Dear Friends,
This week, as I write to you, everything feels a little more in place.
We’ve finished moving. I went back to the office. I shouldn’t have to travel anywhere outside of near driving distance for the foreseeable future (ideally, until next year’s Wild Goose – I don’t like traveling!). I got to take a new train route yesterday! Things feel grounded and stable.
Or at least they should.
The reality of all this movement and change for me is that in fact, trying to do the normal things is unusually exhausting. I napped in the chair in my office yesterday afternoon. I’ve been leaning hard on sheet pan meals to get my little household fed; I normally thrive on long stretches in the kitchen. Having moved through this time of change, I don’t feel transformed. I just feel tired.
Faces All Aglow
I vividly remember the first time I was tasked with developing a children’s lesson on The Transfiguration. I was serving as a volunteer at a small church and we were preparing for our monthly Family Mass, where we would hear a story, set the altar, share communion, and then gather for a meal.
So, how to explain the Transfiguration to children? What exactly is even made known to us in The Transfiguration of Our Lord? Really, on the surface, it’s a story of change, but change that is ever so subtle.; it’s like a costume change. As Luke’s Gospel tells us, “while [Jesus] was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.”
Why does this matter? I can change my clothes and expression. What is the work of this moment that it is one of the great feasts, one of the most important moments in our traditions.
Certainly, our Old Testament reading helps us to understand why this amazing, glittering transformation is an important one. Moses, too, was transformed through direct encounter with God, and without his knowing. He was only aware that he was changed, transfigured in a way, by the responses of those who traveled with him. As his face shown with light, it was an outward sign of an inward change or, perhaps more accurately, inward grace.
What The Eye Can(‘t) See
“An outward sign of inward grace.”
You might recognize those words. They’re an ancient formulation, most commonly used these days by the Catholic Church, to describe the Sacraments. We engage in these actions – in baptism, in the Eucharist – as a reminder of how God transforms us, even when we don’t quite feel transformed. And I think children know this particular contradiction better than anyone.
When I was a child, I always remember my parents asking me if I felt different, if I felt my new age, when I would wake up on my birthday. In that funny way that matters to children, I knew I had been born in the wee hours of the morning, which meant I was already “officially” my new age (my sisters had to wait until well into the day or even past their bedtimes for their birthdays to fully count). But of course, it never felt different. I was the same kid I had been the day before. I couldn’t do anything new. I wasn’t physically changed. But still, we would light the candles on the cake and sing happy birthday. Maybe someone would foist a little paper crown or pin on me. They were outward signs of what others understood as inward change. And so…
I wonder: what makes you feel different?
Certainly I don’t feel like the same person I was at 25, or or at 15, or at 6, but what has made me feel different along the way can be tricky to name. It’s more like the way our cells turnover, how we say that we have entirely new bodies after seven years. But maybe you underwent a physical transformation, or maybe it was spiritual. Maybe you had a revelation in therapy that shifted everything.
And, of course, I wonder what makes the children in your orbit feel different or changed, and I hope you’ll ask them. Children summon us into new ways of knowing. Maybe learning to ride a bike made them feel different, or starting a new school. Maybe they were transformed by the birth of a sibling. Or maybe they really did wake up feeling different on their 7th birthday. When it comes to outer signs of inner grace, inner transformation, it can be hard to see the change.
In Preparation For Change
This morning, as I came to the table to set to work, pictures flicked across my screen of children from some previous version of my life heading back to school. I’m originally from NYC, where back to school isn’t til after Labor Day, but for a few years I lived in Atlanta, and that crew is trekking back into their classrooms. Even if you’re working on more of a northern states schedule like me, though, you’re probably at least in the planning stages of back-to-school and programs and all the feelings that come with that. So, how are you getting ready?
Blessing of the Backpacks. If there’s any event that I spend time preparing in my professional church life that I wish had been a thing when I was a kid, the Blessing of the Backpacks is it. I was a kid who loved back-to-school time, but as a kid who was also an undiagnosed autistic, my church friends, the people who I remained in unchanging relationship year in and year out, were often my anchors.
Personally, I tend to find Illustrated Ministry’s liturgy for this just a bit too long for use with the Church School crowd, but I do think it has some golden moments in it. They’ve been sharing snippets in graphics on social media that are a reminder of all our backpacks hold.Program Prep & Registration: Are you ready for Church School to start? Are you trying to reinvent your program or work on your calendar? Are you still trying to find the best curriculum solution? It can certainly be an ongoing challenge. Building Faith has a phenomenal lineup designed to help you choose children’s curriculum, intergenerational programs, or youth programs. Or, maybe, you’re building various modules, testing out how different experiences engage your community. I hope you’ll use the comments to share what’s working and where your sticking points are.
Another key piece of prep: equipping your volunteers. Equipping your volunteers can look like a lot of things and depends on your program, it’s size, and your volunteers’ previous experience, among other things. But it also depends on who you want to welcome. By popular demand, I’m developing a volunteer training on disability access & inclusion – particularly around neurodevelopmental differences like autism and ADHD. Drop me a comment or an email, or reach out directly to birdinthebellfry@gmail.com for more information.Rally Day, Homecoming, Sundae Sunday, & The Rest: I confess, I honestly never really understood Rally Day, maybe because my church didn’t really celebrate it when I was a child. We called it that, yes, but we didn’t do anything special to mark it during those years.
In more recent years, though, I think churches have really doubled down on making sure that welcome back gets folks through the doors – and that makes sense. But is your strategy really working? I’m headed into my first full program year with my current congregation, so I’ll be excited to see how Sundae Sunday works and how we generate energy for the coming season.
My program year is still about seven weeks out, so for those of you running on earlier timelines, some of these thoughts may come too late, but as I’ve been known to joke with friends (particularly clergy colleagues who have considered or actually taken up improve comedy), children’s ministry in particular is a lot like improv. Even the best laid plans are always up in the air.
Personally, I trained for several years in a dance form called contact improvisation which I think is the perfect tool for this work. The first lesson: how to fall without getting hurt. Now let’s go.
Peace,
Bird