No. 7 Poetry

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from UUCCA* - Rev. Calvin O. Dame

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

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 on 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 with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.
Wendell Berry -- Singing the Living Tradition #483

Check-in/Sharing

Topic:
This lesson takes planning. Ask participants to bring a poem that has changed their lives: a simple poem from childhood, their own poem, the 23rd Psalm, whatever. Simply a poem that has deeply touched their lives. Remember to remind them before the meeting. Then share and discuss.

Ask as the session unfolds, "How is your life different because of this poem?"

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out / Likes and Wishes

Closing Words:

Hold on to what is good
even if it is
a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.

Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.
Nancy Wood -- Singing the Living Tradition #688

* Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Augusta, Maine