Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship
Joy
Adapted from: Unitarian
Universalist Fellowship of Stony Brook, NY, May 2013
Rev. Margie Allen and Rev. Dr. Linda Anderson
Note: See the
Chalice Circle Session Sequence for process guidelines
Gathering,
Welcoming (2 minutes)
Business
As needed—checking in about who is coming, where you are meeting, service projects, updating your group covenant….
As needed—checking in about who is coming, where you are meeting, service projects, updating your group covenant….
Chalice Lighting (2 minutes)
Music...
will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and
sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy
alive in you. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Silence (2
minutes)
Let
us take a couple of minutes of silence to settle into this place so we can be
fully present for each other. Uncross your arms and legs, place your feet on
the floor, take a few deep breaths and just be.
Check-in/Sharing
(3-4 minutes@ - 30-40 minutes)
This is an opportunity to share recent events and/or
current feelings that may (or may not) need to be set aside in order to be most
present for the session.
Topic Introduction
Joy is an emotion. Emotions can function as message flags that
let us know that an important need of ours is being met or is not being met.
Joy is the emotion evoked by experiences of needs being met—of well-being,
success, good fortune, pleasure, the prospect of possessing what one desires or
of seeing another’s desires realized.
Joy is an intense distillation of happiness,
an vivid ecstatic or exultant essence, that
can make our world seem particularly generous and beautiful for moments or for
days. The truly enlightened among us have learned to live in a nearly
uninterrupted state of joy that embraces and reframes human difficulties and
sorrows.
We
think of joy as connected to major celebrations, breakthroughs, and surprises,
but joyful
moments happen all the time. They can happen when you’re eating breakfast with
your kids, and laughter breaks out. They can happen when you’re walking to
work, basking in the sunshine or feeling the sweet, cool breeze or the rain on
your face. They can happen when you’re sipping your morning coffee, taking a few quiet moments for yourself.
In this Chalice Circle session, we invite
you to explore, in good company, your own relationship to joy.
Quotations
Make enough copies of the handout
for each participant. Handout is at the end of this session plan. Go around in
your group and let each person read a quote until you have read them all. Then
pose the questions.
Deep Sharing/Deep Listening (60 minutes)
Tell participants that you will read
the questions twice (with a pause in between) people can respond to whatever
questions spark their imaginations….
1.
What feelings and images come to mind when you
think of the word “joy?”
2.
What
brought you joy when you were a child?
3.
Can you remember a time when you were filled
with great joy? Tell us the story of that experience.
4.
Who has served as a model of joyful living in
your life, a model and inspiration to you? Have there been people in your life
who stifled or spoiled your joy?
5.
Share the story of a time when an act of service
gave you great joy.
6.
What
have you observed about the relationship between joy and sorrow?
7.
What will be your legacy of joy to the
generations that follow yours?
8.
What
regular habits and practices might create more joyfulness in your heart, home
and community?
This is the opportunity to ask questions, and continue to engage the topic….
Likes and Wishes (Likes: celebrations, gratitudes,
appreciations for needs met; and Wishes: mournings, requests, acknowledgements of needs not met)
Closing Words Welcome Morning (Anne Sexton)
There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.
All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.
The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.
dies young.
~ Anne Sexton ~
Chalice Extinguishing
Give not over thy soul to sorrow;
and afflict not thyself in thy own counsel. Gladness of heart is the life of
man and the joyfulness of man is length of days. ~Ecclesiastes
I cannot believe that the
inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty
of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy! ~Louise
Bogan
‘Without pain, how could we know joy?’ This is
an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering. Its stupidity and
lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say
that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of
chocolate.” ~John Green, The
Fault in Our Stars
There is an alchemy in sorrow. It
can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring
happiness. ~Pearl Buck (1892 - 1973)
Joy
and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with
you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. ~Kahlil Gibran
Joy
is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. ~Helen
Keller
Joy
does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every
day. ~Henri Nouwen
I
want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want
to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a
collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes.
I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows
open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the
exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets
and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me
jump up and down, and I want my every day to make God belly laugh, glad that he
gave life to someone who loves the gift.
~Shauna
Niequist
Sometimes
your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the
source of your joy. ~Thich Nhat
Hanh
There
are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house,
ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and
looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my
children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true
religion: arbitrary moments of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel
privileged to lead. ~Elizabeth Berg,
The Art of Mending
To
find joy in another's joy; that is the secret of happiness. ~George Bernanos
I
slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I
acted and behold, service was joy. ~Rabindranath
Tagore
No comments:
Post a Comment