No. 34 Belief in God

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from FUSN (developed by Bob Zeeb)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. That depth is what the word god means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservation. Perhaps in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps even that word itself.
- Paul Tillich

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity:
For some of us the word God has little or no meaning. Even to consider, as Tillich urges us to, what meaning the word God might have is difficult for us, if not impossible. For others, the word has come to have meaning again after years of struggle or of unbelief. For still others belief has always been a part of our religious perspective. Each of us has a different history or biography of belief. And each of us is at a different place at this point in time. Describe the outline, the shape, or the particular trajectory of your history of belief and where you are at this particular moment in time.

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

Cloak yourself in a thousand ways; still shall I know you, my Beloved.
Veil yourself with every enchantment and yet I shall feel you, Presence most dear, close and intimate.
I shall salute you in the springing of cypresses and in the sheen of lakes, the laughter of fountains.
I shall surely see you in tumbling clouds, in brightly embroidered meadows.
Oh, Beloved Presence, more beautiful than all the stars together,
I trace your face in ivy that climbs, in clusters of grapes, in morning flaming the mountains, in the clear arch of sky.
You gladden the whole earth and make every heart great.
You are the breathing of the world.

From Shams Ud-Dum by Mohammed Hafiz
Singing the Living Tradition # 607