Session 6
Fall 2011
Evergreen Fellowship
“Whose Are We”
Chalice Lighting
Opening Words
We come together to form deeper connections.
We connect to ourselves, striving to be true to our highest values.
We connect to each other, seeking the friendships that bring our lives meaning.
We connect with our world, longing together for its healing.
We connect to what, for each of us, is our deepest relationship to life.
Check-in/Sharing
Topic
“Whose Am I,” by Victoria Stafford
Douglas Steere, a Quaker teacher, says that the ancient question, “What am I?” inevitably leads
to a deeper one, “Whose am I?”—because there is no identity outside of relationships. You can’t
be a person by yourself. To ask “Whose am I?” is to extend the questions far beyond the little
self-absorbed self, and wonder: Who needs you? Who loves you? To whom are you
accountable? To whom do you answer? Whose life is altered by your choices? With whose life,
whose lives, is your own all bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?”
From Bruce’s sermon, Sept. 25, 2011
Part I
Our lives are fulfilled by the belonging that claims us. To whom do we belong?
To what do we belong? In what place do we feel the deepest belonging? How do we belong?
How do we know that we belong? A central question of the spiritual quest, one that we must face
in each chapter of our lives, is “Who are we?” Yet, behind that question is a deeper one: “Whose
are we?”
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A practice of belonging begins with the question, “Who or what lays claim to our heart
and lives? Who or what lays claim to our days?”
Imagine a young mother gazing lovingly at her child in a beautiful grassy field. The
child, held in the web of that love, smiles happily toward the mother. They sit together in that
grassy place that seems to hold them in its own loving embrace. The child feels this belonging to
the mother, and the mother likewise feels how deeply she belongs to her child. With their eyes
held in a moment of loving connection, each lays claim to and is claimed by the other in
reciprocal belonging. And it may be that this grassy place is familiar and important to them both.
Perhaps this is where they come each day to be joyfully together. Thus it may be that the place
itself belongs to them, and that they likewise feel as if they belong to this place.
And so, reflect for a moment. Who or what does lay claim on you? (pause for
reflection) Who or what do you wish would lay claim on you? (pause for reflection)
Questions
1. When you were very young, to whom or to what did you feel as if you belonged?
2. How has this sense of belonging evolved through your lifetime?
3. What, in this deepest sense of the word, belongs or has belonged to you? What does it
mean that it belongs or belonged to you?
Part II
Our life path is charted not only by the serendipity of chance events. We are drawn
or called in a direction, and then that direction is modified by all that ensues. From time to time
we stop and listen for that whisper of calling, to get our life on the right track again. If there is a
truth out there guiding our life, we approach that truth approximately, stepping towards it as we
can, and stepping away from all that is not our truth.
What is that calling? What is that moment that we have to say “yes” to the path that
opens before us? Consider this, that our calling comes out of our sense of belonging.
We respond most surely to what we love and what loves us in return. All those things
that you belong to lay claim on your heart. The call we hear is their call for us to serve them as
well as we can.
The second task in a practice of belonging is to become aware how your own calling
and your own actions depend on all that calls you and claims you in your life.
Questions
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1. Have there been times in your life when you have felt deeply drawn or called to serve
others? Perhaps they were individuals, perhaps groups. What was that call, and how did
you manifest that call to action?
2. How has what you have done in your life come out of your own deepest sense of
belonging?
3. As you chart this next chapter of your life, what does your deepest sense of belonging
call you to now?
Reflection Round
Closing Words
We are promise making, promise breaking, promise renewing people.
--James Luther Adams
In the contexts of our belonging
(partnership, family, community)
We make promises.
And one of our highest tasks
Is to help support one another
As we strive to be faithful to
The promises we have made.
For this is the value of our connections—
To help sustain one another.
Extinguish the Chalice
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