Tapestry of Faith: Circle of Trees: A Multigenerational Program about Nourishing Deep Connections with Nature

Closing

Part of Circle of Trees

Activity time: 5 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Newsprint, markers, and tape
  • Taking It Home
  • Basket for name tags
  • Drum or rattle
  • Large container for storing masks, if Workshops 6 and 7 will be done separately

Preparation for Activity

  • Download the Taking It Home section of this workshop to reflect the activities this group has done. Copy it as a handout for all participants. (You may wish to email participants as well or instead.)
  • If needed, write the closing words on newsprint, and post them where they will be visible to all participants. (Note: These words are from Reading 708 in Singing the Living Tradition and are adapted from Hebrew scripture, Isaiah 55.)
  • Bring out the container for storing the masks.

Description of Activity

Use this Closing only if you are not continuing with Workshop 7 today.

Have a participant or co-leader drum quietly, and ask everyone else to be silent. Invite participants to place their masks one by one into the container for safekeeping until Workshop 7.

Gather the group in a circle around the chalice. If needed, relight the chalice.

Distribute Taking It Home. Explain that Taking It Home includes a summary of what they did in the workshop, resources for further exploration, and fun "homework."

Invite participants to reflect for a moment on today's workshop. Ask each participant to share one word that describes how they feel. Go around the circle with this "one-word checkout."

Invite participants to join hands and say the closing words together:

Let us go out in joy, and be led back in peace;

the mountains and the hills before us shall burst into song,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Extinguish the chalice together. As they go, ask participants to leave their name tags in the basket you've provided for this purpose.