Big Bang/Beginning of the Universe

We had a snow day today, and with everything closed and the streets quiet, my mind turned to the long view of finishing out the year in the Spirit Play classroom.

A small unit that we'll be doing in late winter is creation, working within the "Wonder and Awe" Source of Unitarian Universalism, and moving from the scientific explanations of the start of everything to creation stories from various cultures. So today, I spent a little time using leftover materials and made the items for the "Big Bang/Beginning of the Universe" story.

Something I like a lot about this story is that there is a built in way for the children to co-create the story with the storyteller; at a certain point, the children crumple up gold tissue paper to demonstrate the compression of elements into stars. They then add the stars to the underlay as the story turns to the formation of galaxies. I have found myself soliciting participation in a couple of stories thus far, and have very much liked the effect it had on individuals and the energy of the group.

Chalica, Worship is the Center

Today is the first day of Chalica. It has never been celebrated at this congregation before, so a very dedicated and talented lay leader and I put it together from scratch. What fun! We selected "Worship is the Center" as the Spirit Play story to show the principles off at their very best--along with the chalice, sources, and rituals of UUism.

Here is the finished layout of that story, taken earlier in the day after I'd practiced it a few times:

The laundry basket is there for scale; this story, intended for sharing in a multigenerational worship setting, is big! Our gathered group of 30 was small enough that we could all still more or less circle around, but I'm curious how this would be best done in a group of 50 or more.

On the back of the symbols, I made little cheats for myself, writing the source that each symbol corresponded to, and a phrase or two about what that source offered to UUism. This was very helpful.

The cape--which I must admit I first thought of as a little cheesy--was a huge hit! People loved it. The gold circle above has a slit up to the center, and it's double-sided with the other side being black fabric with little silver stars on it. You begin the story wearing the cape with the "universe" side out, then you transform it to the underlay, then back into your cape at the end. I flubbed the ending of the story a little bit, going out with a little puff instead of the Big Bang that was written. But at 10 minutes of memorized text, this one pretty well tried me! 

It was the second time we used Spirit Play with the whole group, and universally, people adored it. They commented on the pace, the holiness, the way everyone around them was holding their breath anticipating the next part of the story. I was shocked. And happy. This RE year began with a handful of pressing and unanticipated needs, and so we were not able to launch Spirit Play the way we wanted to. But this felt like a very special introduction, and 30 people got to experience it.