LOVE CONNECTS US
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 1: A COVENANT IS A PROMISE
BY MICHELLE RICHARDS AND LYNN UNGAR
© Copyright 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/7/2014 7:34:55 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Love is the spirit of this church,
and service its law.
This is our great covenant:
To dwell together in peace,
To seek the truth in love,
And to help one another. — James Vila Blake (1842-1925), Unitarian minister
One of the central tasks of religious life is the creation of beloved community: a group of people joined together by shared commitment to one another and to values which define the group.
In this session the biblical story of Noah highlights the idea of a covenant—a sacred promise. Participants create a wall hanging to display the rainbow sign which God gives in the Noah story as an emblem of this first covenant. This rainbow wall hanging will serve as the basis for an introductory activity to be used throughout this curriculum.
In addition to the covenant between God and Noah, this session introduces Unitarian James Vila Blake's covenant, "Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law. This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace, To seek the truth in love, And to help one another." This covenant articulates the essence of what it means to gather in Unitarian Universalist community, and will serve as the structure underlying subsequent sessions.
With participants creating the knotted wall hanging and playing a human knots game, this session introduces knots and tying together as metaphors which unify this curriculum.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Human Knots Game | 7 |
Activity 2: Story — Noah and the Rainbow Covenant | 15 |
Activity 3: Rainbow Wall Hanging | 15 |
Activity 4: Group Covenant | 13 |
Faith in Action: Banner of Congregational Covenant | 35 |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Ark Animals Game | 15 |
Alternate Activity 2: Sharing Joys and Concerns | 10 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Find a place where you can be quiet with your thoughts. Close your eyes and breathe deeply for about five minutes, perhaps repeating a word or phrase to separate yourself from the activities of the day. When you feel settled and relaxed, consider:
SESSION PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Love is the spirit of this church,
and service its law.
This is our great covenant:
To dwell together in peace,
To seek the truth in love,
And to help one another. — James Vila Blake
Description of Activity
Invite a participant to light the chalice. Read aloud the Blake covenant.
This welcoming ritual honors both the coming together of this community and the other communities to which the participants belong. Say:
All of us in this room belong to this community, even if it our first time here. But who we are and what we bring into the room with us includes the other communities we belong to. We will begin our time in community today with each person giving their name and then saying the name of another community they belong to. For instance, someone might say "My name is Jake and I belong to 4-H" or "My name is Reba and I belong to the Bat Rays swim team." or "My name is LaShandra and I'm a member of Ms. Chang's 4th grade class." You can think of your neighborhood, or even your family as a community.
Invite a volunteer to start, or model by going first. Proceed around the circle. Allow anyone who does not wish to participate to pass.
If your chalice contains an actual candle flame, gather around the chalice and blow it out together.
Including All Participants
If you know a child in the group is extremely uncomfortable speaking in front of the group you may wish to do the opening ritual "popcorn" style, with children self-selecting who will go next, rather than going around the circle, so that no one is put in the position of having to speak or pass.
ACTIVITY 1: HUMAN KNOTS GAME (7 MINUTES)
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Have children stand in a very close circle, shoulder to shoulder. Then invite them to take the hands of two others in the circle. Participants may take hands across the circle or near their position, but may not hold both hands of the same person. When everyone is holding the hands of different people, ask the participants to continue holding hands while they untangle the knot, so that everyone ends up standing in a simple circle again. Participants may end up facing into or out of the circle, but should not drop hands at any point. Some knots, however, may not be possible to resolve completely. You may wish to play the game more than once, as time allows.
After finishing the game explain in the course of this curriculum the group will do many different activities which involve knots, as a way of exploring how we are all tied together. In the game, did it feel uncomfortable to have to stay connected to two other people? Does staying connected make things more complicated? How? What would the game be like if players simply dropped hands?
Including All Participants
A child who has mobility or balance issues can participate by sitting in a chair or wheelchair and having other children maneuver around them. This ritual does involve close physical contact, and children who are uncomfortable being touched may wish to opt out.
ACTIVITY 2: STORY — NOAH AND THE RAINBOW COVENANT (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Read or tell the story to the group.
After the story, invite the group to be silent for a moment to think about the story.
Begin a discussion by asking the children to recap the story in their own words. What they recall indicates what they found most meaningful or memorable. You may say:
This story is the first instance in the Bible of the idea of a covenant, a sacred promise. Later in the Hebrew scriptures, God makes a covenant with other people, including Abraham and Moses, and people make covenants with each other. The covenant in this story is special not only because it is the first, but also because it is between God and all of creation.
Lead a discussion using these questions:
ACTIVITY 3: RAINBOW WALL HANGING (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity introduces the metaphor of knots that unifies this curriculum. The children work cooperatively to create an art object which will evolve as they add items to it in subsequent sessions.
Tell the group that together they will make a "rainbow sign," a rainbow wall hanging for the group to use throughout this program. Ask if any know what makes a rainbow. Affirm that the colors we see in a rainbow are light made visible. In these words or your own, say:
The spectrum of colors in a rainbow is really just a set of different reflections of the same light. Communities, such as our Unitarian Universalist congregation, sometimes use a rainbow as a symbol that we belong together. A rainbow says "We are connected. We share the same humanity, although we may look different from one another." Likewise, in our Love Connects Us sessions we will discover different ways the individuals in this group belong together, ways we are tied together in our beloved community.
Show them the ribbon and a dowel. Explain that they will:
1. Cut lengths of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet ribbon.
2. Arrange the lengths of ribbon in clusters by color.
3. Tie the ribbons to the dowel so they hang in a rainbow pattern.
Indicate where the finished product will hang. Allow the group to decide how many strands of each color they will use. Suggest they cut lengths of ribbon that are double the desired length of the wall hanging, so they can drape these over one stick or dowel so the two ends hang evenly, below. Explain that after all the ribbon is hung, they will tie the bottom ends of ribbon to the other dowel.
Now assign tasks. Invite a volunteer to use a yardstick or measuring tape to determine how long each strand should be (double the desired length). Have some participants cut the ribbon. Others can arrange the strands in color groups and tie strands to the dowel using a square knot.
If you wish, children can tie beads or other decorative items to the ends of the ribbon. However, leave the middle open, as you will use it in future sessions.
Leave room along the dowel to tie two ends of a rope by which you can hang the finished piece. Optional: Instead of a rope, have children make a braid using multiple colors of ribbon.
Hang the finished art work in your meeting space now or sometime before the next meeting.
Including All Participants
Children who lack the dexterity to measure, cut, or tie ribbon can participate by holding the dowel while others tie ribbon to it.
ACTIVITY 4: GROUP COVENANT (13 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity explores the Blake covenant which is used throughout the program and invites participants to consider what covenant means for their group. Say, in these words or your own:
In the Noah story, God makes a covenant with all of creation that they should create more life, and God will preserve it by never causing another great flood. That idea of covenant, of an agreement, has come down to us across the centuries as a way to describe the big commitments that people make. For instance, our UU Principles begin: "We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, COVENANT to affirm and promote...
Invite children to name any of the Unitarian Universalist Principles they can remember. Start them off with "the inherent worth and dignity of every individual;" affirm contributions. Then say:
In 1894, a man named James Vila Blake created the covenant statement that we read as our chalice-lighting earlier today. He wanted his congregation, the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Illinois, to have a way of saying why they came together, and what they were committing to do together as a faith community.
Indicate the newsprint where you have posted the Blake covenant. Ask participants to identify key words that define the purposes and commitments of this covenant statement. Then invite children to suggest words or phrases that could be part of a covenant statement for your group.
Point out that they may have gone through a process of creating classroom rules before, but a covenant statement is different. You might say:
Class rules often focus on what is forbidden, such as hitting, or interrupting. But a covenant centers on what the community is for, and what commitments the members of the community make to each other. This is a very important point and the crux of what a covenant is.
As participants make suggestions, write them on newsprint.
When the list seems complete, ask the group whether they are prepared to covenant with each other, or if there are elements of the statement they are not prepared to commit to. Adjust the statement as necessary. When you have a statement that everyone is prepared to commit to, have the group read the statement aloud together as their covenant.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Say in your own words:
The session is almost over and we will now work together as a community to clean the meeting space.
Ask everyone to first clean up their own area and the materials they were using, and then to clean another area or help someone else. No one should sit in the circle until the meeting space is clean.
When clean-up is done, bring the group back to the circle. Ask them to cross their arms in front of their body before taking the hands of the people next to them. Say "We are tied together by... " and ask anyone who wishes to fill in a word or phrase about what ties us together. When everyone who wishes to share has done so, open the circle by having everyone, while still holding hands, turn to their right, so that everyone is facing out, and no longer has their arms crossed in front of their body. (Be mindful of participants' physical mobility; use this closing activity only if you are sure all children can comfortably participate. As an alternative, simply invite the entire group to hold hands.)
Distribute copies of Taking It Home you have prepared. Thank and dismiss participants.
FAITH IN ACTION: BANNER OF CONGREGATIONAL COVENANT (35 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Many congregations have their own covenant statement. It may be one created by the congregation or a version of a traditional statement such as the Blake covenant. This activity gives participants the chance to engage with their own congregation's covenant, and results in a display that will encourage members of all ages to pay attention to the purpose and commitments shared by the faith community.
Explain to the group that you will create a large banner to display your congregation's covenant. Display the congregational covenant on newsprint and (if it is not too long) read it aloud. Determine who will write what part on the banner. Encourage participants to sketch out in pencil what they will write, and to try to fill the space evenly. While some children write the words on the banner, others can decorate with pictures or symbols to represent the words of the covenant.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Reflect on and discuss with your co-leader(s):
Approach your director of religious education for guidance, as needed.
TAKING IT HOME
Love is the spirit of this church,
and service its law.
This is our great covenant:
To dwell together in peace,
To seek the truth in love,
And to help one another. — James Vila Blake (1842-1925), Unitarian minister
IN TODAY'S SESSION... the children heard the story of Noah, and the covenant that God makes with creation following the flood. We made a rainbow wall hanging, a reminder of the rainbow sign that God gave to Noah, and we talked about what a covenant might mean for our own group. Our activities emphasized cooperation and connection.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about... what covenant means. How is a covenant the same as or different than a promise? Who makes covenants? Do you have any family covenants? Has your family done a baby or child dedication ceremony which involved a covenant on the part of the parents or the congregational community?
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Create a covenant statement for your family. What are your highest goals as a family? What commitments do you make to one another? How are the commitments which parents make to a family different from those the children make? How are they the same?
A Family Ritual. At bedtime, offer your child a special promise, such as "I promise I will listen to you," or "I promise to honor your creativity." Or, agree on a ritual way to seal agreements you make in daily life ("I'll try not to yell if you'll try not to yell.") A hug makes a good ritual of commitment, but you may wish to choose an action that is unique to your family and serves as a reminder of the special nature of a covenant.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: ARK ANIMALS GAME (15 MINUTES)
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity requires cooperation, compromise, and creative communication. Divide the group into pairs, and choose a pair to go first. (If you have an odd number of children, a leader can pair up with a child.) Instruct the pair of children that they will portray a pair of animals making their way to the ark. They must both portray the same kind of animal, and the group will guess what kind of animal they are. The trick is that before they proceed across the room as their animal they must decide jointly what the animal will be. And they must make that choice without talking, and use no more than two minutes to figure out what their joint animal will be.
When the game is complete, ask what techniques they found useful for coming to agreement without talking. Do you still need to listen even if no one is talking?
Including All Participants
Be ready to adapt the rules of this game and to pair children thoughtfully, to make sure the game is manageable and meaningful for any child with vision or mobility challenges.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: SHARING JOYS AND CONCERNS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
In addition to building community through sharing information about important events in their lives, this version of sharing joys and concerns uses a ritual activity based on the metaphor of knots, allowing children to experience being literally "tied together."
Gather participants in a seated circle. Say:
We are all tied together by the bonds of community. What affects any one of us affects us all. We take time now to share our greatest joys and deepest concerns, events from the past week that we hold in our hearts.
Invite a volunteer to go first, and give them the ball of yarn. Ask them to share their joy or concern and then, holding the end of the yarn, throw the ball of yarn to another child in the circle. This child may either share a joy or concern or choose to pass, but in either case they keep hold of the strand of yarn as they throw the ball of yarn to another participant. Continue until everyone has had a chance to share or pass, and the whole group is connected by a web of yarn.
At the end of the sharing you may invite participants to take turns winding the yarn back onto the ball. Or, pass around scissors and invite the children to cut a short piece of the yarn and tie it around their wrist as a sign of the covenant of caring which the group shares.
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 1:
STORY: NOAH AND THE RAINBOW COVENANT
Perhaps you've heard the story of Noah and the flood, from Hebrew scripture, or the Bible. It goes something like this:
Did you ever make such a mess of your homework that you just got crazy mad and frustrated and wanted to crumple the whole thing up and throw it away? That's how God was feeling, looking around at the world. "You pour your heart and soul into making this wonderful world, full of people and animals and plants—and if you think it's easy, try getting the stripes on a zebra just right—all that effort and for what? A year or two or 1,500 go by, and the whole thing is a mess. People! What was I thinking? They're rotten to the core! They lie, they cheat, they murder, they steal—there's not a decent one in the whole bunch! Dang it all, I should just start over. Obliterate the whole mess and start from scratch. Yep, I think that's just what I'll do."
God took a good look around to make sure that there were not, in fact, any decent people about to be destroyed. And it turned out that God found one good, kind, clean-living family, the family of a man named Noah. And so God went to Noah and said: "This world is just plain no good, and I'm planning on getting rid of all of the people, except you and your family. So this is what you have to do: Build a really big boat, big enough for not only you and your family, but also a pair of every kind of animal there is. I'll give you time, but you better get on it, because I'm going to rain this whole place out, and anyone who isn't on that boat is going to drown."
I imagine Noah had a hard time believing his ears, but he gathered up his family and told them what he'd heard. They, no doubt, had a hard time believing Noah, but they trusted him, and so some of the family set about building the boat, called an ark, while others went and gathered up animals. Of course, everybody else thought Noah was just plain nuts for building this gi-normous boat and filling it with animals, but Noah and his family just kept right on working.
And eventually the rain came. It rained and rained and rained, like no rain you ever saw. It was as if the sky was full of millions of fire hydrants, all opened at once. And the water got higher and higher and covered the land, and the giant boat, full of animals and Noah's family, gently rose with the water. For days and days and nights and nights the rain went on until, finally, it just stopped.
The people ran to the windows of the ark and were astonished to see blue sky. And blue water. And nothing else. Just water and sky. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do, so they waited. And waited.
Finally, Noah sent a raven out to fly around and look for land, but it came back tired, for there was nowhere to rest. Noah waited a week. Then he sent out a dove to fly around and look for land, but it just came back tired, too. So he brought the dove back in, waited another week, and sent it out again. This time the dove came back with a twig from an olive tree in its beak—it had found land! Eventually the water backed off enough for Noah to see the ark had come to rest on the top of a mountain, and there was land around them. Maybe not dry land—wet and mushy land—but land, all the same. Finally, finally, the people and the animals were able to leave the crowded, smelly ark and touch the earth. They were all overcome with gladness, and Noah made an altar to thank God for bringing them to safety.
"Welcome home," said God. "I will make a deal with you, a promise—a covenant. My covenant is with all the beings of the earth, not just the people. You go forth and populate the earth and fill it again with all your kind. And I promise never to flood the earth again. And as a sign of my covenant with you I will put a rainbow in the clouds. And every time you see a rainbow it will remind you of our covenant to create and preserve life."
FIND OUT MORE
James Vila Blake
The website of the Unitarian Church in Quincy, Illinois, where Blake served as minister from 1877 to 1884, offers this information about him:
A man of varied talents and of unusual energy and activity. He was a hymn lyricist and a poet (at www.archive.org/details/jamesvilablakeas00hughrich) with several volumes of poetry to his credit and several volumes of sermons. In 1896, he was mentioned briefly in this article from the New York Times (at query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0CE4D7133BEE33A25755C2A9669D94679ED7CF). While he was minister at Evanston, Illinois [Church of All Souls], he penned the affirmation that we say during every service, and which has been adapted by many other Unitarian Congregations: "Love is the spirit of this church... " (at uuquincy.org/uuq/ministry.shtml#affirmation)
Noah
A wide range of articles, texts, and artwork related to the story of Noah's Ark is available at Noah's Ark on the Web (at www.isidore-of-seville.com/noah-ark/index.html).
Read the English Standard Version of the Noah story (at www.biblestudytools.com/esv/genesis/6.html), through God's covenant with Noah, in Genesis 6-9 (at www.biblestudytools.com/esv/genesis/6.html), on the Bible Study Tools website.
To read an October, 2008 sermon on the topic of covenant by Unitarian Universalist minister Erika Hewett at the Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Goleta (California), click here (at www.liveoakgoleta.org/component/option,com_docman/task,cat_view/gid,20/Itemid,43/) and scroll down to find "Lost on the Freeway: Thoughts on Covenant and Asking for Directions."