Love

Questions from UUA small group ministry, set 1

Claude Fravien, West Cobb Listening Circle, Emerson UU, Marietta, GA (Nov. 2021) Original program designed by Janeane Weprin, Countryside Church UU, Palatine, IL (Feb. 2008)

 

Questions from UUA small group ministry, set 2

First Unitarian Church of Wilmington, Delaware, by Rev. Michelle Collins, 2013


Questions from UUA small group ministry, set 3

Adapted from sessions at First Unitarian Society in Newton, MA by Rev. Jan Carlsson-Bull for Circle Ministry at First Parish UU Cohasset, MA

 

1.    Tell a story of how you have experienced the rough sides of love, taken that leap making yourself vulnerable and known the pain of love.


2.    Joy and sorrow, love and pain, breaks and repairs are the natural rhythm in all intimate relationships. What have you learned over the years about these rhythms of intimacy, and how have you developed tools to cope?


3.    What roles do love and affection play in your life?


4.    Is “love of humanity” appropriately understood to be a kind of love? Or is it fundamentally different from the sort of personal love we have for our friends and family members?


5.    Is ecstasy an effect of love?


6.    Is jealousy an effect of love?


7.    How do you want to love and be loved?

 

 

Questions from Soul Matters, set 1

 

1. What did love mean to you as a child?

2. How have you changed your mind about love?

3. How has love changed as you’ve gotten older? Is it softer? Quieter? Larger? Tougher? Smaller?

Sneakier? More central?

4. Whose love has companioned you the longest?

5. When did love scare you the most?

6. When did love invite you to play?

7. What most helped put you back together after love broke you to bits?

8. What is society’s biggest misunderstanding about love?

9. It’s been argued that “If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.” Does that ring true for

you?

10. What promise might love be wanting you to make?

11. What do you know of “a love that will not let us go”?

12. What has been your greatest act of love?

 

 

Questions from Soul Matters, set 2

1. What did love mean to you as a child?

2. How have you changed your mind about love?

3. How has love changed as you’ve gotten older? Is it softer? Quieter? Larger? Tougher? Smaller?

Sneakier? More central? More painful?

4. Whose love has companioned you the longest?

5. Has love ever made you smarter?

6. Some say the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Others say its opposite is fear. What

do you say?

7. Are you using your busyness to shield you from your heartbreak?

8. Is it time to let someone know that your heart is broken?

9. Is it time to offer “tough love”?

10. Is it time to offer “sacrificial love”?

11. Is someone trying to offer you love but you don’t notice it?

12. Are you turning your back on love?

13. Are you sacrificing too much in the name of love?

14. What might it mean to regularly ask, “What would love do here?”

15. Is love ever separate from the feeling of home?


Questions from Soul Matters, set 3 (from January 2024 Liberating Love)