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Our Place: Finite and One

This week's podcast introduces a new conversation about Our Place - our home, planet earth. It is also about Our Place within that place. Information about the environment and climate is at our fingertips. Why are we talking about this as Fabric? In this episode Greg names two game-changing messages a three-stranded community like ours brings to this issue: one is about who we are and the other about how we can respond. Both are highly relational - so you are in a great place together to consider Our Place. Welcome! ~Melissa
Below are multiple ways to engage this week. Choose what feels right for you and your group. Find more questions and ideas on this week's Episode Page.
Check In

Let nature anchor you: Watch and breathe with this video offered from the Santa Clara Valley on CA when the pandemic began last March.

Squirrel Scale: Take turns relating to the squirrel scale in two ways. One that speaks to something about your week and another to what it's like to think about our planet and our place in it. All squirrels welcome!


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Group Agreement

Valerie Kaur, the author of See No Stranger uses these ground rules in her book clubs. Share this image and take turns reading them to set the tone for your group.
Our Place
Quickly note after watching: what are you feeling? Can you say where you feel it? Invite people to share either or both in the chat.


Our Place is finite. Our Place is one.

Respond to each statement above, one at a time, with wonderings on the whiteboard or in the chat.


When hope can see the future it is called vision.

How do you hope talking about this as Fabric and as a group could make a difference for you and others?
Our Stories of Appreciation

Whether you feel paralyzed over the future of our planet or are a diehard environmental activist, you can strengthen your hope and vision by remembering your stories of awe and wonder as a part of this world.

When Awareness happens (hearing dire scenarios, realizing how big our environmental issues are) it is easy to jump straight to Action, but that pathway is often not healthy or sustainable. Instead keep Appreciation (of the world, of the microscopic and cosmic wonders) between them.
Let's play "have you ever"! Raise your hand if...
(read these aloud with plenty of space for thinking on each)

  • you've felt particular awe near big water, land or sky
  • you've wondered at a small thing in nature
  • you've felt small and significant at the same time
  • you've been surprised by natural world
  • you've felt one with nature
  • you've experienced nature's power
  • you've witnessed nature's fragility

Did one of you have a story come to mind? Recall the moments and how they made you feel. Choose one or two people to share. [Stuck? Listen to minutes ~21- 23 of this week's podcast to hear Greg's stories.]
Our gratitude superpower

Keep finding tangible ways to express gratitude and see if it makes some new room in you for appreciation, resilience and joy.

Here are some ways to practice expressing thankfulness in or with your group. Choose one and do it:
  1. Spend a few minutes typing into the chat things you are thankful for right in this moment
  2. Popcorn style, just share things aloud that you feel thankful for right now
  3. Take a few minutes to write a thank you haiku to Our Place
  4. Take a few minutes to write a thank you note to someone (or an organization) who helps you grow and act on your vision of hope for the world and send it later

What was that like? Do you feel any new space for appreciation, resilience or joy?
Close
Jesus offered a vision of how something can happen that we feel we can’t.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” Matthew 13.31-32
Review plans for next week then share unmuted thank yous and goodbyes all at once to celebrate the seeds you are planting together!