easter 2015

Sometimes, words just can't say what we feel. Sometimes we need to speak differently... through art... or silence... a quote from this video:

Although Little Sister initially ignored the Baptism materials in favor of the Holy Family and World Communion , she eventually went back to the attic and turned her attention to the Baptism doll. I accompanied her to a sink/basin where she was able to fill our little jug with water. She carried that through to where the materials were, and poured some out into the bowl. She then picked up the doll by its feet and prepared to dip it head-first into the bowl of water! Never interfere ?? All my training fell by the wayside. I gasped in horror and insisted, "No no no! We take water in our hand and put it on the baby's head that way." Little Sister was much intrigued by the bottle of oil and asked what it was for. I used a little to make the sign of the cross on her forehead, and she did the same for me.  But what is this [the bottle of oil]   for ? It struck me that I make little use of it in the lesson, since our Finnish Lutheran priests don't use any oil in a baptism ...

While Little Sister was  organizing and ordering  the  Jesus t'ings , her brother was engaged in somewhat similar work. He had found a new card game in our games drawer, featuring characters from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . He spent a lot of time, certainly more than an hour, working with the cards. Much of the work seemed to involve sorting them into different categories. When he first found the game, he asked me a couple of questions about it, but as I had never even taken it out of its cellophane wrapper I was unable to help him very much. I encouraged him to open it and have a look, and we had a super-brief glance at the instructions together. At one point during the evening I heard his mother reading some of the instruction leaflet to him, and a while later I heard him ask her questions about a few characters, whether they were good guys or bad guys. Mostly, though, he worked with the cards alone.  For a brief moment the next day I felt bad that I had...

Remember  Little Sister, who hunted through my attic for "Jesus things" ? It wasn't enough for her to work with them in the attic; she wanted to carry them down to the living room as well. And when I look at the photographs I took, one thing that strikes me is order . Godly Play is informed greatly by the educational methods of Maria Montessori. Montessori found that children are attracted to orderliness from a very early age, less than a year old in fact. She argued that children are sensitive to order ( sensitivity is a technical term here, meaning able and eager to learn) during these early years, perhaps especially in their third year (age 2)). This does not mean that after their third birthday they stop finding order attractive, but rather that already by then they should have learned how to put things away, what belongs where, and how to recognize things that are out of order. clockwise from left: Noah's ark, the Bethlehem stable, the Table of the Good Shephe...

Sheila's recent post about Saint Columba and the Book of Kells prompted me to put together a post about my visit with Vandriver to Holy Island (or Lindisfarne) this summer. Like Mont Saint-Michel, Lindisfarne is a tidal island (meaning that you can walk or drive to it, but only at low tide). In 635 AD a monastery was founded there by Aiden, a monk from Iona. Aiden's tile - front Among the ruins of the Benedictine abbey (built around 1150 AD), I found several modern "tiles" on display designed by children from the island village. It seemed especially fitting that the first one I came across was by a child named Aiden! Aiden's tile - back Can you spot two tiles in the picture below? (hint: the tiles are white) Here are two more tiles, close-up: art by Rowan art by Caitlin I was intrigued by this project to engage local children with historic monuments (which then also reminded tourists that this island is some people's home). While on Lindisfarne I also did so...

Our year in England is not yet over, but we recently had the chance to return to Finland for a short visit. We were glad to spend time with one young family who used to come regularly to Junior Church.  After a day's outing together, the children asked whether they might come to our house and we ended up giving a spontaneous Yes . Big Brother found the toy drawer without delay, and settled down with its dominoes and a new card game. But Little Sister... He saw the dust lying thick on everything, saw the cheerless, deserted look of the long-neglected house, and its narrow, meagre dimensions, its worn and shabby contents� and collapsed again on a hall-chair, his nose to his paws. 'O Ratty!' he cried dismally, 'why ever did I do it? Why did I bring you to this poor, cold little place, on a night like this?' --Kenneth Grahame Like the Mole in The Wind and the Willows, who remembers his home as being ready to step right back into, Little Sister seemed disappointed not to...