Activity time: 5 minutes
Materials for Activity
- Chalice and matches
Description of Activity
Use the Opening designed by your group or the one provided below.
Gather around the chalice. As a volunteer lights the chalice, ask the group to focus on the word “transformation” in silence. After about fifteen seconds, invite participants to speak freely into the space a word or two that they associate with the word “transformation.” When everyone who wishes to speak has had a chance to do so, close by saying,
May the space we create here today be wide enough to hold all our individual ideas and deep enough to allow those ideas to grow, to fruit, and to provide seeds for new beginnings.
Introduce today’s workshop by saying,
Life holds many transformations in store for us. As youth, you are in the process of transforming from children to adults. Our Unitarian Universalist living faith is in the process of almost constant transformation as we process our life experiences and make meaning of them. We do not do this in isolation: part of the transformation process involves community. Our lives in community provide reflection of our selves and others. It provides opportunities for us to practice ways of being in the world, including living out our UU values. Who we are on the inside can be transformed by our experiences in community and our communities are transformed by what individuals bring to them.