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Wow–it’s been awhile since I blogged. Truthfully, I couldn’t remember my password and finally found it.

I have been reading A LOT these days about children, theology and spirituality. I’ve have begun a program of study for the Spiritual Guidance of Children at General Theological Seminary. I’ll be traveling to New York City about six more times over the next several months–mostly long weekends, hopefully culminating in a Certificate next summer.

As part of our readiness, we’ve been asked to write some reflection papers, which have clearly got my reflective juices flowing. This, paired with All Saints Day, helped me recall a magical moment, recognize some divine time and anticipate our church’s celebration of All Saints Day.

Let the Children Come

Rev. Dr. John Tietjen was one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever known. He was masterful at the art of ritual, liturgy and poetry. He was our pastor when Duke and I were newlyweds in Fort Worth and he baptized two of our three daughters. He had such an authentic way of talking with children that validated their identity as children of God. I clearly remember one All Saints Sunday. It was the Trinity tradition to have all the “senior saints” (over 80) sit in the very front rows, as a place of honor, on All Saints Sunday. In place of the customary children’s sermon, he invited the children forward to face the senior saints. Either he hoped or he knew the light would break through the angle of the windows and light up their faces. The light danced between the weathered, old faces and smooth, freckled faces and somehow the breath of the congregation was suspended for a moment. All he said was, “Saints, I’d like for you to meet Saints.” One of the older saints nodded a salutation at the bright smiles of the younger ones.

On Saturday, my oldest daughter and I went on an adventure. We both could have more wisely spent our time, but not any better. Our quest for sugar skulls and marigolds took us to parts of Austin we’ve never been to before–places where we stuck out like sore thumbs. She was actually working on an assignment for her Spanish class, but in true-Montessori spirit, loved the project and wanted to work on it. Her assignment was to build a “Day of the Dead” altar for her sister Hope. We spent the afternoon trying on another language, rituals and culture in the same way one would try on a Halloween costume. She picked out a hot-pink little sugar coffin and we debated the virtues of flowers and spent a good amount of time reading the saint stories on the back of candles and incense. Sometimes the Spirit must be approached from a slant or sideways to really get a good view.

St. Hope

This Sunday we will celebrate All Saints Sunday. We are taking a leap of faith. We will be projecting the photographs of our beloved ones who have died on the east walls of the transcepts during our worship. I know those of you mega-church members are chuckling. You know we are Lutheran. The last time we made a really big change was 1517 (the merger of 1988 and the vote of 2009 excluded). Yes, we are taking a big risk. We are risking the cheesiness factor, technological trouble, the natural confusion or irreverence that comes with something new. And we are risking being vulnerable, perhaps the biggest risk–all sitting there together with our beloved ones faces, facing us. Sometimes the Spirit must be approached head-on, too. Vulnerable and saint-like.

Have a blessed All Saints Day.

The Feast is at the core of every Godly Play community. It plays an important role in the life of a little community of people. Yet, as the adults preparing the environment are getting ready, our focus often stays fixed on the story materials. Let’s take some time to put a magnifying glass on the Feast.

Keep it green! After telling the Creation story in our second year of Godly Play, it became apparent as we passed the trash can around that we were presenting an unintended, unspoken lesson. We had just spoken of the light, water, dry land and the creatures that inhabit it, and it was good, but we were about to dump an entire small trashcan of napkins and paper cups somewhere out there. We decided then to “go green.” Our checklist of a “green feast” was this:

• set of green napkins (cocktail size), made by a woman in our sewing guild (we also have purple, with hopes of adding other liturgical colors)
• some small tumblers from a restaurant supply store
• tiny plastic bowls from the dollar store for food like goldfish or pretzels
• a wicker laundry basket for used napkins
• a plastic wash basin for the used cups and bowls
• a plant to receive the unconsumed water.

That was eight years ago and we’ve been green ever since! Gladly, we have kept some trash out of the landfill, but even more of a delight, we recognize a new unspoken lesson. Somehow we have managed to convey permanence, intention and value on the Feast just by not throwing away the sacred objects that help contain it. A response from a boy on a day I didn’t have the napkins washed and we used paper, “What happened to our napkins that don’t tear?”  When asked recently what the Good Shepherd’s green underlay was, a child replied with joyful surprise, “It is a giant napkin for Feast!”

It is their work, too.
We’ve also recognized that the actual preparation of the Feast, can be fully owned by the children. We have set up a child-sized table with sealed bins of pretzels, goldfish and animal-crackers and small pitchers of water that the children can have full access. Feast preparation has become simply another piece of work to choose in the classroom. It frees the Doorperson to become fully available for as-needed art response assistance, as well as gives the children the validation of serving the community. Now, of course, there are days when no one is interested in doing the work of Feast preparation, in which case the doorperson fills that responsibility.

Slow food in a fast world.  Sometimes I wonder if Feast is the only meal that the children get that is slow, intentional and rooted in thanksgiving and caring conversation? We can’t deny that we are surrounded by a fast-food, fast-paced culture and for many families (including mine) that can become an easy habit. Feast not only models the liturgy (the work of the people) of the church, but it models the liturgy of the family. The central two ingredients in the recipe of the Feast are giving thanks and sharing our lives.

We celebrate the long-time, built-in spirit of thanksgiving and community in the Godly Play feast. These are the golden, unspoken lessons children will keep with them, even when the car finds its way to McDonalds. It could also be a flash of insight they feel when they gather around other tables, at home and church, and know that God is here, too.

Today is Groundhog’s Day. One of the more bizarre holidays that still winds up on our calendar. Yet, it is fun to imagine a large rodent could change the course of the weather for the coming weeks on a chance glance of it’s own shadow. Why it falls on the same day as the Presentation of our Lord or Candlemas, escapes me. If you know, please tell.

Reprinted from ELCA Sundays and Seasons:

The Presentation of Our Lord is referred to in some corners of the church as Candlemas because of an ancient tradition of blessing all the candles to be used in the church in the coming year at the mass celebrated on that day. It was a way of underscoring the truth of Simeon’s confession that this baby Jesus was “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and a light for glory to Israel. Let the light of every candle in church be a little epiphany of the love of God for all people in the person of God’s son, Jesus, the light of the world.

Presentation of Our Lord
Forty days after the birth of Jesus we mark the day Mary and Joseph presented him in the temple in accordance with Jewish law. There they were greeted by Simeon, an aged priest who offered the song “Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace,” as well as by the prophet Anna, who spoke of the redemption of Israel.

I do love this story. It makes me happy to think of Simeon is at last at peace.

The Godly Play lessons during Advent and at Baptism brings out the Light. The Christ candle is lighted and sometimes we even turn the overhead lights off and bask in the candle glow. But my very favorite part is when the light is changed. Not put out. Not blown out. Not snuffed out.–but changed. The light of the tiny flame, that only can be seen or felt in that place and very close, changes into smoke that can fill the room and even seep out under the door. God’s presence transcends the tangible, spoken, reasonable and rationale to something invisible that fully surrounds us and sometimes we know it.

Indeed, Simeon be at peace! Rest is the light of presence.

And as for Puxatony Phil, whatever he has to do with this day, peace, too. Are the flashbulbs too bright for you? Sleep for six more weeks.

I realize I’ve been practicing Godly Play so long, that I crave the debriefing process of the “I wonder” questions. I also know that for most folks reading this, I might as well have said, “Blah, blah, blah.” An “I wonder” question in Godly Play is an open ended question that serves as a tool for spiritual direction after a story. There are no right or wrong answers, but instead it guides the questioned to look inside themselves for where the Spirit is guiding.

The Story was epic. On Saturday night, I heard the entire Gospel of Mark from beginning to end–live and from the heart of Dr. Phil Ruge-Jones. I’ve heard it and read it and heard it again–in pieces. But to hear it in one voice from beginning to end is–well, epic. So let me wonder….

I wonder what was your favorite part?…

• I loved the beginning with Jesus’ baptism–and then the recollection of Baptism with that mysterious youth at the garden of Gethsemane and then again at the resurrection–what’s up with that anyway?
  
• I loved that every time Jesus fed a crowd, whether Jews, Gentiles or disciples–he blessed the bread and broke it and shared with those gathered.
  
• The story of Legion is always hilarious, that is until you think of the reeking mess of pigs that went over the cliff.
  
• The part about the man carried by four men to the crowded house that Jesus was preaching–only to not be able to get in. So his friends carry him to the roof, make a hole and lower him down. Wow–the imagery–carried like the Ark of the Covenant and lowered into the house as if through some sacred oculus–a paralytic.
• But I suppose, my favorite part was the blind man, only after the second try at healing by Jesus does he see. The first try the man can only see “trees walking” instead of people. What a puzzle and yet perhaps the way my perception is most of the time–fuzzy. I wish I had something like Dumbledore’s penseive, to grab thoughts, memories and insights fast, before they blur.
  

I wonder what was the most important part?…

Surely it was courageous trust. Time and time again we heard the greatness of the courageous trust. That is harder to hear when it is broken up into little pieces of lectionary.

I wonder where you are in the story?…

Often, I am Jairus. Just mentioning the name, raises goosebumps. I know Jairus so well–the privileged beggar. But this night, it was nice to give Jairus a rest. This hearing of the story placed me firmly on the hill in the crowd, just another one richly fed by the miracle.

I wondered what part could you take out and still have all the story you need?…

It would be nice to take the intermissions out, but then they were probably necessary. Something that was easily taken out–both in the oration and reflection was the arbitrary numerical markers of chapters and verses. The telling made it one story. I reflect on “the part about the so-and-so” instead of the chapter number. So, I guess my final answer is nothing.

Thanks to the many orators who carried this story in their hearts before anyone ever wrote it down. And thanks to Dr. Phil Ruge-Jones for presenting it so beautifully this past weekend!

Keep wondering…

I know, I know. I’m behind on writing. It’s not because I haven’t been thinking–just not writing. It is summertime and things have both slowed down and sped up.

One of my favorite summer activities is going to the movies. It satisfies both my love of nostalgia (watching great flicks at the Paramount Theatre downtown on a hot, summer afternoon as a kid) and my love of great storytelling. The movie, for better or worse, is our culture’s primary source of storytelling. We all gather around with our bushel basket of popcorn for the story to unfold. We must be hard-wired to hear stories in community, like gathering around a campfire or stage. Since there is a burn-ban in Central Texas, the closest thing to a campfire becomes the well-refrigerated cinema.

It’s hard turn off the lens of “Child & Family Minister” and even more challenging to just watch the story for what it is, and not look for imbedded poetry. And yet, that is where we all connect with the story–at the level of the soul in community with other souls. I’d like to offer some observations and recommendations of three summer blockbusters:

UP: I think the storytellers at Pixar are masterful. They have transcended the children’s genre of animation, both in their short and feature films, to wrestle with existential limits with humor and gentleness. UP is no exception, but very different than many of their other films. It is about an old man, near the end of his life. During the film, we see his life unfold and a beautiful relationship with his wife. This element of the story was especially poignant and made me aware of my own context in that place. I was holding hands with my husband of twenty years in a theatre we had been to in high-school. On the other side of me, was a young couple we would refer to as “daters” (with an eye-roll.) The old man is wrestling with the threat of freedom: some of it being taken from him and the freedom he had traded a long time ago for what we know as “responsibility.” He conjures some remaining spirit of childhood, aided by a helium tank, balloons and a Boy Scout. In a beautifully symbolic act, he sets his house afloat with balloons, bound for South America and a persistent childhood fantasy. He wants it all: the dream of freedom and the safety of home. The most beautiful image was a choice between reaching out for a new responsibility he found or holding tight to his old dream and old house about to float away. It was like the Parable of the Great Pearl–he traded everything, even his house, for the great pearl. Go–and take tissues.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Okay, I’ll admit it–I’m a huge fan. We waited to see this one until my little one was at camp, but then saw it twice in three days. (sheepish grin) What I love most about Harry Potter is on the surface it seems like a story of good on one side and evil on the other. I wonder if it is really closer to describe it as the good and evil, saint and sinner, that exists in all of us. (I know, I’m waxing Lutheran.) The dichotomy is ever present in this sixth film. Every character, even Voldemort and Dumbledore, unfold as one who posesses good and bad qualities. I wonder, too, if this was a story of baptism. Maybe not the “white-dress and promises” Baptism–but the baptism we live in. Harry, time and time again, plunges his face in the penseive, searching for meaning in the shared memory of the community. And then the scene of Harry and Dumbledore in the cave, a font surrounded by water, that is afloat in death and yet the answers they seek. Living in our baptism is that daily dying of our old self and being born into a new life. Like the saint and sinner existing in the same person, Baptism cannot bring life without death. The poignant scene of the Hogwarts community pointing their wands to the deathmask in the night sky also reminded me of baptism or even closer, the Godly Play Baptism lesson. Each of us bears the Light in the world, and yet the Light is brighter when gathered in community. When will the 7th movie come out???

Year One: Yes, I saw this. It is hilarious! Hilarious! Don’t take your children. We took our fourteen-year-old and I nearly broke a rib trying to suppress the laughter while sitting beside her. It is irreverent. It has little to no poetry. I’d like to throw-out the shred of theology it has. Did I mention it was hilarious?

(Disclaimer: This is my vocational blog and my vocatation is Child and Family Ministry. Feel free to not read this you are one of my Facebook friends that might be the least bit squeemish about children, God or faith–somehow I’ve linked my blog to Facebook as a note and can’t quite decide if I should change that. Talk amongst yourselves. ;-))

It is the middle day of VBS. No, I’m not a adolescent texter using BFF, BTW, FWIW, LOL, G2G. If you’ve been a part of a church community over a summer (in the south?) you know VBS stands for Vacation Bible School. This is the day of VBS that I look forward to. It is half-way over, I usually have worked out the old kinks and fewer new kinks show up on this day. This is usually the day that I can slow down enough to find an “a-ha” somewhere in the day. I can be slow and present enough, for even a moment, to feel God’s presence. I love those a-ha’s. That is why I love my job so much, because few other jobs other than Child and Family Ministry can offer these kind of a-ha’s. (Maybe a Mt. Everest sherpa, Scottish shepherd or New York bicycle delivery person, but that is too close to call.)

Big a-ha’s come from small things.

Just before the closing worship for VBS, before everyone arrives in the nave, I go in and prepare a bit. I turn on the mics, adjust the decorations and dim the lights. These past few nights I have had to stop that and simply look up. As the sun sets in the west, it streams through the arching stained glass windows and cast the most extraordinary light show the whole length of the ceiling and nearly touches the front altar. The spectacle only lasts a few minutes and then the sunset darkens the ceiling. Most of the children never see it.

Tonight, some other early arriving adults marveled at it too and joked that it is like some Mayan ruin on an equinox. What if the architect gifted us with some secret treasure that is revealed when the light touches some critical spot in the church. Of course, while unfailing, the light is not unchanging, so in the building’s 50 years, no one has figured this mystery out as of yet. It very well could have happened already and no one was there. The custodian was down the hall. Maybe I was at the grocery store or some such place, completely unaware of the awesome light dancing on the ceiling of our church, unleashing some Indiana-Jones-esque drama.

Last night, I had the children look up at the ceiling for a milli-second to see the awe of the tail end of the spectacular light show. It was only a glimpse. Tonight, by the time the first group of children was coming in, I was making small talk with some grown-ups when out of the corner of my eye I saw three tiny two-year-olds looking up at the ceiling, saying “Wow.” (I can’t write Wow in such a way to convey the pitch, duration and overall cuteness.) We stood there together for a milli-second in awe together.

I often feel in my life of relative luxury (I have food, a bed and air-conditioning, plus a lot more), I should be more present, aware and thankful for the mysteries around me that point to the divine. And yet, how often I find myself caught up in the to-do lists, the traffic and the bummers of life. Come to me like a little child?

I read in the newspaper recently that Julian Lennon recently contacted childhood friend Lucy (something?). She was the inspiration of the song Lucy in the sky with diamonds. The child Julian, showed his father, John Lennon, a crayon drawing and explained it was his friend Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Big a-ha’s come from small things.

I wonder what light show will be on the ceiling next week with no one there to see it?

Let me begin by saying I’m not a controversial or political person. I’m a very ordinary person. However, dramatic and scary things are happening right under our noses in the Texas Board of Education, that have moved me speak out. Texas school children are facing a sterilization of intellect and many faithful families will lose the right to pass along their faith to their children if this alarming trend is allowed to continue.

The numbers are growing in power on the Texas Board of Education that see their own religious views as facts to be taught in the public schools. They have started this erosion by attempting to knock holes in the accepted science of the Theory of Evolution and it seems clear what direction they are headed. This action scares me. I am a person of faith. I am also a person that believes science, including evolution and natural selection, is one more of the billion beautiful ways a person of faith might know God. However, my right as a parent and Christian educator is on the line to share this faith, as I believe, if science is refuted and faith-teaching seeps into our public schools. Some of our BoE representatives, perhaps faithful and well-meaning, are holding a gun to the heads and hearts of school children, and they need to back off.

These BoE representatives seek to first erode the understanding of evolution and natural-selection, so that the doors will be open to “teach” creation. The two stories (yes, two–re-read it!) found in the first chapters of Genesis are not teachable, much less can these stories stand up to the scientific method. These stories are share-able, wonder-able and inform our existential condition, but they are not science.

I am a Lutheran Christian. Martin Luther was a 16th century priest, teacher and monk, who had moments of brilliance and moments of gross misdirection. One of his more brilliant gifts to the people was access to the Bible. It was as if he found it one day on the side of the road, half-dead. He said, “Word, Word are you okay?” and performed Biblical CPR. He translated the Bible from Latin into the language of the people, and combined with the advent of the printing press gave the people a way to know for themselves the living Word of God.

<Brief Aside: If we find a person in our church half-dead we perform CPR and get the defibrillator and pray a lot as we send them off in an ambulance—all requiring brilliant SCIENTISTS!>

It is in this tradition, modern Lutherans, along with many other Christians, read these texts as a living document, that is both in conversation with itself and with us, as we live out our daily lives. It is not a static document that serves as a history book or a science text. It breathes. By putting the Bible in the same literary class as a text book, it will be deprived of the ability to live in the hearts of children.

These same children will also grow up at risk of not reaching their fullest intellectual potential. They are at risk of not fulfilling the needs and responsibilities to respond to the challenges our planet faces in the 21st century. They are at risk of not being able to learn accepted science. For me, however, the scariest risk is that they will come to believe that faith can be learned as if it is math, grammar, science or history.

I wonder if the real injustice has been going on right under our noses for years—centuries, even. We do not often pass along faith well. Children are often seen as ones to be seen and not heard, or beings to be molded into a certain way of thinking—instead of Imago Dei. It is as if their little minds can be opened, and we can pour in our dogma. This way of religious education has worked for centuries, but somehow it is breaking down in post-modern society. When children grow into adults that do not live in the faith of their parents or grandparents, it isn’t too surprising.

Faith is what is left after intellect, logic and reason have wrestled with dogma. Faith is the gift from God that lives in the human soul and cannot be separated from it. Sadly, when children are only taught static dogma, a living faith is not nurtured.

Traditional religious education has evolved from traditional educational models of presenting information and hoping for regurgitation. Compounding the problem, add the incredible market for Sunday School materials, Vacation Bible School materials, Christian music, books and web applications and you’ve encased religious education in cultural consumerism.

Wondering with children about faith, in a way that doesn’t provide “right and wrong” answers is risky. Presenting sacred stories in a way that points toward a universal human condition and not editorializing, is risky. Honoring our faith liturgies, as the work of a people, takes work. Deeply respecting the child’s individual relationship with God and their own spirituality takes work. But these risks and work are worth it, as we seek to grow faithful children that can respond to a broken world with both intellect and compassion. There are glimmers of hope that point our society toward new ways of growing spirituality in children, while nurturing the skills our society needs in the 21st century.

Science is teachable–faith is “wonder-able.” What if we left the teaching to the teachers of subjects that are teachable? What if we shared our faith in a living, breathing dialog of wonder and mystery? That is a radical movement—like a radish, rooted in the deepest traditions of faith. Stories are shared from the heart and relationships validated by mutual respect.

Faithful adults need to seek out the best ways to share faith with our children. Those ways will be as unique and varied as the faith beliefs themselves. As our children grow into adults to find cures for cancer, peace around the world and food for the starving, they will need to call upon the compassion of their faith and brilliant scientific minds to face these challenges. As the caring adults walking along the side of children, let’s share our faith in the home and church and empower schools to teach them science.