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First of all, let me begin by saying parts of this blog posting are recycled from a previous newsletter article. That is appropriate for Ash Wednesday: recycling. Somehow as we border on the great outdoors springing to new life, we focus today on the great cosmic bummer: we are going to die.

The church loves turning endings into beginnings and beginnings into endings. The worship spaces are full at Christmas, Easter and, surprising for me, today, Ash Wednesday. This ancient practice perhaps is one of the most universal faith practice. It is practiced across denominations and faiths–this smudging to try on death. It satisfies that universal existential wonder in a safe time and place.

It also shows a divine relationship: self, others, God and nature. Enlightened communities of faith are finally catching on to God’s call to have “dominion” over all the earth. Dominion is to be God-like: a faithful servant, a loving care-giver, one who cherishes. It seems we are just now getting this as faith communities: we are a part of a continually re-created ecosystem, and today is the high holy day for that understanding. How does our body, mind, soul and actions feed our environment? Today, we ponder our carbon thumbprint.

A great Austin educator and author, Donna Bryant Goertz, addresses a playground squabble of two children by calmly placing a hand on the shoulder of each and saying, “Two hurt children, one that has been hurt, and one that has done the hurting.”

The carbon thumbprint of the cross on our forehead , is that embrace between the hurt and one who has done the hurting: the created earth and the created child of God. This is done in the community of others; we mourn not only our own death, but each face we see. While it does stir wonders of mortality, it is the promise of peace, wholeness and resolution of a loving God. It is the re-marking of new life at the annointing of baptism. The same way a newly planted tree is fertilized with the sprinkling of ashes at its roots, we are reminded of our connection, reliance and responsibility to care for God’s creation of which we are fully part.

And Easter will bring a glorious Spring….

It is parable season. We have been enjoying over the past weeks the parables of Jesus in our Godly Play classes. While the six golden boxes equally cradle these parable gifts, the parable of the Good Shepherd somehow takes a special presence in the classroom.

The presentation blends Psalm 23 and John 10. The good shepherd leads each named and known sheep from the sheepfold, to the green grass and the cool clean water. If you sit at a certain spot in the circle, it looks like there is a dark place or face with no light in the eyes and a frown. The good shepherd carefully guides the sheep through the dark places and if any go astray will go anywhere to find them and bring them back to the sheepfold for a great rejoicing. The ordinary shepherd allows the sheep to wander and when the wolf comes, the ordinary one runs away.

This simple story has led thousands of children and adults to new insight and glimpses of a divine relationship: self, others, spirit and nature. The insight in the responses never fails to surprise me as a storyteller. Lately, I’ve been intrigued by a trend about the dark place that is very telling about our culture. Over the past three or so weeks, I’ve told this story to three different groups of children in two different countries.

The first group were older elementary children, the week of the airplane crash in the Hudson River with all passengers surviving. When our circle began to wonder about the dark places, they immediately connected the dark place as being back at the cool clean water. The cool was too cold; the calm surface was hard like concrete. The dark frowning face, for them that day, was an island of safety to cling to out of the chaos of the water.

The second group of children was in Honduras a few days later. When this group of children wondered about the dark places, their experiences were different than others I’d heard. One eight-year-old boy had a story about the dark place. He had accompanied some adults to the top of the mountain with the herd of cows, when the adults suddenly had to leave and he was alone to care for this whole group of cows. He expressed fear, but also pride in overcoming his fear and taking care of the herd.

The third group of children were three large classes of four and five-year-year olds. When these children wondered about the dark places, they had been afraid, but like the first group, not from primary experiences. No straying off a trail at the park, no slipping into the creek. Their fears were of movies they had seen and haunted houses they had been to at Halloween.

I wonder what this could really mean? I wonder if our children are robbed of the adventure and growth of the dark place, by our safe, sanitized culture. Joining the false security we wrap our children in, we allow them access to terrifying information (out of their control) in the guise of them knowing about their world.

It is hard to let them go off the trail, out of our grasp. I certainly don’t want children to be in real danger, but maybe enough to overcome some authentic obstacles and grow from it. I like the idea of the dark place being the quiet satisfied smile when the child grows from it, coming back to the shepfold with stories of appropriate adventure. Does the truly dangerous, dark places our adolescent children encounter come from a deep place of needing adventure or some self-discovery? Often times that dark place smiles, too, but in a sinister and inviting way.

Something to wonder about, to be sure. While I don’t think I’ll be leaving my seven-year-old on a hilltop with the herd of cows anytime soon, I might encourage the dark places to smile a bit.

I am so lucky in my line of work to sometimes get to hear spiritual insights from children. Sometimes it is a reflection of their consumer culture and television or sometimes a parroting of a “cultural Christianity” that infuses society. However, sometimes they make a connection that seems so clear and beautiful that comes from some deeper place of faith — a kind of refraction and knowing that we miss as adults. You don’t have to be a Child and Family Minister to have heard these wonders. This I encountered as a parent. This story was from my daughter and has no filters for political correctness, but does come from the purest affection and love between childhood friends.

Summer loves dolls and I bought a new baby doll to be baby Jesus in the manger at church for Christmas. Summer loves it and she can hardly stand for it to stay at church. She was carrying it around and taking it’s pink jumper off to don the requisite swaddling clothes.

She exclaimed, “Hey Mom, the baby’s name is printed on the back!”

I looked, and replied, “No, it is not a name. It says ‘MADE IN CHINA.'”

Summer was quiet a long time and we carry the baby out to adjust the hay in the stable. After a little bit, Summer asked, “Mom, where was Hallie made?”

I reply, “Well, Hallie was born in China.”

After a long stretch of silence (so much, I’d really forgotton what we were talking about.) Summer responds with a awe-filled voice, “Mom, baby Jesus and Hallie were made in the same place!”

I reply, “Yes, Summer, they were.”

It made me think that the nativity story is about the greatest adoption story seldom celebrated: Joseph. I also celebrate with my friends on December 22, the day they laid eyes on their forever daughter, Hallie, now seven. I listen to adoption stories, with the same wonder as I listen to birth stories. We get caught up in the wonder of the Christmas birth story, but this year I’m in love with the adoption story.

This very moment the plastic baby Jesus from China is lying in a manger in front of our church. There is a fake sheep and some hay, but no mother, no father. The original intent was to be a fun place for children to sit and pretend. We thought we’d bring the baby in at night, so it doesn’t get stolen. Then we realized it is part of the Christmas mystery to leave it alone and cold, with empty seats beside it. Maybe it is a kind of surrogate warmth for our resident homeless to hold through the night. Maybe it will be stolen, and find it’s forever home. I hope people driving by will be appalled and asked, “Who is going to take care of that baby?”

My seven-year-old had a very convincing argument this evening, the Saturday before Advent begins. She believes we should unpack some of our Christmas decorations, or at the very least, the Advent wreath and calendar. She wisely (she knows my weakness) reasons that we will need to rest tomorrow on the Sabbath, so we should certainly get ready to “get ready” tonight.

It must be hard to have a mom like me. Ever since I read To Dance With God years ago, I have looked at Advent differently.

Lutherans are a lectionary church community that celebrates seasons. This way of celebrating the cycle of the church year is an aspect of faith in and of itself. It is poetic. The early church adopted the tradition akin to celebrating the Roman emperor’s birthdays as holidays and a Pagan recognition of the lengthening of days after the longest night of the year. If you can’t beat them, steal their rituals as your own. Thus Christmas was born. (If we find clues of when Jesus was really born, it most likely would be Spring, when the shepherds would have been in the fields.)

However, I’m not proposing we throw out the baby or the bath water. Two thousand years of church history has given us the gift of revisiting and ritualizing the most baffling mysteries of our faith, year after year: God came to live among us, God was killed at the hand of humankind, God conquered death and still loves us no matter what. These mysteries probably don’t sell cards for Hallmark.

So if Christmas is our collective recall of the Word born a wordless child, Advent is pregnancy. You can’t rush pregnancy, without dire consequences. Pregnancy is about wonder, waiting and surprise. It takes a long time. Advent is our faith community’s way to pretend together we don’t know what God’s face will look like, or when God will come, or what color God’s hair will be. But wait—we don’t. We really don’t KNOW–our gifts of Advent are faith and hope. Like pregnancy, we can’t rush faith and hope.

Okay, don’t tell my seven-year-old, but I’ve already been sneaking around trying to get ready for Advent. However, my attempts have failed. My simple task was to find blue candles for our Advent wreath. I went to Garden Ridge a few weeks ago. The nutcrackers were plentiful and 50% off. I’d say 80% of the store was Christmas: wreaths, lights, aisles of ornaments. Feathered birds are big this year. I saw pool-ball ornaments, Disney princess ornaments, an array of dog and cat ornaments. The nativity aisle was downright cheesy. There were many white, red and green candles. But no blue (or even purple and rose) candles for our Advent wreath. No market.

Is Advent extinct? Is there no commercial gain in the secular world for Advent? Can our culture not even embrace the lessons of delayed gratification in waiting?

So on the first Sunday of Advent, the children remember the prophets. They were angry men (and probably women) who stomped on their soap boxes: “Pay attention to what we are waiting for!!!” Stay awake!” You are missing the angels in the sky for the TV specials, the wild star outshone by the strings of lights, the baby in the manger for the line at the mall!

Oh faithful ones, I’m sure I’m singing to the choir. I’ll step off my soapbox. We’ll skip our Sabbath nap tomorrow and get out the Advent wreath.

I’ve taken a short detour through Facebook. More on that later–onward to Advent.

October 19–Have you ever seen the stars? I mean really seen the them, like Abraham saw the them? Last night and the night before last I laid down in the middle of the road at 9 o’clock at night with many other friends on a church camping trip to Big Bend National Park. You cannot believe the stars. Jupiter was as bright as a candle. We could both see the Milky Way as a fuzzy band across the sky, but we are also a part of the Milky Way galaxy. We could see our neighboring Andromeda galaxy through binoculars. (That really changes the question, “Who is my neighbor?”) We couldn’t even begin to count the stars, or answer the children questioning, “How many are there?” It changes God’s promise to Abraham to truly see the stars.

Tonight I’m home from the wilderness of Big Bend, and I have visited my backyard. The sky here is boring: a few determined stars and some airplanes. If this was the only sky I knew to understand God’s promises, how much would I miss? Please, take your children to the wilderness and look up!

October 5, 2008–Today’s Gospel text was Matthew 21:33-46. To set the stage, Jesus is in Jerusalem the last week of his life. He is preaching in the Temple and is continuing a series of parables with a strong theme of rejection. People have been given something wonderful, and they waste it, don’t recognize it or somehow mess up the situation. The theme is fairly consistent that the people appearing to not be the rightful receipients of the gift are the ones that welcome it with joy.

This series of parables ends with Jesus recalling the Psalms118:22-23 text: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes.”While I’m not a Greek scholar, my NRSV says he goes on to describe this “cornerstone” as something that could be tripped over or something that would fall on you.

In Michael Yardley’s Architecture History class in the early 1990’s, he mentioned something as he described one of the most influential architectural leaps of ancient architecture: the Roman keystone. The ancient word for keystone was used interchangebly with cornerstone. The Roman keystone, or capstone, was the perfectly hewed stone that carried the load, by compression, for the arch and the load above it. This innovation allowed for spans to increase, allowed for aquaducts, great gates and walls to spread across the land with the Roman army and culture. It gained common use increasingly in the time of Jesus and the technology exploded with spinning the arch on it’s axis to form a dome as early as the first century AD.

The description of the cornerstone in the Psalms text was most surely our traditional (to lay a straight course) understanding of it, for the keystone technology would not be familiar at that time. But in the time of Jesus, the keystone would be as innovative and talked about as the Eiffel Tower, Falling Water, Bird Nest or Water Cube–but it was Roman. It symbolized the pop-power culture of the time. So I wonder if Jesus was speaking of this “cornerstone” as not just one low down, to be tripped on, but maybe as one that is both carrying and distributing the load? What would that really mean then?

I wonder if God can be both the creative spirit in the very foundational structures of the universe and still somehow be working, holding things together? Or maybe it is not that gradiose. Maybe this was a social statement, to not be so enamored with the newest technology, culture and innovation, so as to forget our core principles of humanity: love God, love God’s creation. Or maybe this was truly a carpenter’s commentary on building materials or a foretelling of the Temple’s pending fall. What do you think?

Today, some children (Sanctuary class) and I played with this story. We built a Roman arch with some beautiful blocks designed just for this purpose. The slate floor didn’t make a very even surface, but we got it together. When we removed the scaffolding, and the arch held, there was a gasp. They believed it would work, but I don’t know if they really knew it would work. Somehow all the “what-ifs” just didn’t matter. The wonder didn’t come when it all came tumbling down–the wonder was that it held up.

For October 5, 2008-This Sunday, we hear one of the all time favorite children’s stories–not just Bible stories, but all stories. In addition to this wonderful story, our church will welcome the scaly, furry and feathered for our annual Blessing of the Animals.

The story of the flood, the ark and Noah has been embraced by artists, movie-makers (Steve Carrell and Morgan Freeman among my favorites) and designers of coffee-cups, nursery linens and just about everything–the sacred and secular alike. What makes this story so interesting? Is it just the cute animals? Is it the curiosity and plausibility of “who cleans out the cages” and “how did they all fit”?

Some respected theologians argue that it is not a story for children. It is just too catastrophic, and children should not be exposed to such a scary expression of God’s wrath.

Is that our view of children? That they should be kept insulated from God? That they are insulated from all other scary things in life, and should not have access to expressions of fear, hope and promise? The sad reality is that all children live in a world that is potentially scary. They don’t cross over at some point to sharing with all other people the fears and wonders of life, but have those from infancy as a mark of our shared humanity.

Bible stories, when presented in wonder, mystery and honesty provide children with valuable access to tools. These tools help children to ascribe their fears to something safe and distant from themselves, play around with it, and then incorporate a new understanding in their own life. I would even go on to say we all access Bible stories this way. Somehow, though, children seem to be naturally insulated and be able to ignore the part they don’t need to hear or deal with at that time. While I would never suggest children should be exposed to something fundamentally inappropriate, I do wonder if children have a healthy sense of selective listening skills. Their “listening ears” can hear what information they can process with their current tool kit or for current problems.

This concept is fundamental to Godly Play. We tell children the hard stories, but in a safe way. The Flood and Ark story is an excellent example of that. Most children when asked “where are you in this story” are very safe and sound on the ark. It is the happy yellow submarine, complete with the most amazing selection of pets.

One of the most memorable responses I got from that question still haunts me. One little boy in our preschool class many years ago was clearly struggling. Whether it was home-life, having the new responsibilities of kindergarten or what was truly troubling him, I was not privy to–for I only saw him for one hour a week in Godly Play. When I asked the group, “where are you” I got the typical responses, until he spoke. “I’m under the water,” he shared. This story was an avenue for him to verbalize a deep fear and a feeling of being overwhelmed. The fear existed before the story, and was expressed after the story.

Somehow, the cuteness of the story is irrelevant.

September 28, 2008–All of our Sunday School classes are focused on a creation story. Some focused on the Creation (Genesis 1) story, some on the Adam and Eve story, some both stories side by side, and still our oldest children heard about the creation or beginning of our church, St. Martin’s.

The two creation stories found in Genesis don’t necessarily explain each other. They sit there side-by-side, and many, if not most, people don’t say “What’s up with this?” I don’t know how folks deal with this when debating Evolution theory textbooks, but I digress… Once again, children seem to be perfectly comfortable with these two stories being held together.

Among the many jewels in each story, if I took a favorite pearl from each, they would be this: when God looked upon creation, God saw it was good and we are created in God’s image, to have dominion of the earth. So it is established in Genesis 1, that God liked this creation, so much so, on the seventh day God rested. Probably laid in a hammock for a few million years smiling about how wonderful it is. God loves each bouncing atom, smiling face, gurgling volcano.

And then we go on to find out we are made to be LIKE God–imago dei. So much so, we have dominion or in other words, are to be God-like over the creation. The precedent is already set, what it means to be God-like—to love, to care, to revere, to rest over this wonderful creation. Each bouncing atom, smiling face, gurgling volcano and you. As this great big story unfolds, God’s people learn what that really means.

How have we responded in our classes to caring for God’s Creation? Our Godly Play classrooms have been “green” as we can be for about five years. We use reusable cups and cloth napkins. This action was taken after a child noticed how much trash we put in our trashcan after one “Feast.”

It is these types of responses I live for in a circle of children learning about God. These types of responses are the surprises, the ah-ha’s that take your breath away and shift your paradigm. “Bouncing on the bread and swimming in the wine” was a response by a five-year-old boy to the wondering question “where are you in this story?” The story before us was the Godly Play story, the Faces of Easter. The card he pointed to was the picture of Jesus at the last supper.

The picture doesn’t appear to have any dancing, bouncing or swimming. The looks on the faces before us aren’t especially joyful. But somehow, the boy saw himself in that painting, and he was joyful, playful–bouyant even. So much for unleavened bread, not much bounce.

The truth was the little boy’s life wasn’t too rosy either. His mom was recovering from emergency brain surgery. His worry over what he knew and what he felt like he should know, showed on his face in the weeks prior to this response. His little friends in the circle around him prayed fervently and out loud for the mom. They gave him a break on the playground, in the lunch line–they took care of him. However, this day mom was better, definitely on the road to recovery. It felt lighter, the air, that day.

So his comment shouldn’t have blindsided me like it did, but I love these blindsides. This response, and similar amazing words from children, seems to point directly toward God–just as God says “peek-a-boo.” There seems to be an ability, seemingly unique to the childlike, to place the hard stuff of life and the joyful play of life together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

This past summer, Souls, Young and Old, at Play and in Story gathered at a like-named international conference in Berkeley, California. Presenter and theologian, Dr. Rebecca Nye, compared her concept of the “reflective soul” and the “refractive soul.” She offered that when presented with concepts spiritual, perhaps children “refract” instead of “reflect.” Those who sit beside children learning religious language, walk beside children in the woods or rest beside them reading a bedtime story could probably support this hypothesis. They can blindside us with their (refracted) insight.

So maybe that is why Jesus mentioned welcoming children at least eight times in the Gospels. If we could somehow be like them or at the very least welcome them, maybe we could have just a bit of this playful clarity. Maybe we wouldn’t think of God as either the commanding puppeteer pulling our strings or the disassociated Creator, watching this creation spin out of control. Maybe we could join the game of peek-a-boo? Maybe we too could bounce on the bread and swim in the wine.