“LET’S GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER” ARTS CONVERSATIONS. Isn’t it time to be working together for equity and against white supremacy in our churches, schools, and everywhere we’re connected, using the many creative gifts we have all been blessed with to transform lives and make some real changes? This is one of seven sets of questions for all ages that might be used in Equity Voices arts conversations, for participants to express themselves artistically using words, images, photos, a video, a song or any creative means of responding, and also get to know a bit about other people participating in the conversations. Topics include Self & Family, Other People, Community & Country, Race & Justice, Values, Visions, Equity Actions. Now, during Lent, each topic includes one Scripture-based question as the first in the list.
Please create your answers/responses to these questions using words, images, photos, a video, a song or any creative, artistic means of responding. Then share your response online (on the equity-voices.com website) and/or with your Equity Voices group, friends, family, or other people.
COMMUNITY & COUNTRY: What do you believe and how do you feel about your community, city, state, and/or our country?
- SCRIPTURE: (Acts 2:44-47) “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” What do you think and feel about this description of the community of the early Christians? Is it a kind of community you would have liked and felt comfortable in or not? Can you use words, a story, picture, statement, song, poem, video etc. to convey what your feelings and thoughts are about this long-ago community of followers of Jesus?
- What kind of a place is your neighborhood or community? What is your neighborhood or community like? Can you use words, a story, picture, statement, song, poem, video etc. to convey what your neighborhood or your community is like?
- What do you think and feel about our country, the United States, and your life here? Can you use words, a story, picture, statement, song, poem, video etc. to convey what you think or feel about the U.S. and living here?
- What do you think and feel about our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner” (Listen to the full song or read the full lyrics)? Can you use words, a story, picture, statement, song, poem, video etc. to convey what you think or feel about the U.S. national anthem? Or can you imagine and write/compose/illustrate another anthem for our nation?
- What do you know about the “Black national anthem,” a song called “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (beginning “Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of Liberty..” Listen to the full song or read the full lyrics)? Can you use words, a story, picture, statement, song, poem, video etc. to convey what you think or feel about the Black national anthem? Or can you imagine and write/compose/illustrate another anthem for a group of people in our nation?
- Imagine you are someone from another planet or a wise bird flying over. What do you imagine the extraterrestrial or the bird observes, thinks, feels about your city, neighborhood, community, or our country? What would they find impressive, awesome, fun, amusing, puzzling, strange, needing improvement etc. Can you use words, a story, picture, statement, song, poem, video etc. to depict how the extraterrestrial views your city, neighborhood, community, or our country?
- What do you think or feel about the selection from the Declaration of Independence (see Appendix A)? Can you use words, a story, picture, statement, song, poem, video etc. to convey what you think or feel about the Declaration? Or can you imagine and write/compose/illustrate another declaration of your own for yourself, your community, or our nation in today’s world?
APPENDIX A: Selection from the Declaration of Independence
…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness … But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government…
Equity Voices 