AUGUST

Week 1. Volunteer Personal Development Material and Tradition Elements for this Block.

COMMUNITY
Orientation

How Do We Build a Community of Love? with bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh from Shambala Sun, Jan 2000 (excerpt, beginning the with dialogue). Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness (Postscript, pgs. 285-286) Identity Circles worksheet Colossians 3: 12-15

*Love is+ the will to extend ones self for the purpose of nurturing ones own or anothers spiritual growth. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled "Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and free-dom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love." Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat Objectives.
This lesson plan is designed to ground the participant in a developmental experience, allowing volunteers to self-identify qualities that are important to their individual identities. In it, facilitators will: Guide participants through an activity that gives each person a chance to share some important aspects of his or her identity, including personal qualities and experiences. Learn more about the personal experiences, characteristics, similarities, and differences represented by members of the team and/or household, while understanding that different people see different elements of themselves as important. Provide a safe, respectful space to explore issues of self-reflection and identity; this activity works especially well as a foundation for trust building that will lead to more challenging forms of self-reflection or community building.

Background for Facilitator. For this session, please plan to spend 60-105 minutes together.

Materials You Will Need.

Identity Circle blank sheets (see attachment) or blank sheets of paper Pens or pencils Journals or notebooks A Bible Copies of the article excerpt A candle that can be easily passed around the group.

Presentation of The Material. 10-15 min.

Allow time for participants to read the hooks/Hahn excerpt OR the Long Loneliness Postscript together. You may read it individually or as a group.

Gut Response. 2-5 min.

Give participants two to five minutes to get initial responses to this material down on paper. Encourage them include intellectual and emotional reactions, what their favorite bit/quote is, and anything in between.

Engagement of the Material: Group Activity. 20 min.

Explain the purpose of this activity: This is an opportunity for all of you to engage in some reflection and sharing about who you are and the experiences and characteristics you believe define you. This activity is straightforward and is intended to provide us with a chance to get to know each other, build trust and begin forging relationships that will enable us all to feel comfortable and at home. The more we know and understand each other, the more we will be able to build a true community of love. You may want to introduce some ground rules and also offer participants with an opportunity to add other ground rules: Listen and Respect One Another: Each view, opinion, and experience offered by any participant, even if it is not one that you share. Privacy and Trust: What is disclosed in the session stays in the group and is not to be shared with others in casual conversation. Take Care of Yourself: Share at a level that feels comfortable. Speak for yourself: Participants should aim to speak for himself/herself only, claiming his or her own experiences and self-definition, and use I statements. (As facilitator, you must be ready to reinforce this.) Be Specific and Use Examples: Ask individuals to share specific experiences, stories, illustrations, or examples.

Identity Circles: Pass out the Identity Circles handout. The visual aid will help people follow the steps of the activity. Explain that everyone can write his/her name in the middle circle. There are 6 spokes out from the middle circle. Explain that on each of the spokes, participants will write one characteristic or experience that is important to his/her identity. Give people examples, asking them to consider the following: Family of origin (i.e., one of four brothers; or parents have been married 25 years) Ethnicity and race (i.e., immigrants from Russia, moved to New York) Sex, gender or sexual orientation Hobbies (i.e., painter, played college soccer, love the Giants) Faith (i.e., Catholic, went to a Jesuit University, Methodist, my Dad is a preacher) Service (i.e., Ive been tutoring and mentoring youth since I was 17) Home (i.e., I like living in a bigger city; I consider myself a Midwesterner; or I have a dog I left with my family) Aspirations (i.e., I want to be an activist for change; I want to write a book)

Explain that while not all of the qualities will have to be shared, participants should feel comfortable with sharing most of them when discussion time arrives. Explain that each person makes a choice as to what he/she shares. Give people 5-10 minutes to fill in the spokes. Encourage people to think creatively and introspectively about the aspects of their identity that are most important to them.

Group Reflection. 25-40 min.

When people are done, start the process of sharing. As FACILITATOR GO FIRST and set the tone for sharing. This works best if the facilitator demonstrates trust, humor, and meaningful sharing. You can use the following guide for sharing: Share the thing you are most happy about right now. Share the thing that you believe is most important for this group to know to help you feel at home here. Share the thing that you are struggling with right now. Share the thing that you put down that surprised you or that made you think differently about yourself.

Give everyone a chance to share, without discussion. People may become emotional during presentations (you may observe sadness, happiness, anger, etc.). If they do, dont get anxious about it. Generally, though, this exercise is fairly even. Set a respectful tone of listening and reflection. It is okay for people to expand on an item on their circle. However, you should not allow for people to interrupt each other or go back-and-forth.

After each person has spoken, you can start a dialogue. Some questions to use are: What are some of the ways we seem to be similar to each other? What are ways we are different? What can we learn from our differences and similarities? Why is learning about each other in this way important to our team/group? How does listening and learning help us to begin to build a community of love?

The Tradition. 5 min.

Ask one person to read Colossians 3: 12-15. After this first reading, instruct the group to listen carefully a second time for the phrase or word that jumps out for them most distinctly. Ask another person to read it again. When s/he is finished, go around the circle and invite everyone to say what they heard, what they think is the most important admonition from this passage.

Synthesis. 5-10 min.

Allow participants to use journals/notebooks to gather all the threads of this session together.

Prayer. 5-10 min.

Light the candle. As facilitator, you will go first and offer a spontaneous prayer for this community gathered, using whatever you heard from the session that comes to your mind as something for which you want to pray. When you are finished, pass the candle to the next person and ask them to offer their own prayer. When all have said a prayer, you can close the time by reading Colossians 3: 12-15 again, and then simply saying Amen.

** additional resource materials/web links**