Dear Friends,
When I was in high school, there was a period of time when I became deeply interested in constitutional law. I had come into a book about the case Gideon v Wainwright – I don’t recall how or why – and found the reasoning and structure of the field to be something I could settle into.
Gideon v Wainwright was the case that established the right to an attorney, and extraordinarily important decision that stands alongside cases like Miranda v. Arizona when it comes to to protecting the rights of the accused, but that content wasn’t what made the book so fascinating or important to me. It was the nature of constitutional law itself. It was so deeply consistent, generalizable and structured and I wanted more. And so, one of my friends sent me a copy of To An Unknown God by Garrett Epps, a book detailing another Supreme Court case, this time focused on religious freedom.
To An Unknown God obviously draws its title from this week’s lesson from the book of Acts, in which Paul speaks to a Greek community about their obvious piety. They were so aware of the holy all around them that, though they didn’t know anything of this God, they still wanted to extend honor and worship. It’s a grace I think we all could learn from.
Finding God Everywhere
This passage from Acts reminds me of the beginning of the Great Family story in Godly Play. In Ur, we recall, many people were essentially animists. There was a God for everything, in the plants and rocks, for the harvest and the rain. But Abram and Sarai, they were fairly sure that there was one God who was everywhere. Still, they couldn’t be positive. Can anyone, really? As much as we can invest ourselves in the (complicated Trinitarian) monotheism of our faith, what do we really know about God and where God dwells? We look for signs. We offer up trust, faith, the willingness to abide with what cannot be known. And like Abram standing out under the sky, we feel God’s presence, that ineffable and extraordinary wonder, the knowledge of being held.
Recently, I was thinking about signs and wonders. As a young person, a sense that God sent me “signs” buoyed me through deeply challenging times, and those signs were often such small things, like seeing one of my dearest church friends in the hall of my terrifying and chaotic middle school. Similarly, I am a person who loves hearing about the way people attribute particular signs to their dead loved ones; for me, my maternal grandfather appears as stray dimes. Whatever it is that lights up your God circuits, those things matter so much.
There is no replacement for human connection in this time of epidemic loneliness, but I do think there’s something to the art of feeling attuned to the world and God’s presence around us. Certainly I think that is what kept me going at so many points. I wonder what things make you feel close to God, and I wonder how we can help young people develop their ability to sense that presence during those uniquely vulnerable years? The Bible often primes us to to look for big things, but the small signs can mean just as much, shining out from countless corners and sidewalk cracks.
As The Seasons Turn
One of the major points of conversation across various Christian formation groups is, unsurprisingly, all of those end-of-year matters. How do we recognize our treasured teachers? How do we honor children who are aging out of Godly Play circles or teens who are graduating? Of course, there’s no singular right answer to these things, but there are a few things that I want to point to.
First, teacher recognitions are so important – and I say this with a key caveat based on the conversations in various groups. Many folks in formation groups will, of course, argue that they’d rather see any resources invested into programming, that a verbal thank you or a card is enough. But it’s also worth realizing that anyone who is in a formation Facebook group or the like, is a pretty self-selecting group. They are the people for whom doing this work is truly a reward – but even those people may underestimate how much a small trinket can anchor them to a community (recently, a little globe-shaped keychain of mine broke; it dates back to the summer I spent teaching VBS two churches ago….!). Some of my favorite starting points for teacher gifts include:
Any number of things from Pink Salt Riot. They’ve made various teacher bundles over the years, and have a generally lovely assortment of trinkets, useful objects like notebooks and screen cleaners, and simple jewelry.
Assorted contemporary prayer books. I particularly like To Light Their Way by Kayla Craig for teachers, but you also can’t go wrong with Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie’s books, or other favorites you’ve stumbled across, particularly with a contextualizing note. I know any time I’ve ever used Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community to pray with church school leaders, it’s been deeply beloved.
Cobbleworks makes so many beautiful prints and tools, like Examen and Affirmation cards, and they’re all uplifting and rooted in an uplifting faith. This fall, the Godly Play trainer community turned to a Cobbleworks’ print that transforms the radical and sacred “All Shall Be Well” of Julian Norwich into a gentle and trusting “When I cannot say all is well or all is known help me say all is held so that I never believe all is lost.”
Now, back to the young people.
Rites of passage are also so important, and especially in traditions that are less formal about things like first communion or who have lost some of their conventional moments of recognition to the challenges of the pandemic, it’s so much more important to identify times of growth and transition and to honor them.
Currently, I’m planning our upper elementary/middle school Bible presentations for the end of the church year because of the way our pandemic programming has panned out. And receiving their Bibles is designed to happen as a response to their education and exploration of Bible types and mechanics. It recognizes less of a fixed moment, instead offering recognition of a greater spiritual and intellectual maturity.
When do you recognize children’s and youth’s transitions and how do you approach them?
Finally, I want to offer one of the season transition activities I’ll be doing with my community this year, which you can also find on the A Bird In Church IG. Inspired by the People of God figures used in Godly Play, as well as the big People of God we use. at the Wild Goose, we’ll be dispatching some popsicle stick People of God on adventures with our community, inviting families to send us pictures of what their people get up to while they may be away or engaged in new adventures. It’s a twist on something like a flat Jesus that creates a connection to what we do in church school. You can find the popsicle stick people here.
So much is afoot in these days, so next week we’ll take a look at what’s on the agenda for Pentecost (which is, of course, also Memorial Day Weekend). For now, though –
Peace,
Bird