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! 

  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

  • How to Have a Good Conversation (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 ‘other’ 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. “Go out [and] talk to people, listen to people, and be prepared to be amazed!”
  • Belonging (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.
  • Where is homeWhere do you belong?  (5 min.) 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.
  • The meaning of homeMore than Bricks and Mortar? (16 min.) Dr. Craig Gurney, a lecturer, asks: what is the true meaning of home? Is it really a place of safety and security? Learn about the meaning of home.
  • Visit MORSL's Connect with a Community Page for a directory of McGill 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

Regular Rituals

  • What is a ritual, and what is its impact in today's society? “What isn't a ritual?” asks Michael Norton in this fascinating talk about the role that ritual continues to play in our lives (17 min.)
  • Enjoy this focused discussion on rituals marking certain holidays and the role of rituals in meaning making (6 min.)
  • For more on the mental health benefits of rituals, see Prof. Norton’s interview (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 rituals by some noted NBA players before they play in a competition. By performing these regular rituals, players provide their reason for doing them (11 min.)

Gratitude and Humility

Spiritual Identity

Navigating Uncertainties

  • Prof. Walid Afifi explores the extent to 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 something wrong with us, then why do we still crave significance, meaning, purpose and to change the world when there are no guarantees? Watch Joshua Bailey as he explores this question and more with goal of encouraging us to embrace uncertainty as part of our neurological disposition (9 min.)
  • “Gracious Uncertainty," a devotional reflection from a text in the Christian New Testament by Oswald Chambers.

 

 

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