Saints

Happy St. Pat's Day !! (yesterday)

Saint. * The word means different things to Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. But I think it's good to understand why people believe what they believe historically and today, especially if we're part of the same Body or if we hope to build bridges that people are willing to cross to interact with the God we claim to know.

Here is an Orthodox info-site specifically for non-Orthodox inquirers with lots of avenues to investigate.

This information about saints comes from an Israeli art exhibition with a tie-in to beauty.

This article is from a Catholic source. It's critiquing another article, but it's interesting because it talks about the difference between saints and heros.

When it's time for Christmas, this is about St. Nick.

I don't know much about these sources. I'm not sure where they fall on the conservative/liberal spectrum. They're just sources of information. If you have better sources, feel free to share.

Given my Protestant background I only started thinking about this a few years ago. As an elementary student, I loved American History biographies. As a young adult I wasn't reading biographies much because I figured Jesus is enough. I think of Jesus as human but perfect because He's God. I think of saints as falling somewhere between human and perfect but closer to perfect and, as people of faith, they were overcomers. The Protestant perspective is that all believers are saints and God is looking for all of us to be overcomers.

We usually appreciate strong role models and real-life faith-filled heros for kids. Real people. People they can look up to, relate to, and learn from. People who overcome obstacles. Jesus was like that (is like that) He came as a real person. He's also God. He had obstacles to overcome and He worked miracles. Bible heros and people in our faith communities - we all have obstacles to overcome and God is still doing amazing things in our lives, but not everyone's willing to share their stories.

The word "saint" is in the scriptures. Consider it a language-of-faith issue, a specialized vocabulary word. What does it mean, this word "saint"? What does it mean to us? What does it mean to other people? Is it important? Not to take away from the scriputures but alot of the stories are great stories, stories that point people back to God.


*"Saint" as used in the scriptures also makes an interesting word study.

Reading blogs and pondering justice

I'll feel bad if I talk about one blog more than another. I ask you, is that fair?

I'll go this far. Reading through commentor's blogs these jumped out at me because folks at Artisan have been talking about ways to develop their commitment to justice and these happened to be justice/service related. (I see justice and service related):

JadedCM has a post ("Kids in Ministry") about the service project his kids are doing this summer.

A few weeks ago at Artisan, kids brought an offering of things to give away. (Most of the Artisan kids are under 7 years.)

I think it was PoMoKidz that mentioned Pentecost 2006 - a trail that some of you might enjoy looking into :
"A key part of Pentecost 2006 is ensuring that these emerging leaders around the county – people of faith age 30 and under who wish to integrate their faith with their passion for social justice – are equipped and energized to do so." That's all I know.

So my mind is running on justice: My husband particularly likes the idea behind Life Water International. (There's a download to enter the website.) It would be easy to make something like this kid-friendly.

A number of years ago the Evangelical Covenant Church followed (I believe it was) a toy horse that a child put into an offering plate as it made it's way to various mission sights. I don't know if that resource is still available to Sunday Schools.

On the Emerging Kids post from Sunday, July 31, 2005 there are some films and books that touch on justice and other (Artisan) values for kids and families.

Missions and service are one avenue to justice for kids. Another: the topics that kids study in school (police, firemen, ambulance, doctor, judges & juries, government). Don't forget your local Humane Society or SPCA. You can also use history, biographies, fiction, non-fiction, the news as conversation starters. Alot of families and individuals express their sense of justice through the choice of stores and products they patronize. Some are politically involved at various levels. Many individuals advocate for "right" where they live, work, go to school, or in the lives of the people they care about but they don't talk about it (or maybe they rant about it) but they may not think about it as justice.

The harder task (or maybe it's the same task) is the opposite - dealing with the reality that "Life isn't fair." There are things we can't change. How do you know where to invest? How do you know which opportunities to grab? How do you know if, when, and how to get involved or whether to stick it out when it doesn't feel like you're making a difference? All of this is justice related when you're advocating that people and living things be treated right.

Did Jesus advocate justice? How? Don't do a word study on the word "justice," think about the stories.

That list . . .

Understand that I'm partial to children's books and yes, I'm partial to quilting but here is a book that captures something of the multi-faceted "BEAUTY!"! I recently came across THE QUILTMAKER'S GIFT by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken publ by Pfeifer-Hamilton Inc. Duluth MN 2000. A fun read! Just in case you all rush the library. . . this one's at Brighton but I haven't returned it yet :-)

Justice, Awe, Beauty, Roots, Community

I've been thinking about the last 5 posts. Maybe this would be helpful.

One of the scenes I love is in 101 Dalmations where the dogs bark across the countryside trying to find the puppies. That's an image I have when when I think of community. Any story about a community of people (or children) working together to accomplish something. Some are hilarious!

You could probably put Disney's Robin Hood under justice. There are actually a few Disney movies that may not be as popular that touch justice. The Power of One is NOT a kids' movie unless you preview and fast forward but it's probably one of the most powerful movies we've seen about justice.

Roots. Whale Rider for kids in mid elementary +. You'd have to talk about it. Alot of the older movies were more about severing roots than finding them. Biographies about significant people in church history. Historicals, immigration, books and movies about the countries and time periods that your ancestors came from . . .

Awe. I was so impressed in St. Louis when we saw the movie about building the St. Louis Arch because there was no loss of life. Any real life survival story or overcoming odds. Stories about miracles. Stories about inventors, engineers, scientists. There's a book of true stories about heroic kids ...I'll have to find it.

Beauty...stories about artists, writers, musicians, natural science, landscape panaramas, photographs, art, music, ...

When you see or read or hear something you want to remember buy it or keep a notebook and make a comment (where you found it) and note the age it's appropriate for. If you want me to make a list here, send me your info or put it in a comment.

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

Community

Community! Extended family. . . neighborhood . . . small town . . .diverse . . . not diverse. . . held together by ethnic origin . . . business community . . . school community . . . faith community. . . some are communal ... most are not. . . relational . . .geographical. . . sometimes defined by whether or not you feel like you're a part . . . sometimes you just are... Children in community... a story...let's see... here's one and you'll have your own stories.

My family was very connected to their church so I was, too. My parents and both sets of grandparents were regulars (organist, elders, Sunday school superintendant, Sunday school teacher.)

Memories:
-being little in someone's arms after a church dinner waving goodby to all the people with my fingers because my thumb was in my mouth
-sitting with my grandmother one Easter Sunday playing with her white gloves trying to put them on
- singing in the children's choir, loving it, and trying to sing louder than all the other kids.
-listening to my dad singing his beautiful tenor solos
-sitting in Sunday school hearing "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and taking it very literally and making choices to do that when grown ups would say, "you have to look out for yourself."
-a Sunday school teacher who was very short (and very sweet) and we couldn't wait until we grew taller than she was
-one of the people at church had a sheep farm. We'd go there every year on our before-dark-Halloween-route, stay, eat homemade donuts, and drink cider
-playing with the other kids, and taking my agnostic Sunday school debates to school.
-our pastors changed every 5 years or so. Sometimes they had kids, sometimes, no. It was more fun to have a new pastor with kids
-trying to help in nursery when I was too old to stay
-walking in the cemetary with one of my friends checking out the pre-1800 grave stones until church was over because church was boring
-we couldn't touch anything or run or be loud in church because it was God's house
-wanting to know God and not finding Him at church

After high school and two moves some of the kids in the new town (kids from 2-3 churches) started a Christian folk group and I played guitar so they recruited me. I encountered God in a real and personal way alone on a bus after a festival in Toronto. Our Bible study, prayer, coffee house, and connections were alive! All the college, post college, post married, married with children stories involve faith communities, too but each different.

A few years ago, we went through a season when we weren't really part of a church. We visited Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox. Sometimes we didn't go. We'd become part of a neighborhood, a school community, a city community, but church had always been such a part of the fabric of my life that I felt absolutely lost without a church on Sunday morning and up to that point on more than one occasion I had encountered God...

Which comes first encountering God or community? I don't know! I'm guessing God was there all along but I probably wasn't paying attention...

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

Roots

The word "story" is hidden in the word "history". History could be anything that happened before today!

I'm one of those people who always loved history. Both sides of my family collected family history, some of which tells of our family here since the 1600's . They had daguerratypes, old letters, old clothes. We had old circular letters my great-grandfather wrote to his children and circular letters his children wrote to each other. Many on both sides were believers with faith stories. We lived in a 100 year old farm with 12 buildings on it, not counting the well houses and the large buildings having 2-3 different functional parts. All the buildings were filled with old "stuff"! The stuff of stories!

My grandfather lived to be 96. He and my grandmother lived on the other side of the kitchen wall. He was born in 1900 so he lived through all the things that happened in our century from delivering milk with horse and wagon to watching men land on the moon on a color TV.

George's four grandparents all came to this country just after the turn of the century speaking other languages, leaving behind violence and revolutions, each marrying someone from a different country when they got here and making their way with very little. George grew up with those stories. Our kids grew up with some of both but because the world around them is so multicultural their roots may prove less magnetic than the world of friends.

I probably learned more church history because I was interested than from the church. We heard more stories of the beginning of the particular church we were married in than the stories of the larger church between Acts and the 20th century.

I knew someone who took a confirmation class that did a lot with church and denominational history. Her parents had recently changed churches. At the time she was taking the course, she was having a very different personal experience with God, with friends, in the church she grew up in, similar to that of her parents, - she was baptized in the Holy Spirit. She wanted to get baptized in water with her friends at the church her parents had left and her parents had reservations instead of saying, "You can get baptized anywhere you want!" and I don't know whether there was ever any real reconciliation of all those roots.

A mixture of stories. You probably have your own. Roots are called roots because that's what they are. They anchor you and help keep you upright. They nourish you. Sometimes you don't want anything to do with them. You want to cut them away. Maybe you're one of those plants with leaves that can be put in sand or water and they grow their own roots. Maybe we pay more attention to roots when we have kids. Kids ask alot of questions. Some of their roots will be yours and some will be their own but all of those roots will belong to their children.

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

Beauty

Paul said, "The Greeks say,..." so I'll say, it's a well-known saying, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder..."

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—"(Phil. 4: 7-9 NIV) . . . Keep reading there's a story here. Actually, that verse is the stuff of classic stories - add a healthy measure of conflict.

"One thing I ask of the LORD . . . that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple." (Psalm 27: ⁴ NIV)

But Isaiah 53: 2-3 (KJV) tells us "he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." Keep reading!

We read that "we're God's workmanship..." (Eph. 2:10) but someone is born blind or lame.

Beauty: a sunset... a child...the view from a mountain...a well landscaped garden...the arch in St. Louis...something functional and flawless (when it works) ...a very connected and mutually satisfying relationship...music - which kind? ...a special meal . . . the decor at a wedding, banquet, or house ... a person - on the inside, on the outside...someone's dress clothes, a hand- made wall hanging . . . handwork. . .a painting ... a poem...a novel. . .?

Just words or do they conjure up something beautiful for you? Something beautiful that you've experienced? Make your own list, or ask a child, "Show me something pretty. . ." or maybe beauty loses something when you try to define or confine it...

The story...One of my kids hates baby spiders especially when they're scurrying across the white ceiling over her bed. And for whatever reason they always pick her room, even when she changes rooms. But the other night, at my house, I watched a four year old girl holding a tiny spider with her face as close to it as she could get captivated as it stopped and scurried across her fingers - careful not to drop it.

I marvel at intricate spider webs glistening in the sunlight even when I walk through them first thing in the morning. One of the closing speakers at the conference last week read a truly beautiful piece she wrote about diverse people and strong, delicate webs between them.

Can you define beauty? I can't! And it's not just visual...

Notice, observe, listen, taste, touch, smell, experience, experience together. Share it with your children. You don't even have to talk.

Surely, there's an element of thankfulness and awe associated with beauty. When you experience something beautiful it will change you. . .

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

Awe

[If you're wondering what all this has to do with emerging kids...it's story telling]

One of my most awe-struck moments was this. The kids took swimming lessons every summer with the city summer rec program which, as a former life-guard/swimming teacher, I loved and rave about this program. End of advertisement!

A certain 5 year old was learning to swim in water a little too deep for her to stand. Every day she worked and worked and worked. She put her face in the water. She kicked. She swam about 6 feet every single day and no matter how her teachers worked with her to try to get her to lift her head and breathe and keep swimming it was to no avail. She held her breath for about 6 feet and that was all. All of the other kids swam most of the way across the pool.

One day the guards promised a balloon to every kid who could swim across the pool alone. Sure enough this little girl rose to the challenge. This was a child I thought I knew well. We all looked at each other sure that she was setting herself up for a major disappointment. If a child didn't swim the distance, they didn't get the balloon. No exceptions!

So it's time for this little girl to take her turn. She holds on to the side, takes a deep breath, and kicks and flails and kicks and flails and lifts her head out (no one knows if she actually took a breath). Kicking and splashing more than a class of ten kids, didn't she make it across that pool? Beaming, I might add, and still beaming when they gave her the balloon. She was so proud of herself! I was in awe. I was in awe.

She never swam all the way across the pool again until the following summer but...on one tiny scale in the universe, it was awesome.

(c) Margie Hillenbrand

Justice

This week I promised you some shorts about Justice, Awe, Beauty, Roots and Community.

When I think of justice, these kid stories come to mind...Think of it as free association- associating a word with a story. You can probably come up with some of your own.

We were sitting in the bleachers at one of our homecoming games (our public city school vs suburban/city/country Christian School). This particular city school won the sportsmanship awards over the other city schools, 3 Protestant Christian schools, and at least two Catholic schools. They were well deserved.

At this particular game, there was a little boy in the bleachers from the Christian school we were playing. At this particular moment, he was exceptionally rude to someone from our city school. The mom watched and did nothing. She didn't intervene. She didn't correct him or tell him it was wrong to treat other people that way. Someone might say she didn't see it. Maybe she was encouraging her child to be more assertive or something. Bottom line, she allowed the behaviour, so apparently it didn't violate anyone's sense of wrong-doing except mine and the student who patiently tolerated the rudeness.

Another story: Once, we were standing in line at a coffee shop in Houston with family members. I noticed a 6 year old ahead of us picking on his little brother maybe 3 years old. Either the parents didn't notice or they didn't care, I don't know. I noticed my nephew ( around 5) also watching these little boys and I watched his acute sense of justice and injustice growing more and more angry. My brother saw it, too.

All of a sudden my nephew jumped to the defence of this little stranger in-the-face of that older brother. If we hadn't been watching the whole scene develop it would have looked like my nephew was picking a fight. My brother jumped in before my nephew's profound sense of justice triumphed over wrong and caused a bigger problem.

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

3) Engaging Culture

How do we equip children to engage the culture around them in the way of Jesus?

• biblical family/faith community enculturation
• encountering and engaging the other cultures around them (when? where? how?)
  
• distinguishing and respecting cultural differences
  
• attitudes
• words, vocabulary, meanings
• talking about ideas (What’s the message? What’s God’s message? How to live it? How to deliver it? )
• creative alternatives
• talking about artwork or commercials
• talk about stories (movies, tv shows, books)
• supervised community involvement (faith community and outside community)
• some cultural elements will help illuminate the nature of God, the Gospel, the scriptures
• some cultural elements deny it
• families participating together in the outside community
• parents sharing ideas and resources
• parents using each other as resources

more thoughts?

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

2) Embracing People

How Do We Enable/Equip children to “love your neighbor as yourself”?

• practice and encourage the “one another”(s) you find in scripture
• loving your neighbor as your self ie. what would you want …?
• I Cor. 13 qualities of love
• respecting others : please/thank you, gentle, look & listen - respecting people’s space
• learning to listen and hear what someone's saying
• posters, magazine picture collages, visuals, videos, of lots of different kinds of people, places,
• guided discovery: exposure to culture, geography, people, different foods, clothes, music, etc.
• games
  
• free time to interact and build friendships
• supervised group activities (structured and unstructured)
• serving, giving, helping, sharing, graciously receiving
  
• participation in intergenerational family and community life
• building relationships in your neighborhood and school
  
• building relationships with people who aren't like you
  
• participating in activities outside of church with kids who may not believe what you believe, making friends and having these people to your house for a meal
• learning when to say "no"
• learning to respectfully disagree
  
• parents sharing ideas and using each other as resources

[The ECC has projects for kids that enable them specifically to give to kids in countries that are hurting]

You'll think of more!

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

1) Encountering God

These 3 E lists aren’t intended to limit the ways we can Encounter God, Embrace people, and Engage culture in the way of Jesus with kids. A list like this just helps us start thinking that way. You're probably already doing these things!

How do we enable our children to encounter God or equip them to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength” ?

Remembering what God has done

• Listening to or interacting with a Bible Story or scripture - it’s about God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) interacting with people and people interacting with Him
• Activities that help little people ponder, remember, or interact with the story/scripture
• Today stories about God

Singing/Playing/Listening to music

• worship choruses to God
• scripture in song to meditate on His words
• choruses from songs we sing to one another for encouragement
• choruses we sing to ourselves for encouragement
• fun songs
• songs that declare what God has done
  

Talking to God

• for kids
• with kids
• agree with them while they pray
  

Lord,
You are the one who…
thank You for…
praise You for…
I am…
Please do …
Help me…
question . . .

• sometimes God answers, sometimes he doesn’t answer the way we expect
• noticing when God answers and how
• remembering to thank Him when He answers
• different prayer postures
• learning traditional practices
  

Quiet/Stillness

Listening

Meditating: Thinking about

• God’s Word
• things He’s done in scripture
• in our lives
• our own actions
• What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? ( Creation) Who made…
• Looking at faith filled creative works (art, literature, film, music, invention, etc

Play

Discussions/Conversations

• talking with/listening to children
• including them in adult conversation

Adult Example

• how we interact with kids will tell them how God loves them and other things about God
• how we spend our time
• who and what we give to
• how we interact with God, our own personal disciplines
• how we handle inconvenience

Guided Discovery (not giving kids all the answers. Giving them room to go after God and find Him or be found by Him.)

Parents sharing ideas and resources or using each other as resources

You'll think of more!

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand