Teamwork & Tolerance Through Comics →

If you haven’t met Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa’s The 99 yet zip over to your public library or local comics seller and pick it up, or look through the old issues of the DC cross-over with The 99 and the Justice League of America (JLA). 

The 99 young heroes from around the world do represent traditional Islamic values, and they’re values that tend to transcend cultures. Each of them is strong, but they’re only really effective in teams of three or more together, so their powers complement each other. The 99 are multicultural, multitalented, multiabled band living out attributes of the 99 Names of the Holy, attributes found and cultivated right here among us every day.

I believe The 99 belongs in every Unitarian Universalist youth faith development program. It teaches great values, invites us into understanding more about Islam, and it is an engaging read.

The 99 will soon be broadcast in the United Kingdom and many other countries. Broadcast in the United States has been delayed. If you don’t think Islamophobia is tied into racism, then awaken to the reality that opponents of US broadcast are linking The 99 to Dora the Explorer.

Really?  The only things The 99 and Dora  have in common is placing kids of color who speak more than English into the spotlight and they both teach youth that they have gifts that matter, gifts that make a real difference in the world.  But that’s precisely the kind of education I want everyone to have, because we all do have these gifts and it matters what we do with them.

Add The 99 to your reading and your classrooms. If you, too, find it valuable, then please, add your voice to ending bigoted censorship and letting it be broadcast sooner rather than later in the United States.

Teaching Forgiveness With Grades 2-3 →

Moral Tales is another Tapestry of Faith program, built around stories, developing character and ethics with the children in grades 2-3. This particular session also works now, in the month of Elul, and offers a wonderful wisdom tale that also can be adapted for worship. Inscribing the good we experience in stone and the bad we experience in sand moves us into a conversation on attitude and attention, but also about justice. Are there difficult experiences that should not be written in sand? Where are the heartening experiences among the difficult? Given how challenged so many of us — across the life span - around forgiveness, making amends, and merciful justice, these are stories and questions for all of us.

Pakistani Students Share Cultural Fables & Folklore →

Who doesn’t love stories? One way we can share our cultures is to share our folklore and fables from one classroom to another - digitally! We can retell those stories and folklore in a number of different media, and share it with others. We can receive the creations and wisdom of others and learn new things! Doesn’t this seem like something that would be cool for the religious education classroom or small group ministry program?

How would project-based learning change the way you learn & practice your faith?

Phil on the Prairie: Notes for #uu2020 TweetChat on Multicultural Faith Formation →

psdlund:

While multicultural (or multi-ethnic) faith formation is one of the top strategies for addressing the needs of individuals in three of the four scenarios in Faith Formation 2020, it may be the one with the fewest number of resources for it. Example: FF2020’s new website has strategies and…

5 Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion (for children)

I appreciate James Luther Adams’ complex and rewarding essay on the five smooth stones of liberal religion. I translated it into a simplified form for use in adult programming, but then that still didn’t pass the five-year-old-test.

I’d like us to be able to use the five smooth stones in our classrooms and at home, as part of living this Unitarian Universalist faith. Adams was thinking about the tradition of five stones David needed to slay Goliath - mythologically, bringing down our own towering monsters of (1) ignorance, (2) individualism, (3) selfishness, (4) apathy and (5) cynicism.

1. We’re always learning.

2. Being together matters.

3. How we are together matters.

4. We have to do good to be good.

5. We always hope.

With these stones we build cities of refuge, houses of love, and gardens of peace.