"SO WHO'S HOSANNA ANYWAY?" Confessions of a Christian Educator and Mother

Meditations on Motherhood (a few days after Mother's Day!)

2008-05-15T11:41:00.003-04:00

You may have heard me say it - my children have been the best teachers of faith I have ever had. As I think back on all the things I have learned about God from being a mother, I see how being Alex and Josh's mother has changed the way I understand God, shaped the way I live out my faith and kept me continually focused on what really matters. Here are some of the things I have discovered on my journey as a Christian mother:

Life is washable: To quote the Prayer Book, "this is a true saying and worthy of all to be received." A little soap and water can cure a whole host of things, and what it can't doesn't really matter. Green footprints on the carpet (Alex put food coloring in the dog's water one St. Patrick's Day morning, spilled the water, stepped in it and THEN came to tell me he had made a mess!) DO come out with a bit of elbow grease. Sin is a bit harder, but baptismal water is REALLY effective. The major learning here was to relax and enjoy the gift God gave me in my children, not worry about the furnishings or the mistakes.

God's love really is THAT big: I grew up with the notion of God as a stern and judgmental father. In that euphoria that followed the birth of each of my children - as I was overwhelmed with unconditional love for these small and amazing beings - I realized that if I loved my children than much, how much more did God love me and them?

The small stuff MATTERS: Not things like taking out the trash, but ants and butterflies and blueberries ripening on the vine. Both of my boys are explorers who marvel at things I take for granted everyday. My boys have taught me that the sacred is revealed in the business of birds building a nest and leaves changing from bud to full blown (did you know that the new leaves of Japanese maple trees feel like raccoon's paws? I didn't, but Alex thought they did!). Josh's class is watching worms become butterflies and he announced, eyes full of wonder as he got off the bus yesterday, "Mama, we saw a MIRACLE today!" How much of God's goodness and creativity I would have missed had I not had these guides to point them out along the way.

Forgiveness is more than possible: As I think about the ups and downs of family life, I know both how important and how possible forgiveness is. I am often overwhelmed with gratitude for two boys who can forgive the flaws of a menopausal, most of the time tired and often times cranky mother. They not only forgive me, they love me anyway and because of it all. They have been wonderful role models to me in how to live a life of forgiveness. I find it easier to forgive because they so generously and regularly forgive me.

These are just a few of the things my children have opened my eyes to. I'll bet you have stories like mine where because of something your children did or said, you suddenly saw faith with new eyes and recognized God's presence in a new way. Would you share those stories with us?

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

HOORAY! It's Pentecost!

2008-05-08T10:14:00.004-04:00

When we think of the major Christian festivals, Christmas and Easter are at the top of the list. We tend to forget about Pentecost which is one of the three most important celebrations of the Christian Church - we wouldn't be a Church without it!

We celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, May 11th this year (the date always changes because it is fifty days after Easter)On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples, giving them the power to preach, teach, heal, serve and love in Jesus' name. The Holy Spirit's presence within us and among us is how we are empowered to do the same.

The Holy Spirit can be hard to explain to young children. It is a more an intangible "thing" than a concrete object. The Holy Spirit is like the wind - we can't see wind, we can only see the leaves it blows. The Holy Spirit is like the wind. We can't see it, but we can see what it does. When we see someon caring for another person, cleaning up litter in the park or sharing a kind word, that is when we see the Holy Spirit in action.

"Spirit Bubbles" are a Pentecost tradition in my house. On the Day of Pentecost, when we celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit among us, my children and I head outside after Church with our bubbles and we blow them. As the bubbles rise on the wind, we offer up our prayers for each other and those we are worried about. We shout out our thanksgivings and laugh together. And then we finish with this prayer:

I am an Alleluia!
I am a Wonder!
The gifts of your Spirit, O God, make me so!
With these gifts, I can live your life, Jesus.
I can be fully alive!
Amen!

So this Pentecost, I invite you to share in our tradition. Head outside with your bubbles and shout your praise to God together! And be sure to wear red to Church on Sunday! Red is the color of the tongues of fire that came upon the disciples as the Holy Spirit descended on them and it is a color of passion in the Church. So wear your red to Church and we will be a living, breathing representation of the Spirit!

Happy Pentecost!

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Busy, but . . .

2008-05-01T10:31:00.003-04:00

I drove to the Church this morning, revelling in the sights and sounds of Spring around me. The sky was a perfect blue, the flowering trees and forsythia were enthusiastically sharing their blossoms and I hummed "All Things Bright and Beautiful" as I went along. It was a moment to rejoice. But it was only a moment as I found my thoughts wandering to the things I had to get done in the office today and I prepared myself for work.

It was a moment that also made me realize how tired I am. Easter came early this year and following so soon on the heels of Christmas/Epiphany, it took energy to prepare. My semester at school is ending and I am writing my end-of-class paper. Baseball began this week for my younger son and the second grade music performance is next Tuesday. I will be moving my older son home from college next Friday ( just where did his freshmen year go?). In between being Mom, student and minister, I have been trying to deal with detritus winter left behind in my yard (I am beginning to agree with my older son: "If God hadn't wanted leaves on the ground, they would fall UP"). As happy as I am to see Spring, it makes me realize what a busy and tiring year it has been.

When I find myself this tired, I realize that the first thing that suffers is my prayer life. I am too tired to pray - surely God can understand that? Even God rested after all the work of creating, and that is one of the lessons I need help remembering. As I run from project to project and responsibility to responsibility, I push my tiredness away and stiffle the urge to simply sit still, breathe and connect with God for a bit.

Busy yourselves with family and professional responsibilities, I am sure you can identify with my feelings. So the questions I invite us to ask ourselves this week are: Does it have to be this way? Are we really just supposed to grit our teeth and get done what needs to be done until vacation time arrives and we can just collapse on the beach?

I don't think this is what God had in mind. God offers us not just food for the journey, but refreshment along the way. When the world is a riot of spring celebration around us, isn't this an invitation to let go of whatever urgent thing is before us and just breathe it in - if only for a few minutes?

I think the answer to this is a resounding YES! So here is what I am going to do today to break the cycle of putting one foot in front of the other until all the tasks are done. Instead of running around like a madwoman unloading the dishwasher and throwing in a load of laundry in the few minutes between arriving home from work and meeting my younger son's bus, I am going to sit in the rocker outside my front door and just let the goodness of God's new life wash over me. The only item on my agenda will be breathing. I am not going to solve any problems, review my "to-do" list in my head or figure out when I have time to mow the lawn. I am just going to be in God's presence and see what happens.

What about you? Can you find ten minutes in your day to let God refresh you?

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Little Known, But Not Lesser

2008-04-24T09:40:00.002-04:00

The Easter season is full of what the Church calls "mystagogy" - explorations of the mysteries of the Church. Baptism is a major focal point during the Great Fifty Days between the Great Vigil of Easter and Pentecost. In the Episcopal Church, we tend to skip right over Ascension Day.

Ascension Day is the fortieth day after Easter (it falls on May 1 this year and there will be a 7:00 PM service here at CC) and on that day we celebrate Jesus taking his place "at the right hand of the Father." Jesus in his risen, but still fully human form, ascends to heaven to be with God. This reminds us that we, too, will rise to be with God one day.

Once Jesus has ascended, a new era begins for the people of God. Ten days later, as Jesus promised, he sends his Spirit to the disciples on Pentecost and the Church as we know it is born. Pentecost is a major Christian feast day, as important as Christmas and Easter. At Pentecost, we are empowered to live out our baptismal ministry to "go and make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 20:18).

All of the feast days of the Christian church year remind us of the story of God's plan of salvation for us. Celebrating them as a parish family helps us to understand the very important place God has given human beings in transforming and re-creating the world to be as God intended it!

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Is It Spring Yet?

2008-04-10T10:43:00.003-04:00

I must confess that I am hungry for Spring. Especially with Easter falling so early this year, I find myself yearning for warm sun and the smell of newly turned earth. I am tired of what seems like never-ending rain and cool temperatures.

But there are signs spring is coming. The forsythia in my yard has buds and my daffodils have broken through the soil. And as the earth gets ready to burst forth into new life, I find myself humming over and over the third verse of one of my favorite hymns, Immortal Invisible (423 in the Hymnal):

To all life thou givest, to both great and small.
In all life thou livest, the true life of all.
We blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree,
then wither and perish, but nought changeth thee.

The Easter season we continue to celebrate reminds us that the cycle of birth, death and resurrection is one that is ordained by God, the Creator. We live that story in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus during the "Great Fifty Days of Easter" (did you know Easter last for 50 days?). In this hemisphere, we are blessed that Easter always falls in the Spring and we can see the visible signs of new life coming forth from what looks like death all around us.

I hope you and your family find some time together to dig in the dirt, to watch the new life poking up from the earth and bursting forth on the tree branches and to celebrate the miracle that is resurrection in the creation this spring. This is a wonderful way to not only celebrate God's goodness, but to help children understand that all created life is born, flourishes, lies dormant and is then resurrected in God's time. As we tune our spirits into the divine rhythyms in the creation, we are again reminded that death holds no fear for us because we know that God through Jesus is at work in it and we, too, we share in the new life blossoming all around us.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

” “Were Not Our Hearts Burning Within Us . . . ?” -Luke 24:32

2008-04-01T10:17:00.003-04:00

The Gospel reading for the third Sunday of Easter in Year A is always the disciples experience on the road from Emmaus. I grew up hearing this story and it never ceases to thrill me. I look forward to hearing it every three years.

The story the two disciples tell of their experience at Emmaus is a familiar and rich one. There is much food for thought and prayer within this text, yet I always find it is verse 32 of this passage that leaps out at me: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures to us?”

I suspect this verse catches my attention because, at heart, I am both a teacher and a student. I recognize the thrill and certainty the disciples feel when they have been in the presence of Truth that opens their hearts and eyes to seeing in a new way. Educators of all kinds refer to what happens in this story as a "teachable moment"- a moment that helps us to see and know in a new way. This is the function of Christian formation within the tradition of the Church. Gathered together as the community of faith around both sacrament and teaching, we experience over and over again the "teachable moments' that faith offers us. We meet Jesus the teacher again and again - and our lives change as our hearts change because of it.

Christian formation – Church School as it is more commonly known – it not the glamour place of the Church. It tends to be messy (glitter paint and glue) and noisy (children aren’t designed by God to be quiet!). Viewed in passing, it can often appear somewhat chaotic. And it is easy to think that it is only one more activity in which our children participate. But something else goes on in Church School that doesn’t happen during our children’s other activities. It is in this place, at this time, in these activities that our children, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, encounter Jesus, the teacher. At Church school, our children hear, play, share and explore the teachings of Jesus in community with others doing the same. As they mature and progress through the different stages of faith formation here at Christ Church, our children encounter the stories of Scripture over and over. Each moment is rich with the possibility of new understanding, change and growth. These stories of God’s saving action in Jesus form a foundation of faith that lasts a lifetime, and continues to grow and develop as our children mature throughout life.

In the larger scheme of life, it is easy to forget the place of Church School in our children’s lives. But where else in their busy lives will they hear the stories that change their hearts, provide a secure foundation of love and trust, and form them into the people God calls them to be? That’s the role of the Church School in partnership with you, their parents. We are delighted to have your children on the journey with us.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

"Easter Triumph, Easter Joy!"

2008-03-25T11:20:00.002-04:00

Alleluia!!! Christ is Risen!!!!

These are the most joyful words in the Christian vocabulary - they are the Truth that defines us and the mystery that every other event in the Christian liturgical year points to. Because Christ has risen from the dead, we need fear nothing. In the resurrection of our Lord, God proves once and for all that NOTHING can destroy love. It is a huge gift and a mystery that takes our entire lives to live into.

Because Easter is such a complex mystery, the Church takes the fifty days between Easter and the Day of Pentecost to ponder together what Christ's rising from the dead means for us. We hear accounts of the resurrection appearances to the disciples and we think about the sacraments so that we can discover how we are to live our lives as members of Christ's risen body. The Sundays between Easter and Pentecost tell a story and we invite you to bring your children to Church and Church School these next several Sundays to join us in the wondering and celebration.

Here are some thoughts from Joe Russell's The New Prayerbook Guide to Christian Education that will help you share the themes of Easter with your children at home:

- Jesus has risen from the dead. We have everlasting life because of Jesus' resurrection!

- God's love is stronger than death. Because of God's love, we do not have to be afraid to
die.

- Easter is about new life coming from what appears to be death and that new life is full
of surprises and new possibilities.

- We receive Jesus' new life at our baptisms, and during the Easter season, we think about
what our baptisms mean in our lives.

I hope these themes help you talk easily with your children about what Easter means. Many families have Easter traditions that help make visible to their children the importance of the Easter message. I would love to hear how your family shares in the Good News of Easter. Please leave a comment and we can share how we tell the story of the Easter Triumph as families at Christ Church!

Blessings,
Elizabeth

Thinking Ahead to Holy Week

2008-03-06T12:00:00.007-05:00

It is hard to believe that Palm Sunday is almost here (March 16th!). And if Palm Sunday is almost here, then Holy Week and Easter are rapidly approaching. Parents, especially the parents of young children, are often confused as to how to deal with the crucifixion as we tell the story of how Easter happens.

The events of Jesus' death are shocking and violent, but we cannot fully live into Easter if we have not experienced Jesus' death. There are ways to approach this with children that make it easier to share the whole story. Here are some of the things I have learned in twenty years as an educator and a parent:

1. Children - even very young ones - know that bad things happen. The Easter message is that good always triumphs over evil - even if it doesn't seem to at the moment. This is a message children can hear and understand.

2. When you talk about the crucifxion, always continue immediately with the Ressurrection. I have found the following kinds of language helpful: "Jesus loved people so much that some people were scared by it and they put Jesus to death on a cross. But love is so strong, that not even death can destroy it, so God raised Jesus from the dead on Easter to show us that love lives always."

3. Some children find any visual picture of the crucifxion too hard to manage. If your child is a visual learner, you may only want to share the story in words - the shorter the better.

4. Some children are curious about how crucifixion actually works. They will ask questions like "Did it hurt?" ("yes") "How does crucifixion kill someone?" ("slow suffocation".) You do not need to dwell on the gore, but an honest answer that is short and to the point is helpful to yor child and allows you to move on to the resurrection.

5. Other children worry that Jesus was alone. He wasn't - his mother and the Beloved Disciple were there, along with other women. Two other men were crucified with him. And most importantly, God was with Jesus.

Experiencing the events of Holy Week and Easter can be a powerful way for children to share in the defining action of our Christian faith while being held in a safe and familiar environment. Please join us for our Maundy Thursday Supper and Eucharist. We will begin at 5:30 PM in Fellowship Hall making bread with the children for the Eucharist that evening. We will have a simple supper of soup, bread and salad at 6:00 PM. The service begins at 7:00 PM. We will hear the liturgy of the word and wash each other's feet. Following the Peace, we will head upstairs to the Sanctuary for the liturgy of the table and the stripping of the altar. The Youth Choir will sing at the service.

We offer a Good Friday service especially for children and families. We will re-enact the events of Holy Week together beginning with a procession into the Chapel, sharing matzoh and grape juice with Jesus and letting him wash our feet. The children will then carry the cross down the aisle, sit in the tomb and be amazed as Jesus is resurrected. This is a powerful and meaningful service that many families have found important to their lives of faith. There is nothing morbid or scary involved. We will offer this twice - once at noon and once at 4:00 PM.

If you have questions or concerns, please give me a call or email me. I am always happy to talk things through with you.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Resources!!!!

2008-02-28T12:44:00.003-05:00

I have been spending a good portion of my time lately updating the children's section of our library. There are all sorts of books to help you make faith come alive at home with your children, storybooks to share at reading time, books to help you help your child deal with grief and loss, and books of prayers and blessings to use as a family. Many of these books are listed in the box next to this post, but some others you might want to have a look at are:

When Good-bye is Forever by Lois Rock
Guiding Children Through Life's Losses by Phyllis Vos Wezemen, Jude Denis Fournier, and R. Wezemen.
Bless Us All by Cynthia Rylant
The Faith of Parents by Maria Harris
The Usborne Book of World Religions by Susan Meredith

I also keep my eye out for websites that might be helpful to you in nurturing faith at home. Some of my favorite ones are in the side box, but I did come across a few especially for the Lenten season. Take a look at www.domesticchurch.com/CONTENT.DCC/pages.dir/fridge.html#LENT for kid's lenten activities. They are a site to bookmark as they have projects and activities that change throughout the liturgical seasons. As we move toward Holy Week and begin thinking about Good Friday, check out www.cptryon.org/prayer/child/stations/indes.html for a children's experience of the Stations of the Cross.

There are lots of good resources out there. Let me know what you think of these resources and be sure to share what you might find!

"Thanks! Wow! Gimme! and Oops!"

2008-02-21T09:37:00.003-05:00

In their book How Do You Spell God? Answers to the Big Questions from Around the World, Marc Gellman and Thomas Hartman have a wonderful chapter on praying. The book is a child-appropriate exploration of the different beliefs present in many kinds of religious faith, but they observe that all faiths teach us to listen to and for God - which is the beginning of wisdom for all of us, no matter our age.

But human beings also need to talk with God - and there are four major ways they discuss in this chapter that are easy ways to introduce your children to a life of learning how to talk with and listen to God.

Thanks! is one of the easiest ways we talk to God. When something wonderful happens to us, it is time to remember that all good things are gifts from God and we need to take a breath and take the time to thank God for blessing us. Thanksgivings are an easy way to begin praying with your children. Grace before meals is an example of a thanksgiving prayer - and they are good models for other "thank you" prayers. The words aren't anywhere near as important as the feeling of gratitude we express.

Wow! is another easy and obvious way to pray with your children. When you see a beautiful sunset, hold a new brother or sister for the first time, or play in the first snow of the winter it is easy to be amazed by the world God has created so lovingly. Sometimes the feeling of awe we have is beyond words, but, again, the words aren't what is important. Simply to stand in the presence of God's work and acknowledge that it leaves you breathless is enough. Awe inspires wonder and children are wonderful at wondering. Invite them into the experience with you!

Gimme! These prayers require a bit more negotiation with your children to help them understand. It is always tempting to pray for things we want but don't need. We may want to hit the ball out of the park, but is that really the sort of thing we should ask God for? When your child wants to offer a prayer like this one, we need to gently guide them into the proper way of understanding what God wants for us. There is nothing wrong with asking God to help you use your abilities to their fullest or to be a graceful winner, but to ask to win games, get prizes or to be popular doesn't help us to learn to trust God and to rely on the good things God gives us. Gimme! is a normal desire of human nature, but it is one that needs to be tempered. The Lord's Prayer is a good model (granted, it's wordy!) for what a Gimme prayer might look like - what we ask for reveals our dependency on God and our desire to help make the world the way God wants it to be.

Oops! Just as we teach our children to apologize to others, we need to teach them to aplogize to God. One of the biggest reasons to talk to God is to learn how to be sorry for the things we do that hurt other people, hurt ourselves, hurt the world and hurt God. As we pray Oops prayers we begin to understand what we did wrong, our hearts soften and we learn not only how to ask for forgiveness from others, but we learn what it feels like to be forgiven. God ALWAYS forgives us and can help us to forgive ourselves and others. This one is a life long lesson for all of us and we are never to young to start!

Elizabeth Caldwell adds one more kind of prayer to the list. She calls them Don't Forget! or Please Remember! prayers - you most likely know them as intercessions. These kinds of prayers are when we pray for others - asking God to bless them, to heal them or to help them with some kind of difficulty in their lives. Again, this is an important lesson in being a grace-filled human being that can never be started too early in life. At bedtime we can invite our children to bless those they love by remembering them to God and asking God's blessing upon them. We can help our children pray for the playground bully or the friend who is too sick to come over and play. Life offers many opportunities to pray for others.

Lent is a wonderful time to begin to re-focus our lives of prayer as individuals and as families. Begin with one of the above - I bet the practice of one form of prayer with your children will lead you into the others! Praying with our children is one of the greatest privileges of parenthood. To see into and share the joys, hurts and worries of their hearts is one of those experiences that always leads me to both Thanks! and Wow! prayers. I'll bet you will find it the same!

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Because Life is What Happens While You Are Making Other Plans

2008-02-20T14:15:00.002-05:00

When I planned tonight's book discussion, I not only failed to take into account that it was the Wednesday of public school vacation week, I was naive enough to think the flu raging around me wasn't going to strike! I woke up this morning with the stomach flu, so . . . Rather than share the wealth, I will stay home tonight and RESCHEDULE our discussion to NEXT WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 27TH AT 7:00PM IN MY OFFICE!

Jennifer called those of you who I knew were planning on coming. I hope this reaches those of you I didn't know were planning on coming!

See you next week instead!

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

Preparing for our Book Discussion

2008-02-14T11:35:00.003-05:00

Next Wednesday evening at 7:00 is the first of our book discussions of Elizabeth Caldwell's Making a Home for Faith: Nurturing the Spiritual Life of Your Child. I would like to focus our discussion around pages 40 -44, the section she calls Every Parent Needs. Caldwell writes that to raise faithful children, every parent needs to be able to do the following:

1. Read a story from the Bible.
2.Tell a Bible story.
3. Deal with children's questions.
4. Pray (privately and publicly).
5. Take some time daily or weekly for personal meditation.
6. Ask faith questions.
7. Struggle to understand and interpret affirmations of faith while balancing a life of faith in mission and witness and the being of faith in mediation, Scripture, reading and prayer.
8. Explain the meaning of the sacraments and the liturgical year.
9. Struggle with language for God.
10. Become familiar with the basic beliefs and religious pracitices of other faith traditions.
11. Regularly participate in adult education.
12. Be layleaders in worship.

Seems like you would need a full seminary education for this, doesn't it? It is a rather daunting list for any of us, but it is not beyond the realm of what any one of us can do. As you ponder these questions this week, identify those practices you already are doing. I'll bet you already have some practice of private prayer (even if the prayer is just of the "Help me, Lord!" variety as the bathtub overflows!) and most likely, you are struggling like the rest of us to understand the affirmations of faith and balance a life of service, witness, prayer, study and reflection! The other pieces are harder. Not all of us were raised in a faith tradition and we may not know the biblical stories - how to find the ones we know or how to figure out where the ones are that we maybe heard in Church once upon a time. We may not know what to say when our children ask us questions and it is hard enough to understand our own faith traditions, sacraments and liturgical year, never mind have enough knowledge of other faith tradtitions to share them with our children.

Please think about what you know and what you need to know more about as you prepare for our discussion on Wednesday. I am happy to guide and support you in your faith journey with your children, but I need to know what you would find most helpful. Would a session on the liturgical year be useful? What other classes would you be willing to come to? Does the blog provide you with helpful information? If not, what would you like to see in this space? Those are just the questions I begin with. Leave me a comment or email me. Better yet, come next Wednesday night and we'll talk about it! See you then.

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

The Season of Lent

2008-02-07T11:59:00.000-05:00

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent is the forty days (Sundays don't count because each Sunday is a little Easter) period during which we remember Jesus' temptation in the desert following his baptism. It helps us get ready for Holy Week and the celebration of the resurrection at Easter. Most folks associate Lent with fasting or giving up something. This is one lenten tradition, but there are others. For example, we stop saying the word "allelulia" beginning on Ash Wednesday. We do not say it again until the Great Vigil of Easter when we kindle the new fire and light the paschal candle.

It can be hard to keep a "holy Lent"at home as the Prayer Book invites us to. But here are some themes you can share at home as a family during this season. Lent is:

-a time for looking at the things we have done that are wrong and asking forgiveness
of God and those we have wronged.
-a time to grow closer to God by either giving up something or adding something to our lives that helps us focus more on God.
-a time to think about new ways to show our love for others as God shows God's love for us.
-a time to remember our baptismal promises and try to live into them (check out pg. 304 in the Book of Common Prayer for a refresher!)*

The seasonal color for Lent is purple - it is both the color of penitience and the color of royalty. In the words of the Godly Play story the Mystery of Easter, "Purple is the color of kings. We are preparing for the coming of a king and his going and coming again . . . purple is a serious color and it reminds us that something sad is going to happen." (The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Vol. 4, pgs 29-20). The purple color reminds us that Jesus must die before he can rise again.

There are many ways to incorporate purple into your family life during Lent. A purple scarf in the middle of the table or purple placemats are easy wasy to remind your family daily. Lent is a good time to write a family grace if you don't have a favorite. Learn it together and share it when you are together. Paper chains are another easy way to bring the seasons of the church year into your home. Perhaps each family member might want to write the name of someone or something they are praying for on one of the rings each day and the entire family can share that intention in silence together for a moment before mealtime or bedtime. Small purple napkins can be tucked into your child's lunch box or backpack with a note like "I love you and so does God" or "I am praying for you today." Little things like this connect us to one another and to our larger Christian family - past, present and future!

Be creative! Lent can be a refreshing and nurturing time for us as individuals and families. If you have a family lenten tradition you would like to share, please write about it in the comments so that others can try it at home too!

Faithfully,
Elizabeth

*Adapted from: The New Prayer Book Guide to Chrisitan Education, edited by Joe Russell

About This Blogspace

2008-01-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

Growing up in the Episcopal church, I spoke the language of faith from birth. I have a seminary education and certainly felt comfortable raising my children as Christians. With years of experience as a professional Christian educator under my belt, I was sure that I was up to the challenge of sharing the Christian faith with my children.

So you can imagine my surprise one Palm Sunday when my then eight-year-old elder son piled into the car after Church and said, "Ok, Mom - So who's Hosanna anyway? I get the whole Father, Son and Holy Spirit thing, but just who is this Hosanna person and how come I haven't heard about him before?" Having processed around the Church that day with his palm branch, my son was sure that "Hosanna" was a previously un-named manifestation of the Holy Spirit that for some bizzare reason we had decided to sing about only on this particular Sunday. Rather chagrined, I explained that "Hosanna" is not a person, but rather a Hebrew word meaning "save now" or "please save." We sing it and say it on Palm Sunday to re-enact Jesus' entry into Jerusalem that final Passover before his crucifixion. He seemed satisfied with my answer, but I drove home wondering just what other bits of confusion about his faith he might be musing on - and I was considerably less impressed by my effectiveness in sharing my faith at home!

I share this story because I think all Christian parents - no matter how strong our faith or whether or not we were raised in the Church - have questions about sharing and teaching faith at home. Even if our children regularly attend Church School, they have questions they bring only to us. We want to answer them, but we are afraid we might say the wrong thing, or we don't have the "right" answer or we aren't sure about the answer ourselves. This is perfectly normal in the life of a Christian family.

I hope this blog can be a place for us to talk about our questions, to learn together about what it means to make a life of faith as a family and to share the joy and struggles of raising children in the faith. I will post weekly with information about the liturgical seasons, suggestions for activities and prayers to share at home and provide references to websites and books and other media that will help you and your family live a rich life of faith together at home. As you comment and respond, I will get a better sense of what your questions are, of the things that we need more information about and I will know how to better support you and help you support one another as we share the raising of our children in faith as families and as a Church community.

So welcome to this new adventure! Let's enjoy the journey together!

Faithfully.
Elizabeth