“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ― W.B. Yeats
Sometimes it’s hard to know if my 3-year-old is even listening to me. How can I know if he’s developing a relationship with God? Does it go beyond sitting quietly in church and having answers that please Mommy? And if I’m to become child-like in order to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3), how does that affect the way my son and I worship together?
One of my favorite blogs is aslanslibrary.wordpress.com. Sarah and Haley, two Bay Area moms, share and review theological kid's literature. Their reviews are so lovely and insightful and I enjoy every post. Right now my son and I are using one of their recommendations, The Garden of the Good Shepherd sticker calendar, by Tomie dePaola. It has wonderful changing scenes like the pasture of the good shepherd and the Lord’s Table with a sticker, scripture and short meditation for each day. There are many resources to help families celebrate Lent and Easter Sunday, but few that celebrate the season of Easter. Easter is such a great mystery (these are words from our Godly Play church calendar story!) that it can’t be contained in one Sunday and so it spills over into its own season and ends with Pentecost (last Sunday, June 8th).
So, one morning my son and I were—I’ll be honest—slogging our way through the sticker calendar and reading of the day. We were behind and I was having to resist the urge to skim through multiple days so we could get back on track; my son just wanted to go outside. Suddenly something struck a chord with him and he began asking one question after another, many of which I didn’t have perfect answers for. (“If Jesus died, did God the Father die too?”) I was so glad to be able to fall back on my training as a Godly Play teacher. Instead of feeling pressure to answer each question “correctly,” I was able to relax and wonder along with him. Sometimes I had answers, but often I could say, “I haven’t thought of it that way” or, “I’ve wondered about that too.” Time slowed down. Tangents became ok. It stopped being “work.” We both felt peaceful and engaged.
Worship and wonder can be used synonymously. How else do we even begin to approach God, but through the use of our imagination? Wonder is open-ended. It doesn’t always have a single answer. It’s not a test or a checklist. It often involves losing track of time or releasing that false sense of having control that we hold onto so desperately. And it usually goes beyond turning a complex story into a simple fable with a moral take-away.
As an educator, I’m familiar with a big shift in pedagogy that’s happened since I attended school. Education has moved from “teachers download information into children” to “teachers are guides and memorization is really just the first step to understanding.” This shift applies to spiritual development, too. On Sundays after the story’s been told, the storyteller and community of children do open-ended wonder questions. The way the questions are structured encourages the children to move from replaying the story in their minds (What part of the story do you like best? Which part is most important?) to analysis, evaluation and even creation (Where do you see yourself in the story? I wonder if there’s any part of the story you could leave out and still have all the story you need?).
Some children are outgoing or they’ve learned to trust their community of children and so they feel comfortable wondering aloud; others wonder internally, silently. And that’s ok. It’s about the communal act of wondering. It’s about trusting God and trusting his story. Wonder allows us to enter into the story, to see that it’s real, that it happened to real people—and also to see that it’s still happening and that we’re in it. We open ourselves to this and we help our children to open themselves to this in order to encounter God’s elusive presence.
If you are an adult who would like to wonder with our children as a storyteller or greeter...
Or, if you’re a parent who would like to experience a children’s worship class and see how to encourage your children to wonder...
You’re invited to an adult-only children’s worship class on June 22nd. The class will meet in the chapel at 10am. The story will be “The Circle of the Church Year” and we will (as the the children do) rejoin the big service for communion.
Please email Meg Connell to RSVP, or to share any questions or ideas! meg@oaklandcitychurch.org
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