Gifts, Skills, & Reluctant Miracles

All Through One Spirit

Dear Friends,

Have I subjected you all to the goofiest Fruits of the Spirit items?

I stumbled across these when looking for… who knows what for work one day. And, while I understand that by “fruits” the scriptures don’t mean actual fruit, but produce or yield, I can’t get over the notion that actually kindness is somehow a pig with a watermelon for a body. That sure is a wild marketplace interpretation. (Megan, if you’re reading this, I need you to write a poem about these.)

This Sunday’s lectionary includes not the Fruits of the Spirit, but Paul’s exposition on the gifts or charisms the Holy Spirit gives to us, and as I read this passage I find myself thinking about my Godly Play circles.

You see, while our younger or mixed age group (PreK-grade 3 sometimes becomes PreK-grade 4 when the 4th-6th grade class isn’t in session) meets weekly, the 4th-6th graders only meet every other week and I often have very distinct groups in attendance – so I’ve been trying to “read” the different group dynamics of that class. In doing so, it’s easy to compare these children, all of whom I enjoy so much. Who is the common denominator when it comes to goofiness, who knows their scripture best, who asks the “best” questions. But Paul points me somewhere else –

Varieties of Gifts

"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

Maybe you have kids who live in the midst of sibling rivalry. Maybe you know a young person caught up in competition with a friend over a particular skill or trait. I was an “academic weapon,” to use a funny phrase. My sisters are bolder characters, less scholarly, way more physically coordinated. For every semicolon that I can use correctly (a skill neither younger sister has), they can answer with a different strength – a backflip, the ability to drive. And, while those aren’t spiritual gifts, I think the lesson holds.

There are many gifts but one Spirit and, as a parallel text from 1 Peter reminds us, they are given to us to serve one another well (1 Peter 4:10). What might our families or communities or circles discover if we invited each other to help identify our gifts?

When I was about 14, I remember doing an activity at a youth lock-in involving small poster boards. We each wrote our names on the boards and then went around to each others boards, invited to write something we liked or admired about the other people in our community on their boards. At that vulnerable moment in our lives, I remember those boards as a blessing. Yes, it was a blessing to hear what others thought was good about me, but it was also a gift to reflect on the strengths of those who made up my own community.

How might you practice this naming of gifts?

Speaking of Gifts

Our Gospel reading this Sunday, of course, is the Wedding at Cana, the site of Jesus’s first miracle – and also perhaps some of his strangest.

Jesus’s first miracle has more to do with obedience to his mother, it would seem, than the working of wonders or revelation of his identity. When I think about this, I find myself contemplating the difference between our distinctive gifts, our most natural charisms given by the Spirit, and the things we can do, but which require a bit of contortion.

When they run out of wine at the wedding, Mary looks to Jesus and she “[says] to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come."

Jesus feels no urgency. This is not why he is here. He can, but he is not called to. Yet he ultimately acts regardless. This reflected well on him, as far as the disciples noticed, but mostly it reflected well on Mary and on the wedding couple who were seen to have saved the best wine for later in the wedding. We have gifts and we have abilities – and they are distinct. It is the gap one of my commission on ministry members spoke of when I went through that process years ago; “It needs to be done but is it for you do?”

Identifying the different between our gifts and our abilities is a worthwhile task for people of all ages, but I think particularly by late elementary school, we can begin to come alongside young people to explore these differences. What energizes and excites them? What makes them feel confident? What do they feel pressure to do because they are good at it – even if they don’t enjoy it much?

God wants us to live into our gifts. We weren’t given gifts by the Spirit for them to gather dust in the corner. But to live into them, we need to name them and discovering them is best done in community.

Resource Roundup

What’s on my radar this week? Well –

• In case you weren’t around the last time I highlighted Paul Writes (a Letter) by Christ Raschka, this week’s reading from 1 Corinthians is reason enough to mention it again! This book is such a charming point of entry into Paul’s abundant writings and I never get tired of flipping through it.

  

• This Sunday is a great opportunity to tell the Godly Play story for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Even if you don’t have the official version, it’s an easy one to assemble from items you likely have around – and I love picking my own icon of MLK to go with it. Prior to the Foundation’s development of this story, the Rev. Emily Garcia developed her own version, which is available here. You can’t go wrong either way.
  
  I also highly recommend Only Light Can Do That - 60 Days of MLK Devotions for Kids. It includes a wide array of scripture alongside stories about MLK and other civil rights leaders, recommendations for ways to take "action, and accompanying brief prayers.

• It’s not too late to sign up for this year’s Forma Conference - and you don’t even need to travel this year! I’m cohosting Province 1’s gathering at Barbara Harris Camp & Conference Center in New Hampshire with my New England colleagues and I can’t wait to “come away together.”

• Do you get Everyday Godly Play’s weekly wondering texts? Well now there’s an accompanying option for storytellers and door persons. Text “Story” to 833-359-7488 and receive a prompt each Sunday to contemplate your time in Godly Play circles – you can even text the prompt back!

  

  My favorite moment in my circle this week was when, talking about the Parable of Parables, the passing down of stories, and the work of translation, one of my 4th graders asked, “How do we know which parable is the real one?”

• We’re two weeks into 2025! Why am I saying this? While I’m not a New Year’s Resolution type, I am trying to be really attentive to how I use my time this year because I consider that to be its own sort of spiritual practice. I have always been pretty into planners and this year I’m embracing the “Year in Pixels” framework for my time and attention. In particular, I’m hoping to use it to track my reading, my engagement with faith practice (Morning or Evening Prayer, listening to faith-related podcasts, reading, Bible study, Visio Divina, etc.), and participating in my hobbies. Thinking about how to set this up has helped me feel clear about how I care for myself by caring for my time – I wonder what a similar framing, even on a week by week basis, might do for you and your family?

• A reminder about Building Faith’s article on Spiritual Care for Children after Disaster. There’s the need for resources for those in the immediate range of the Palisade fires, particularly, but it’s also worth keeping these tools in mind in a wider way as the impact of tragedy ripples out. I also like to think about what stories help hold these concerns – Godly Play’s Exodus story, particularly, feels like a valuable story for coming close to the feelings these events might bring up. Just as the People of God had to leave in a great hurry and were unable to truly prepare, many people are experiencing displacement in a way that story may helpfully come alongside children and adults in their time of need.

Where is your attention calling you this week? What stories do you need to come alongside you?

Peace,
Bird