Picture This: My Spirituality Part III

Every teacher carries a number of tools in his or her toolbox for helping students to learn their curriculum. One of my favorite is the "Gallery Walk." 

According to Starting Point, a "Gallery Walk is a discussion technique that gets students out of their chairs and into a mode of active engagement. The advantage of the method is its flexibility and the variety of benefits for students and instructor alike. A Gallery Walk with pieces of paper on tables, or with posted chart paper. It can be scheduled for fifteen minutes (a "Gallery Run") or for several class periods. For students it's a chance to share thoughts in a more intimate, supportive setting rather than a larger, anonymous class. For instructors, it's a chance to gauge the depth of student understanding of particular concepts and to challenge misconceptions."

For me, it's a unique, interesting and relevant way for students to discuss the relationship between Sports and Spirituality. I use the images that my seniors have chosen in their final project. I do not require that they include an athletic endeavor, though many do. 

As an introductory exercise for a new class (which began in January), I had them take a Gallery Walk through the photos you will see below. Take your own walk through them; I have included quotes that from class readings, articles, discussions and more to illuminate the relationship between  Sports and Spirituality. 

How do you picture your spirituality? What image might you choose? Would it be captured in an athletic endeavor? Might you find it at a game? on the golf course?! Enjoy.
Former depictions!
Picture This: My Spirituality Part II
Picture This: My Spirituality Part I

Too often in our culture, we are asked to separate the physical, the mental and the spiritual—as if our bodies and consciousness could be artificially split into pieces. —Dr. Michael Tino

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. —Apostle's Creed

On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation….so God could play golf! —Genesis 2:2-3

Harmony, balance, and rhythm. They’re the three things that stay with you your whole life. Without them civilization is out of whack. And that’s why an oarsman, when he goes out in life, he can fight it, he can handle life. That’s what he gets from rowing. ― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Spirituality is living with the tensions of your beliefs. —Larry Gillick, SJ

Most high school athletes today have weight lifting as an important component of their training.
Those who lift know the importance of tension; the muscle ought to be broken down to be strengthened.
Joe's spirituality is captured in these two photos from the SI weight room

What a Christian theology of spirituality means is that our relationship with God is as certain as our need for air.  —Tim Muldoon

Sport expresses this energy through the athletes and the fans who support the teams. The games and competitions showcase some of the most powerful and artful ways in which gifted human beings can use and experience this energy. In sport, athletes can experience the manifestation of the Creator’s energy most powerfully and intelligently by showing how they can overcome other players who share the same capacity.
—Martin Siegel

Coach Steve Kerr has four tenets which he models his coaching around.
Here are four agreements a student found to be important.

We are SI. The 2016 Bruce Mahoney Game