a very early Universalist woman preacher, in the online Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography. Also see Prophetic Sisterhood: Liberal Women Ministers of the Frontier, 1880-1930 by Cynthia Grant Tucker (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990).
Online, read "Of sand bars and circuit riders: voices from our Universalist past" (at www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/2745.shtml) by David Reich from the July 1993 edition of UU World. The article includes a number of brief and often humorous stories that participants may enjoy. From the introduction:
With their quick wits, their talent for improvisation, and their radically democratic bent, the circuit riders and their followers were quintessentially American, and their lives were the stuff of which good stories are made.
The online Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography includes additional, interesting Universalists, including noted itinerants Hosea Ballou, William Farwell, and Caleb Rich; see the index of Universalist articles (at www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/listuniv.html). It is also interesting to read some of the many obituaries of Universalist clergy and laypeople (at www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/register/index.html) from the Universalist Register, on the Unitarian Universalist Association website.
Universalism
There are many resources for Universalist history, both on the Internet and in readily available books. A very accessible, brief history of Universalism can be found in The Larger Faith by Charles A. Howe (Boston: Skinner House, 1993). Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith, edited by Ernest Cassara (Boston: Skinner House, 1997), includes many wonderful excerpts from Universalist primary source documents.
Though it is out of print, ministers and congregations may have access to the two-volume collection, The Larger Hope by Russell Miller (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 1979), which includes a number of stories and many photos.
Be aware that Universalism has been a controversial subject since its earliest days. If you search on the web or in a large library for Universalist resources, you may find as many anti-Universalist resources as you do favorable ones. Further, a strain of modern evangelical Christianity has embraced the classical Universalist teaching of the goodness of God. Often listed under the name, "Biblical Universalism," these movements are not necessarily at odds with Universalism in its historical form, but they are not part of the heritage that has become Unitarian Universalism.
You can also find many resources concerning courage and conviction in religious life. In addition to the Unitarian Universalist resources listed above, you may wish to explore books by the Buddhist author Pema Chodron, such as Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion (Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2003) and The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2007).