In February, I had a long drive to Yellow Springs, Ohio for a “Playing in the Light” training for Friends in Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting. Keeping me company on the long drive was the audiobook read by its author, Diana Butler Bass, Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks. As I listened across those miles, the connection she described between gratitude and interdependence resonated for me – and made me think about the Faith & Play story, “Gifts” in a new way.
Under the title of the story it says, “a story about the gifts God gives each of us,” and while this is a true description of the text in the story, it is in the sharing of those gifts that we become a community. A refrain in the story is that each gift is not for the person sharing it alone, but that God gave it to them for the whole meeting community. And then we are asked, “Perhaps you know someone like them?” Again and again, storytellers have commented that it’s hard to share this story and not think about the people in their meeting and the gifts they experience there.
My favorite part of the story is near the beginning, the inclusive and hopeful message that people younger and older bring their gifts to our meeting community and if we pay attention and care for one another, we can discover them; we can help each other understand how to use those gifts wisely. This evokes both the grace that Butler Bass speaks of often in her exploration of gratitude, and the interdependence in our meeting communities. Recently, sharing this story with a circle of Kindergarteners at a Friends school, during the wondering afterward a child offered, “I think my gift will be to help other people find their gifts.” Indeed, 1 Peter 4:10 (NIV) encourages: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
This story has been shared in many places and has been used in some creative, expanded ways!
At The Friends’ School, Hobart, Tasmania (Australia), educator Jess Dundas, Quaker Gathering Advisor, created a beautiful meditation for older students. “A Reflection on Gifts in Community” is a wonderful new resource for youth, adult, and intergenerational groups. It draws on both the Faith & Play story and a Pendle Hill pamphlet, “Spiritual Gifts, the Beloved Community, and Covenant,” by Emily Provance. Thanks to Jess for sharing her work with Friends!
At a Philadelphia Yearly Meeting gathering a few years ago, we used the “Gifts” story to anchor a multigenerational activity with queries/wondering questions to explore gifts in ourselves, our meetings, our quarters, and the yearly meeting like ripples that go out in a connected, widening circle. Part of this was making “big” materials to scale for the story and using an adaptation of the script that could be read by several voices. (see photos below) During Britain Yearly Meeting, the children’s program heard and wondered about the story, and then made a mural of their individual gifts that became a portrait of the community.
What other ways and places have you shared “Gifts” and how has this story opened conversations about gratitude and interdependence for you and your community?
We’d love to hear from you! info@quakerfaithandplay.org
