Theme of Zoom Meeting

Theme of Zoom Meeting: Lifeboat

You’re jarred awake in your cabin of a cruise ship. You rush up the stairs to the deck. The ship is sinking fast. Suddenly it sways over so the deck you’re on is nearly vertical. You slide off into the sea, going under, struggling to the surface. Your head bobbing up and down in the twisting waves. You spot a lifeboat. And swim toward it… Do you have a lifeboat in your own life? Something that you can grab onto to keep you safe and afloat no matter how rough life gets? Let’s talk about the lifeboat we have – or wish we had?

Question

1. Do you need a lifeboat to climb into when your seas of life are rougher than you can handle? Describe your life boat?

2. Should we all aim to be someone else’s lifeboat? What kind of safety could we provide?

3. How could a parent be a good lifeboat for a child? If a child always has a lifeboat near, will she ever learn to swim on her own?

4. Is it a good idea to have more than one lifeboat to count on?

5. Under what circumstances might you find yourself in a lifeboat with others?

6. Would you rather be the only one in your lifeboat or would you welcome companions? What kind of companions?

7. Why might it be a good idea to have a lifeboat in mind even when the seas of life are calm?

8. Describe the sinking feeling you might have if you discovered your lifeboat had a fatal leak? What could that leak be?

9. If you affiliated with a religious organization, can you view it as a life raft? What kind of support do you expect from it?

10. Have you ever used online support groups as a life raft? Some to consider: NAMI Emotions Anonymous Virtual Support Groups

11. How might music serve as a life raft? Art? A hobby? Sports? Exercise?

12. Can a pet serve as a life raft? An example from your own life?

13. How might an organization serve as a life raft? Meditation? How about prayer or religion in general?

Quotes to consider for life raft and lifeboat

1. . As we age we begin to grasp at youthful bliss like a life raft in a sea of harsh reality. - Author: Brad Herzog

2. All my life, books had been the life raft, the safe haven, the place I ran to when nothing else worked. - Author: Elyn R. Saks

3. Drowning, she clung fiercely to that small, splintered piece of mast bobbing in the ocean we call justice. There is no justice, of course, or very little of it, and counting on it as a life raft is a big mistake. - Author: Siri Hustvedt

4. A man's duty is to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot, at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove, and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life. - Author: Plato

5. Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd. – Rumi

6. The only reason that they say, 'Women and children first' is to test the strength of the lifeboats. --Jean Kerr

7. Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.—Voltaire

8. Treasure your lifeboat. Keep it close. Someone else may grab it away. REG

9. My best lifeboat is my wifeboat. REG

10. There is no life raft' you're just freaking swimming all the time. - Author: Barbara Kingsolve

11. You are so in over your head that even a life raft can't keep you afloat. - Author: Holly Stephens

12. You're my life raft in an endless ocean. You saved me from drowning. You saved me from myself. - Author: K.A. Linde

13. Even a life raft is only supposed to get you from the sinking ship back to land, you were never intended to live in the life raft, to drift years on end, in sight of land but never close enough. - Author: Nick Flynn