Who Speaks for Wolf?

Here's the layout for a new story that could be categorized as a 6th Source Story (earth-centered traditions) or a 7th Principle Story (respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part). I don't know that it would be right to classify it as a 3rd Source Story (world religions) because I am having trouble finding out if it is authentic to any one Native American tribe or region. This brought up a new issue for me, and that was looking at the Spirit Play story selection and presentation through an anti-racist, anti-oppression, and multicultural lens. That's new for me, so I don't have any fully formed ideas to share yet, just a notion that that habit would be helpful.

That said, here's the layout. The text of this story appears on the training CD

I have been messing around with the scroll saw a bit, and made this wolf figure to use instead of the suggested, though that one is quite nice and inexpensive. I like how my figure turned out a lot, but the scale is wrong with the people across the river (which come from the Powhotan people TOOB). That bothers me some. It seems as if it could be a distraction, and would inhibit acting out the story in a way that illustrates a more authentic interaction between humans and animals. (The resin toy suggested in the story is too big, too, so I think the whole layout would have to be reimagined to solve this problem.)

Also, one change I made from the suggested layout was to make the wolf's land look more lush and large than the people's. I think that helps drive home the point that the people coveted the wolf's territory, and that animals truly do need bigger and wider spaces than people do to live out their lives in a natural way.

I'll be interested to see how the children play with this set. It will be a good opportunity for me to focus on a practice that I was recently reminded of, and that is to carefully observe and record the children in their learning work and to make any needed changes to draw out the meaning and level of engagement.

Edited to add: The special work choice that we used for this story is here.

Play Silks!

I have wanted play silks for NINE years, since my oldest child was born. I was newly teaching at a little progressive school, and in searching out inspiration for classroom materials I stumbled into the Waldorf methods. You know where this is going. The soft, pastel wool. The nature tables. The solid wood. And of course, the flowing, brightly colored play silks. It's all so intoxicating, isn't it? Whether or not the method speaks to you, I have yet to meet someone who didn't fairly swoon at the set-up.

And truly, what they say about play silks is true. Kids do engage with them imaginatively, cleverly, and on many levels. They're great for kids with sensory needs. They're different from what most kids have at home, and so draw them in. And they're surprisingly durable. And for the Spirit Play classroom, they can be used

• in the church corner, as an altar play-thing;
• as dress-up clothes;
• as an underlay for certain stories; and
• as costume elements for skits.

But dang, are they expensive. It was one of those things where I always went to buy them, then said to myself, I can do that on my own for cheaper, then realized how much was involved in doing it for myself, then walked away to think about it another day. Nine years. Oy.

So, now motivated by making a set of silks for not only my own kids but the whole religious education program worth of kids, I did it!

Here's the process I used. I followed the instructions faithfully. If you don't feel like going to that link just yet, I'll tell you that the materials I needed were the plain white scarves, three primary color dyes, six mason jars, white vinegar, plastic measuring spoons, six wooden chopsticks, a big pot, and three small plastic cups.

Here are my jars a'boilin'.

And here are the silks. Aren't they yummy? The tie-dye effect was unintentional, and to tell truth, it works better on some of the silks than others. (Purple and peach it looks nice, green and yellow not so much, blue and pink I haven't decided.) But what happened was that I dyed large silks--30" ones--and they got bunched up a bit in the mason jars. I think next time, I'd either use bigger non-reactive containers for the large square scarves (such as half-gallon mason jars) or use the quart mason jars but make the dye a bit more concentrated and fill the jars higher with the solution. But this was my first time dying anything, so know that I'm offering my own trial-and-error methodology but no expertise.

So here is the breakdown of resources purchased. All materials were bought at Dharma Trading Co.

(6) 30" square silks for $4.85 each, totaling $29
acid dyes in primary colors of Caribbean blue, Deep magenta, and Sunflower yellow, totaling around $16
shipping was something like $8

That's $52 in materials. I had the big pot and the mason jars, but a 12-pack of mason jars cost about $12 if you had no glass or other non-reactive containers to work with. So we'll add that in and say we're up to $64.

It took me about 2 1/2 hours start to finish to make them.

So, for $64 and 2 1/2 hours, I got a nice set of silks to use for, naturally, open play in the Spirit Play classroom, but also for children's chapel altar decoration, as costume elements for the holiday pageant, and props and aids for games and other structured activities (the way bandanas are used in summer camps and youth cons and such).

 

Buying these online, I would have spent $96 or so, with six silks plus shipping. So right off the bat, that's a saving of $32. But it's still a rather expensive material, right? So here's what we can do. Make the materials stretch. You only use one tiny 1/2 tsp. of 2 oz. of dye. In other words, you have a ton left.

Ideas for the remainder of the dye:

Tie-dye church t-shirts that you all can wear to social justice and social witness events to represent your church.

Buy an extra set of scarves and dye them as teacher gifts (for about $5 per gift)

Gather some DRE friends and go in together on the dye materials and mason jars. With just one DRE friend, you can cut the total expenses by $18, so $46 for each of you rather than $64.

Set up all the materials yourself up at the church and invite congregants who want play silks at home to come and pay a small fee--maybe the price of the silk plus a few dollars. You could then show them how to use the silks for play and worship at home.

You could purchase extra silks or baby onesies or t-shirts to dye with the youth group and sell the finished products as a fundraiser. You could even get slightly fancy and stamp a chalice onto the garment using fabric ink or paint for a UU specific crowd.

Once we get these in the classroom and start using them, I'll post back again with pictures of specific uses.

Mustard Seed Medicine layout

Whew! Six months later, I've finally finished up the Mustard Seed Medicine story. First, here it is:

Particulars:

The story is made from wood and felt. The figures are cut from 3/4 inch pine board, and the Buddha's house is cut from a 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch piece of oak. Painted with water colors, wood-burned features, and Mod Podge sealer.

The houses are just two felt rectangles with the top one having a door-shaped rectangle cut out, and then the two layers stitched all around. (They likely could have been glued for a no-sew option, but I like the look of sewing.) I worked with the house design a lot, but it seemed as if the more clever and engaging I tried to get with the house designs, the more distracting they were from the characters and the flow of the story. Simple and repetitive was definitely the way to go. Still, something nice about these houses is that you can tuck the figures into them, so in that house in the upper left, you can keep the green neighbor in the house until the mother comes to ask for the mustard seed, and then have the neighbor come out the door to talk.

This story is written up beautifully on the Spirit Play training CD, and this layout works well with that text.

Tools and Supplies:

This presentation was pretty tools-intensive. I used a scroll saw, a Dremel tool, a sewing machine, sandpaper and a big set of watercolor paints. Supplies, however, were cheap. The full pine board was $9 for, I think, 10" by 8'? The 3/4" oak piece was 7' long and was about $7. I used probably 20% of both of the quantities of wood, so let's call that $3. The felt was $5/yard, and the quantities I needed to buy in order to get the big white shape meant 1 1/2 yards total of fabric. I used my handy-dandy 40% off coupon from JoAnn's, so that was maybe $3.50.

If you didn't have tools available to you, you could glue or hand-stitch the houses, use wooden peg people (simply painted in muted colors would be nice), and use long, thin felt pieces for Buddha's open-sided house. That would keep the story still under $10.

I'm back! Baby boy and buying felt

Yay! I'm back to church after my summer furlough and maternity leave.

This was shortly before baby boy was born:

And here's baby boy a few days ago:

There. So now you are caught up! I've been back to work for two Sundays and was cheered to find that the Spirit Play classroom was clipping along with a schedule and activities that were working nicely. I hope this is the year that we can hold a retraining. My great hope is to present it to teachers and parents alike, pitching it as a classroom and homeschool/home worship method.

Meanwhile, I made use of a few JoAnns coupons and stocked up on underlay felt.

 This is something I have learned in the past year, to have on hand single yards of 72" recycled plastic felt--brand Ecofelt--in various colors, which JoAnn's sells for $4.99 a yard. Each yard yields 2 full 36" circular underlays, with ample scraps for other story elements. The neutral colors turned out to be the most useful, though the purple and dark blue are nice, too. Some of the bright colors that we thought we would end up color-coding with the rainbow Promise stories were just to hard to look at under the fluorescent lights of the classrooms, so we're moving away from that.

A story for home

Last fall, my two boys, 5 and 8, and I read Sophia Lyon Fahs' From Long Ago and Many Lands as our bedtime stories for a few weeks. We'd read one or two a night, sometimes doing the Judith Frediani questions at the end, sometimes not. Favorites emerged right away, but what surprised me was how a handful of stories really stuck with them; they'd bring them up months later, and correct each other on the specifics of their retellings.

One of those stories was "Mustard Seed Medicine." In it, a mother has a cherished and beloved son who, at the age of 4, dies. She brings the boy's body to the Buddha, who tells her that he knows the cure to her suffering. He tells her to go gather from her neighbors mustard seeds. The catch, though, is that the mustard seeds must come from a house where no one has been touched by death. In going through this exercise, the mother realizes the sad truth that no one--not one of her neighbor's lives--has not been touched by death in some way. It was not some mystical mustard seeds that brought her relief but the knowledge that this kind of terrible and deep sorrow is part of being human.

So, I began work today on some story pieces to make that story into a story basket for us to have here at home.

That's the mother figure on the left, then her young son, the Buddha, and one neighbor character.

I am learning how to do wood burning and paint on wood with watercolors, too, for this purpose. This was an early attempt.

I envision making a few little houses, too, to represent the neighbors' homes, and one house that opens to hold the Buddha and then the mother and son when they come to him.

Here's my idea of how to facilitate the going from house to house (using a house I had around, from "The Stranger's Gift" set).

In the Fahs version, the mother carries her dead son's body around, physically carrying out the mental anguish of not being able to "let go." I think this might best be represented with a two-sided figure of the son, one side (shown above) being featureless and washed out. My own children were most fascinated by the death of the child (and second most fascinated by the fact that none of the neighbors had not known death), so I really want a way for children to be able to work through that idea--living boy on one side, dead boy on the other, living boy on one side, dead boy on the other. And I plan to have a proper row of houses so the point can really be brought home that family after family after family confronts, deals with, and moves through the death of a loved one.

"How Stories Began" material-making

So, this was a super fun evening.

Here are a few of the materials I've been working on for the Wonder and Awe Source story, "How Stories are Made." The lesson plans call for a scroll, a stone tablet made of clay, and a picture of cave paintings. But, this being Arkansas, rocks of all kinds are plentiful. So, I found a tablet-shaped stone and a cave wall-shaped rock and got to painting. The stone tablet was too wee for me to do real writing on, but the scroll, which is made from a small strip of white fabric glued around two thin dowel pieces, has the real Paleo-Hebrew alphabet written on it. (The alphabet ends at the 5th line, and after that I just copied random letters.) And the cave painting designs come from real cave paintings.

My kids, 5 and 8, grabbed these up along with the peg people shepherds that go with them (painted, but not yet sealed) and the tissue-paper LED light fire (which is just so cool, and was inspired by this type, but smaller).

See, this is why I love this work so much. I spent an evening researching cool topics, painting, crafting, and playing, I get paid a little bit for it, and my boys are totally into it.

Not baskets, but boxes

The UU church in Plano, Texas uses plastic boxes in their classrooms instead of open baskets. I acquired some plastic boxes to try this out.

This is what I like about them:

• They are easy to clean
• They are easy to label
• They stack neatly and compactly on the shelf
• They are easy to transport around the room/church
• They close up, which might help all the pieces from any one story stay together
• They are inexpensive and easy to find at any big box store
• They seem very durable

 This is what I like about baskets:

• They are visually attractive individually and laid out side by side on the shelves
• They are made from natural materials
• They are open, inviting of interaction
• They come in many sizes, and being open on top, fit many materials without squishing
• If you don't insist that all your baskets match, they are inexpensive and easy to find at the thrift store

Here was my first run at using a plastic box. My main reason for wanting to try this was that labeling the baskets and keeping pieces together was a challenge this year. Also, the teachers suspected that the children did not interact much with the stories because they didn't remember which was which. I'm not sure we're going to want to switch over all the baskets, but I was thinking it might work to group the stories in baskets and plastic boxes. In this case, the "How Stories Began" story, which is listed as a Source story--Wonder and Awe--could be one of several Source stories all kept in plastic boxes and grouped together on one shelf, at least while we try out this new way of storing and organizing stories.

Our Sanctuary story, as built by Leah, age 11

I was tidying up in the Spirit Play classroom a few weeks ago and I came across a shoebox with the words "UUFF Sanctuary Lesson" written on top with colorful markers. Intrigued, I opened the box and took out what was inside.

It was a story, cut from felt, glued together in some places and pinned together in others. There was a small basket nearby full of little flat wooden people, who had also been colored in rainbow-hued markers.

I asked one of the teachers about it yesterday and it turns out that on the day that the children were learning about the church corner, and taking a tour of the sanctuary, Leah wanted to make as her work creating a story to go with this lesson. This is her church. These are her people. She left the story to keep on the shelf with all the others that have been told this year, and maybe to be told again next year.

I am stunned, amazed, and very, very happy.

A Stone Soup connection

So, I get a little excited sometimes on Saturday afternoons, before a Sunday storytelling.

And I shared the picture of the Stone Soup layout on Facebook with this caption:

Telling the story of Stone Soup tomorrow. Like many folks, I've known this story for years and years. But I think until I was preparing to share it with the children, I didn't really *feel* the themes. I thought it was a story about sharing a little light trickery. But it is also a story about the haves and the have-nots. And about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Changing ways of perceiving what is enough for one's self and one's clan, and then looking into the neighbor's bowl to see if there is enough there, too. (And then, expanding the idea of who is a neighbor.) Glad to have spent some time with this tale, and looking forward to it being on the shelves to tell again and again in the years to come!

And do you know that a UU minister friend of mine in Tulsa shared it with another friend who was opening up a food justice organization in Tulsa called...Stone Soup Community Venture? And this friend wrote me and asked if she could share my picture and post!

HOW COOL IS THAT? 

I am just tickled at having made this connection, and at the hope that the picture and snippet of text might pique one or two people's interest on her Facebook page enough to "like" and follow her work.

Stone Soup Layout

I want to talk a little bit about the process of putting together a story, as this one came together in what has become a fairly typical way.

But there was one big anomaly with this, and that was the the inspiration for it came from a minister. I have never in this position worked with a minister before, but there is a ministerial candidate in town and we've been collaborating a bit on the Time for All Ages for this Sunday, and it parlays nicely into the Stone Soup story.

So, step one was getting a bird's eye view on the Sunday offerings in worship and RE, collaborating with those who are co-creating worship to understand how the various parts were intended to fit together.

Then, step two was choosing a Spirit Play story to integrate into that. It has helped immensely to take the time this year to get to know the stories, and to seek out new stories with an eye toward Spirit Play development.

Step three was to spend a little time with the story, really getting a feel for the themes and the wonderings and what kinds of materials would make the story really sing to the children.

So, with a better understanding of what I wanted to happen with the telling of the story, I set to work making, finding, and putting together materials. That was step four.

I have a ready store of the recycled-plastic-bottle felt that you can get at the craft store for about $5 a yard (sometimes less if it's on sale). I cut out a 36" indigo circle to reinforce that this is an indigo promise story, "Insist on fair and equal treatment for all." (Working the promises into the culture of the classroom hasn't been as strong as it might have been this year, so when it doesn't detract from the overall presentation, I've been trying to color-code the underlay to the promise.) And I made the felt grass.


I should add that this layout draws heavily from the one pictured in the "Stone Soup" story on the Spirit Play training CD, with only a few small changes.

I also have a ready store of peg people, so I knew I wanted to use them for the villagers. I wanted the travelers to look distinct, and I borrowed a couple of doll house people for them. This also allowed me to vary the gender of the travelers, since they are almost always two or three men int the stories.

Between the 36" circle and the people, I had a rough scale set, so I created from a small piece of 1/2" poplar wood I had here at home a set of wooden houses that would more or less fit with the villagers. The color palette was chosen to jibe with the mostly earthy and bright colors of the food that would be added to the pot--the red of a red pepper, the green of a head of cabbage, the yellow of corn, the red of a ripe tomato, etc.

I already had a set of wooden food to use for this Sunday's telling, but I found a set of fairly affordable Melissa and Doug wooden vegetables that I plan on buying for the program to live in this story basket.

My boys helped me find stones they liked for the soup pot.

And the soup pot itself isn't quite as quaint as the small iron skillet of my own that I was going to use, but it fit the bill, being the right size, without a handle, and with a lid. I had envisioned perhaps finding an iron or enameled one at the thrift store, but alas, not this time. Serendipitously, though, I found a large Ziploc bag at the thrift store full of fake bread. There is a part in the story about how the bread appears at the end of the soup's cooking, and is shared along with the rest of the meal. So, a few loaves will be with this story, and a few will go into the Bread Communion story basket.

That's another thing nice about really getting familiar with the stories you have or want to tell--you can have a running mental list of supplies to be on the lookout for at thrift stores and garage sales. I do this because I love it, but I'd love even more to share this delightful task with a steady volunteer who can double our chance of finding cool supplies and cut in half the time any one person spends doing it! Also, could you imagine what a rich partnership that would be for two people, carrying around all these stories for a year, discussing how to build them and why, and actively completing them so they could be shared?

Step 5 was putting all the materials together and practicing the story with them, doing rewrites and adaptations as you do. When I'm pretty confident that I am familiar enough to tell the story with confidence and a few glances at the paper to stay on track, and that I know which pieces to pick up when and where to put them on the underlay, I fold it up and wait for the delivery day. (I also have a ready story of thrift-store baskets, all purchased for $3 or less, and usually a little smaller than the size of a lunchroom tray.)

Step 6 is making a label for the basket, the symbol label on one side, the name of the story on the other.

And if this was going to be a classroom story, step 7 would be to find a place for it on the shelves and possibly create a new work choice to accompany it.

Working on the last new story of the year...

Can you guess what it is?

Yes! Stone Soup!

In the Spirit Play training materials, I remember the suggestion that a congregation discern carefully and joyfully together which stories were important for it to tell its children. I was so daunted by this--I don't know that many stories! The new RE committee is very unsure about the whole idea of Spirit Play! The congregation upstairs just wants me to do what I think is best and get on with it! Ack!

Well, I found out it takes a little time. This year, I read a lot of stories. But I did it over a year. And at the end of this year, we have a few of the core stories, we have a few stories that seemed fun and seasonal and appropriate to the whole-church theme at the time, and we have a few Very Important stories to tell at this particular congregation. Stone Soup, I think, is going to be one of the latter., with its themes of welcoming the stranger and coming together to share even a small bounty with love and gratitude.

I learned a lot about putting story baskets together, too. I so enjoyed experimenting with different materials, establishing consistent "feels" and "looks" to the elements of any particular story, and trying to think hard about what exactly I was hoping each piece would do in the story, as well as how children might interact with them. I am happy about the little collection we now have. It feels good to have a year's worth of work sitting on the shelves, waiting for the next batch of kids.

Alas, I am not sure of the future of this method at this congregation. More parents than not--including two of the most active RE parents--did not care for the method, and their children said as much, too. The RE committee doesn't love it. The teachers enjoy it, but feel a little unsure in their delivery. I think part of that is because there was a giant conflict in our program at the beginning of this year, and the entire RE program fell apart for a little while. That meant that I didn't have the resources to support the Spirit Play teachers in the ways I had wanted to, namely with frequent meetings-of-the-minds and mini-training sessions and regular combing through the supplies and stories and work choices to improve and maintain. We haven't quite rebounded yet in terms of volunteerism, and I don't have the hours to--and even question the wisdom of--trying to carry it forward alone. So, as a classroom offering, its near future is unknown. I'm mourning that some. I had hoped others here would catch the bug as I did, and really want to run with the possibilities. But that didn't quite happen, at least not this year.

Still, I've gotten a great response using it upstairs in multigenerational services. And it's working really, really well for me in Children's Chapel. Plus--and any teacher-parent can tell you this--my own kids like it a lot, which is very motivating for me. I have found myself integrating it into our homeschooling, and that's been a lot of fun.

My employment ends mid-May for the summer, and there is no one willing or able to take on what I think would be the most delightful task of organizing and tidying up our Spirit Play shelves and classroom, making labels for all the baskets, writing up a budget and plan for new or improved work choices, etc. Likely, I'll chip away at these tasks myself when I return in August, or see if I can delegate small, well-defined pieces of this job.

Either way, I'm looking forward to a summer spent with more stories, more woodworking, and of course, more baskets!

Story-in-progress: The Stranger's Gift

I'm working on a new story, one that I'm telling as a Time for All Ages to the whole congregation tomorrow, but that I'd like to reinforce by bringing into the Spirit Play classroom. I like this flow a lot, either starting with a story downstairs and bringing it up, or vice versa. Reinforcement of good ideas with repetition, telling the same story in multiple forms, and presenting the same material to adults and children are all good ways to build cohesion and community.

This story is sometimes called "The Stranger's Gift." It's a traditional wisdom tale with no known source. In it, a stranger comes to a troubled, angry, quarrelsome town and shares the information that the messiah is one of them. The people are intrigued and excited by this news, and on the off chance that anyone they meet might be the messiah, they begin to treat each other with reverence, love, and respect. The stranger moves on, and no one ever finds out who the messiah is--or if the rumor the stranger started was even true--but the miracle is that the people themselves were able to transform their town with the way they shared the common purpose of spreading kindness.

For my story, I'm changing messiah to "an enlightened one," but otherwise keeping many of the details the same. I'm sharing it for the first of two sermons preached by the ministerial candidate, hoping that the congregation finds lots to work with in the ideas above.

Here are the story elements-in-the-works:

Wall wrap-around

The day has come! We have run out of shelf space and are now lining the walls with stories!

The stories go down this wall and wrap around the one behind where I'm taking the picture. I think they've heard 16 stories this year?

Our classrooms are small, so only the narrowest bookshelves fit with enough room for kids and teachers. This seemed like a perfectly workable solution to end the year out. At first, I was worried the stories would get stepped on or jostled about too much, without a clear "place" or "cubby" that they belonged in. But not so! The children adapted to this arrangement quickly, and since there are more soft and gentle in their movements in this room anyway, it turns out my fears were unfounded.  One new challenge is finding a way to label the baskets; we had settled on affixing the label to the shelf in front of the basket, but that doesn't work quite as well on carpet.

The story of the Exodus and Passover

Oh, how I wanted to make a video to show you this story! Alas, I was not able to get it together in time. Hopefully, pictures throughout will help show the flow of story elements. I'll share a link, too, to the Haggadah (the text of the Exodus story told ceremoniously throughout the Passover Seder, to move the meal along and keep the story alive) that we'll be basing ours on this Sunday, though I will tell you that it is being shortened quite a bit by our guest Children's Chapel leader, Chava. If she shares with me her final text in digital form, I'll paste it up here.

So! On to the story.

*****

Exodus and the Passover Seder

Jewish and Christian Heritage Source Story

Designed for small, mixed-age group (4-12)

Overview: This is a general story of the Exodus of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, with the specifics of the plagues omitted for age-appropriateness for the youngest members. A nice follow-up to this story is an experience of an actual Passover Seder, with the reading of a Haggadah, the experience of which will close the session for the day. The focus of this story is on the journey to freedom and the remembrance of that journey.

Materials:

 For story:

                   
 Basket with Judeo-Christian symbol

 Brown or beige underlay, long rectangle

 House with unmarked door on one side, red-marked door on other  side  

 Several people together that illustrate “traveling” on one side, and gathering for a 
      meal on the other
Pyramids to indicate the desert

A representation of the sea, with some way to show people moving  through it

A small cloth to indicate a special place (first home, then the Seder gathering)

                  

          For feast:

Supplies with vary depending on Haggadah used, but consider watered-down grape juice, small celery sticks, small bowl of salt water, chopped pecans or walnuts, matzo bread, and a cup and plate for each attendee

This story comes to us from the Torah, the holy book of the Jewish people. It is also in the Christian Bible, in the part called the Old Testament. Now, some Jewish people believe that every bit of this story is true. Some Jewish people believe that parts of the story are true, and parts were added later, over time. And some Jewish people believe that this story is meant to teach a lesson, but it does not tell exactly what happened, especially the part about God punishing people. That is not the kind of God that they believe in. We are going to hear this story with an open mind and heart, and we will wonder together at the end. (You may or may not want to add that part about the "truth" of stories. That can be helpful for congregations that are just getting used to the ideas of Bible and other religious stories being "true," but it can detract some from the mythic power of the story as well.)

The story takes place at a time when the Jewish people lived in Egypt, under the rule of the Pharoh. Has anyone ever heard of a pharoh before? What is a pharoh? Yes, it’s a ruler, or a king, of ancient Egypt.

Take out underlay, and spread it out carefully. Place house, unmarked side up, to your right/children’s left. Place small knitted rug in front of house.

So, the Jewish people lived among the Egyptians. Only things were not great for them. The Jewish people in Egypt were not treated as well as other people. They didn’t have the same freedoms. They weren’t able to do the jobs of their choice. And they were forced to do things they didn’t want to do. They were slaves.

But the story goes that God did not like how the Jewish people were being treated, and that God sent 10 terrible punishments to the Egyptian people who treated them so unjustly.

For the 10^th and last punishment, God did not want the Jewish people to suffer along with the Egyptians, so God told the Jewish people to mark the doors to their houses so that the angel sent to enact the punishments would “pass over” their homes.

Turn over house to show red mark on door. Move hand to "pass over" house.

The Pharoh was very upset about the 10 punishments that God sent to him and his people. So he demanded that the Jewish people leave Egypt.

The Jewish people left their homes in a hurry, before the Pharoh could change his mind.

Carefully roll up rug. Put traveling people next to house, and with rolled-up rug with them, move away from house to your left/children’s right.

They didn’t have time to prepare in the ways they might have liked, so they left before their bread had a chance to rise. Bread that hasn’t been “fluffed up” by bubbles caused by yeast is called “unleaven.” So the Jewish people left with what they could carry, including their unleaven bread.

Place seas next.

First, they came to the sea. How would they cross it? They looked behind them and saw that the Pharoh had indeed changed his mind, and the Egyptian Army had come to re-capture them. 

But something amazing happened next in the story. God protected the Jewish people. God parted the seas.

God created a pocket of dry land going all the way across the sea so that the Jewish people could walk through safely, and without getting harmed by the Egyptians. The Egyptians could not follow them.

Part seas, and move Jewish people through waves to other side.

But their journey wasn't over. They had a long and hard journey through the desert, all on foot, all together.

Place pyramids next. Move people down below the pyramids, passing them, and moving them down again to children's lower right of underlay.

The Jewish people were finally arrived at their new homeland, safe, and truly free.

Carefully unroll and lay out small rug. Place traveling people on the rug. Then, turn traveling people over to reveal people gathered at a feast.

Together, they had a feast. Jewish people today still share this feast, to remind themselves of what their people had experienced. This special feast is called the Passover Seder, and when Jewish people gather in this way, they re-tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt and the escape to freedom.

 

(Notice here that I accidentally reversed the placement of the pyramids and the seas. My friend Chava corrected me on my first telling of this story, during Children's Chapel, so the text above has been corrected, too.)

                       

I wonder what the Jewish people had to leave behind when they left Egypt?

I wonder what the long journey must have been like, especially for the children?

I wonder if the Jewish people were scared, or sad, or doubtful when God told them to leave?

I wonder what the new homeland was like?

I wonder if this story reminds you of any other stories you have heard?

I wonder where is the Spirit of Mystery and Wonder in this story?

Now, it’s time to put this story away.

First we put away the people at the Passover Seder in the new homeland.

Next we gather up the sea, and the pyramids of the desert, where they traveled so long.

Finally, we put away the homes that the Jewish people left in Egypt.

Set basket aside and look at children. Smile.

Together, we’re going to share something special now, a real Passover Seder.

*******

The Haggadah that we're basing our feast text on is here, and there's another one here. We're ordering this children's book for the program library this year, too.

There could easily be a Moses and the burning bush element added to this story base. 

With older kids, it might be neat to bring in a geography element with Egypt, the Red Sea, and Jerusalem. 

In a classroom setting, this could be done over 2 Sundays, or even over the month of April with the story, followed by a work week, followed by the Seder, followed by a work week with a Passover/Elijah picture book read-aloud, a sharing and singing of this song (lyrics below video), or a special craft such as creating a take-home cup of Elijah.

And finally, here's a picture of me telling the story as part of a Children's Chapel service in April:

 

Tabletop labyrinth

We are just finishing up our small "Ways to Pray" unit, and adding this lovely tabletop finger labyrinth to the classroom was our final lesson. (We bought it a few towns over, at the art center, for $24. It is ceramic, and about 12" by 12") The children love it, and negotiating the sharing of it during our limited work time has been interesting.

We have a dedicated RE "hour" (really 45 minutes) before service. But many of the children arrive late which, while it does not impact the start time, sometimes keeps us from establishing an easy rhythm to the gathering circle first thing. So some weeks we are left with only about 10 minutes for the children to work with the stories and supplies. It may be that next year, we work more mornings into the year's schedule where we simply enjoy being gathered together, get to know the offerings of our classroom, feast, and talk about life. We've had a few of those this year, and they were well received, too.

Just last week I sat in on a webinar about the "Flipped Classroom," which refers to a model of education where the adults prime and privilege what the children bring to the exchange, and the content mostly derives from the pupils rather than the teachers (though it works well when the teachers "seed" the conversation with ahead-of-time suggested resources, discussion topics for home, or fun little assignments). Many in the webinar immediately though of Spirit Play, and there was much discussion about how this is already done to a great degree in Spirit Play and how it could be done more.

pieces for Passover

I attended Catholic school as a child. I paid exquisite attention to the stories and pictures and art about the saints and mystics, and some heady practices and stories such as saying Novenas and seeing angels and lighting a certain number of candles. But I did not read the Bible. I did not even pay very close attention when our lesson for the day was about the Bible. I remember two vaguely religious events from those years: 1) playing a green-gossamer winged angel in the 2nd grade Advent play (and being miffed that I didn't get to be pink-gossamer winged) and 2) singing back-up in the play about Noah's arc in Vacation Bible School (but pretending to be sick on the day of the performance because I was too nervous to go on).  As an adult, I pursued many other interests, but religion was never among them. I--to this day--have not even seen "The Ten Commandments," which apparently places me in a very tiny population in America mostly shared by those under the age of 12...

So to tell truth, I did not learn many of the Judeo-Christian stories until I got a church job and started teaching Unitarian Universalist religious education. But what an entree! To be able to read, hear, consider, grow to love, then prepare, share, and reflect upon such a rich legacy--one that UU's place alongside stories from other sacred texts from other traditions, and words and deeds of great teachers from any number of religions, and no religion at all--this is what makes my life-learner's heart sing. My heart cracks open for Buddha; Jesus; Rumi; Starhawk; MLK, Jr.; Rachel Carson; Mary Oliver; Maya Angelou... the list goes on, and there is always room for more.

Next month is Passover. So, I researched the story. I thought about what pieces were the most compelling, and how to present the story to a multi-aged audience, and how to make its telling rich and intriguing in order to invite the deepest connection to the content. And then I thought about what I, myself, might actually be capable of creating in under a month.

And this is what I came up with:

Something new I tried for this story was making reversible and moveable pieces. I think to share this one, I'm going to want to do a video. (So hey! That will be another new thing!) 

Fabric Finger Labyrinth

I've been having insomnia lately, so I put it to good use last night and gave a go at making a small, plush finger labyrinth. It's definitely a prototype--quite a few things I botched or would do differently next time--but overall I think the idea has a lot of potential. 

I drew a basic three-turn labyrinth pattern onto fabric, did split-stitch embroidery over all the lines, then sewed on a backing and stuffed it with two layers of quilt batting. The size seems just about right, though it would be fun to experiment with other labyrinth patterns. And the level of "squishiness" seemed right, too, but I need to call my mom to ask her how to stuff it so that the batting stays even and doesn't shift around.

My thought was that this could either be used well as a during-service focusing/fidgeting activity, in the church corner (perhaps most appropriate if church actually has a labyrinth on the grounds), or on the Ways to Pray shelf with the prayer beads, prayer cards, zen garden tray, meditation jar, and anything else that's there. For older kids who are into it, it would actually make a nice afternoon multigenerational workshop, too, with instruction and support on embroidery and/or machine sewing.

Salt Dough Oil Lamps

Today my two little boys and I tried a project that has some Spirit Play potential. We made salt-dough oil lamps.

It could be fun to make these for Diwali. During Diwali, people light lamps shaped like the third one above and open doors and windows so that the Goddess Lakshmi can find her way into their homes.

Since many children have never seen oil used as fuel for a flame, this could make a powerful piece of a Hanukkah story about the small bit of oil that lasted for eight days.

There is also a Bible story about a widow and olive oil. The widow, whose dead husband was one of the disciples, appeals to the prophet Elijah for help paying her husband's debts before the creditors come to claim her two sons as slaves. Elijah tells her to take the one small jar of oil that is her valuable possession, to borrow oil lamps from all her neighbors, and to fill all the lamps from the one jar. Amazingly, the one small jar of oil lasts enough to fill all the lamps--when the last lamp is filled, the jar of oil then runs out. She and her sons are able to sell the oil and make enough money to pay the debts and live off the remainder. The interpretation most often used here is that God provides for His followers in times of need, and that followers should have faith in this provision. But, a UU take on this might focus on the generosity of the neighbors; is it possible that the neighbors would have each given a lamp that had some oil already in it, knowing the widow's precarious situation? That would be a story of God's love spreading through generosity and caring. In reaching out to her neighbors--hard as that might have been--the widow is offering her community the opportunity to embody compassion.

There are likely other stories featuring oil lamps, too.

I looked online for a handful of oil lamp shapes, and we got a good batch of salt dough mixed up.
After forming the lamps, we baked them for a few hours at 200 degrees (turning them over once in the process), added olive oil once they'd cooled, and then added short cotton wicks. When we lit the wicks, they burned down quickly and blackened the edge of the lamp where they touched. I'll have to investigate if there is a special wick for oil, because that didn't seem exactly right.

My older boy, especially, got into this project. He was curious and experimental about the science of the fire, and he speculated about the time periods and cultures in which lamps like these might have been used. My younger boy mostly played with some leftover salt dough, until it was time to light the flames, and then he wanted to fashion and old-style candle snuffer to ceremoniously douse the flames.