Dear Friends,
This is just the beginning.
Not just for this project - though, congratulations on signing up for the first edition of the Wiggles & Wonder newsletter - but it’s also the beginning of a new season in the Church year. And I think this seasonality is something that we too often forget. Sure, we change the colors around the church, but in our daily lives we don’t treat Easter, or the other seasons of the Church year, like seasons. Too often we treat them as brief moments in time.
Right now, it’s all the more important that we recall the Easter season throughout its length. This is the beginning of something new, a resurrected life in Christ at a time when our own corporeal, worldly lives may still feel rather lifeless. Green is returning all around us and the birds are awakening, but we ourselves are stuck inside. What does it mean for the tomb to be opened, when we are told to stay away?
Forgive the big questions: isn’t that all we have lately? Wouldn’t it be nice to ask some smaller questions, ones that are easier to answer? But here’s what I know from years of working with children in the Church - we are surrounded by mysteries, of which Easter is perhaps the greatest part. And yet, the hard questions press us. Just ask the eight year old who once asked me, barely 18 myself, if God still loved the Devil. Over a decade later, I still don’t know.
Now is a good time to welcome the not knowing and, if you’re a parent or caregiver, and to admit to not knowing. As adults, we often don’t tell children the whole truth, when they are excellent guides. Children are used to not knowing, and right now our uncertainty is an opportunity to walk along with them.
If you are familiar with Godly Play, now might be a good time to tell the Mystery of Easter, or to watch Sharon Greeley tell it here. But don’t stop there. Pay attention to the natural contrasts in your life - the bird on the still-bare tree, the plain outside and crystal inside of the geode. The boring and the abundant sit side by side.
This Week:
Because this is a new space, the format will likely change a bit in the coming weeks. Here’s a starting place for that experiment.
Play: It’s time to make some popcorn. Really, though, is there a starker contrast out there than the hard shell of a tiny kernel bursting forth into a fluffy piece of popcorn? How can the popcorn be both of those things at once (never mind also being just a small piece of an ear of corn)?
Consider this an invitation to play with your food - and to jump around like popcorn in a pan to let out some of that pent up energy and emotion. This will feel extra silly if you don’t have kids, but grown-ups, we need this as much as anyone else - maybe more. Laugh about it. And, most of all, at a time when a lot of us are trying to wear our hard exteriors because we’re desperate for protection, we’re still those same soft, jumpy people. Why pretend otherwise?
Read: Emily P. Freeman’s blog post, “Let’s Help the Children Do Their Next Right Thing.” That thing I said about being honest about what we don’t know when we talk to kids? This post takes an even bigger view of that philosophy. As Freeman puts it, “I’m learning to practice expanding my own imaginary world to include the imagination of my children.” We all deserve the version of empathy she describes here.
Listen: Continuing on this theme of what is hidden, I recommend Carrie Newcomer’s song “Geodes.” Newcomer is a wonderful folk singer with Quaker roots and she is a true master at finding the holy in everything. She’s also regularly been sharing songs from her living room in mini social-distancing concert.
Be Safe, Be Silly, & Wash Your Hands.
And Don’t Forget: This Is Just The Beginning,
Allison Bird