These past weeks have been a whirlwind. Even contemplative minded folks can get overwhelmed by the many demands of life and forget to pause, reflect and simply be. This has been my last few weeks in Spirit Play. There is so much to do. I have found that the change in our curriculum from our regular stories into reading books to the children is both sad to me and a relief. I feel none of us get as much out of the book reading as we do with our regular stories with objects to act them out. And, I have …
Today I got the pleasure and the honor of exploring Christian traditions of contemplation and meditation with a lovely group of women. One of the things we did was an active imagination contemplation on a passage from a gospel. I used Mark 6:53-56 which is a short passage whose language captured me a few months ago when I ran across it in my morning scripture readings.
…“Once they had crossed over to land, they landed at Gennesaret and dropped anchor. As soon as they had gotten out of the boat, people recognized him right away, and they ran around over
One persistent child has been asking for weeks
The Storyteller role in our classroom seems clear cut. There is a book with the ritual we use to open our class. The book contains the story. The Storyteller leads the class through the ritual and the story and dismisses children to their work.
But this role done well is an invitation into a different world. A good story draws you in so that for a moment, the story is your story, the message is spoken right into your soul. The telling is so important. We are working with our stories this year so that the content …
After traveling and Easter and spring break, I was back in my classroom this week. Our story was the “Life Cycle of the Human Being”. We looked at pictures of people in different stages of life and thought about how we weren’t two any more. All of us are much older than that now! We talked about all the many things we can do now that we couldn’t do when we were two. It’s a lot of things, even for those of us who are only three.
After our story we took time as we always do, to wonder together. …
This week in Spirit Play we told the story of Passover, which turned out to be about three stories in one. Before the story of celebrating Passover, we started with the story of Exodus. The story was highly condensed, giving mention to Joseph and then explaining that the Hebrew people became hated and then were made slaves. It talked about Moses being saved and growing up angry that his people were treated badly. It briefly told that Moses demanded of Pharaoh that the people be freed and when he finally said yes, how they walked through the water to safety.
Our story on Sunday was preparing the children for our merging of the waters ritual in the fall. We imagined where we might collect water this summer and we each poured our water into the gathering bowl saying in response, “This is the water of our community”. The children loved participating. They loved having their own water to pour. We also had an interesting conundrum in our opening liturgy.
One of the things we start class with is sharing our joys and sorrows. We pick a joy stone or a sorrow stone and put them on our scale and then …
Fall is here. School is underway.
And now our own school (RE) at Unity has begun. In teacher training this fall KP challenged us to bring our passions to our practice of teaching; to practice meeting the passions of our children, to risk being undone. A beautiful and sober invitation as we begin the year. At it’s heart we are called to prepare ourselves to be fully alive and fully in relationship to ourselves and the children we companion and witness in our classes. It is to be ready to be lit up like our flaming chalice. …
This Sunday we gathered to tell the story of the Unitarian Universalist ritual to celebrate and welcome babies into our community.
It was also the first Sunday that I got to try on the door teacher role. You have to know that I have been longing to sit at the door since I learned more about the philosophy underpinning it’s role; a loving witness. I value and honor the intention to physically embody the energy of threshold, safety and love that the door teacher assumes each week. I think it is vital that there are eyes there, simply and powerfully …
This Sunday in Spirit Play we told the story of Many Paths to the Mountain. It is a story about 5 travelers who are all traveling to the mountain, but are each convinced that their way is the only best way.
When they all reach the top, they celebrate and share stories of their many adventures. This year I have arranged my schedule so that I am able to attend worship and teach so when I came to class I had Rob’s sermon ringing in my mind. He preached on the story of Abraham bringing Isaac to the mountain to …