No. 36 Grace

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from FUSN (developed by Bob Zeeb)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of other people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.
- Albert Schweitzer

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity:
As UU's we often feel uncomfortable with the notion of grace – divine love and protection bestowed freely. We do not tend to see ourselves or find ourselves in a state of grace and it is hard for us to account for that which is seemingly unmerited, has come, as it were, out of the blue.

Yet, grace has much to recommend itself to us. First, that it comes without expectation, without being earned or deserved, without cause. Second that it represents a loving presence, is very similar to our notion of unearned love. And third, that grace reflects our disposition to see the world as essentially benevolent. It compliments our deep distrust of Calvinism.

Consider a time in your life when you were the blessed by grace or graced by an unseen and unexpected love. What was the occasion? What do you remember about it?

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty in the water and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief, I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry