LESSON 11 – SERVICE:  LIVING OUR BELIEFS

ADAPTED FROM KAT ROBINSON GRIEDER AND TIM WELD

SECOND CONGREGATIONAL MEETING HOUSE SOCIETY – UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST, NANTUCKET ISLAND, MA

Chalice:  

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be.  If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it.  On the contrary, if I shall have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it, even if I may not have it at the beginning.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Check-in:

Reading:  “A rabbi spoke with God about heaven and hell.  ‘I will show you hell,’ God said, and they went into a room which had a large pot of stew in the middle.  The smell was delicious, but around the pot sat people who were famished and desperate.  All were holding spoons with very long handles which reached to the pot, but because the handles of the spoons were longer than their arms, it was impossible to get the stew back into their mouths.  ‘Now I will show you heaven,’ God said, and they went into an identical room.  There was a similar pot of stew, and the people had identical spoons, but they were well nourished and happy.  ‘It’s simple,’ God said.  ‘You see, to have learned to feed one another.’’

Medieval Jewish story

Quotes from the Common Bowl:  see attached

Life Questions:

1.  Is service an important part of the way you live your beliefs?  Tell about a time when you had a strong experience with volunteering and how that influenced you.

2.  Do you feel that service is one of the pillars of Unitarian Universalism?

3.  Some sort of service to the Fellowship or the community is a part of the small group ministry program.  How can our group provide service?

4.  How do you feel if you’ve participated in a service project and the recipients do not seem grateful?

5.  Do you agree with the Leo Tolstoy quote that joy is only real if we look on our lives as a service?  

Closing ritual:  May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek.  May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of our world.  Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lies, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.

Kathleen McTigue

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QUOTATIONS FOR SESSION 11 – SERVICE, JUNE 2009

I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.

Oprah Winfrey

Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.

Og Mandino

In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer.  It’s interior decorating.  It’s the fabric of the curtains or the sofa.  But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design.  Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

Steve Jobs

The service you do for others is the rent you pay for the time you spend on earth.

Muhammed Ali

There is no higher religion than human service.  To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

Woodrow Wilson

A single act does make a difference…it creates a ripple effect that can be felt many miles and people away.

Lee J. Cohen

If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of 20 million full-time volunteers.

Whoopi Goldberg

As far as service goes, it can take the form of a million things.  To do service, you don’t have to be a doctor working in the slums for free, or become a social worker.  Your position in life and what you do doesn’t matter as much as how you do it.  

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Common folk, not statesmen, or generals nor great men of affairs, but just simple plain men and women, can do something to build a better, peaceful world.  The future hope of peace lies with such personal service.

Henry Cadbury

Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object  in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.

Leo Tolstoy