Adapting Sophia Fahs' "A Visit to the Land-of-Great-Men"

Reading From Long Ago and Many Lands for the first time last year, I was smitten with the whimsical, fantastical image of the people who walked on clouds in the Chinese story "A Visit to the Land-of-Great-Men." But I struggled some with the story's message. To spoil the surprise, the thing that's special about this Land is that its people walk about a foot off the ground on little clouds--rainbow clouds, red and yellow clouds, green and blue clouds, and gray and black clouds. But here's where it got a little challenging for me: the clouds were described as being either 1) tied to one's current emotional state, as in the feeling being felt in that moment (ex. happy) 2) the way one behaved toward others (ex. generous), or 3) one's intrinsic character, the true nature of one's own heart (ex. kindhearted or selfish).

But no distinction was made between these. The cloud simply knew one's heart and knew how he or she felt about the world, and was rainbow colored in happiness, red or yellow in contentment, green or blue in neutrality, and gray or black in anger or deceit.

Everybody wanted rainbow clouds, so everybody thought happy thoughts and was kind to their neighbors.
And no one wanted to do business with or be around or help the people with gray or black clouds, which kept these colors down to a minimum..

I was uncomfortable with this. Everybody gets angry. Everybody has moments of ugliness in their hearts. But... we don't ostracize one another. We help one another out of those spots. When someone is on a downward spiral, sporting a blue cloud when yesterday they were red, we don't say, "Hey! Get it together! Make with the rainbow cloud!" We are gentle with one another during those times. And as UU's, I don't believe we think of others as having evil hearts. Rather, we judge others by the way they act and the way they endeavor to be.

But I realized, these are all great issues for children to grapple with for themselves!

So I set about creating a vision of what this story might look like told in the Spirit Play method. I began thinking of my struggles with the story in terms of wondering questions, and thought some about what ideas I'd want the children to be playing with as they worked with the story. Then, I made a couple of prototypes of story pieces that I thought would achieve that end.

My very, very nascent woodworking skills show here, especially in those right-angle cuts in the cloud, but it was important for me that the clouds be removable and interchangeable so that the children would be able to play with the feeling of identifying with a character, and then giving that character a rainbow, colorful, or black cloud to work with. There are to be five characters total--four residents of the Land-of-Clouds (renamed from the Land-of-Great-Men) and one traveler from another land (also pictured). That way, there would be ample opportunity for the characters to interact and for there to be a "community" and an "outsider" to work on ideas of acceptance, welcoming, assistance, and compassion. 

Next comes the rest of the figures, and then an underlay and some basic setting elements. If there's time, I'd love to have this done for this Sunday's Children's Chapel, which is the only one that falls within the Thirty Days of Love campaign. I think the message about compassion and understanding is the most compelling take-away from this story, and I'd love to share it as we and the children take a month to think about integrating and highlighting those ideas and actions in our own lives. 

Spirit Play Storeroom

I am so hungry to see other Spirit Play spaces, and Godly Play, too, and Reggio Emilia and Montessori-inspired religious education classrooms. I want to see how they are laid out, and how they flow, and how they are tidied on Sunday afternoons, and where things are stored. Once we get clipping along, I'd love to make a series of YouTube videos on how the classrooms "work" on a given Sunday.

To that end, I'll add here a picture of a shelf in what is now our Spirit Play storeroom. It is not a thoughtfully laid out room, as we rather missed the memo that we'd need a whole other space in which to store not-currently-used stories and supplies, so cobbled it together quickly last fall.

You know, when I first started looking at Spirit Play classrooms online, I thought, man, these folks are serious about their baskets and shelving. And now I understand why! Everything is open, accessible, easy to see, and tidy.

These are about 3/4 of the stories we have built. The other 1/4 is in the Spirit Play classroom itself, on the shelves there for children to play with. The baskets are all donated or purchased at the thrift stores. Each story has a printed-out text accompanying it, in a plastic slip.We still have a great need to label each story basket with a symbol card, and I hope to have the titles and layouts printed on the other sides of the cards. I'm envisioning something like large, hanging gift tag attached with a string long enough that it could be laid on top of the layout on each story. I think that would be a great volunteer job for somebody wanting to get acquainted with our collection...now if only I could find that one volunteer!

Hosea Ballou and God's Muddy Children

Well, it's done! The Hosea Ballou Spirit Play story, adapted from A Lamp in Every Corner's "Muddy Children," is complete, ready to be told to the Adult R.E. class on Sunday.

I don't love the final layout. This is another example of "good enough." It's Friday, and I'll be away at a youth trip all day Sunday, so I'm going to have to leave this project for now and maybe revisit it at some other time.

So, some details:

Total cost: About $5, starting with a well prepared craft cabinet. What I had on hand and ready was the fabric and sewing supplies, a scrap block of pine, sandpaper, and paint. I bought the peg people and used the remainder of the beige felt from the last story I built.

Total time:
       1.5 hours        About an hour and a half to track down and then adapt the story.
       3.5 hours        Making all the story elements
         .5 hour          Buying remaining story elements
         .5 hour          Final edit of story, with all elements complete, and test telling
         .25 hour        Making the basket label
     _________
       6.25 hours

The Hosea Ballou story

Teresa Honey Youngblood

Materials:

            Hosea figure

            Father figure

            Mud puddle

            White shirt with mud on one side, clean on the other

            Bathtub with muddy water on one side, clean on the other

            Universalist church

            Heart

            Beige underlay, square with rounded corners, about 30" across

Hosea Ballou was the youngest of nine children. And he loved to play in the mud.

Place Hosea figure on the upper left of underlay, facing out. Place mud puddle next to Hosea.

He liked the way mud felt between his bare toes. He liked the way it splattered up when he jumped in a mud puddle. He liked how mud in different places felt different, and was different colors. And he liked how, in the spring, mud was absolutely everywhere.

Have Hosea dance and play in the mud puddle.

Hosea’s mother had died when he was 2 years old. His older sisters helped care for him. One of his sisters washed all the clothes for the family.

Put muddy shirt below, and a little to the right of the mud puddle.

“Hosea,” she said, “please don’t play in the mud anymore. The mud gets all over your clothes, and sometimes on the clothes of the other children, too.”

One of his sisters washed and bathed all the children in the family.

Put muddy bath tub next to the shirt.

                                                                                                                        

“Hosea,” she said, “please don’t play in the mud anymore. The mud gets all over your face and hands and legs and feet. And when you walk in the house, it gets on the floor, and then all over all the other children.”

Hosea agreed, and tried not to play in the mud.

Turn shirt and bathtub to the clean sides.

But he loved mud so much, that after a while, he did again.

Have Hosea dance and play in the mud puddle.

He made mud pies to throw, because he liked the way the splatted with a big Thwack! He made mud soup, and pretended to feed all his friends and family a delicious meal. He spread the mud on his body and clothes and pretended he was a monster.

Turn shirt and bathtub to muddy side again.

Hosea’s sisters went to their father, who was a Baptist preacher, and asked him to talk to Hosea.

Put father next to tub, and move Hosea to father.

“Hosea,” said his father sternly, “you must stop playing in the mud. Try to be good, and stay clean.”

Hosea agreed.

Turn shirt and bathtub back to clean sides.

Hosea tried not to play in the mud. But he loved the mud so much, that after a while, he did again.

Turn shirt and bathtub back to muddy sides.

And again, his sisters went to their father.

For the following conversation, touch each character on the head just before each one speaks.

“Hosea,” said his father, even more sternly this time, “you must stop playing in the mud. Try to be good, and stay clean.”

“Father,” asked Hosea, “are you angry with me?”

Hosea’s father’s voice softened, and he smiled at his son. “Hosea, I love you. I am a little bit annoyed, and a little bit angry. But I still love you, and I will always love you.”

“Even if I forget and get muddy again”

“Yes, I will still love you.”

“Even if I get really, really muddy again?”

“Yes, even then, I will still love you.”

Turn shirt and bathtub back to clean sides.

After some years passed, Hosea no longer played in the mud so much. He did other things—played games and rode horses and read books and talked with friends. And he began thinking a lot about God.

In his religion, they believed that God only allowed 1 in 1,000 people into heaven, and all the rest were sent to hell. So all the people worked extra hard to be good so that they could get into heaven, and when people made mistakes, they got very worried that they would be going to hell.

One day, Hosea went to his father with a question.

Touch Hosea on the head as he speaks.

“Father, why does our faith tell us that only 1 in 1,000 people go to heaven, if so many more than that lead good lives?”

Touch father on the head.

His father did not have an answer. Hosea asked another question.

“Father, if God knows that only 1,000 people are going to get into heaven, why does he create more than 1,000? Why does he make people that he know will suffer and be miserable in hell?”

Touch father on the head.

His father did not have an answer for that, either.

So Hosea, as a teenager, set out to find the answers for himself. He read the Bible. He asked questions of other religious people. And one day he found himself at a Universalist church.

Place Universalist church next on the bottom row of the underlay, beneath and just to the right of the bathtub, and move Hosea next to church.

He learned that the Universalists believed that everyone got to go to heaven, that salvation—or being saved from hell. God’s love was open to all. It was universal.

Place heart next to the church, finishing the spread.

This sounded right to him, and it sounded familiar. He thought of all the times, as a young child, that he would get muddy, even as he was trying to be good and stay clean. And he remembered that his father loved him—and would always love him—no matter how muddy he got.

Hosea Ballou thought that maybe all people were like God’s muddy children, and that God loved them always, and gave them more and more chances to clean up and try and be good.

Wondering questions:

I wonder what’s the most important part of this story?

I wonder if you have seen any part of this story before?

I wonder how Hosea Ballou felt to have different beliefs from his father?

I wonder what Hosea’s father thought about their conversations about God?

I wonder if other people liked the idea of universal salvation, too?

I wonder if you have ever broke a promise or made a mistake and someone gave you—or you gave yourself—another chance?

I wonder if you have ever felt completely and unconditionally loved, so that you knew no matter what you did or what happened, you would always have that love?

Name each piece as you place it back in the basket.

Heart: Universal Salvation, the idea that everyone gets to experience God’s love, forever.

Hosea Ballou: The Universalist, Hosea Ballou.

Church: The Universalist Church where Hosea found his spiritual home

Hosea’s father: Hosea’s father, the Baptist preacher

Tub and shirt: Hosea’s sometimes muddy tub and shirt, from the many times he forgot his promise to try and stay clean.

Puddle: And one of his favorite places, a mud puddle.

Fold underlay and lay on top of pieces in basket.

Now watch where I put this story away, so that you will know where to find it if you’d like to make it your work.

Muddy Children...for Grown-Ups!

I had a dentist appointment this morning, and was home with slightly sore gums, and my homeschooled children decided that the activity for the day was a "Magic Schoolbus" marathon thanks to Netflix. 

So with some home time on my hands, and Spirit Play stories on my mind, I turned my attention to an exciting project: making a Hosea Ballou story...for our adult religious education class!

I'm tickled the adult RE team asked for one. A couple of members of this group were hard to convert! They liked the old way we did children's R.E., and weren't sure Spirit Play was a good fit for our congregation. Maybe it just took time to adjust, and maybe the couple of community worship services featuring Spirit Play stories for all ages won their hearts.

I adapted the "Muddy Children" story in A Lamp in Every Corner, and came up with what I hope is a worthy design and execution.

Here are the story elements, minus the people (Hosea and father, probably will be unpainted pag people) and the underlay (probably beige).

From top left: mud puddle, shirt, bathtub, Universalist church, heart symbolizing universal salvation

And the shirt and bathtub are two-sided, and go from clean (above) to dirty (below).

..

"Granddad's Prayers of the Earth"

My friend Jennifer is a 25-year veteran teacher. She is very good at connecting with students. She is very good at creating a culture of calm and respect in the classroom. And she is very good at "good enough." She's been doing what she's doing long enough to know that perfectionism is a straight and easy path to burnout, and burnout is one of the reasons good educators chose other careers.

Today, I double checked that a story that was supposed to have been built this summer was, in fact, intact.

It was mostly built, but not completely.

And not only was it not complete, but the overall visual effect of what was there left me a little tepid.

It is a very compelling aspect of Spirit Play that the materials are enticing, enchanting, well-made, durable, and attractive. These types of materials are more likely to invite engagement with the stories, giving children a real chance to interact with the content and make meaning. And with only one short hour a month spent in the church classroom, the more a child wants to play with the stories, the better chance they will have a positive impact in his or her life.

The story was made to spec, and very much resembles the suggested samples for this particular story, but just lacked that "something special."

What to do? 

This time, nothing.

I made the few pieces that were needed to complete the story and made a note to myself to think more about story design and creation later. Hours, circumstance, and my good friend's wisdom led me to call that Good Enough for today.  

Francis David -- from scratch!

The folks at the UU church in Annapolis, Maryland had a swell idea to adapt the Flat Stanley project, so adored by elementary school classes for the past 40 years, with a decidedly UU slant; they made a "Flat Francis," as in Francis David, the Hungarian priest-turned-Unitarian who swept a trinitarian/anti-trinitarian debate in Transylvania in the mid 1500s and convinced King John Sigismund to change his own religion and to use the principle of religious tolerance to unite his ethnically diverse, war-torn kingdom.

It's quite a story. I have wanted to tell it to the children in the program since first hearing it at the Spirit Play training we held here in Fayetteville in May, but had not yet found the right circumstance. Well, Flat Francis arrived over the holiday break, fresh from Ohio!, and I got for Christmas the small scroll saw that I had asked for to try my hand at woodworking.

Francis David's time has come.

Because I am new to woodworking, the simple but elegant design that Ralph Roberts and the folks at Worship Woodworks came up with served as my inspiration for my very first woodworking project.

It was such fun to make. And since I used scrap wood and a donated basket, the only cost to the program was the peg people and the felt, totaling $5. I share it with the children during Children's Chapel on Sunday. I am So Excited.