Hi

White milk from green grass?

Team work not Pride

Rusty, Ebz, Zaʞ, Maitland and Isaac

Believe

We all believe something. And that something controls much of who we are and much of what we do. Belief is our understanding of something, something that we might think is important or true. Sometimes believing can represent trusting in something. For example I believe that the bench we sat on will hold me up, I evidence that belief by sitting on the bench.

Origin

Where do our beliefs come from? Parents, upbringing, experience are the most obvious sources of our belief. We also explored other areas like music, movies, books, the media and the Bible.

Understanding

We don’t always understand what we believe. For example I don’t understand how a black and white cow eats green grass to make white milk. One student referred to ‘love’ as an example. It may not be easy to explain but we believe in it.

Afterwards

What happens after we die? Not sure, come back as another person or animal, go to heaven, nothing were the different suggestions. Ants might be people returning who were arrogant. They come back small and having to work in a community rather than an individual.

Purpose

Respect your friends

Friends help each other

This made students think which is always a good thing. Some weren’t sure what their purpose is? Some felt that since friends were an important part of their lives that being a friend and having friends was their purpose. Another student wants to help other people make good ethical decisions. Another student shared that his purpose was to save people so they could go to heaven.

Me

We realised that I hadn’t shared what I believe so here goes. I believe that my belief comes from a lot of places as we discussed before. Some of my beliefs have been affected by the mistakes my parents made. For example they got divorced when I was young and I decided that I wouldn’t want to get a divorce if I ever got married.

I believe that the Bible is a trustworthy place to find out about the world in a world of uncertainty. I believe in Heaven and Hell. My purpose is to encourage people to find God and God to find people. The purpose of Spirituality Class is not to make students Christians but to encourage them to explore their beliefs, values and spirituality, to get them thinking. When asked I replied that I did think I was achieving my purpose in our class.

Friends

We are liked by our friends because we show them respect, because we have developed trust, because we have similar interests. It is possible to be friendly even to people who aren’t friends. It is important to be who we are without having to pretend. One student challenged us that we all pretend. We agree that we aren’t as open or behave differently in various situations.

Suffering

I’m not sure how we got to this topic but I encouraged the students not to waste their suffering. Often when we suffer there is an opportunity to shine, to become a better person rather than gave in, get angry or nasty. Patience, kindness, mercy are only practised within the context of difficulty, challenge and suffering.