Family - importance of the family
Lesson Objectives: lead adolescents to recognize the importance of family in our lives. Our relatives aren’t perfect – they make mistakes but also make the right things. They deserve our care, our forgiveness and our gratitude. Our biological/ adoptive parents or guardians are responsible for our education. They love us and want the best for us. They teach us what is right, within their level of evolution and limitations. This class aims to get the adolescents to understand that it’s at home, with our family group, we find the help we need for our spiritual growth.
Note: The spiritist teacher could adapt it or divided it into two classes if the time allocated for the class is not enough to complete it.
Greetings and Opening prayer
First: Apply the dynamic called "Each thing in its time": divide the class into two and give each group: an empty glass jar, 03 golf or tennis balls (or similar that the have weight), some marble balls, a portion of sand and a glass of water. Ask each group to put ALL these objects inside the jar but the water. The only thing that should be left out is the glass of water. The spiritist teacher should wait, without influencing the results.
Note: If the class is large and there isn’t enough material to get each adolescent to do the experiment, the spiritist teacher can do the group dynamics and invite one or two adolescents to assist him/her.
Second: If the adolescents haven’t managed to place all objects inside the glass, demonstrate how to do it: get the 03 golf/tennis balls and place them first in the glass jar. Ask them if the jar is full. The spiritist teacher should then put the marble balls; these will fill all empty spaces between the golf/tennis balls. The spiritist teacher should ask the adolescents if the glass is full and wait for their answers. Afterwards, take the portion of sand and place it inside the glass. The sand will fill the remaining empty spaces. Ask the adolescents once again if the jar is now full and wait for their answers.
Third: Explain the significance of the dynamics.
The jar represents our life.
The golf/tennis balls are the most important elements; such as GOD, FAMILY AND FRIENDS. Our lives are full of happiness with these elements.
The marble balls are the other things that matter, like: our job, house, car, school.
The sand represents all the little things, like toys, clothing brands, computer.
If we put the sand into the jar first, there wouldn’t be room for the golf/tennis balls and the marble balls. The same goes for life. We’ll never have room for the really important things if we spend all our time and energy on the small things.
Remember we must pay attention to things that are important to our happiness: playing with our brothers, having fun with our family and friends, spending time with ourselves, seeking God and believing in Him. You are doing this by participating into Spiritist Education classes. It’s also important to seek knowledge, study, play sports. There will always be time for other things, but it’s essential to place the large golf/tennis balls first in our jar; the rest is just sand.
Fourth: The spiritist teacher should ask if there’s still space inside the glass for something else; waiting for their answers. Next, the spiritist teacher should then ask the adolescents to pick up the glass of water and pour it into the jar. Ask them if the jar is now completely full and wait for their answers.
The spiritist teacher should then ask: What is water? The water just goes to show that no matter how busy is our life, whenever we see something we find really important, we find time to do it.
Note: We will only find time for things we give priority; that is, to what we find important.
Fifth: Ask each adolescent to expose their point of view and say what they learned from the dynamics. This is a very important moment because young people like to be heard. Moreover, they may have misconceptions that can be corrected by the spiritist teacher at this time.
Sixth: Tell one of the stories below:
The Blue Flower.
Message for you.
The meaning of life.
Seventh: Talk about the history, questioning the attitudes of the characters.
Note: The questions below may be distributed in form of questions or statements, to be worked in groups and then discussed/reflected in the larger group; the adolescents could be asked to form a circle.
Have you ever stopped to think that if we lose someone from our family we will feel this loss for the rest of our lives? Think about them because we usually prioritize over to our personal interests. Isn’t that an unwise investment? We rarely stop to think about it.
Sometimes we put our efforts into things much less important than our family, than the people who love us. We don’t really realize what we are losing out. We waist the time to be caring, to say "I love you," to say "Thank you", to smile or to say how much each person is important to us.
We often act rudely and don’t realize how we hurt our loved ones. Let's be considerate of our family group and try to keep harmony with them. It’s important to value our family, giving priority to family life.
Eighth:
Conclude that:
The opportunity to be inserted into a particular family group is a blessing offered to us by our Father; the Creator.
Family relatives/ties that we have today are the ones we need for our growth; moral and spiritual development.
The difficulties we have in our relationships that could be seen as strange and unacceptable to the world could have been caused by past facts that escape our memories.
The difficult relatives we have today could be accomplices or victims from our past. We may have been their torturers or those who did something to mislead them, thinking we were acting based on love. They could also be Spirits, our brothers that we offered to help to evolve in this lifetime.
We are part of our family group not by chance today. God’s hands and blessing are always present.
Our family is a new chance of rescue and repair given to us. It’s important to do our part in it; in this noble task that is being part of a family. Let’s honour our commitments to God.
Whether we live with both parents, with only our mother or father or guardian, or someone else (uncles, grandmothers, godmothers, godfathers ... Cite all examples that you know are the adolescents’ realities; it’s important for them to know that they are part of a group). The people responsible for our education; the ones who love us, support us are considered our family, because they help us evolve.
Ninth: The spiritist teacher should write the word F A M I L Y vertically in the board and ask the adolescents if they know what it means.
Answer: Father And Mother I Love You.
Tenth - Ask them:
What are the attitudes that must be practiced in all families, so they are more harmonious, healthy and happy? Write down their responses on the board. Examples: patience, friendship, peace, kindness, good humour, forgiveness, understanding, unity, respect, love, charity, tolerance, joy, solidarity, collaboration.
How would the Family of Your Dreams be? (it’s important for the adolescents to justify their response, leading them to think about it).
Remind them we are in the best family suitable for our spiritual growth, because of the love of our Heavenly Father. And we must learn to love our family members, respecting them and living in harmony with all of them.
Note: This is time the spiritist teacher, using his/her sensitivity, can get to know a little bit more about the adolescents, help them clarify when necessary, or making notes. He/she can prepare lessons with appropriate themes to the needs presented by the adolescents later in time.
Closing Prayer
Lesson received from Sandra Ramos Medeiros from Spiritist Centre ‘Fé, Amor e Caridade’.
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
