Connecting to the Wisdom of the Ages for All Ages

The stories below and the group gathering guide that follows them are part of a booklet I have just put together for use at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church. Copie of “Stories to Live By”are available at the church, in the entrance to the sanctuary and by the office entrance. Please feel free to take a booklet for home and/or share with others.

Our adult Sunday morning group, “Pensive Preview,” uses these stories to launch their lively and reflective weekly discussions from 10:00 -10:45 am. Our “Spirit Play” group (children, ages 5-10) uses these stories as the basis of “Circle Time” each week. Sometimes our high school group or one of our covenant groups will draw from the story of the week for their gatherings.

It is my hope that these stories and gathering plans will be useful in a wide variety of settings—in family groups, with a gathered group of friends, as part of someone’s weekly spiritual practice, even as part of a committee meeting or church retreat. We at this church have just begun to tap the potential that is inherent in taking the time to reflect upon wisdom tales, all together, on a weekly basis. When all of us, with our unique perspectives, come together to reflect on the same story (or in this case stories), we connect with each other and with wider truths that have stood the test of time.

Why stories? Why not lectures or research results? Why have people across time and culture loved stories?

Stories are the basic way we humans make meaning in our lives. How many of you lean in when the preacher gets to the part of the sermon that is a story? Stories are memorable; they come from life and engage our heads and our hearts simultaneously. Stories are also a means of connecting across ages and stages because they can be understood at different levels and in different ways. There is something for everyone in a good story.

Why repeat the stories? Why not cast a wide net? What about novelty? Who wants to hear a story when they already know how it is going to turn out?

How many of us choose to hear the story of Jesus’s birth every Christmas? What about the Passover Seder held each year in Jewish congregations? Or the story of Buddha’s Awakening? By telling and retelling core wisdom tales, the Unitarian Universalist Association Adult Programs Director for Faith Development, Gail Forsyth Vail, says we are building “hand holds” to use for the “climb” that is our lives. When we are familiar enough with a story, when we know it in our bones, we can take from it what we need when we need it.

Each week, I will post the story that will be told in next Sunday’s service. I hope you enjoy them. Please use the group gathering guides in ways that work for you. May these stories connect you to others, to the deeper parts of your own knowing, and to the wisdom of the ages. May connections abound!

In faithful partnership,

Tandy






The Easter Story (first of two stories for April 4, 2010)


Context
The Christian story of Easter is found in all four Gospels of the Bible: Matthew 28:1-9, Mark 16:1-13, Luke 24:1-49, and John 20:1-23. This is the version from John:

Story
Jesus developed many followers during his ministry, traveling the land, healing the sick, and telling stories of compassion and love. The government leaders didn’t like the fact that Jesus had such a powerful following, so they conspired to have him put to death. Eventually the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate ordered that Jesus should be nailed to a cross of wood and die there on top of a hill called “Calvary,” or “The Skull Place.”
The sky was dark on the Friday when Jesus died. His last words were “It is finished. Father (or Daddy), into your hands I give my spirit.”
Jesus’ followers were devastated over the loss of their beloved teacher. They took his body and wrapped it in a cloth, placing it in a tomb. Then they rolled a large stone in front of it, so no one would bother the body.
On the Sunday morning two days after Jesus’ death, Mary Magdala went to the tomb to mourn the death of her friend, but she was upset to find the stone in front of the tomb had been rolled away. Thinking someone had stolen the body, she ran off to find help. She found two of Jesus’ disciples, Peter and John, and told them someone had stolen Jesus’ body. The two men ran quickly to the tomb and found it empty. All they saw were the cloths that had been wrapped around Jesus’ body rolled up in a corner. Instantly, they knew that Jesus had risen from the dead, and ran to tell others about the miracle.
Finally Mary got back to the tomb as well. Still thinking someone had taken Jesus’ body, she cried bitterly over the fate of her friend. When she looked into the tomb, she saw two men, dressed all in white and with shining faces, sitting at the place where Jesus’ body had been.
“Why do you weep?” one asked her.
“Because they have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where he is,” she cried. Then something made her turn around. She saw a man standing behind her. Thinking it was the gardener, she asked him, “Have you taken the body of my Lord? If so, please, won’t you tell me where he is?”
Then Jesus said her name – “Mary” – and she looked into his eyes and recognized him. She saw that he was alive.
“My Master!” she cried out and flung herself at his feet, reaching for him.
“Don’t take hold of me, Mary,” he said. “I’m not yet going to God. But go and tell the others I will be going to God.”
So Mary ran to tell the others what had happened, and she was filled with joy.
Jesus appeared to several other people in the days that followed his resurrection. Some refused to believe that he had returned from the dead until he showed them the wounds in his hands and feet where he had been nailed to the cross. Then they believed and helped spread the word of Jesus’ miracle over death.


Persephone (second of two stories for April 4, 2010)

Context
The tale of Persephone is a classical Greek myth, explaining why the seasons are as they are.

Story
Demeter, the goddess of the earth and the harvest, had a daughter whose name was Persephone. Demeter made sure the plants and crops grew, and Persephone helped her.
Pluto, who was the god of the Underworld, wanted to marry Persephone. He asked Zeus if he could. But Zeus didn’t answer. He knew Demeter would say no.
The day came when, as Persephone was out alone, Pluto saw her. He kidnapped her, and took her down to the Underworld. As they entered, they passed Cerebus, the three-headed dog guarding the gates of the Underworld, who makes sure the dead don’t leave.
When Demeter learned that her daughter was gone, she was bereft. She wailed in grief. She stopped taking care of the crops, and began to look for her daughter. As she did, the crops withered and died. At last, Demeter learned that Pluto was keeping Persephone prisoner in the Underworld. Demeter went to Zeus, and begged him to make Pluto release her daughter. Because the humans would starve without crops, other gods chimed in, too, asking Zeus to make Pluto release Persephone. Finally, Zeus agreed to step in. He commanded Pluto to release Persephone, on the condition that Persephone had not eaten anything while she was in the Underworld. But Pluto was crafty. Before letting Persephone go, he tempted her to eat a few pomegranate seeds from his garden. Because Persephone had eaten from Pluto’s underworld garden, she was required to stay part of the year now with him, and could only spend part of the year on earth with her mother.
Now, every year when Persephone is with Pluto in the Underworld, Demeter becomes sad and lets the crops die. When Persephone returns to her, Demeter becomes happy, and you can see it all over in the blooming of flowers and the flourishing of the crops.



Group Gathering

Chalice Lighting

Opening Words:
The human spirit has its winter but it also has its spring.
This is the truth that must be retold each time the earth renews itself and
restores our souls.
We know that impetuous green shoots and fragile blossoms do not alter the fact
of sorrow and loss
And yet we are uplifted again by the vitality and hope in the beauty of the
awakening earth
Only as we recognize the winter-like bonds which bind us and separate us from
life
Only as we open ourselves to the light and warmth and growth can we set
ourselves free
Our intellect tells us we are mortal and that we shall die later or sooner
But our spirits tell us that we are one with the infinite, that some part of us will
never cease to be.
~ Janet H. Bowering

Check in: How are you? What season describes your current state of mind and heart?

Sharing: First, the general “Godly Play” questions from Jerome Berryman:
1. What was your favorite part of the stories?
2. What do you think was the most important part of the stories?
3. Where are YOU in these stories?
4. Is there any part of the stories we could leave out and still have all the story we need?
Now, questions that connect the story to Unitarian Universalism.
5. Which of our Unitarian Universalist principles does this story bring to mind for you and why?
6. How does this story inform your life as a Unitarian Universalist?
Now, the specific questions pertaining to these stories:
7. What is your understanding of Jesus's appearing to his followers in the days following his crucifixion?
8. In what ways do you identify with the Easter story? In what ways do you struggle with it?
9. What is your understanding of death and rebirth?
10. What restores you?

Likes and wishes: What did you like about this gathering?
What do you wish had been different?

Closing:
From Dick Gilbert

… There is no escaping the seasons of life—we simply learn to live with them.
Bundle ourselves against the cold or find cool refreshment from oppressive
heat.
We learn to live with them, for, like the seasons, they pass on and away.
But, how joyous to know that now, for a fleeting moment,
We are precariously perched on the precipice of spring.