海角社区

Meaning Making: Lunch and Learn Events

Course Introduction and Details

Tree with roots, "meaning making" series logo
We face challenging questions as we go through various stages of life, including our academic journey, such as who am I and where do I belong? How do I gain stability and deal with uncertainties in my life? These questions invite us to reach toward a greater understanding of our personal spiritual depths and to more fully develop our meaning or purpose as we engage in life. Creating meaning is a cornerstone of well-being and flourishing. It underpins spiritual wellness and the development of personal beliefs and values. It helps us become more spiritually grounded. But how do we make meaning in our lives?

Join MORSL in exploring these questions through our six workshops on meaning making while also enjoying social time and lunch. The Lunch and Learn events feature topics on identity and belonging, the role of rituals, gratitude, and dealing with uncertainty, among others. Please register for each workshop separately on myInvolvement. We encourage you to take advantage of all the events, but you are welcome to register for whatever combination and number of workshops best suits you!听

  1. Relationships, Belonging and Community
  2. How to Translate Values into Action
  3. Regular Rituals
  4. Gratitude and Humility
  5. Spiritual Identity
  6. Navigating Uncertainties

Supplementary Resources

At the links below you'll find supplementary materials and handout downloads for each workshop. The series is not an online class, and the resources provided are not intended to substitute for participation in the workshops. Though we hope they will be interesting and helpful in your spiritual life whether you join us in the workshops or not!

Relationships, Belonging and Community

  • 听(12 min.) Crucial to building and enhancing good community is how we speak to each other. Striking a conversation, a good conversation, is very essential in establishing relationship and in showing the 鈥榦ther鈥 that they are accepted and that they belong. In this video, Celeste Headlee, a famed talk show host, shares various ways that we can hold a good conversation. 鈥淕o out [and] talk to people, listen to people, and be prepared to be amazed!鈥
  • 听(4 min.) presents George, a young Syrian who struggled to find his identity as a child. After fleeing his country and going to Paris, through evoking his memories as a boy scout, he rediscovers his belonging to a community.
  • 听听(5 min.)听What does it mean to feel at home? Is your feeling based on culture, love, or location? In this talk, Vamba explores his ideas about what it means to truly belong. Vamba Sherif, born in Liberia, is a novelist, journalist, and film critic. He's lived in Kuwait and Syria before settling in The Netherlands.
  • 听(16 min.)听Dr. Craig Gurney, a lecturer, asks: what is the true meaning of home? Is it really a place of safety and security? Learn听about the meaning of home.
  • 痴颈蝉颈迟听MORSL's Connect with a Community Page听for a directory of 海角社区 faith clubs, listings of off-campus communities and programming, and a directory of our volunteer chaplains who offer one-on-one consultations.

How to Translation Values into Action

  • 听(12 min.)听In this video Laura, who values and is passionate about environmental and personal health, discusses how she was able to translate her value through the building of a 鈥淭iny house鈥 project. In this video, she outlines the lessons and values she has learned throughout the process.
  • 听(4 min.) Acceptance and Commitment therapy听techniques offer听important lessons听on how to identify and clarify values, commit听to actions, and听overcome obstacles that hinder progress.

Regular Rituals

  • What is a ritual, and what is its impact in today's society? 鈥淲hat isn't a ritual?鈥 asks Michael Norton in this听听about the role that ritual continues to play in our lives (17 min.)
  • Enjoy this听听marking certain holidays and the role of rituals in meaning making (6 min.)
  • For more on the mental health benefits of rituals, see听听(text) in which he studied rituals and found that those who use them feel better and more in control. Restorative power of Ritual.
  • This video surveys a variety of听听before they play in a competition. By performing these regular rituals, players provide their reason for doing them (11 min.)

Gratitude and Humility

  • 听discusses how various virtues such love, trust hope weave together into Gratitude as a gateway of encountering the other (55 min.)
  • 听 Mary Davis explores the theme of spiritual practices of gratitude in times of crisis.

Spiritual Identity

Navigating Uncertainties

  • explores the extent to听which uncertainty affects our well-being. He also discusses various ways to deal with uncertainty (17 min.)
  • If our brains interpret uncertainty as a threat, a disease, or听something wrong with us, then why do we still crave significance, meaning, purpose and to change the world when there are no guarantees? Watch听as he explores this question and more with goal of encouraging us to embrace uncertainty as part of our neurological disposition (9 min.)
  • 听a听devotional reflection from a text in the Christian New Testament by Oswald Chambers.

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