easter 2015

Today I want to share with you a poem   by the poet Jos� Mar�a Rodr�guez Olaizola, SJ . I came across it because it was used in one of t he daily prayer podcasts by  Rezandovoy , a sister initiative to Pray as You Go .  As I listened to it today, I thought of the way the Godly Play scripts draw from the eternal word of God, that well which will never run dry.  You can read the original here . This is my translation into English: Your word will not pass away The days and the years go by. History unfolds and is filled with names, with faces, with little gestures. Joys and sorrows come and go. Faces and hands become wrinkled, and hair turns to snow. Some wounds finally heal. Words are spoken and forgotten. Songs die. Poems fall silent. Life goes by. One life. But your word endures. There remains love's powerful force. There remains every caress which makes the world humane, every act of forgiveness, and every feast from which no one is excluded. There rem...

We made a brief visit back to Finland during the summer. Sadly, our pastor has been unable to continue offering weekly services, so our congregation now meets only twice a month. The Sunday we were there was one of the Sundays when there was no service. So I organised a sort of "house church" Godly Play session with one of the families whose children used to come to Junior Church. I made a focal shelf in their living room.  Ahead of time, I had asked the children each to request a set of story materials they'd like me to bring. I used these, as well as some of the family's own possessions (like a storybook about Jonah), to surround us with stories the way a Godly Play classroom does. I presented the Circle of the Church Year and we had crayons to use during Response Time. During our feast we listened to the passage from Ecclesiastes  about there being a right time for everything, and we had a short time of prayer. I asked the parents what hymns they would like us to s...

Today I start my third year of part-time ministry training. I hope to be ordained at the end of the (academic) year as a deacon in the Church of England, and then the following year as priest. A few months ago I took a deep breath and ordered my first stole (to be worn once I am ordained). Why this design? When Bishop David interviewed me he asked what "my" Gospel was, what the Good News was from my point of view. I answered, steeped as I was in Godly Play at the time, "The Good News is that there is a Good Shepherd, and he knows all the sheep by name and he cares for them." stole by Juliet Hemingray

Recently I was interested to see another church's Play and Pray area, where items were stored thematically.  Can you read the labels? They include "The Lost Sheep", "Nativity", "Noah's Ark", and "Church".  (Please click here to read my other posts about Pray and Play areas .)