The Awakening Project is an interfaith project. Our Vision is to find ways for people of different faiths and backgrounds to ‘pull together’ for a more just society.
Building on the experience of our student projects in the past summers since 2020, we are offering opportunities for students to organize and facilitate Zoom conversations to discuss podcasts and articles on our website www.awakeningproject.ca.
The role of the Host is to facilitate (a) Zoom conversation(s) with two or more other students – the ‘Participants’ – who will be a part of your team.
“One of the activities our society is most deficient about is creating safe spaces for honest conversations about spirituality and social justice. The role of the host or facilitator is to keep the space safe and the participants should ask open honest questions and hear each other. People need to be ‘heard into speech’ so that everyone speaks.” (Parker Palmer)
*Project Coordinators reserve the right to modify slides if they have inaccuracies or points that may cause misinterpretations.
Christopher Grafos was a high school teacher who had identified a gap in critical thinking skills that was holding bright students back and this inspired him to launch a program, and he subsequently founded a company BridgesEDU – to offer courses to Grades 11 & 12 students. Grafos comments: “They have come up through a high school system that encourages them to find the right answer, and not necessarily an answer that considers different points of view or shows depth of reflection”. Even students on college campuses are expressing a deep hunger for wisdom, and are finding little to fulfill this yearning in their classes or elsewhere.”
Anne Snyder – comments in her book ‘The Fabric of Character’
“We don’t live in a highly reflective society. Most of the time we’re rushing, seeking efficiency and results. But reflection is vital to our growth. When reflection is guided by deep listening, it situates a person in his or her broader context such that he or she can gain perspective, see blind spots that need to be corrected, and discern the right course of action. Reflection can be both a solitary discipline and a communal experience. Fruitful reflection yields action, and change. The goal is to send participants back to their daily lives inspired and equipped with both practical wisdom and a sense of strengthened purpose.”
Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian and intellectual, once said that “the tragedy of man is that he/she can conceive self-perfection but cannot achieve it.”1 Even though humans can envisage and conceptualize a perfect society, human existence appears to be a narrative of fallen kingdoms and empires. (1)
“It’s only with the heart that one can see rightly — what is essential is invisible to the eyes.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
As we go into the world,
may we be passionate about God’ s will for us.
May we be passionate about justice for every living thing:
every wetland,
every ocean,
every child,
every inner city,
every woman,
every man,
every moment of life.
And may we live passionately in our renewed call to servanthood:
to bear quiet witness;
to thunder with justice;
to suffer with hope;
to wash our lives anew.
May we cry “Glory! Glory!,”
as we bless and serve each other with peace.