WONDERFUL WELCOME
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 4: THE GIFT OF KINDNESS
BY AISHA HAUSER AND SUSAN LAWRENCE
© Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/8/2014 9:06:01 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
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American poet (1850-1919)
This session introduces kindness as an intangible gift that can be freely given every day. The Wonder Box holds a golden ruler that represents one of Jesus' timeless teachings: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule can be found in many faith traditions. In the story, "The Very Short Rule," the children hear a parable in which Jesus teaches that following all the rules in the Bible will not necessarily make someone a good person. If we are to follow only one rule, Jesus taught, we should be kind to others in the same way that we would want others to be kind to us.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
ACTIVITY | MINUTES |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Wonder Box | 5 |
Activity 2: Story — The Very Short Rule | 10 |
Activity 3: Making Golden Rulers | 10 |
Activity 4: Acts of Kindness Role Play | 15 |
Activity 5: Singing "Filled with Loving Kindness" | 10 |
Faith in Action: Acts of Kindness | Varies |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: "Be Kind" Cards for the Congregation | 15 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Take a quiet moment to reflect on the Golden Rule. Try to remember the first time you heard it and what you thought about it. Did it make sense to you?
Do you try to live by the Golden Rule? Think about a time when you were kind to someone without a "reward." Did you help a stranger find their way on the street? Did you donate money anonymously? How does it feel when you are kind to others? How does it feel when someone shows you kindness? Take the positive energy from these memories with you into this session.
SESSION PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather participants in a circle around the chalice. Explain that each session starts with a ritual. Ask if anyone knows what a ritual is. You may say:
A ritual is something you do again and again, often at the same time of day. If you have a routine for going to bed, that is a kind of ritual.
All around the world, Unitarian Universalists of all ages light chalices when they gather together. With this ritual, Unitarian Universalists can connect to one another, even though they might never meet each other.
Now we will light the chalice, the symbol of our Unitarian Universalist faith; then say together our opening words.
Light the chalice and invite the children to repeat each line of the opening words, line by line.
We are Unitarian Universalists.
With minds that think,
Hearts that love,
And hands that are ready to serve.
Together we care for our Earth,
And work for friendship and peace in our world.
Extinguish the chalice.
ACTIVITY 1: THE WONDER BOX (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
While the children are still in a circle around the chalice, show them the Wonder Box. Invite them to guess what gift could be in this big, beautifully-wrapped box. Take some guesses. Then pass the box around, for children to open and find the Golden Ruler inside. Ask the children if they have ever heard of the Golden Rule, and what they know about it. Then say:
This Golden Ruler represents the Golden Rule. Jesus was one of the world's greatest teachers. He wanted to help people be closer to God by teaching the ideas of the Jewish faith in a simple way. He taught people to follow the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says we should treat others the way we want others to treat us. It sounds like an easy rule. However, sometimes it is hard to follow. We will talk about why it is important that we try our best to be kind everyday.
Ask the children, "What are some ways to show kindness?" Affirm answers that demonstrate kindness, such as, "Saying 'please' and 'thank you.'" "Helping a person who falls down." "Sharing snacks with friends."
ACTIVITY 2: STORY — THE VERY SHORT RULE (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite the children to get comfortable for listening to a story. Read or tell the story.
After the story, help children explore the frustration of the people who wanted to be good, but found it difficult with so many rules to follow and so much work to do just to survive. Some questions for discussion include:
ACTIVITY 3: MAKING GOLDEN RULERS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Settle the children at worktables. Invite them to write the words "Be Kind" on their golden rulers and decorate them. As they work, the discussion of kindness can continue.
ACTIVITY 4: ACTS OF KINDNESS ROLE PLAY (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather the children in a circle. Tell them they will have a chance to act out situations where they might use the Golden Rule. Ask for volunteers to come into the middle of the circle to act out the first scenario. When the volunteers are ready, share one of the following scenarios for them to act out. Continue with other volunteers and scenarios. Invite brief discussion after each role play. After a few scenarios, tell the children to raise their Golden Ruler if they have an idea for another scenario, perhaps one from their own experiences or one they make up.
Scenarios
End the activity by asking the group to hold up their Golden Rulers and say; "I promise to be kind and treat others the way I want to be treated."
Including All Participants
Some children may be shy about volunteering to act out roles. That is okay. Try to engage everyone in discussion.
ACTIVITY 5: SINGING "FILLED WITH LOVING KINDNESS" (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Teach the song line by line, and then lead children in singing it through once or twice.
This is a good song to have the children teach the congregation in the sanctuary at some point.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather the children in a circle. Show them the Wonder Box poster and explain that it looks like the Wonder Box to remind us about our intangible gifts. Invite a child to tape or glue the Golden Ruler to the poster. You may say:
Now we will see the Golden Ruler every time we are together here. It will remind us that treating others the way we want to be treated is the most important rule to remember.
Tell the children you are happy and thankful you all could be together this morning. You may say:
Giving thanks for being together helps us remember that it is important to be kind to one another. Let's say our closing words of gratitude together.
Invite the children to hold hands. Show them where you have posted the closing words. Ask them to say each line with you, and say the lines slowly:
We are thankful.
We are thankful to be here.
We are thankful to be here, together.
We are thankful to be here, together, now.
Then ask one child to very gently squeeze the hand of the person to their left, and have that person continue to pass the squeeze until the squeeze has returned to the person who started it. Tell the person who started the squeeze to signal that it has returned to them by raising their arms, still holding hands with the people on either side. When this happens, instruct everyone to raise their clasped hands, together. If you like, suggest a word for them to say at this moment, like "Good-bye!" or "Shalom!" or the name of this session's intangible gift — Kindness!
Extinguish the chalice. Distribute Taking It Home handouts. Thank and dismiss participants.
FAITH IN ACTION: ACTS OF KINDNESS
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Engage the children in brainstorming and then implementing "random acts of kindness." One option is making "feel good" cards for people in the congregation. The religious educator or minister can help identify people who would benefit from receiving a "feel good" card. The children may want to deliver the cards themselves. Another option is to send the cards anonymously. In that case, you might say something like:
It does feel good when we hand someone a card or special gift. But, part of feeling good about giving can be that we give when no one knows we did it. Why would we want to give without telling anyone? Because giving feels good and sometimes it is more important to help someone than get credit. For example, when your parents give money to an organization like the American Red Cross, they might be helping people all over the country. The people they help will never know who helped them, but it feels good to your parents to have made a difference.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Reflect on these questions and discuss them with your co-leaders:
TAKING IT HOME
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American poet (1850-1919)
IN TODAY'S SESSION...
When children opened the Wonder Box today, they found a Golden Ruler. This symbolizes the Golden Rule, one of the most famous of Jesus' teachings: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The children learned that versions of the Golden Rule exist in many different religions. According to Rev. Sophia Fahs' telling of the story, "The Very Short Rule," contemporaries of Jesus expressed frustration at having to remember so many rules. Many were poor and had to work very hard for a living. They did not have the time or education to remember all the rules in their faith. Jesus taught that even following all the biblical dictates would not necessarily make someone a good person, but following the Golden Rule contained the essence of a faithful life.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about...
How the Golden Rule applies in your family.
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Try...
Put the Golden Ruler your child(ren) brought home on the refrigerator for everyone to see. See who can say "the very short rule" while standing on one foot.
A FAMILY RITUAL
Tell the family you will all keep alert for people being kind. When someone is caught being kind, they get a hug from the family member that "catches" them. For example, if someone cleans up the living room without being asked you can say, "Hey, I caught you being kind! You get a HUG!" Or, when someone sees an opportunity for kindness, they can grab the Golden Ruler and say, "Hey, let's treat others as we want to be treated." When siblings are bickering might be a good time to do this. They might even try it standing on one foot.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: "BE KIND" CARDS FOR THE CONGREGATION (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute blank index cards and markers. Invite children to write and decorate "Be Kind" cards. Tell them how you plan to distribute them to people in the congregation.
WONDERFUL WELCOME: SESSION 4:
STORY: THE VERY SHORT RULE
From From Long Ago and Many Lands by Sophia Lyon Fahs, second edition (Boston: Skinner House, 1995). Permission pending.
Read or tell the story.
When Jesus came into town, someone who knew him was sure to pass the word around. A plan would be worked out for him to be at a certain place when evening came and the day's work was done. Then men and women who had to work during the day could gather and listen to what Jesus had to say.
Sometimes they would find him in the house of a friend. And the number of people who would come might fill the whole house and the street outside, too. Other times they would follow Jesus to the lake. He and some of his fishermen friends would step into a boat. They would anchor it near the shore. The people would sit on the rocks and grass near by, and Jesus would stand up in the boat and talk to everybody.
Sometimes there were men and women who listened to Jesus who were very much discouraged. Some were so poor they did not get enough to eat. Some had sick children to take care of at home. Some were old and crippled and always in pain. Some felt that nobody cared for them. They were always given the meanest jobs to do and they were always being scolded because they did not do them well enough.
There were others who felt it was scarcely worth while trying to be good at all. No one was ever pleased with what they did no matter how hard they tried.
These people went regularly once a week to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They heard the Bible read to them, but they could not remember all that they heard, so they did not do all that they were told they ought to do. They knew they were not praying as often as they were told to pray, but it was so hard to remember the words to say. They knew they were not giving as much as they were told to give to the synagogue, but they had so little to live on, how could they give more? They admitted that they did some work on the Sabbath while the teachers said they should never do any work at all on that day. But the hours in the week were not long enough to get everything done that had to be done to keep the children from starving.
Often they would go home after listening to Jesus, and they would remember just one little story or one short sentence that Jesus had said. But that little bit they remembered a long, long time, because somehow they liked to remember it.
Such people as these were naturally discouraged. They felt all the time that their teachers were not pleased with them. If their teachers were not pleased, then probably God was not pleased either. This thought made them feel even more discouraged.
One day as Jesus was sitting in a boat and the people were squatting on the rocks along the shore, one of these discouraged men asked a question. "I am a shepherd," he said. "I have to spend long hours in the open fields. When eating time comes, I cannot always find a brook where I can wash my hands before I eat. It is the rule, is it not, that a man should always wash his hands before eating? Do you think, Jesus, that I am a bad man because I have to eat my lunch without washing my hands?"
"Certainly not," said Jesus with a smile. "You are not a bad man simply because you eat without washing your hands when you are in the fields and cannot do so. Unwashed hands cannot make a person bad anyway. Goodness and badness are inside of you, not in your skin."
Then a woman spoke up and asked another question. "There are many of us here, Jesus, who have never learned to read. We have not gone to school. We have not been able to study the laws in the Bible. We can't remember all the laws the preachers in the synagogue tell us about. There seem to be hundreds of laws the preachers say we must follow if we want to please God. But we simply cannot remember them all. Do you think, Jesus, that we are bad because we can't remember all the laws? Our other teachers seem to think we are no good just because we don't know much."
Then Jesus would encourage these people. He would say: "For many years, our teachers have been adding more and more laws to the ones that are in the Bible. They have meant to help us but what they have really done is to make living a good life so hard that none of us can be counted good.
"I say to you, friends, that being good is not just obeying a large number of rules. You could obey every single one of the rules the teachers have made, and still not be really good. Whether one is good or not depends on how one feels inside in one's heart. Do you feel hateful or loving toward others? Do you feel angry or patient with the person who hurts you? Those are the things that count."
"That kind of talk sounds good, Jesus," said a man who had been busy all day long hauling stones for building a road. "But I wish you would tell us in just one sentence what is most important so that we can't forget."
Jesus smiled at this and said: "Your wish reminds me of what someone once said to Hillel, that great teacher of ours of whom you all have heard. The story is told of how a student one day said to Hillel: 'Tell me, Rabbi, what all the laws put together mean and tell me so simply that I can hear it all while I stand on one foot.'" At this everyone laughed.
"Hillel gave the student a very good answer and a very short one," said Jesus. "Hillel said: 'Never do to anyone else the kind of thing that is hateful to you. This is all the laws put together. All the rest is just an explanation of that one short rule.'" Then Jesus added his own thought.
"I would say this rule in just a little different way. I would say it this way. Do those things to others that you 'Would like to have others do to you."
"That's a good rule," said the workman who had asked the question. "I could have stood on one foot easily while you said that."
"Try the rule," said Jesus. "It doesn't take long to say it, but it may take a long time to learn to follow it."
When his talk was over, the people got up from the ground and walked along the shore to their homes. Some of them seemed very much relieved. Jesus had given them something they could understand and something they could not forget.
"Do those things to others that you would like to have others do to you." It was a very short rule, but one that is still remembered after nearly two thousand years. We call it our Golden Rule.
WONDERFUL WELCOME: SESSION 4:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: GOLDEN RULERS
FIND OUT MORE
Find ideas for kind acts on these websites: