Dear Friends,
Peace to you amidst the January grey. It’s been snowing here in Boston and I have in mind one of the passages from the beginning of Moby Dick, suffering from “a damp, drizzly November in my soul.” Unlike Ishmael or cranky Jonah, though, I think I’ll refrain from going to sea. Instead, I’m cooking and working on a puzzle and making a lot of hot chocolate. We’re moving toward more sun, but slowly, slowly.
Honestly, I really don’t mind the darkness. It’s the snow that I could do without. But in this fitful time, I am thinking about my vacillating relationship to, well, so many things in my life. In particular, though, I am thinking about my relationship with the Daily Office.
To put it simply, I love the Daily Office. Learning about this practice has immeasurably enriched my life, and the Venite app has made it so much easier to attend to this practice while commuting or otherwise having to be “of this world.” At the same time, I thrive on routines and also struggle to build new ones. The end result is that I don’t pray the office as often as I’d like to. But any prayer is better than no prayer, and this past week as a little more full of prayer than is often the case.
Last week I got to say the Daily Office over Facetime with a friend in the hospital. When the world pulls the rug out from under us, when we need to be grounded and reoriented in our lives, the Daily Office is there for us. What else can do that so powerfully?
Whale Song Stories
In general, it’s not healthy for our prayer lives to be either our White Whale – the unattainable creature that haunts us, or the all-consuming whale from the Jonah story. No, in their ideal form, I think our prayer lives should be like whale song: a source of communication and connection, with God and with one another.
Reflecting on how we pray – with who, why, when – makes me think of a story I heard this week. You may or may not be familiar with the whale referred to as 52 Blue. Short for 52-hertz (this long essay by the absolute genius Leslie Jamison is a good record of the whale’s story), which is the wavelength of its call or song, 52 Blue has long been referred to as “the loneliest whale,” and is so famed for its solitary call that there’s even a movie about it. For years, since it was first detected in 1989, everyone has thought that 52 Blue was the only whale singing on that wavelength. 52 Blue was a whale alone – or was it?
Recently there’s been some buzz suggesting that there might be another whale singing at the same frequency, followed by more buzzing that this isn’t actually true. But the bottom line is that it doesn’t actually matter. Even though other whales don’t sing at this high of a frequency, they can still hear 52 Blue. And 52 Blue can still hear them. 52 Blue was never alone the way we thought. This whale was just a little bit different.
When my friends in other denominations or even other faith traditions pray, we are still attending to a shared practice. We can still hear each other and lift each other up. The frequencies vary. The goal is shared. We are never alone. It only seems that way when we narrow our lens too much.
Looking Towards Lent
Ash Wednesday is a little over a month away, which is great news for those of us who need to produce programs and materials. For me, though, this approaching season is also my favorite. The weeks after Epiphany are a peculiar time - not so long as those following Pentecost, those days that hold the bulk of our time – but not a waiting season either. I take a bit of a “hurry up and wait” approach to Lent’s arrival, but it’s also just the season that speaks most deeply to me.
With all of this in mind, I’ve once again curated some of my favorite resources for the coming season. Planning and execution times time, so let’s get to it!
Mardi Gras Goodies:
I am not cut out for parties, but my colleague the Rev. Emily Garcia is! Check out her Pancake Games guide for your congregation’s Mardi Grad pancake supper, or scale it down and compete as a family at home.
Some of us may be liturgical calendar nerds, but asking families to show up on two consecutive weekdays (and holding two extra days of programming, particularly at small churches), can be a big ask. This BuildFaith post considers how you might help your Shrove Tuesday event merge into an Ash Wednesday service during a single evening, deepening the opportunities for intergenerational formation while reducing the demands on everyone’s time.
Lent Together:
**As we approach and then enter into Lent, I’ll dive deeper into individual tools and practices, but this list is designed with the prep that goes into program development or cultivating things like Lent At Home packs.
Look Around. Does your church have a tradition of covering certain images and objects during Lent? The church where I first came to Godly Play did this and I loved the way we would begin our session during the first Sunday in Lent. That day, after forming our circle, we would take the children to walk around the church and notice what was covered. Then, using the same materials, they would determine what in their classroom also needed to be covered. It wasn’t about getting it exactly right, but rather about intentionally marking their sacred space the same way the adults marked theirs.
Make Room For Quiet. A few months ago, I was setting up some Godly Play materials and found myself focused on a particular segment of my response shelf: the silence materials. Silence is, after all, our 4th story genre, and while as storytellers we take our time and cultivate deep attention, our classrooms are still full of children, and that mean it can get pretty noisy. And silence, without supports, can be extraordinarily difficult for adults, never mind for children. Some things that can better support silence include:
Books. Many children, even those who can’t read yet, will happily page through books on their own, especially if there is a cozy corner or special seat designated for this activity. Some recommendations that feel especially appropriate to this season (some of which I’de definitely recommended before!) -
Buddha Board. With less setup and mess than water colors, as well as a fair bit of novelty, the Buddha Board emphasizes the cycle of creation and destruction/disappearance. Nothing is permanent, not even us. Just as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday that we are dust and to dust we shall return, whatever we create on the blank surface of the Buddha Board will disappear and leave it as it was.
Water Timers & Calming Jars. These come in all different varieties, but many children are familiar with these glittery or colorful containers from school and other programs. Designed to help children (or anyone!) self-regulate when overwhelmed, these containers are a focal point, not unlike a candle use in centering prayer. These are a great tool to add to your silence materials.
Learn A New Prayer. Prayer is a huge part of how people recognize Lent, but we don’t typically equip children with much when it comes to resources for prayer. One thing I distinctly recall about Lent, though, is that it’s the season when, as a teenager, I first learned a formal setting for evening prayer: Holden Evening Prayer. This is a whole worship service worth of song and chant, but there are plenty of simpler prayers and embodied prayer practices that you might look into during this season.
Our prayers to be quiet or formal, but can take any form, ranging from Centering Prayer for Children (care of Journey to the Heart) to active movement prayers like those in Jennifer Grant’s Spin, Wrestle, Sing. Lent is such a good season for exploring these options, a little at a time.
That’s all for this week, friends. I hope those of you at Forma are having a wonderful time, and that everyone is warm and dry and cozy (I don’t think any of my readers are in the Southern Hemisphere).
With a common song,
Bird