No. 15 Living Simply

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from UUCCA* - Rev. Calvin O. Dame

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

"Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? … We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. ……I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…. to cut a broad swath,… to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it…
Henry David Thoreau

Check-in/Sharing

Topic:
(materials: pen and paper) Many of us would like to live more simply, to simplify our lives. But not many of us are likely to follow Thoreau's example and build a cabin in the woods. Take ten minutes to answer these questions:
What are the demands in my life that keep me too busy?
What needs or forces in me keep me busy?
What do I push aside?
What would I be willing to give up?
Take time to share.
Ending question:
What one thing are you willing to try in the next weeks (until the group meets again) that will move your life closer to your goals for a simpler and more meaningful life?

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

"May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best
and most righteous vision that we seek. May the darkness around us nurture
our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of the world.
Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of
light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move."
Kathleen McTigue

* Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Augusta, Maine