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!