Lesson 21 : Consultation – like making soup….

Lesson 21 has the most wonderful introduction on consultation and the spiritual qualities we need to practice when consulting with each other –

When people come together to consult, they share their ideas with purity of heart and radiant spirits. They all know that, in order to discover the right way forward, they must each contribute their thoughts and understanding. They speak courteously to one another and use kind and gentle words. More important, they know that they must listen carefully to one another and think about what each person is saying.

It is in listening and thinking, not just speaking, that ideas come together; new and wonderful ideas are born. Think of making soup. Many different ingredients are put together in a pot, like carrots and beans, salt and water, and as they cook over the fire, all the separate things melt together into one whole and become a delicious meal for everyone to enjoy. In consultation, as all the participants share their thoughts lovingly, listen patiently and think carefully, with their hearts turned to God and confident in His blessings, the most beautiful ideas emerge.

We decided for the next lesson – we will make soup! 🙂

For today’s lesson, we then concentrated on finishing the memorisation of our prayer. The second half of it was turned into a beautiful pop-up card. See the pics for examples.

There are only 2 more classes before the summer holidays… Next week (2 December) we’ll make soup (bring an ingredient if  you can) and the week after we have our end-of-year celebration – at this point it looks like we might go to the pool – wohoo! 🙂

Note: We’re very excited to be at Whiti Te Rā again this year – held on Saturday, 8 December – where we will have a stall to join in with the neighbourhood celebrations. Come and say hello 🙂