No. 25 Our Gifts

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from FUSN (Rebecca Parker and Bob Zeeb)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

"Your gifts – whatever you discover them to be – can be used to bless or curse the world. The mind’s power, the strength of the hands, the reaches of t he heart, the gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting . . . any of these can serve to feed the hungry, bind up the wounded, welcome the stranger, praise what is sacred, do the work of justice or offer love. Any f these can draw down the prison door, hoard bread, abandon the poor, obscure what is holy, comply with injustice or withhold love. You must answer the question: What will you do with your gifts?"
Rebecca Parker

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity:
We begin with the assumption that each of us has particular gifts, assets and strengths we bring to the world. Still, many people have difficulty acknowledging their gifts publicly. Let us concentrate on identifying and elaborating these gifts, claiming them not only for ourselves, but for something larger than ourselves. How have we used these gifts in our lives up to now? What has prevented us from making better use of our gifts? What makes it difficult to acknowledge our gifts publicly? How can we better claim our gifts and make use of them in the future?

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

You must answer this question: What will you do with your gifts? Choose to bless the world.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
And would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur

Would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

From "Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Rainer Maria Rilke