Easter Wondering

I'm "preaching" at both of my English churches this morning. What I have planned is not really a sermon but more of a discussion-starter. With the help of Vanderbilt's Art in the Christian Tradition database and Wikimedia Commons I created a slide-show to go with our Gospel reading. I have an illustration for each sentence - much like a children's picture book.

I will introduce this by talking very briefly about celebrations, that an important part of most celebratory gatherings is the talking. We reminisce about the old days; we share our feelings. And so I want us to celebrate Easter together by listening to one of the stories of Easter and then sharing our responses to it. I'll read the Gospel, showing the slides, and then I'll ask Jerome W. Berryman's Wondering Questions for Sacred Stories.

We'll see how it goes. One service is an all-age service in a large church. I've already drafted one teenager to be a microphone runner for the back of the church, carrying the mike to anyone who raises their hand. I will do the same at the front. The other church is smaller but the congregation is deaf-er, so microphones will be important there too.

I intend the pictures to slow down the reading so that we notice some details afresh, but also to prepare us for hearing different perspectives on the story, and moreover to jog memories as I ask the Wondering questions. During our discussion I'll be showing summary slides of the pictures we've seen.

Like this:

As Berryman's Faces of Easter script tells us, you can't see the resurrection without knowing that the crucifixion is behind it. So rather than starting where the lectionary says to start, I'll include seven verses from the paragraphs preceding it. Like that snippet on television shows: Previously in "The Gospel"... These are my illustrations for those verses.

"Who are you and why do you request entry?"

BBC photo

I was so pleased to see that the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was greeted at the door of Canterbury Cathedral by a young woman, Evangeline Kanagasooriam, rather than the Dean or some other elder churchman, at the start of his inauguration service last week. I wouldn't want to call a 17-year-old a child, but it was certainly newsworthy to have such a young person given such an important role, which included asking the new Archbishop several challenging (scripted) questions.

(I have not found any copyright-free photo 

of this, so have included only a thumbnail. 

Another beautiful photo can be seen here.)

church in England

Dear five-year-old,

Several weeks ago you asked your parent to ask me, "What is church in England like?" I have been thinking a lot about your question. I go to two churches here. My supervisor (for me to learn about being a priest) is the priest of both of them.

The first thing to say is that The Holy Eucharist is the same in England and Finland. We start with the Liturgy of the Word - there are hymns, prayers, readings from the Bible, and a sermon - and then we have the Liturgy of the Sacrament - the priest tells us the story of Jesus' supper with his friends and his words, "This is my body" and "This is my blood". Your parent would know many of our hymns; some you might even recognize from our church.

Something different is they only have that communion service every other week; in between they have Morning Prayer. That's kind of like the Evensong services we used to have in the big church, or kind of like the Liturgy of the Word but without any communion afterwards. I don't mind not having communion every week, but I really miss The Peace, which isn't part of Morning Prayer.

One of my churches here has a pretty small building, which is sort of modern and boring. There are not a lot of people - usually around twenty I guess, if you count the priest and organist and people like that. Most of them are old. They almost all have grey or white hair. One lady is 100 years old! All of them except me are English. They would like to have younger people come to church and I think if they did come they might stay because these people are so friendly and nice.

My other church meets in a big, old building (not as big as the big church). You can tell it used to be beautiful but now it looks kind of worn out and it's really cold inside. They are worried about how much money it takes to keep it safe (like to fix the roof), let alone for new paint or better heaters. Right next door there is a big house (which is also really cold) and that is where the priest lives. This congregation is bigger than the other one but because the building is so big, it always feels pretty empty.

There are children at this church - one or two babies, several small boys and girls, and three or four teenage girls. At the other church everyone is "white", but at this church there are white people and black people. There's even a young family from Korea. It's hard to get to know the people who aren't white because they never stay to church coffee. I tried to invite one woman one time but she said she has to go to work after church.

They have Junior Church (but not Godly Play). I stay in grownup church and sometimes I help lead it, or even preach. At the end of church the children tell us what they learned about, and one reads a prayer they wrote. The priest always wants the grownups to tell them something about our service, but most of the grownups are too embarrassed. Last week I did it!

GP materials from St. Michael's Workshop

I like church here, but I miss Godly Play and I really miss you and your family!

love, Storyteller

p.s. I should have said that there ARE churches in England who use Godly Play! In fact, I learned how to do Godly Play here in England. But the churches I go to don't happen to use it.

a flock

He calls his own sheep by name

from John 10:3

Thanks to Pinterest, this morning I came across a blog post written back in 2010 by the Jealous Curator. It's about an art craft by Christien Meindertsma, which speaks to the individuality of sheep.

She created a rug out of large, knitted hexagons. Each hexagon was made from the wool of one, single sheep, and using all the wool from one shearing.

   © designboom 1999-2012, some rights reserved

To emphasise the individuality of each sheep, Meindertsma knitted each hexagon using a different stitch. She's done other projects in the same vein, knitting a sweater from the wool of a single sheep, for example. But this rug didn't just represent each individual. Since she also then put all the hexagons together into a rug it represented the whole flock as well. In fact, that's her name for this project - "flock".

I wonder what the work of your church looks like to Jesus, with each member's output individually recognisable and also connected with the whole.

ashes to ashes

photo (c) Pikku Arkki Valokuvaus, used with permission

Trinity Communications, over at CatholicCulture.org, say:

On Ash Wednesday small children are thrilled to receive ashes. We can tell them simply that ashes are placed on our foreheads to remind us that someday we will die and go home to heaven.

It's a post worth reading in full.

Similarly, Carolyn, at Worshiping with Children, writes, The imposition of ashes is amazing to children, but she also notes that:

Other than Good Friday, Ash Wednesday is probably the day on which children are least expected or planned for in the sanctuary. 

And she has excellent suggestions for how to change that.

In the Church of England, as priests mark you with ashes, they say, Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. In Finland, (Lutheran) priests tend to say something like, Receive the cross, a sign of repentance. If you feel that your child will not cope well with a heavy emphasis on mortality and death at this time, repentance is an alternative theme to emphasise. (This is something also said by both blogs that I linked to above.) Carolyn also mentions the theme of belonging. Many Roman Catholics assume that ashes mark someone off as Catholic; they certainly mark us off on Ash Wednesday as a certain kind of practicing Christian.

All this to say, I hope you'll feel able to take your children to church today. Or, if in the United States, even to seek out Ashes to Go.

licensed photo, used with permission
© Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk

*     *     *     *     *

For me and for my church this year, we've already had a stark reminder of our mortality: one of our church wardens was found dead yesterday morning. It would seem that she died in her sleep. She had attended a council meeting less than 24 hours before her death and seemed as fit as ever. I believe she was 72 years old.

To my mind Madeline was one of the friendliest and most welcoming people at that church. She could be very frank, yet also came across as accepting. She seemed to be someone you could rely on entirely - an excellent church warden in that regard!

The church organist announced loudly to a small group of us that Madeline had planned her funeral some years earlier, right down to a set of hymns that he claimed had been chosen expressly to annoy him: hymns she knew he didn't like playing. I hope he is able to chuckle about it rather than find that hurtful. If so, I will chuckle along as well!

UPDATE: I checked, and our priest says that the organist "liked the idea of the hymns and will remember Madeline with fondness as he plays." That's exactly as I had hoped it would be.

sacrificing everything

Ian Ruhter, a former pro-snowboarder, spent all his savings to create the world's largest camera and set off on a road trip across America. Using a collodion wet-plate process which costs him $500 a shot, he photographs landscapes, cityscapes, and the people he meets along the way. Delightfully, he is equally respectful of the homeless man with a drinking problem as he is with the seven-year-old "miracle" girl who survived a very premature birth.

This film draws a deliberate and unsettling parallel between Ruhter's total commitment to his project and a drug addict's single-mindedness.

SILVER & LIGHT from Ian Ruhter : Alchemist on Vimeo.

As soon as I this question from Ruhter in this video, I knew I wanted to post it here:

If you had been searching your whole life for something you love, what would you be willing to sacrifice?

You'll surely guess what my immediate association with that question was!

When he found the great pearl...
he went...
and exchanged...
everything for the great pearl.

Rebecca Ramsey gave her kind permission for me to reproduce this photo,
taken from her blog, The Wonder Circle.

I wonder... What, if anything, might you be willing to sacrifice everything for?