HEEDING THE CALL
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Youth
WORKSHOP 7: THE CALL FOR ABUNDANCE
2010
BY NICOLE BOWMER AND JODI THARAN
© Copyright 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 7:31:13 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. — Buddha
In this workshop, youth explore abundance and scarcity. This includes time to reflect on how we view abundance and scarcity and how individuals can change these perceptions and realities. Participants discuss the unequal access to resources in the world, particularly how it is affected by an individual's identity, and privilege.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Story — The Stolen Soup Aroma | 10 |
Activity 2: Defining What We Mean | 20 |
Activity 3: Unequal Access | 20 |
Faith in Action: Abundance Fair | |
Faith in Action: Allies, Phase 3 | |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Abundance Banquet | 30 |
Alternate Activity 2: When the Savings Run Out | 20 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Sit quietly with your eyes closed if this is comfortable for you and slowly breathe in and out a few times. Let your mind wander as you rest into your body. When you feel at ease, imagine a slide show of moments in your life related to abundance. What do you visualize as total abundance? Without judgment, note the kinds of images that come to you for about five minutes. This may be refreshing. Do a few more moments of focused breathing, slowly open your eyes and return to the present. Now is a good time to journal on issues of abundance and poverty. Use the following questions to help you get started. When is a time when you have felt surrounded by abundance? When have you been concerned about having enough? What is your class background? Does this have an impact on your understanding of abundance? Do you consider yourself privileged? If so, why? If not, why not?
WORKSHOP PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather youth in a circle and welcome first-time participants. Invite youth to introduce themselves and name something they think they have an abundance of. If needed, offer a few examples such as books, CDs, people to love, people who love them, etc. Ask if anyone would like to share anything noted in their Justicemakers Guide since the last meeting. Light the chalice, or invite a participant to do so, and recruit a volunteer to read the chalice lighting words:
Sweet flame of hope, help us appreciate the abundance all around us as we reach out our hands to share in acts of justice and loving kindness.
Ask the group to be silent for a moment as they reflect on the words. End the silence with "So be it," or other appropriate words.
Invite youth to reflect on the glass of water. After 30 seconds, ask if anyone has ever heard people talk about seeing a glass as half empty or half full. What does this mean? Say that today the group will talk about abundance and scarcity, which, in social justice issues, often become issues of wealth and poverty. Ask, "How does our view of resources as half full or half empty affect social justice issues?"
ACTIVITY 1: STORY — THE STOLEN SOUP AROMA (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Youth hear a story about abundance, scarcity and greed.
Introduce the story as a traditional folktale from West Africa. Tell or read the story. Process with the following questions:
ACTIVITY 2: DEFINING WHAT WE MEAN (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Youth explore the meaning of "abundance" and "scarcity."
Invite participants to share their ideas about what "abundance" means and what "scarcity" means. Write key words on newsprint.
Then divide participants into groups of three and give each group newsprint and a marker. Invite them to discuss the questions you have written on newsprint. Ask each group to choose a recorder to capture responses to questions. Tell them each group will have two minutes to share. Sound a chime or announce every two minutes. After six minutes, reconvene the large group. Invite them to share responses with the entire group. Discuss any similarities and differences.
ACTIVITY 3: UNEQUAL ACCESS (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Youth use a questionnaire to take the ideas of abundance and scarcity to a personal level and discuss unequal access to resources.
Distribute Handout 1 and invite youth to take the questionnaire. When they are finished, they can silently reflect on the questions you have written on newsprint. You might play a recording of instrumental music to create a contemplative setting. After five minutes, open the floor to sharing and discussion. Besides the questions on newsprint, you might also ask:
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite youth to stand in a circle and share a way they plan to appreciate the abundance in their lives. Thank first-time participants for their contributions to the group. Pass out Taking It Home. End the workshop with these words:
May we leave grateful for all that we have and all that we share.
Extinguish the chalice.
FAITH IN ACTION: ABUNDANCE FAIR
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Youth coordinate an Abundance Fair for their congregation.
Invite congregants (including children and youth) to bring what they have to share (their abundance). Have tables set up and invite the congregation to put these extras to good use. What about sports equipment that is no longer used? What about extra blankets? Extra garden produce? Board games? Toys? Partner with a local social service organization to be the recipient of whatever is left.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Discuss with your co-leader what went well in today's workshop. Discuss what you would do differently in the future. What left you feeling hopeful as a religious educator after this workshop? What did you learn from the youth? Do you need to make adjustments to the long-term Faith in Action, Allies? Discuss the next workshop and any preparation that may be needed.
TAKING IT HOME
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. — Buddha
In Today's Workshop...
We explored what is meant by abundance and scarcity. We thought about when we have enough and how we can appreciate our abundances by giving to others. We talked about the way we do not all have equal access to resources and what people with privilege can do to balance the scales.
Stolen Soup Story
Read other folktales from West Africa at All Folk Tales (at www.allfolktales.com/).
Appreciating Our Abundance
Classism
Some popular books and movies about unequal access to resources and financial disparity include 1979's Norma Rae (directed by Martin Ritt), Grapes of Wrath (1941 movie directed by John Ford, based on the book by John Steinbeck) and Les Miserables (1978 movie directed by Glenn Jordan, based on the book by Victor Hugo). Stand and Deliver (directed by Ramon Menendez, 1988) and Lean On Me (directed by John G. Avildsen, 1989) are two movies about young people who struggle for access to a quality public education. Watch these movies with your friends and discuss.
Do Something.org (at www.dosomething.org/whatsyourthing/Poverty) has information on poverty, homelessness, educational inequality and other issues connected to classism. This website has other information and suggestions for social justice actions you can take that encompass several different areas.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: ABUNDANCE BANQUET (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Youth explore the "haves" and the "have nots" on a global scale.
The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world's population is well fed, one third is underfed, and one third is starving. Every 3.6 seconds, someone dies from hunger. This activity illustrates how many people in the world do not have enough food.
Divide the group in thirds. Involve all the youth in setting up a banquet table with the white tablecloth, candles and decadent snacks. Do not let them know what's coming, but let them have fun setting the table as though there are places for everyone. Have them create their own placemats with the markers and paper. Just as everyone is about to be seated, remove one third of the plates and place them in the corner on the floor and explain that these youth will represent the extreme poor in the world and will receive no snack. Place another third of the plates on a chair with a pitcher of water and a slice of bread. These youth will represent the people who are underfed on a daily basis. Of the remaining third, fill all but one of the plates with snacks. Tell the group that the very last plate represents the richest people in the world. They make up only 2 percent of the world's population, yet hold 50 percent of its wealth. The person who has the last plate gets all the snacks left on the platters.
Ask the group:
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: WHEN THE SAVINGS RUN OUT (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity is based on an activity from Teaching Economics as if People Mattered: A High School Curriculum Guide to The New Economy by Tamara Sober Giecek (Boston: United For a Fair Economy (at www.faireconomy.org/), 2000), used by permission.
In a 2003 study, it was demonstrated that if we lined up all white households by the amount of cash they had in savings and checking accounts, from those with the most to those with the least, half of white households would have more than 5,000 dollars, and half would have less. For African-American families, that halfway mark was only 100 dollars. Much of the discriminatory attitudes and prejudices of classism are based on the beliefs that the difference between savings of 5,000 dollars and 100 dollars is due to hard work and frugality. In other words, if you have less, it is your own fault.
Income disparities also exist between men and women: women working full time make about 77 cents to every dollar men make. Often women are paid less for doing the same job. In the past, employers justified this wage gap between the sexes by saying that men had to support a family and women did not. They also reasoned that it was not worth investing much in women because they would leave work when they married and had children. These beliefs were not legitimate then and are not now. However, women are still trying to catch up to men in pay equality.
One way to work for justice against these classist prejudices is to examine the root causes of inequality in society. It is important to remember that policies legally favored certain people (particularly white men) and disadvantaged others for the first two centuries of our country's history. Add to this years of discrimination in workplaces and schools; discrimination in the administration of government programs, such as the G.I. Bill of Rights (which was denied to African American WWII veterans); lack of equal educational opportunities; and disparities in inherited wealth, among other factors.
Ask youth to consider what would happen to their family if one or both of the wage earners lost his/her job. (Be aware that some youth are experiencing this now.) The key to true economic security for most families are their assets, particularly cash. Money stored in a savings account can tide a family over in an emergency such as an illness or layoff. Most financial planners suggest having six months' worth of income saved for such times. However, this is an impossible goal for many families. A long-term illness, house fire, or other catastrophe can quickly deplete all of a family's resources, pushing them into poverty. Consider the nearly 200,000 families affected by the layoffs in the auto industry in 2005 and 2006. Or the tens of thousands of people left stranded after Hurricane Katrina who had neither the transportation nor the money to leave the city before the hurricane arrived. Lacking decent incomes, cash savings, or substantial assets, many people are forced to work extra hours or take a second or even a third job just to survive.
Distribute the strips from Leader Resource 1, Family Scenarios, and ask participants to complete the Savings Cushion Formula to find out how long the family in their scenario could survive on savings if a wage earner lost their job.
Savings Cushion Formula:
Write down your cash savings.
Look at the information in the Monthly Poverty Level below and find the monthly poverty-level minimum for your family.
Divide your cash savings by the amount in the table. The result is the number of months that your family could live at the poverty level before your savings run out.
Monthly Poverty Level (information from Safety Web. org (at www.safetyweb.org/tools/fplcalc2009.asp)):
1 Person: 903 dollars monthly at Poverty Line
2 People: 1,214 dollars monthly income at Poverty Line
3 People: 1,526 dollars monthly income at Poverty Line
4 People: 1,838 dollars monthly income at Poverty Line
5 People: 2,149 dollars monthly income at Poverty Line
6 People: 2,461 dollars monthly income at Poverty Line
7 People: 2,773 dollars monthly income at Poverty Line
Ask participants to share with the group their family scenarios and how many months the family could survive on savings if the only wage earner lost their job. Also, discuss what options seem viable for the families to survive after savings are gone. Talk about agencies in your community that help families in need. Wrap up the activity by asking youth to share reflections on how they might feel if they were members of the families in the scenarios.
HEEDING THE CALL: WORKSHOP 7:
STORY: THE STOLEN SOUP AROMA
From the All Folk Tales website. Used with permission.
A long time ago in the village of Ipetumodu, there lived a poor woman. This woman was so poor that she did not have any soup for her eba. The eba is a starchy paste made from cassava flour and it is rather unappetizing to eat all by itself. Across the street from this poor woman lived another woman who cooked egusi soup everyday. (Egusi soup contains protein rich egusi seeds, vegetables and sometimes meat.)
One day, as the poor woman was sitting down to her only meal for the entire day, a small bowl of eba, the aroma from her neighbors cooking wafted down through her window.
"Perhaps she will be kind enough to let me have a little soup for my eba" she thought. So she took her bowl of eba and headed over to her neighbor who was busy stirring a big pot of egusi soup.
"Please, may I have a little soup for my eba?" the poor woman asked.
The woman stirring the egusi soup looked up to see her raggedy-looking neighbor and replied, "If you can't make your own egusi soup, then you don't deserve to have any."
The poor woman went back to her own hut and sat outside her doorsteps where the aroma from her neighbor's egusi was very strong. She would scoop some eba with her hands, inhale a big dose of egusi soup aroma while she swallowed the lump of eba.
The egusi woman, seeing this destitute neighbor eating her soup's aroma got very angry. She ran out and yelled at the woman "Stop eating the aroma from my soup!" But the poor woman did not stop, she kept inhaling the aroma from the egusi soup while she ate her eba. She found the aroma from the soup very satisfying.
Everyday, whenever the rich aroma of egusi soup wafted into the poor woman's hut, she would quickly make a little bowl of eba and go outside to inhale the pleasant aroma. The egusi woman was getting very furious and she decided to take her case to the oba, the king of their village.
"This woman steals the aroma from my egusi to eat her eba. She must be punished," the egusi woman told the oba. The oba heard the story and agreed that the poor woman should indeed be punished for stealing soup aroma and he ordered the egusi woman to carry out the punishment.
"She stole your aroma therefore you shall flog her shadow," the oba told the egusi woman. "You shall flog her shadow forty times." And she was given the big stick with which she would carry out her justice.
The egusi woman, wielding her big stick to beat the poor woman's shadow felt very foolish. She felt so foolish that she asked the poor woman for forgiveness and offered to give her real egusi soup from that day on.
HEEDING THE CALL: WORKSHOP 7:
HANDOUT 1: ABUNDANCE/SCARCITY QUESTIONNAIRE
Youth should rate their Abundance/Scarcity on a scale of 1 (scarce) to 5 (abundant)
1. Access to food
2. Freedom to make decisions about what you wear
3. Friends
4. Freedom to make decisions about how you use your time
5. Financial independence
6. Access to health care
7. Access to reliable shelter
8. Entertainment devices and activities
9. Respect of peers
10. Freedom to choose your religion
11. People to help take care of you
12. Family obligations, such as chores, taking care of siblings, part-time jobs, etc.
HEEDING THE CALL: WORKSHOP 7:
HANDOUT 2: ALLY ACTION 3
I want to be an ally to _____________________________________________.
Phase 4: Date
What action do you want to take?
What resources or materials do you need and how will you get them?
What hazards or risks are involved?
What obstacles might you encounter and how will you overcome them?
What supports do you have or could you obtain?
HEEDING THE CALL: WORKSHOP 7:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: FAMILY SCENARIOS
Scenario 1: You are a single mother with two children in elementary school. You work full-time as a sales clerk at The Gap. You make 14,250 dollars a year and have cash savings of 450 dollars.
Scenario 2: You are a father with three children, ages 2, 4 and 6. You work full-time as a fire fighter, making 42,000 dollars per year. Your partner stays home and takes care of the children. You have cash savings of 3,000 dollars.
Scenario 3: You are a single female attorney working for a large law firm. Your salary is 85,000 dollars a year and you have cash savings of 18,000 dollars.
Scenario 4: You are a mother of three and a welfare recipient, receiving 9,000 dollars per year. You have cash savings of 100 dollars.
Scenario 5: You are a father with five children. Two children are in college and three are still in private school. You are a doctor, making 160,000 dollars per year. Your wife is a public school teacher making 39,000 dollars per year. You have cash savings of 12,000 dollars.
Scenario 6: You are a recent college graduate. You just accepted a job as a sales person for a new telecommunications company. Your salary is 34,000 dollars per year. However, you have only worked for two months so you have cash savings of zero.
Scenario 7: You are a machinist for an automobile manufacturer. You work 40 hours per week on the night shift. On occasion, you receive overtime so your annual salary is approximately 50,000 dollars. You did have several thousand dollars in savings, but because you are a newlywed, you just spent most of it on your honeymoon. You have cash savings of 1,100 dollars.
Scenario 8: You are a CEO of a large company that had a record year of profit making. Your salary is 1 million dollars. You have four children, ages 10, 12, 14 and 16. Your partner works part-time as an artist. You have cash savings of 5 million dollars.
FIND OUT MORE
Unequal Access
The Social Justice pages (at www.uua.org/socialjustice/index.shtml) of the Unitarian Universalist Association's website lists resources for congregations and individuals involved in justice work. Some of the resources involve working with groups of people (such as immigrants) who do not have equal access to resources.
Class Matters (at www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/05/15/national/class/), the 2005 special feature in the New York Times, has information on studies that show how class affects several areas of life, such as heath, religion, and education.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (First Owl Books, 2002).
Fear of Falling by Barbara Ehrenreich (Perennial, 1990).
Hunger
A good book with ideas for justice projects, like the abundance banquet, is Everybody Wants to Change the World by Tony Campolo (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2006).
Oxfam America (at actfast.oxfamamerica.org/), an organization working to end hunger and poverty, has materials for conducting a more complete exercise in hunger, a Hunger Banquet (R), and many more activities.
Music for Inspiration
"What It's Like" by Everlast (contains adult language)
"Songs of Joy and Peace" CD by Yo-Yo Ma
"Ode to Joy" by Ludwig van Beethoven
Movies for Inspiration
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006, directed by Gabriele Muccino(
Slumdog Millionaire (2008, directed by Danny Boyle)
Matewan (1987, directed by John Sayles)
Norma Rae (1979, directed by Martin Ritt)
When the Levees Broke (2006, directed by Spike Lee)