Age Group: Lower, Middle, Upper School
Pathmaps Point: Relationship

Summary: This short exercise in reflection aims to help students understand the wide web of our many relationships.

Place an item in front of the group

Ask students to reflect on a variety of ways they are connected to the item. If the article is a coffee cup, for example, questions might include:

• To whom are we indebted for this? e.g. who was responsible for making this cup?

• Where did the materials for it come from? How many people were (or who was?) responsible for getting the raw materials to the person who made it?

• If it was fired in an oven, who all was involved there? How did it get into our hands? Who gave it as a gift, or who sold it, and who transported it to the store? If the cup gets broken, what new interconnections come into play?

In a sense, we are indebted to all these people. Is there a best way for us to be a spiritual part of their lives, even though we may never meet most of them?