How to use this guide
1. Try beginning your discussion with a meditation,
prayer, or a period of silence to quiet the mind.
2. First talk about how to have a discussion
in an open-hearted, open-minded way. Consider going around the circle
in turn, so that everyone is encouraged to speak. You might want to
have one person be the moderator or timekeeper.
3. Give each person a chance to read Becoming Me
aloud. After each reading, pause to notice what you're feeling.
Try playing with the tone of voice and see how this affects the meaning
and impact of the story.
4. Now move on to the questions below. These are organized
into topics that loosely follow the structure of Becoming Me .
You can choose one question from each section.
Discussion Topics
Who is telling this story?
Does God just want to have fun?
Is creativity next to godliness?
What's it all about?
What is enlightenment?
Who are you really?
Where does aggression come from?
Is anywhere better than here?
How can art express the spiritual?
What's love got to do with it?
Who is telling this story?
a. Becoming Me begins with the curious first
line “Once upon a time, I was”. Most people consider
this to be the voice of God, but does it match your understanding
of God? What is the tone of voice? Is it masculine or
feminine? How old would you say God is? What does God
feel? What does God want? Do you like this way of characterizing
divine will?
b. The nature of God can be understood in different
ways, even within the same religion. What is your understanding
of God? Is God formed, like a divine being, or formless,
like a field of energy? Do you believe that God is completely
above human affairs (transcendent) or part and parcel of life on earth
(immanent)? What does Becoming Me suggest?
c. Many of our beliefs about God are shaped not by religious
texts or sermons but by our own life experiences. How has your
understanding of divinity changed during your life? How have
particular experiences, such as bereavement, illness, or even a miraculous
moment, changed your values and your understanding of God?
Does God just want to have fun?
a. Many people consider "religion"
to be serious and solemn, but "play" to be frivolous or
childish. Becoming Me suggests that by adopting the
attitude of a child at play we become like God ( "...then
we play together, you and I." ) What role does play
have in your life? How do you enter a "state of play"?
Do you consider play to be something irresponsible or sinful?
Could your daily life be enhanced by adopting a playful spirit?
Compare this to Christ's statement “You must become like a child to
enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
b. In Hinduism, all of creation is seen
as the play of God, a process called lila . Henricus Suso,
a 14th century Dominican monk, said “all creatures are God in God.”
Becoming Me puts these two ideas together,
suggesting that universe is is really just God playing with different
forms of God. ( “I liked to make myself into different shapes.”
) How do you feel about this idea? Does this demean
or enhance the purpose of life? Is God just having fun?
Is creativity next to godliness?
a. The original title for Becoming Me
was “The Big Birth”. Look through Becoming Me to see
how birth is used as a metaphor for the process of creation. Although
we rarely discuss it, giving birth and becoming a parent can be one
of life's most powerful spiritual experiences. Here is a good
chance to reflect on your birthing experiences and share them with
your friends. What was your experience of giving birth? Was
it a spiritual experience for you? How did it feel for you to
make “someone else”? What was it like to become a father?
How did your relationship to life change? Many artists speak
of the creative process as being like childbirth. What do you
think? Where else in life can we find the metaphor of giving
birth?
b. Becoming Me suggests that one reason for
the creation of the world is God's need for “someone else”.
Compare this with the Jewish mystical idea that the reason for creation
is that “God wished to behold God”. When do you feel an aching
need for an other? When do you feel the need to be "seen"?
Have you ever felt a loneliness of cosmic proportions? Have
you ever felt lost? Have you ever felt found?
What's it all about?
a. One purpose of a creation story is to give us a sense
of why we are here and what life is for. Do you believe we are
here for a reason? How does this affect what you do each day?
Where does this belief come from? What experiences have
shaped your beliefs? What is your "philosophy of life"?
Does Becoming Me give an answer to this question?
b. Living in a multicultural community can challenge
us to question our own beliefs. For example, the Bible gives
one understanding of creation, but there are also Hindu creation stories,
Buddhist creation stories, Native American creation stories, etc.
Becoming Me has been called a“multicultural creation
story”. What does that mean? What is the creation story
that informs your cultural background? How can we reconcile
different stories of creation? Does this challenge their authenticity?
c. The materialist worldview suggests that the universe
is made only of matter. Is this your experience? Do
you believe in the soul? If so, where is it? Why can't
science find it in a microscope? Have you ever had an experience
that doesn't quite fit in with “reality”?
What is enlightenment?
a. According to Becoming Me, God's deepest
wish for us is that we find God (“I like it best when you discover
me.”) Many people feel that they have experienced divinity
in a peak experience, a moment when we feel bigger than ourselves,
aware of infinity and eternity or filled with compassion. Sometimes
these happen spontaneously, and sometimes they are triggered by prayer,
meditation, being in nature, experiencing art, physical exertion,
taking psychedelics, making love, giving birth, grieving. Have
you ever had a “peak” experience? How did you feel during this
experience? How did you feel afterward? How did your
perspective on life change?
Who are you really?
a. Becoming Me suggests that the question
“who am I?” is the beginning of our spiritual quest (“Every so
often, you wonder who you are” ). In a similar vein, mythologist
Joseph Campbell says that the spiritual path begins with a “call to
adventure”, an awakening that might take the form of an accident,
a dream, a crisis, or a coincidence. Have you ever experienced
a call to adventure, a life experience that forced you to wonder who
you really are? How did you deal with it?
b. Becoming Me suggests that if we look deep
enough within, we discover a divine presence or awareness as our original
identity. In other words, by looking for you, within you, you
discover that you are really God. Buddhism talks about finding
your “original face before you were born”. Is this the same
as Christ's teaching “the Kingdom of God is within you”? What
does this mean for you? What are the implications for the way
we live?
c. Becoming Me suggests that though we long
to be reunited with God, God actually enjoys being us. This
is one of the most unusual and provocative ideas in Becoming Me
, giving it a playful, paradoxical feeling. It implies
that “who you are” depends on your point-of-view: Are you an
individual, searching for God, or are you God, having the unique and
wonderful experience of being you?
d. Many religions embrace the idea that God has incarnated
as a special being ("avatar") such as Christ or Krishna,
in order to help or save humanity. But Becoming Me
suggests that every single aspect of life, including you, is a divine
incarnation, a process of divine becoming. Do you believe that
all of existence is divine, or that God is only expressed as an avatar?
If everything in creation is divine, how should we treat it?
Another version of this question is the famous Zen Buddhist
koan: “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” What do
you think?
Where does aggression come from?
a. Compare the double-page picture of “life” in the
middle of Becoming Me to the double-page picture of “war”
near the end. What has changed in the landscape? How did you feel
when you first saw the picture of war and desolation? There
are many people in our communities who have been directly affected
by war—having been in combat, lost a loved one, or been made refugees—but
there is rarely a time for them to tell their stories and discuss
how they make sense of their experiences. Here is a good opportunity
for you and your friends to share personal stories of war and how
it has touched your lives.
b. Becoming Me seems to give a very clear
reason why human beings become aggressive and destructive.
What is this reason? Does it make sense to you? What do you
think is the root cause of war? Is aggression a part of the
human condition?
Is anywhere better than here?
Many spiritual paths suggest that being here, in the
world, is just a preparation for being in a heaven or afterlife.
Others suggest that here is a world of illusion and suffering, but
there is a place, or an experience, that is beyond suffering.
Becoming Me suggests that though we may yearn to be “up
there”, God actually wants to be “down here”. How do you feel
about this? Do you have a craving to be “released” from this
world? Or do you have a desire to be more fully in this world,
to be more fully alive? What do you believe happens after death?
Have you ever had a near-death experience? Have you
ever felt the presence of someone who died? What was this like?
Why might we want to be “up there” if God wants to be “down
here”?
How can art express the spiritual?
a. How would you paint a picture to express the infinite
and eternal? Now look through the illustrations in Becoming
Me , and see how painter Chris Gilvan-Cartwright tried to convey
a sense of “everything”. Does he succeed? How much of the meaning
and impact of Becoming Me is conveyed by the pictures?
b. Now look at the big picture at the end of Becoming
Me, a huge painting that Chris originally called "Everything".
If you look closely, you'll see that many of the other pictures
in Becoming Me are taken from this big one. What
does this suggest about the relationship of each part of creation
to the whole? What is it like to feel "connected to everything"?
Have you ever glimpsed the "big picture"? How
did this experience affect your life?
c. Consider pieces of art that give you a spiritual
feeling. How does the artist manage to suggest something spiritual?
What is it in the artwork that gives you a spiritual feeling?
Try sharing with your group a poem, painting, or piece of music
that gives you the “tingle factor”.
What's love got to do with it?
a. Becoming Me suggests that we live in a
universe of love and that we are always held in love, or loved by
God, even when we forget God or do things that are “wrong”.
This implies that divine love somehow embraces both the good and bad
of human behavior. Do you agree?
b. Becoming Me implies that the ultimate expression
of love is when we recognize others as our self, for all beings are
ultimately one. Many of us get a taste of this love when
we fall in love romantically, or when we have a child. But
is it possible to extend this sense of love even further? Can
we think of our neighbors as people for whom we would do anything?
Can we extend this feeling to strangers? Can we extend
it to our enemies? Do you believe this would be appropriate?
How would you practice it?
c. The Dalai Lama, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech,
said, “I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we
succeed in building a better world through human understanding and
love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of
all sentient beings.” Similarly, Pope John Paul II, in his
Easter 2004 message, said “May the temptation to seek revenge give
way to the courage to forgive; may the culture of life and love render
vain the logic of death; may trust once more give breath to the lives
of peoples.” But the Beatles said it most succinctly:
“All you need is love.” How do you feel about this?
Is love a sufficient force to solve the problems of the world?
How would we do it?
Questions, Comments, Suggestions:
Becoming Me
is published in the U.S. by Skylight Paths and in the
U.K. by Frances Lincoln
www.becomingme.com
All text © Martin Boroson, 2004