C0VENANT GROUP LESSON 4 – FEBRUARY, 2009

BEING WITH OTHERS

ADAPTED FROM REV. GLENN TURNER

Chalice:  

The way is full of genuine sacrifice.

The thickets blocking the path are anything

That keeps you from that, any fear

That you may be broken to bits like a glass bottle.

This road demands courage and stamina,

Yet it’s full of footprints!  Who are

These companions?  They are rungs

In your ladder   Use them!

With company you quicken your ascent.

You may be happy enough going along,

But with others you’ll get farther, and faster.

Every prophet sought out companions.

A wall standing alone is useless,

But put three or four walls together,

And they’ll support a roof and keep

The grain dry and safe.

When ink joins with a pen, then the blank paper

Can say something.  Rushes and reeds must be woven

To be useful as a mat.  If they weren’t interlaced,

The wind would blow them away.

Like that, God paired up

Creatures and gave them friendship.

Rumi

Check-in:

Reading:

Each of us is a being in himself and a being in society.   Each of us needs to understand himself and understand others, take care of others and be taken care of himself.

Haniel Long

Life Questions:

•  Some of us are introverts and some are extroverts.  What kind of time and interaction do you need with others to feel content?
• How do you define community?  What are some of the communities in your life and how do they sustain you?
• How do you view solitary time?  Is it something you seek?  Is it comfortable or unsettling?  
• Are you energized by being with other people or being alone?
  

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 lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.

Kathleen McTigue

Check-out

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QUOTES FOR LESSON 4, FEBRUARY, 2009

BEING WITH OTHERS

Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A machine has value only as it produces more than it consumes – so check your value to the community.

Martin H. Fisher

On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers.

Adlai Stevenson

We cannot live only for ourselves.  A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

Herman Melville

While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many.

Lady Bird Johnson

The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people.  The hardest is with one.

Joan Baez

First, it is necessary to stand on your own two feet.  But the minute a man finds himself in that position, the next thing he should do is reach out his arms.

Kristin Hunter

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.  I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.

George Bernard Shaw