Lesson Plan 28 January 2010

Off to St. Mary's we go to discover ourselves!!!

Listening activity. After clearing the mind, instead of letting go of everything, search for the meaning of faith and spirituality. What are your beliefs?

What, ultimately, is most important in spirituality/religion? What are some of your personal beliefs?

Everybody has their own spiritual beliefs and their own sense of faith. Whoever wants to should share what they believe.

"Love, in the end, is what truly matters." ~Helen

"But I still believed in a greater meaning – whether it be the harmony of nature or personal success, or simply the quest for joy in life. " ~Alice

"And, he loves others, believes in their potential goodness of heart." ~Helen

"Personally, I feel that the means to do this rests in the one divine concept fully expressed here on our imperfect world. Love." ~Chris

"I gathered that Man has free choice disassociated of a deity and that his only redemption is to himself upon his every action, reaction, and interaction." ~Thuyen

"My leap is faith in the infinite, or more precisely, the infinitely small uniform composition of matter. Within that infinite rests a force – the force that causes all physical reality, the first force that determined the history of everything. To believe in this force is to have faith, my faith, in the idea that everything is connected, and everything follows a path of elegant uniformity." ~Alice

"My faith has never wavered in my belief that there is something out there for us to grasp onto. A greater force or divine being, or sorts, to create, protect, guide." ~Emily

"That energy, to me, as silly as it sounds, was proof of a God, my God." ~Maysie

"So, like Pi, I feel I can make my own reality, my own 'faith.'" ~Katherine

What are some moments that can make or break your faith?

It's always fun to reflect on moments that made you so sure about something out there. I remember just this weekend I went running with some friends at Town Lake. We finished and lay down in a patch of grass outside the Wells Fargo building, looking up at shapes in the clouds. To me, these are the moments that make it so clear. Just that there can be such beauty in life is enough.
And, sadly, there are those times that made of question faith very strongly. Why do certain things happen to good people? Why do certain things happen to bad people for that matter?

"But I’ve thought that maybe this reason comes from the fact that all events in life play out in a certain way that will never change. Time, until the end of time, is set in stone and events will happen as they have been planned by some greater figure."~Emily

"For me, I’d have trouble trusting that greater force who just let my family die and left me stranded with zoo animals in the middle of the ocean (possibly to face death soon as well)." ~Emily

"I usually find him in the most unexpected places." ~Lauren

"And it was so beautiful...You had to be there maybe, but there was something so... deep about this realization" ~Lauren

"That is something I can relate to except I am opposite from him in that he comes to gain faith in all of the religions while I shied away from them." ~Thuyen

"But in all honestly, the time in which I felt most connected with God was a random Wednesday after school in yoga class" ~Maysie

Moving on...How did this part of the book affect your perspective of nature?

Clearly, the talk about the zoo brought about some responses. What did you guys think about Pi's version of things?

"If you ask me, his religious beliefs are almost zoo-like. They encompass aspects of many religions, much like a zoo encompasses creatures of all different kinds." ~Jose

"To be honest, I find it somewhat frustrating that he has such strong convictions about animal behavior when there is so much we don't know." ~Jose

"While animals feel pain as we do, they do not necessarily view the world as we do." ~Molly

"We act with the same predatory instincts to those we view as weak, especially as children, before we have truly learned compassion." ~Molly

"'DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THEMOST DANGEOUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO?' (31). Behind the curtain that this sign pointed to was a mirror. We are. Since we are neither share the same backgrounds nor are the same species as the zoo animals, we cannot fully understand the animals themselves" ~Jade

"Observing the animals and even witnessing their violent natures foreshadows the manner in which Pi will cope with the circumstances he is placed into." ~Jade