LOVE CONNECTS US
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 9: KINDNESS IS THE KEY
BY MICHELLE RICHARDS AND LYNN UNGAR
© Copyright 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/7/2014 8:04:51 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
You cannot shake hands with a closed fist. — Indira Ghandi
Love is not a doctrine. Peace is not an international agreement. Love and Peace are beings who live as possibilities in us. — Mary Caroline Richards, poet, potter, and philosopher
Our sixth Unitarian Universalist Principle affirms "the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all." This session shows how we can act to promote this goal in our relationships and communities. The story "The Christmas Truce" describes how soldiers on opposite sides in World War I created a ceasefire on the Christmas of 1914, meeting for a moment of shared humanity in the midst of bloody conflict. By playing a cooperative game and dramatizing solutions to conflict situations, participants explore what it means to choose peaceful relationships.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | 0 |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Story — The Christmas Truce | 10 |
Activity 2: Multi-Legged Race Game | 15 |
Activity 3: Conflict Resolution Skits with Alternate Endings | 20 |
Faith in Action: Congregational Peace Crane Mobile | |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Making Peace Signs | 10 |
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:
This session focuses on peacemaking. The way you model peaceful interaction and help participants interact peacefully can serve as powerful lessons.
SESSION PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
As participants arrive, invite them to make peace sign ornaments. Tell them they will hang the ornaments on the Rainbow Wall Hanging later. If time allows, participants can decorate the peace sign ornaments, leaving room to write comments later.
Including All Participants
If any participants have difficulty with small motor control, encourage them to choose a sheet of card stock and hold the template on it for another child to trace a peace sign shape. Invite other participants to cut out extra peace signs, punch holes in them, and string them with yarn to make extra ornaments. Children who have trouble tracing and cutting may still be able to decorate ornaments.
OPENING (10 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. Lead the group to read aloud the Blake covenant. Say something like:
The covenant we said together talks about "dwell[ing] together in peace." What do you think it means to "dwell in peace"? Can you think of ways that kids can create peace? What have you done to build peace in your family, at school, or in other groups you are part of? We will write ways we make peace on our peace sign ornaments.
Invite everyone to select a peace sign ornament and a marker, pen, or pencil. Encourage them to write on their ornament a way in which people can dwell together in peace. Allow participants a few minutes to write. Then, invite them, one at a time, to tie their ornaments to the wall hanging, and as they do so, if they feel like sharing what they have written, read or say it aloud to the group.
After everyone has had a chance to attach an ornament, gather around the chalice and extinguish it together.
Including All Participants
Invite participants who cannot write on an ornament to share verbally while you or another participant serves as "scribe." If you know some participants may feel uncomfortable sharing in a group, let them know as they enter the room that later they will be invited to share about ways we act to build peace. This may help them prepare an idea before the sharing time; they can also pass if they choose.
ACTIVITY 1: STORY — THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Read or tell the story to the group.
Invite the group to be silent for a moment to think about the story.
Begin a discussion by asking the participants to recap the story in their own words. What they recall indicates what they found most meaningful or memorable.
Lead a discussion using these questions:
ACTIVITY 2: MULTI-LEGGED RACE GAME (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This game "ties together" participants a literal way and provides a fun way for them to experience competition and cooperation. The general idea is that of a three-legged race, in which two people stand side by side, tie their adjacent legs together, and race against other pairs. In this game, however, participants will race several times: first on their own, then tied to one other person, and then tied together with more people, and finally, tied together as an entire group.
Mark a start line and a finish line. The lines need to be long enough for the entire group to stand abreast.
Line up the participants at the start line and have everyone run the race.
Then, return everyone to the start line. Form pairs. Give each pair a length of rope and have them stand side by side and tie their adjacent inner legs together. Have another race, this time with all the pairs competing against each other. Then, return everyone to the start line and form two teams. (If the group is four or fewer, skip the team race.) Distribute more lengths of rope and have each team stand in a row and tie their legs to the adjacent legs of the people standing next to them. Have the two teams race to the finish line.
Finally, have the whole group stand in one row along the starting line and tie their legs so everyone but the two end participants has both legs tied to a person next to them. Ask participants to think about how they can complete the race in the fastest possible way without anyone falling over. When they are ready, run the race one final time.
Ask participants to reflect on their experience:
Including All Participants
If any participant uses a wheelchair or has accessibility or mobility limitations, use an alternate activity.
ACTIVITY 3: CONFLICT RESOLUTION SKITS WITH ALTERNATE ENDINGS (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants create a skit to portray a conflict and then re-create the skit to show different possible solutions.
Form two groups. Give each group a scenario from Leader Resource 1. Tell them they have five minutes to create a skit based on their scenario.
When time is up, have Group A to perform their skit. Then, give both groups a few minutes to create new skits based on Group A's scenario but with alternative endings that show a different resolution to the conflict. Invite Group B to present and Group A to describe their alternatives.
Then, ask Group B to perform the skit they created based on the other scenario. Again, give both groups a few minutes to create new skits with alternative endings to Group B's scenario. Invite Group A to present and Group B to describe their alternatives.
Leave a few minutes for participants to reflect:
Variation
Note: If you do not have enough participants to form two groups, have the entire group work together on alternative endings for both scenarios. Or, allow participants to use leaders as actors.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain that the session is almost over and that we will now work together as a community to clean the meeting space. Ask everyone to clean up their own area and the materials they were using first, and then to clean another area or help someone else. No one should sit in the circle until the meeting space is clean.
Then 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 in the spirit of peace when we... " and ask anyone who wishes to fill in a word or phrase about how we are tied together in peace. 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.
Distribute copies of Taking It Home that you have prepared. Thank and dismiss participants.
FAITH IN ACTION: CONGREGATIONAL PEACE CRANE MOBILE
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Use this is an opportunity for a multigenerational peace project. Invite your whole congregation to join you in creating paper cranes, a symbol of peace, and displaying them as a mobile.
Teach the group to make paper cranes using the directions on Leader Resource 2. Before folding their origami paper, invite participants to write a message of peace on the paper, and to share aloud with others at the table their message of peace.
When the cranes are completed, use the directions on Leader Resource 3 to make a paper crane mobile to hang in a public area of the congregation. You might hold a dedication ceremony when you hang the complete mobile; share peace songs from the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook, Singing the Living Tradition and/or readings about peace from the hymnbook (Readings 573-589).
Including All Participants
Participants who are not physically able to fold paper cranes can recruit adults and other participants to participate in the project.
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
You cannot shake hands with a closed fist. — Indira Ghandi
Love is not a doctrine. Peace is not an international agreement. Love and Peace are beings who live as possibilities in us. — Mary Caroline Richards, poet, potter, and philosopher
IN TODAY'S SESSION... we explored peacemaking, and how each of us can find creative solutions to solve conflict and work cooperatively. We heard the true story of The Christmas Truce, in which, during World War I, soldiers from both sides crossed into the No Man's Land between enemy lines to share Christmas gifts and songs in the spirit of shared humanity. We held a different kind of race, in which increasing numbers of people were tied together, and we created skits in which we had to come up with various solutions to a conflict.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. How do you experience conflict in your family? How do you make peace? When arguments or fights arise between participants or between participants and adults, how do you work toward a solution? What sorts of things happen when your family is at peace?
A Family Ritual. In both Jewish and Muslim traditions it is customary to greet people or say good-bye using a word which means "peace." Shalom is the Hebrew form of the word, while salaam is the Arabic form. You can remind your family and others whom you greet of your desire for peace by creating the ritual of welcoming and/or taking leave of people with the greeting "Shalom" or "Salaam."
A Family Game. During this session the participants played a game in which we ran a series of races. We began by running the race individually, but the next time we did it as a three-legged race, with two people running as a team tied together. Then we kept going, tying together increasing numbers of people, until we ran one final "human race." You can play this game with your family—but beware, size differences add to the challenge!
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: MAKING PEACE SIGNS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite all participants to think about how they could create a message of peace using symbols, simple drawings, or a few words. Then invite them to work in pairs to make symbols or messages of peace to display in the congregation.
Variation
If you feel comfortable providing this option, invite children to draw simple messages of peace with washable marker on one another's skin. The back of the hand and the inside of the forearm are good places. Keep in mind that some children, and some parents, may object for a variety of reasons, including potential allergies. Also, consider the likelihood of children this age drawing on more surfaces than you asked them to, once this option is opened.
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 participants' 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 that have happened since last time we met which 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 9:
STORY: THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE
By Gail Forsyth-Vail.
When the Great War, which we now call World War I, started in Europe, many young men were eager to fight. Just out of school, they joined up with their schoolmates to go off on an exciting adventure. War seemed glorious in the fall of 1914 when young men from the British Empire went to France to fight against young men from the German Empire.
It did not take long for the new soldiers to discover the realities of war. Both sides dug trenches in the ground a few hundred feet from each other in France and in Belgium. Between the trenches was a flat open space called No Man's Land. Young men hid in the trenches day after day as gunfire came from snipers or artillery on one side or the other. To lift your head up out of a trench was to risk getting shot. Many soldiers were killed or wounded. When it rained, soldiers were trapped in muddy, wet trenches, with the task of endless digging, as they tried to keep ahead of the floodwaters. When winter approached, there was more and more rain, and the trenches of both the German army and the British army were wet, cold, miserable mud holes.
As the soldiers huddled in their miserable trenches, they began to wonder about the enemy soldiers so close by. Bored soldiers shouted at each other back and forth between the trenches, calling names and taunting one another. Each side sang patriotic songs and folk songs to remind them of home. The two armies were close enough to hear one another's music. Always, there were the rifles and the machine guns, firing at any sign of movement outside the trench.
Back home, people in Germany and Britain thought often of their soldiers. German families sent their soldiers packages of gifts, letters, and photos. They also sent Christmas trees to the soldiers, who put them on top of the sandbags protecting the fronts of the trenches. The British saw all the Christmas trees and wondered if some kind of surprise attack was being planned. They watched and waited. The British people also sent letters, candies, and gifts to their soldiers. Each one received a small brass box embossed with a profile of Princess Mary of England. The box was full of cigarettes and had a card inside saying: "With best wishes for a happy Christmas and a victorious New Year from the Princess Mary and friends at home."
Christmas Eve arrived in 1914 and soldiers on both sides opened their packages in the muddy trenches and wished with all their hearts to be home again. They began singing carols and making merry—as merry as one can be in a trench—when something extraordinary happened.
Someone began to sing "Silent Night" in German, or perhaps "O Come All Ye Faithful" in English. In any event, the soldiers on the other side joined in the singing. The songs of the two armies, sung in two different languages, blended together in the starry night. Soon, a German soldier emerged from his trench. Everyone held his breath, but no one fired. He had a sign that said, "Merry Christmas! We not shoot. You not shoot." It wasn't long before a British soldier made his way into No Man's Land, then another, and another. Soon all the soldiers had climbed out of the trenches and were greeting one another, enemy greeting enemy, in the middle of No Man's Land. Officers tried in vain to forbid this from happening. Embodying the Christmas spirit of peace and good will, the men traded candies, swapped buttons from their uniforms, and showed one another pictures of families back home. Someone even started a soccer game, using an old ball and helmets to mark the goal posts.
The unplanned Christmas truce happened all along the five-hundred-mile battlefront. Whether it lasted a few hours or a few days, it gave each man pause as he learned that the enemy was a human being like himself. It was a time when the spirit of love and joy reigned supreme even in the midst of the battlefield.
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 9:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: CONFLICT RESOLUTION SCENARIOS
Scenario A
Christopher comes to school wearing a bright pink hat. Jesse tells him he looks like a queer and should take off the hat. Christopher wants to wear his new hat, and resists. If you have more than two people, include friends who take sides in the argument and/or teachers or other grown-ups at the school.
Scenario B
Fifth-graders traditionally sit under the tree at lunch, while fourth-graders eat at a table outside the cafeteria. Jamie, a fourth-grader, sits down to eat under the tree, and Sami, a fifth-grader, objects. If you have more than two people, include friends who take sides in the argument and/ or teachers or other grown-ups at the school.
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 9:
LEADER RESOURCE 2: HOW TO FOLD A PAPER CRANE
Dr. Aaron Quigley, Professor, University College Dublin. Used with permission.
1: Fold along the diagonal. 2: Fold along the perpendicular. 3: Open the left side to form a pocket. 4: The paper looks like this now. 5: Turn over and repeat the process. 6: The paper looks like this now. 7: Fold the left and right sides into the middle. Also fold the top in. 8: Turn over and repeat the process. 9: Open up so it looks like the paper in 7. 10: Pull up the bottom point. 11: The paper now looks like this. 12: Turn over and repeat the process. 13: The paper should look like this. 14: Fold the bottom left and right edges into the middle. 15: Turn over and repeat the process. 16: Fold up the left side. 17: Fold down the top to form a tail. 18: Fold up the right side to form a tail. 19: Viola! The final product!!
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 9:
LEADER RESOURCE 3: MAKE A PAPER CRANE MOBILE
You will need:
Directions
1. Tie the chopsticks into the shape of a square, using short pieces of ribbon. You may wish to also glue the corners where they join. Hot glue will set quickly.
2. Tie approximately 18 inches of ribbon to each corner of the square, and tie these ribbons together at the top to make a knot for hanging your mobile. Make the ribbons of equal length from the top knot to the chopsticks, so the mobile will not be lopsided.
3. Choose a few paper cranes for the mobile. Cut a length of thread approximately three feet long, thread it through a needle, and use the needle to carefully pierce the center of a paper crane, at the top. Pass the needle and thread through the paper, leaving about eight inches of thread behind. Tie a knot at the bottom of the crane; this will keep the crane from sliding down the thread once you hang the thread on the mobile.
4. Continue threading cranes on your thread, spacing them as far apart as you wish (about four inches is good), and securing each with a knot below.
5. Repeat this process with more threads, to make more strings of paper cranes for the mobile—eight is ideal.
6. Tie each strand of cranes to one of the chopsticks in your frame.
Note: For a balanced mobile, place the same number of paper cranes on each strand of thread, and the same number of strands on each chopstick.
FIND OUT MORE
Talking about Conflict and War
The University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching offers guidance for talking about the Iraq War (at www.crlt.umich.edu/publinks/wariniraqdiscussion.php) with college students. The ideas and suggestions can be adapted to help you lead discussion with participants in this session.
Peace Activities
The Do Something for Peace website (at www.dosomethingforpeace.org/kids.html) offers project and activity ideas you might use with this group, a wider religious education group, or a multigenerational gathering.
Cooperative Games
Find more cooperative and community-building games (at www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/deepfun/index.shtml) from the UUA Youth and Young Adult Ministry Office.