easter 2015

The biggest (or most public) faux pas I have ever made in the Godly Play community came when I mentioned teaching the children a song. Straightaway someone reminded me, "Music in the Godly Play classroom ...  needs to come from the children and not be imposed by the adults on them " ( Teaching Godly Play,  p.89). Godly Play does not use singing "to bond the children, to quiet them, to memorize texts, interpret texts [or] to keep the teacher in control" (p.89). I have to confess not only that I have taught songs in my Godly Play sessions, but I have probably also used them to quiet children! (A.K.A. "getting ready") Let me give those earlier quotes more context. In the same book, on the next page, Berryman writes, "From 3-6 years many of the Taiz� songs can be taught by rote in unison during the feast...". (p.90)  the Taiz� cross ( licensed photo by Surfnico ) So teaching music is allowed , at least to young children, and provided it's kept...

Yesterday I made a pass through a local flea market. And what did I find? Two child-sized chairs, at only �4.50 each. And a few stalls later, a child-sized table for �5. The chairs are a bit banged up, and the table doesn't match the chairs, but I grabbed them for our Play and Pray area anyway. (If anyone from the congregation would like to paint them, that'll be fine with me!)  I just left them in the car last night and unloaded them into the chapel today... whereupon I realized that they still had the price labels on them. Better bring some Goo Gone next week! The pencil tin on the table was also a new purchase, but as soon as I started to put the pencils into it, I realized it was TOO LOUD. I'll keep my eyes open for a fabric pencil case instead.  Wouldn't you know it? One family was away at a retreat this weekend, and another couple of children ran late or something - just before the service started their mother scooted in alone and mouthed, "Sorry" to me ...

I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. -Albert Einstein

Today was the last day of our Level I, Part 1, training course in Leiden. I spent some of yesterday and this morning working with a partner on the presentation about the Last Supper. I loved how she "offered" the wine to everyone [Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (like its descendant, Godly Play), maintains a distinction between historical characters, represented by 3-D figures, and characters who are only elements in a story, such as the Good Samaritan (Jesus tells a story about him, but there is no assertion in the Gospels that he was a real person). Parable characters are "flat", both literally and figuratively. So Linda pointed out that although these Last Supper characters are chunky it would be even better if the corners were sanded off them so that they were rounder and more clearly distinguishable from wooden 2-D figures.] We finished our day with a look at the Pentecost Celebration. I found it a somewhat dissatisfying mix of teaching and participation (being...

morning walk to the parish center sung responses at Mass Dutch coffee break presentation: "Baptism I" carefully putting materials away "preparing the cruets" sharing our evening meal

Earlier this month I shared a quote from a sermon by Stanley Hauerwas . That sermon was given on St. Luke's Day (2007). Here's some more of what he said: The gospel... the story of Jesus, is known only because it has been told and retold through witnesses across time and space. These witnesses, moreover, actually become part of the story such that the teller and the tale become one. Indeed the witnesses become so much a part of the story that the retelling must incorporate an account of their lives if the story is to be truthfully told. We call such people "saints"... Today we celebrate the feast of a saint called Luke. We do so because Luke, under the guidance of the Spirit, thought Theophilus needed an orderly account so that he might know the truth concerning the things about which he had been instructed. "Orderly account" is Luke's way of saying "story". Stanley Hauerwas ( A Cross-Shattered Church , p.47) ( the story for Candlemas , Luke 2:...

Another thing that we did today, at Level 1 training for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, was to see and hear two Parables of the Kingdom - the Precious Pearl and the Mustard Seed. (CGS Pearl materials) Godly Play presents these same parables, but very differently. My very first reaction was that I preferred the CGS version of the Mustard Seed, but the GP version of the Great Pearl. CGS won the Mustard Seed hands-down by letting us look at, touch, even taste a real mustard seed. It was a particular variety found in Israel - which might well be the one Jesus was talking about. These seeds were MUCH smaller (or rather,  much smaller ) than the ones I grew up with. That black dot on her middle finger - that's a mustard seed! GP and CGS differ, in the Pearl parable, in how they interpret the phrase, all that he had . (I've written about this before , saying  Normally I think we understand the merchant to have sold "everything he could spare". The version of this parable f...

Today was a difficult day to be a non-communicant at Mass. (On this training course for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd I'm the only one who is not Roman Catholic.)  Our Gospel lesson was,  I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  And then everyone except me went forward to receive communion. Toward the end of the day, Linda presented the lesson of the Good Shepherd. Usually, at the end of a presentation which has included a reading from the Bible she asks, What did you hear? You know what I heard? I heard these words:  There are other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and I must lead these too. They too will listen to my voice, and there will be only one flock, one shepherd.  

A few highlights from our day today: Linda said, "I was tempted to ask, after yesterday's "Altar II" presentation, whether anyone noticed Fr Joseph put the leftover consecrated bread into the ciborium and tabernacle this morning." I didn't quite have the courage to answer, "Yes, and I took a photograph!" our priest at the high altar It's a beautiful church, isn't it? But a pity that the roof is leaking! looking toward the side chapel we use The parish priest joined us for lunch today, and he and I shared commiserations about difficulties for both the Dutch (Roman Catholics) and the English (Anglicans) with regard to the cost of maintaining so many church buildings, some with relatively sparse attendance, as balanced against having a loyal few members per building who cannot bear to move anywhere else. I had not realized that the 9 o'clock masses we had originally planned to attend, at different churches scattered across the city, are al...

As you'll have gathered from my previous post , some CGS presentations are very simple indeed . In Level 1, Part 1, we're being shown presentations designed with the needs of 3- and 4-year-olds in mind. These children are expanding their vocabularies, able to learn terminology - chalice, paten, ciborium, tabernacle  - but, "They don't want the whole liturgical history of the altar: including when the priests faced east and when it was that they turned to face the congregation..."* Of course not, I thought. What a silly, unnecessary thing to say.  * [This was not a direct quote. I can't remember what our trainer's actual over-the-top example was.] She presented  the gesture of  Genuflection for us . I experienced this as consisting of little more than  demonstrating and naming the movement. In fact, in the first presentation it is simplified down to a movement of the legs, with no accompanying sign of the cross.  (licensed photo by Mulier Fortis ) But then...

A continuing series about my Level I, Part 1, training in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. materials for Liturgical Colors I showed some pictures yesterday of the materials for the Liturgical Colors. I know from a list we've been given that there is a presentation about the Liturgical Calendar. But in CGS younger children (or perhaps any beginner) is shown this very, very simple lesson on the Liturgical Colors. It just names the four colors and assigns them to before the feast, the feast,  and after the feast.  And then  the feast of the Holy Spirit. That's it. No Advent, no Lent, no commemorations of martyred saints, but one more repetition of the four times, pointing to the four colors of chasuble, and then it's already time to show how to put the work away. Because, as our trainer said, "This is a three-year-old. They're itching to work with these materials themselves !"  That's another difference between GP and CGS: in GP the majority of materials are ...

( image source ) Before signing up for this course (on the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd) I knew the name of Sofia Cavalletti , the Hebrew scholar who, upon being asked to instruct a child in the Christian faith, began by reading to him from Genesis and was delighted to find how eager and curious he was - "the beginner's mind". I hadn't understood before, though, that CGS was a team effort. The Montessori element came from Gianna Gobbi , who had trained under Maria Montessori herself. I have seen references to Montessori albums, but had never really understood what that referred to. And herein lies one important  difference between Godly Play and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd . In Godly Play we buy scripts written by Jerome W. Berryman, and we stick to them. As I've written before, we're not so slavish as to use notes - not speaking from memory is a sin even greater than deliberately changing the script - bur we are told to use the GP script and live with ...

Training began with morning mass at a church in central Leiden. I discover that I am the only course participant who is not Roman Catholic. apologies for a wonky perspective The plan was to travel to a different church almost every morning. I thought, "I needn't have worked so hard to find a B&B close by our training location." But then we found that one of us on the course is a priest. We are training in a parish center, so it is agreed that from now on we'll start the day with him saying mass for us in a chapel here. My B&B choice is justified after all! We then had coffee in the atrium, so as to get a quick sense of where it is and what it looks like, and then we were off to a clasroom space for a morning's lecture. Before beginning, though, Linda asked each of us to introduce ourselves. The majority are Dutch, but some of us have traveled from farther afield, including Norway and Japan, and are originally from countries such as India, Argentina, and Br...

Tomorrow I'm off to the Netherlands for an intensive week of training in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (in English). I had meant to blog about this already back when I registered, but I got stuck when I failed to figure out how to put a pdf of the course leaflet up here. (Now I've copied what the training center have done, which is to link to it from an image - see below.) Instead I'll just give you a few highlights: "The course will cover the first year program of level 1 of the method." Our trainer will be Linda Kaeil, from Portland, Oregon. She "is a long time experienced catechist and trainer of catechists in the United States, Germany, England, Poland, Australia, Canada and Africa. She trains the Missionaries of Charity (sisters of Mother Theresa) ... and teaches catechesis to children of 3 to 12 years at the Franciscan Montessori Earth School." Wow! I think of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd as the mother of Godly Play. Certainly, Jerome Be...

In my Facebook feed this week there've been a couple of posts about Montessori basics. David Pritchard has started a series on the Godly Play Espa�a blog (written in Spanish) about the foundations of Godly Play, with a post about the Montessori method . He begins,  En las escuelas Montessori la libertad es ciertamente muy importante, pero para conquistarla los ni�os tienen que trabajar de forma independiente y respetuosa. (Keep reading - my translation comes a bit further down.) Meanwhile, the National Association of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd USA has a FB thread going about ways to gently redirect a child. They asked, What are some phrases you use instead [of saying "No" or "Don't"]? Here are some of their answers: use positive examples Let's do this. instead of Don't do that. Remember we walk around the work rugs. model the way to do it Can I help you with that? May I have a turn? Let me show you how we work with this material. Can I show you...

The gospel is known by one person telling another. One person must tell another because the gospel is a story. There is no truth, there is no summary of the story, that can be separated from the story itself. Stanley Hauerwas ( A Cross-Shattered Church , p.47)