What about Epiphany?

My apologies - this post would have been more timely had it appeared about a month ago. But I've decided against waiting another eleven months to post it!

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I've only just discovered Chuck Knows Church, a series of comically informative videos about church customs, especially those of American liturgical churches. I should warn you Godly Play folk that they're not at all Montessorian. But I've gotten a kick out of them.

Here's the first of the series, on the topic of Liturgical Colors:

I quite like the parallel that Chuck draws between Epiphany and Pentecost, one which isn't made in the Circle of the Church Year (Godly Play) lesson. On the other hand, the Godly Play lesson does introduce the less obvious observation that just as Lent prepares us for Easter, so also Easter prepares us for Pentecost. So there are positives to be found in both lessons.

The Circle of the Church Year, like other Liturgical Action lessons, is meant to be adapted to the customs of the church in which you present it. As written, it reduces Christmastide to a single week or even day, and ignores Epiphany altogether. That works reasonably well if you're in a tradition or denomination which goes straight into Ordinary Time after Epiphany, but is more problematic for those of us in the Church of England, for example, who observe Epiphanytide (and use white as our liturgical color) right the way up until Candlemas in early February. Repainting the blocks would be simple enough, but adapting the words of the script is trickier.

artwork done by a young teen during Response Time

I'd be interested to hear from those of you who observe Epiphanytide: How do you present the Circle of the Church Year?

(For what it's worth, here's what I've done in the past.)

it gets better

The title for today's entry evokes the videos for bullied teens, but really it's inspired by somebody called "Sweeter than Southern Tea", who wrote a comment on one of my older posts. I had written about being exhausted after a Godly Play session, and Sweeter asked, How long did it take for this to kind of even out? We are just beginning Godly Play... lately it seems as though each Sunday ends up being a circus.

Well, Sweeter, It gets better! 

Here the children are being silly by being
exaggeratedly still and quiet at a church service (!).

I was working with young children, some younger than 3. The oldest was four when we started. I had more girls than boys, and small numbers. All the children were generally well-behaved and inclined to do what they were told. That said, they spent a LOT of time exploring the boundaries of what was accepted in our classroom.

• I am very glad to have made it clear from the start that we walk more slowly than usual in this space. I tried to remember to praise children who did that, and to remind (rather than reprimand) children who didn't. So that was a rule that never really got tested.

However, I had much more trouble introducing the concept of sitting cross-legged (criss-cross) to show that we are ready. I let the children experiment with what was allowed, and treated almost every posture they got into as a serious attempt to do the right thing. Maybe that invited more challenge than I'd have gotten otherwise; I did find it frustrating some of the time. (The kids seemed to think it was a highly amusing game.) But I came up with my own boundaries that I enforced. One of my adult helpers found it uncomfortable to sit cross legged, so the rule for everyone was that as long as legs were crossed it was ok. To sit with legs straight out in front was acceptable if your legs were crossed (at the ankle). Merely having the toes of one foot crossed over the other was not. Sitting backwards (facing out) was not acceptable. Hands had to be on knees. Hands on feet was not acceptable.

• It helped immensely when I found a song for getting ready on the My Montessori Journey blog. My own adaptation of the words (to the tune of "Frère Jacques") was Legs criss-crossed, Legs criss-crossed, Hands on your knees, Hands on your knees. Quiet on the inside, Quiet on the inside, Ready for the lesson, Ready for the lesson. At the line, Quiet on the inside, the song gets (and stays) quieter, so that if we sing it a second time we end up whispering the second half of it. 

Within a couple of months it was no longer necessary to sing the tune through twice (the first several times that we only had to sing it once, I complimented them on getting ready so quickly). 

The other thing that helped enormously was holding an all-age service in the Godly Play style. When I explained to the adults how we show that we're ready I announced, N can show you how it's done. For a moment my heart was in my mouth, but there was no silliness at all. The child went straight into the ideal position, proud to be "in the know". And my recollection is that the children were better about the getting-ready position in the lessons following that one. 

photo by see-through-faith

• Every time I've told a Godly Play story for children, at least one adult has commented on how well the children paid attention. So sometimes it might be worth getting started even if not everyone is, strictly speaking, "ready". Particularly if you're telling a desert story, moving the sands around as you begin the story can be mesmerising. 

It might be tempting to look up to make sure everyone is engrossed in the story but paradoxically this is the worst thing you can do. Keep your eyes and your attention on the story figures! Jerome W. Berryman recommends that the first thing you should do if a child loses focus is to make sure that you yourself have your focus where you need it, and sometimes the child will then be drawn back in.

This post is at risk of rambling on and on. So for now I'll just make two more points.

• Something else that Berryman says is that it's ok if you spend your whole session just on forming the circle. Sometimes it is a circus. Sometimes what the children seem to need is just some time together, getting attention, being treated as though they are important and valued, and forming a tiny community together. And that brings me to my second point.

• I always found something that I was pleased about in every session. Having debriefing sessions with see-through-faith (my faithful adult helper) allowed me to get another perspective on things but even before that I was always thankful for some little breakthrough or insight, some piece of work a child had done, some touching thing a child had shared... And when I think now about what our Junior Church achieved, the biggest thing is that I became friends with these children. They are always glad to see me at church, and often want to tell me their news. They know that they are important to me, and they know that they belong. 

coloring the flood

I hope my godson won't mind if I share with you a card I recently sent him. As I typed out what I'd written, I began to wish I'd drafted it first and then edited it before writing straight onto the card itself, but sometimes just sitting down and writing is the way it gets done and actually put into the post!

art by Andrew Miles, photo by me

Dear [godson],
     I am so glad that your Mama sent me a picture of something you drew in your new art journal. I hope you enjoy using it even if sometimes things don't come out the way you expect.
     I wonder what you think of this picture? I think it's interesting that the waves are not just blue but so many colors. And it's not so common to draw Noah's ark so you can't see any animals! I wonder why the artist did that. (Except the dove. And that's interesting too because it's just a shape - no color and no detail.)
     Keep experimenting with your art and draw what you feel.

Love, [Storyteller]

"the baby was from God"

are you ready?

Christmas is coming, ready or not! Berryman's script reminds us that if people aren't ready, they can just walk right through a mystery and not even notice. But sometimes we have to go ahead even if we don't feel ready. Sometimes maybe we can trust that lighting the Advent candles for four weeks ... or singing the O Antiphons for seven days ... or hanging our Jesse tree ornaments or whatever it is that we've been doing has made us ready. Sometimes we can pray, but only say the word and I shall be healed. 

In Godly Play we ask people to decide for themselves if they are ready to enter the room and join the circle. Sometimes when I didn't have a Door Person I would sit outside the room with the children, encouraging them to sit still for a moment (after they'd been running around) and take time to get ready. Then I'd say, I'm going to go into the room, and you can follow me when you're ready. One week, once we were in the circle, one girl said, It's easier to get ready in here. 

So I pray for you, and for me, that as we begin to celebrate Christmas that in itself will make us ready. That as we place the baby Jesus in the nativity manger, or sing carols at a Christmas Eve candlelight service, or fill stockings, or put the turkey in the oven ... we will find that we are ready. Let every heart prepare him room. 

Merry Christmas!

"Look for the helpers"

Thank you, Sheila, for linking to Carolyn's post, "What do we say to the children when kids are killed with their teachers at school?"

Carolyn's advice reminds me of Mr Rogers' advice, or rather, the advice he got from his mother.

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.

That's good advice for all of us, whatever our age. I sometimes daydream about the news media deciding not to grant fame to killers (which would also prevent them from mistakenly giving out the wrong name). I can choose to focus on and share news of heroes, of helpers, of the good that stands up against evil. May I urge you, too, to seek out any of the several recent articles highlighting some of the heroes of Sandy Hook, Newtown - such as this one from The Independent.

photo by Pokrajac