Small Group Ministry #61 Letting Go (#2)

No. 61 Letting Go (#2)

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from FUSN (developed by Holly Zeeb)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

We know that all is impermanent; we know that everything wears out. Although we can buy this truth intellectually, emotionally we have a deep-rooted aversion to it. We want permanence; we expect permanence. Our natural tendency is to seek security where we believe we can find it. We experience impermanence at the everyday level as frustration. We use our daily activity as a shield against the fundamental ambiguity of our situation, expending tremendous energy trying to ward off impermanence and death. We don’t like that our bodies change shape. We don’t like it that we age. We are afraid of wrinkles and sagging skin. We use health products as if we actually believe that our skin, our hair, our eyes and teeth, might somehow miraculously escape the truth of impermanence.
Pema Chodron

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity:
Buddhism counsels us that all is impermanence and that suffering consists in attachment to what we must inevitably lose--possessions, loved ones, the beauty of the world, ourselves, our creations, even states of mind and feeling. Everything changes. How do you live with this truth? Or do you? Where do you sense your attachment is strongest? Do you rail against loss or do you ‘go with the flow’? What helps or supports you in letting go when you must: a belief? a faith? a practice? a perspective? past experience? the example of an admired other?

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out

Closing Words:

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of the ponds,
every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is and is salvation,
whose salvation
none of us will ever know,
To live in this world

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment nameless now.
Every year
Everything
I have ever learned you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and
floating away over
the blue shoulders in my lifetime
leads back into this:
the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars	of the ponds, every pond, no matter what its name is, is	and is salvation, whose salvation none of us will ever know, To live in this world

of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment	nameless now. Every year Everything I have ever learned	you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it

the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders	in my lifetime leads back into this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side	against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.