No. 33 It Matters What You Believe

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from FUSN (developed by Bob Zeeb)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

So me beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.
Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
Some beliefs are like shadows, clouding children’s days with fears of unknown calamities.
Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.
Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies.
Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.

Sophia Lyon Fahs
Singing the Living Tradition #657

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity:
There is so often a gap between what we think we believe or what we claim to believe and how we behave. Some people just feel we all inevitably fall short; others claim that the failure is one of consciousness (Our beliefs are unarticulated or are not elaborated in ways that we ourselves fully understand.), while still others claim that our beliefs always need to be inferred from action.

Yet, people with very different beliefs about belief itself seem to agree that it does actually matter what you believe, that at some level belief informs both action and being. It is not a waste of time to ask the question: What do I believe? How often have you asked this question and what kind of answers have you found?

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one’s own direction.
Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.
Some beliefs weaken a person’s selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness.
Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.
Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.
Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.
Sophia Lyon Fahs
Singing the Living Tradition #657