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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. You probably won't have time for them all. Find more questions and ideas on this week's Episode Page.
Check In
These words by Gary Snyder really resonate with me:
"Nature is not a place to visit. It is home."
Welcome home.

Fabric photographer and writer Jeanette Mayo shares those words on her Flickr page. Share a screen showing any 6-8 of Jeanette's winter photos. Find a 3-4 minute piece of calming music (here's one from the Fabric "joy" playlist) and give people that time to sit with and enjoy the images and choose two photos: one that says something about how your week has been and one that you just really like.

Check in: Take turns sharing either or both chosen images and briefly why.


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Group Agreement

Valerie Kaur, the author of See No Stranger offered these ground rules in her book clubs. We shared them when we were discussing Revolutionary Love and No Stranger. Now we bring the earth and all of the life we share it with into our No Strangers circle.

Share this image and take turns reading them to set the tone for your group. Would you highlight or change any of these as you talk about Our Place?
Our Place: Climate Ultimatum
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.


Planet earth, that is. This is our home; yours and mine. It is our future, it is our place. And our place is in trouble largely because we human inhabitants have forgotten our place within it. After all, it isn’t only our place. We share it. - Greg Meyer

How do you imagine life could be for you if you learned to live more as part of, not apart from the natural world?


When hope can see the future it is called vision. -Greg Meyer

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

In the podcast Greg Meyer shared some factors of change. Three big ones were: the role of our emotions, social sanctioning, human tendency to unfairly compare the new to what is known (more on these in episode page).

The Problem that the climate ultimatum makes us face is that we have let ourselves grow apart from the rest of the world.
The Solution to that ultimatum is to become part of the world again.
That will require change. 
Let's play "have you ever"!
(read these aloud with plenty of space for thinking on each)

Raise your hand if...
  • outer facts or rules alone have driven you to make needed change
  • your emotions or heart led the way for an important change
  • positive peer pressure helped you make a change
  • you've inspired someone else to make a change
  • you've unfairly resisted a new thing that turned out to be not so bad
  • you've recently made a change you are excited about

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 their stories of change! OR break into rooms of 2-4 to give everyone a chance.

After considering your stories and listening to a couple, how can you use these factors of change to empower rather than impede your ability to change?
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, the earth.
  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
Adrienne, Melissa's online yoga teacher, says "a little goes a long way" about showing up at the mat.

In that spirit - everyone add some encouraging words for others in the chat!

Review plans for next week then share unmuted thank yous and goodbyes all at once to celebrate the seeds you are planting together!