SMALL
GROUP MINISTRY: UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST WOMEN’S HERITAGE
TRAILBLAZERS
This session is based
on Women Blazing Trails: Their Flames Light
the Way to Our New Frontiers, Created by Kim Hardee and Dorothy
Emerson for the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Heritage Society
Worship Service at General Assembly, 1994
Chalice
Lighting/Opening Words:
We light this candle
for all our courageous foremothers who paved the way – our
foremothers who bravely demanded an education, racial justice, the
vote, control over their won bodies, their womanhood.
We light this candle
for our descendants – our children and those we influence, and
those that will follow the. May they have a smoother path, an life
where there is peace , equality and love.
We light this candle
for us – our generation. May we have the strength and courage,
the self-esteem, self-acceptance, self-reliance, self love,
self-honesty, and self-confidence to continue challenging injustice.
Adapted from Meg
Bowman, Contemporary UU
Check-in: How
long have you been interested in Unitarian or Universalist women’s
history?
Topic/Activity:
Trailblazer—person
who leads the way in new areas, pioneer in any field.
Were they trailblazers
precisely because they were women trying to enter the field of
interest or work that was not open to them previously.
Maria Mitchell: “I
am but a woman! ….No woman should say, “I am but a
woman.” But a woman! What more can you ask to be?” 1874
in Life, Letters and Journals, compiled in 1896
Why is trailblazing
important?
Is it that women should
have opportunities similar to men—an equality issue. Or is also
that women have a contribution to make to any and every field of
endeavor? If so, what are the contribution that women make that
differ from the contributions of men?
Did Unitarian or
Universalist connection have any impact for trailblazers, or was the
trailblazing done outside of the faith tradition?
Have you reaped any
benefit from trailblazers?
Are you, or have you
been a trailblazer? Tell a story about a time that you, as a woman,
made a difference. Was this recognized? Or is it ‘the best kept
secret?”
Closing:
We sometimes speak
as if the past were over and done with: “That’s past;
that’s out of date; that’s ended.” Yet try to
obliterate in your thought all that is past. It is impossible, of
course, because in so doing we obliterate ourselves. Without the help
of what we call the past we could not live at all...
The past, instead of
being done with, is, then, the real fiber of the world as we know it.
Just as the food we eat nourishes us till it becomes what we act
with, so the past is always what we think with...
The present. . is
what we make of it, and its size is exactly that size which our hands
are capable of grasping...
Our future is in our
power—not, indeed, what happens to us, but what we do with what
happens to us...
How can we best meet
an unknown future? Three things seem to be essential: resolve,
resource, discipline...
Our own future may
be spiritually and physically.. .rough, wild, [and] complicated... To
meet its uncertainties we need to know what to do in woods where we
have lost our life-way and in whirlpools that break to pieces our
cherished hopes.
ELLA
LYMAN CABOT (Our Part in the World, 1918)
“Today we look to
the past, the past that is “the real fiber of the world,”
the past that “nourishes us till it becomes what we act with”
and “what we think with.” The women we celebrate and
praise today are inspirations for our present and our future.”
“
Likes and Wishes:
How was this session for you?
Who is with us
today?
MARIA MITCHELL (18
18-1889) was a Unitarian and a pioneer in astronomy. She discovered a
comet in 1847. As professor of Astronomy at Vassar College, her
teaching methods were considered radical.
Ella Lyman Cabot
(1880-1930) was a Unitarian and a pioneer in education. She was one
of the authors of the new religious education curricula published by
the American Unitarian Association just before World War I.
|
|
|
