Okay, so it's quite hard work getting children in and out of coats, hats, gloves and boots, but I'm quite enjoying living with snow. It's beautiful; cold and crisp, huge crystals glittering in the sunshine. We are finally experiencing the stereotypical images of winter that are usually only seen in Christmas cards and history books.
Maybe it's because I got used to this way of life when we lived in Kyrgyzstan where there can be snow for months. Schools stay open (unless it gets to minus 20) and roads are certainly never gritted, so everyone just gets on with it. Dilapidated Ladas, held together mostly by string, keep on sliding over ever thickening ice. Kyrgyz girls refuse to give up their fashion - stilettos. Watching them it occurred to me that this is actually quite sensible footwear for these conditions because the heels act like crampons in the snow and ice.
This morning our brilliant Sunday School was open - on the school site. Lots of people turned up, keen to keep life as normal as possible. We discussed schools closing - there's already talk of school closing tomorrow, even though the snow hasn't yet fallen. Twenty-four hour media, we decided, is part of the problem. They keep a story live, updating every hour, squeezing every detail from it - if I see one more report from a gritting depot I will scream! This means we are always on alert about something that we might just calmly get on with if not constantly bombarded by media hype.
It's also occurred to me that one of the saddest things about this whole schools closing issue is the reflection of our society. Schools close because there is a presumption that if someone falls over and hurts themselves in the playground, they will sue. That says more about the attitude of society as a whole, the blame culture we have created, than the actual decision to close schools.
Showing posts with label Sunday School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sunday School. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Gold, Frankincense and Sudocrem
At Sunday School we are having very interesting discussions which are challenging and inspiring both adults and children. We are thinking about the nativity story behind the Christmas card scene; what it was like for Mary who was probably a young teenager, giving birth for the first time away from home and family; how it would really feel to sleep in a stable; why shepherds were chosen as the first messengers.
It’s fascinating to see what aspects of the story children take for granted, how years of listening and acting have distorted the sequence of why or how things happened.
“Why did Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem?” H asked. “To have a baby,” a child answered with a tone of “duh, don’t you know anything.” Bethlehem has become such an integral part of Jesus’ birth it’s easy to forget that Mary and Joseph hadn’t planned it that way. (That God had planned it that way is something we will probably discuss in our grown-up's evening chat about the Nativity).
The children explained to H that Mary, Joseph and Jesus had then hung around in the stable waiting for three kings, who took a couple of days to arrive because they lived a long way away. That the kings may not have arrived for up to two years later, and probably visited Jesus back home in Nazareth, is something we didn’t expand on as we didn’t want to entirely disrupt the equilibrium of that idyllic crib scene.
We discussed what gifts the kings brought. One well-informed boy knew that myrrh was cream. “Does anyone know when you would use myrrh?” H asked. “When Jesus was having his nappy changed” the next boy (my six year old) answered! It was another wonderful image in our child-interpreted nativity; three wise men presenting the Messiah with a grey tub of Sudocrem.
Sudocrem would probably have been more welcome to Mary at that time, especially considering what myrrh represented. Each of the three king’s gifts has symbolic meaning: Gold, an image of kingship; Frankincense, burnt in religious ceremonies, indicative of Jesus’ divinity and myrrh, part of the ritual of death. “For Christmas is nothing without what happens at Easter,” H said “because Jesus was born to die.” There was a pause, a contemplative silence from the row of six year olds, all frowning.
Intense talking over, we concentrated on decorating gingerbread men to look like the famous people in the Christmas story, most of whom ended up head or limbless.
It’s fascinating to see what aspects of the story children take for granted, how years of listening and acting have distorted the sequence of why or how things happened.
“Why did Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem?” H asked. “To have a baby,” a child answered with a tone of “duh, don’t you know anything.” Bethlehem has become such an integral part of Jesus’ birth it’s easy to forget that Mary and Joseph hadn’t planned it that way. (That God had planned it that way is something we will probably discuss in our grown-up's evening chat about the Nativity).
The children explained to H that Mary, Joseph and Jesus had then hung around in the stable waiting for three kings, who took a couple of days to arrive because they lived a long way away. That the kings may not have arrived for up to two years later, and probably visited Jesus back home in Nazareth, is something we didn’t expand on as we didn’t want to entirely disrupt the equilibrium of that idyllic crib scene.
We discussed what gifts the kings brought. One well-informed boy knew that myrrh was cream. “Does anyone know when you would use myrrh?” H asked. “When Jesus was having his nappy changed” the next boy (my six year old) answered! It was another wonderful image in our child-interpreted nativity; three wise men presenting the Messiah with a grey tub of Sudocrem.
Sudocrem would probably have been more welcome to Mary at that time, especially considering what myrrh represented. Each of the three king’s gifts has symbolic meaning: Gold, an image of kingship; Frankincense, burnt in religious ceremonies, indicative of Jesus’ divinity and myrrh, part of the ritual of death. “For Christmas is nothing without what happens at Easter,” H said “because Jesus was born to die.” There was a pause, a contemplative silence from the row of six year olds, all frowning.
Intense talking over, we concentrated on decorating gingerbread men to look like the famous people in the Christmas story, most of whom ended up head or limbless.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Christmas Nativity
I love the one-off comments children come out with – funny but at the same time often sad and poignant, an insight into their perceptions, fears or passions. I have a book called Lots of Love, a collection of such phrases edited by Nanette Newman. “My mother ses she’s cold and then she makes me put on a coat”...”you couldn’t make everyone in the world love each other. They dont even get on in blocks of flats”...”babees need to be loved by their mother in case everybody hates them when they grow up”...”vikars dont larf much. I think its because Jesus didnt tell many jokes”.
At Sunday School we were discussing the Christmas Story. “And what did the angel do?” H, the leader asked. L, a three year old with beautiful blond hair put up her hand. “She sprinkled fairy dust everywhere” she answered seriously. It was a wonderful image, God’s messenger scattering glitter from the heavens. We then moved on to the annual Awkward Moment when we thought about why Joseph might not be pleased when his girlfriend Mary told him she was having a baby. A couple of the teenagers raised their hands. “Is your answer age appropriate?” H asked. The hands were put down again.
As the children trotted out the set answers they have learnt over the years ...Bethlehem...the inns were all full...in a stable...I couldn’t help wondering if by turning the Christmas story into a photogenic tableau we have belittled its meaning and power. If you think about it, riding a donkey when you are very pregnant and giving birth in a cold, smelly stable is not romantic at all. And yet we all coo over it every year, without thinking beyond the images we have manipulated and sanitised.
When a letter came home from school asking for a costume for my son I was reminded how we have corrupted the story of Jesus’ birth with our western interpretation. T is a narrator and required “plain pyjamas, a dressing gown and a stripy tea towel” – none of which we have. Refusing to buy a dressing gown I asked if I could make him a tunic. I was told this would have to be clarified by another teacher. For goodness sake, I thought, who wore dressing gowns in biblical times!
I looked in a child’s bible and found no dressing gowns but lots of men wearing stripy tunics. I also found a disturbing image which reminded me, as H and I discussed at Sunday School, that the most traumatic result of Jesus’ birth is often overlooked; hundreds of baby boys were murdered on King Herod's orders. The picture I saw is of a mother (in a tunic) kneeling over her baby and pleading with a soldier holding a bloody knife. What a terrible thing to have happened. Maybe that is why we never think of it; it’s easier to dress three boys up in crowns and watch them hand over golden caskets. But life was hard and violent in biblical times. And no-one wore towelling dressing gowns.
PS, You will be pleased to hear that my tunic was sanctioned by the teachers and T looked fantastic in it. The play was really very good: Tiny four-year-old angels angelically flapping their wings; wise men telling jokes (my son’s favourite part); great facial expressions from reluctant camels; raucous singing and excellent acting from Mary and Joseph. It even had some realism to satisfy cynical me – an acknowledgement that it was hard for Mary and Joseph to toil across the desert in the heat of the day and cold of the night; genuine concern about there being “no room at the inn”; a mention of the stable being smelly. I was also heartened to see, amongst the Ben 10 nightwear, other creative adaptations of the dressing gown theme.
Pps. Don’t dismiss me as a total killjoy; it does bother me that that I can’t just take these things at face value and sit back and enjoy 90 primary school children performing for half an hour a year. I do also appreciate that there is an element of teachers asking for costumes easily accessible to most parents. I’m just concerned that our children will grow up with a distorted assumption of what was worn in Bethlehem. Some simple context would help restore authenticity. Maybe in the melee of preparing for these plays we should make sure we find time to discuss what people actually wore, and why.
At Sunday School we were discussing the Christmas Story. “And what did the angel do?” H, the leader asked. L, a three year old with beautiful blond hair put up her hand. “She sprinkled fairy dust everywhere” she answered seriously. It was a wonderful image, God’s messenger scattering glitter from the heavens. We then moved on to the annual Awkward Moment when we thought about why Joseph might not be pleased when his girlfriend Mary told him she was having a baby. A couple of the teenagers raised their hands. “Is your answer age appropriate?” H asked. The hands were put down again.
As the children trotted out the set answers they have learnt over the years ...Bethlehem...the inns were all full...in a stable...I couldn’t help wondering if by turning the Christmas story into a photogenic tableau we have belittled its meaning and power. If you think about it, riding a donkey when you are very pregnant and giving birth in a cold, smelly stable is not romantic at all. And yet we all coo over it every year, without thinking beyond the images we have manipulated and sanitised.
When a letter came home from school asking for a costume for my son I was reminded how we have corrupted the story of Jesus’ birth with our western interpretation. T is a narrator and required “plain pyjamas, a dressing gown and a stripy tea towel” – none of which we have. Refusing to buy a dressing gown I asked if I could make him a tunic. I was told this would have to be clarified by another teacher. For goodness sake, I thought, who wore dressing gowns in biblical times!
I looked in a child’s bible and found no dressing gowns but lots of men wearing stripy tunics. I also found a disturbing image which reminded me, as H and I discussed at Sunday School, that the most traumatic result of Jesus’ birth is often overlooked; hundreds of baby boys were murdered on King Herod's orders. The picture I saw is of a mother (in a tunic) kneeling over her baby and pleading with a soldier holding a bloody knife. What a terrible thing to have happened. Maybe that is why we never think of it; it’s easier to dress three boys up in crowns and watch them hand over golden caskets. But life was hard and violent in biblical times. And no-one wore towelling dressing gowns.
PS, You will be pleased to hear that my tunic was sanctioned by the teachers and T looked fantastic in it. The play was really very good: Tiny four-year-old angels angelically flapping their wings; wise men telling jokes (my son’s favourite part); great facial expressions from reluctant camels; raucous singing and excellent acting from Mary and Joseph. It even had some realism to satisfy cynical me – an acknowledgement that it was hard for Mary and Joseph to toil across the desert in the heat of the day and cold of the night; genuine concern about there being “no room at the inn”; a mention of the stable being smelly. I was also heartened to see, amongst the Ben 10 nightwear, other creative adaptations of the dressing gown theme.
Pps. Don’t dismiss me as a total killjoy; it does bother me that that I can’t just take these things at face value and sit back and enjoy 90 primary school children performing for half an hour a year. I do also appreciate that there is an element of teachers asking for costumes easily accessible to most parents. I’m just concerned that our children will grow up with a distorted assumption of what was worn in Bethlehem. Some simple context would help restore authenticity. Maybe in the melee of preparing for these plays we should make sure we find time to discuss what people actually wore, and why.
Sunday, 20 January 2008
Two children, two kittens and three ducks
Two children, two kittens and three ducks - these are my dependents; solely my dependents at the moment as my husband has been working abroad for two weeks. I can feel very sorry for myself; in all this foul weather I've been on my own with two hyperactive boys, wind and rain lashing incessantly against the windows, flood waters rising on the lane outside. And I'm six months pregnant. But I feel proud - I'm surviving. I've just about kept it together with the children and I've not even cried yet.
I've been more worried about the animals. Symptomatic of my obsessive traits when things get out of control, I found myself cleaning the duck house out during the storm last Friday. Their house had flooded and I was worried about them spending the night on wet, freezing hay. So I put on my wellies, hat and coat, shovelled the muck out and put clean bedding in, drenched myself by torrential rain so that I had to strip to my underwear when I got in.
Thank God for CBeebies; my children were safe and content in front of the fire. So I turned my obsessive concern to the kittens, fussing around their house to make sure it was a dry haven in which they could spent the night. A very sensible and supportive friend of mine suggested that of all my dependents, the ducks were probably best able to survive the weather alone. But my father taught me to always care for the animals first and I knew I'd not sleep that night unless I was sure they were all safe from the raging elements.
We've been to Sunday School this morning and it reminded me how important it is to get out and mix with other families. At 7.05am I felt tired to the core, despondent, tearful and was contemplating driving off and leaving my children who were spitting cereal at each other across the table. Arriving at Sunday School I realised that other families have just the same amount of problems and inconveniences, and felt ashamed for my self-pity. This morning Sunday School and my wonderful supportive friends there, restored my sense of perspective so that I am now able to face another wet, windy day as a single mother with renewed vigor.
I've been more worried about the animals. Symptomatic of my obsessive traits when things get out of control, I found myself cleaning the duck house out during the storm last Friday. Their house had flooded and I was worried about them spending the night on wet, freezing hay. So I put on my wellies, hat and coat, shovelled the muck out and put clean bedding in, drenched myself by torrential rain so that I had to strip to my underwear when I got in.
Thank God for CBeebies; my children were safe and content in front of the fire. So I turned my obsessive concern to the kittens, fussing around their house to make sure it was a dry haven in which they could spent the night. A very sensible and supportive friend of mine suggested that of all my dependents, the ducks were probably best able to survive the weather alone. But my father taught me to always care for the animals first and I knew I'd not sleep that night unless I was sure they were all safe from the raging elements.
We've been to Sunday School this morning and it reminded me how important it is to get out and mix with other families. At 7.05am I felt tired to the core, despondent, tearful and was contemplating driving off and leaving my children who were spitting cereal at each other across the table. Arriving at Sunday School I realised that other families have just the same amount of problems and inconveniences, and felt ashamed for my self-pity. This morning Sunday School and my wonderful supportive friends there, restored my sense of perspective so that I am now able to face another wet, windy day as a single mother with renewed vigor.
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