Today was a pretty exciting day. Our story today was "The Flood and the Ark." It is brand new to the room this year thanks to a generous donation by one of our members. The kids noticed it on the shelf right away on the first day of the Sunday school and have been eagerly awaiting it's telling. Here are the words I used today to tell the story: When God created everything, God said, "It is very good." But people began to do bad things. God decided to send a great flood of water to wash everything clean and make it new again. The God saw a good family. The father was Noah. Noah came so close to God, and God came so close to Noah , that Noah knew what God wanted him to do. God wanted Noah to build a big boat called an ark. As Noah and his family built the ark, animals came from all four corners of the earth. They came two by two to fill the ark. Then it began to rain. Water came down from the heavens and up from the earth. It rained and rained...and soon the water covered everything. But God did not forget the creatures of the ark. After forty days and forty nights the rain stopped. God sent a great wind to dry up the water. Finally the ark came to rest upon the earth. The creatures began to come out of the ark. Noah and his family were so happy to be home again that they made an altar and gave thanks to God. Suddenly, they saw a great bow in the sky, a bow of many colors. You can still see it today when there is rain and the sun is shining. We call it a rainbow. This rainbow was God's sign to say that God will never send such a flood again. The creatures then went out into all the four corners of the earth and filled it up again with life. I love this way this story is told in the Godly Play Curriculum. After reading through the lesson materials I went to look online for some videos of the story as I usually do when preparing to tell a new story. I found a few examples, but was disappointed to see that in all of them, the storytellers had added text beyond what is in the Godly Play version. Now on the one hand, Godly Play encourages storytellers to make the story their own, not to memorize it like a script but rather to simply work with it until one is comfortable enough to tell it from one's own heart. For whatever reason, though, in watching the videos for this presentation I noticed far more additional story elements being added to those present in curriculum than I have seen in other stories. Perhaps because it is such a well-known story, many feel the need to include pieces they are familiar with from other versions. One of the wondering questions we always ask at the end of our sacred stories is, "I wonder if we could leave anything out of this story and still have all we need." Personally, I think Jerome Berryman did a wonderful job of distilling this story down to it's essence. It is told so simply so that even our youngest members can access it, but none of the complexity of the story is lost. Today during our wondering time after the story the one of the children wondered, "Was the rainbow God's promise to never send any flood or just a really big one like in this story?" When we wondered what might be the most important part of the story, one child offered, "When they people started to do bad things because if that wouldn't have happened, none of the rest of the story would have either." When asked where they saw themselves in the story some pointed to Noah's family and others to the animals when they were watching the rain from inside the boat. Creative response time was a whirlwind of activity today. I have noticed that, unlike last year, this year the children this year have had no problem deciding what they would like to work on. Today the room burst with beautiful blue and green paintings of the floodwaters and multi-hued rainbows. May children continued working on their Garden of Eden works from last week as well. Several of our youngest members had a chance to use the paint boards for the first time today. It was wonderful to see them all working hard to find the rugs, paint boards, paints, water cups and the myriad of other materials needed for their work with very minimal assistance from the adults in the room. I have to admit that I was so in the moment with today's story and creative response, that I completely forgot to take pictures. I finally remembered during our feast time and snapped a few. Though I'm sad I can't share more with you all visually today, I'm feeling very blessed and grateful for the focused and sacred time the children and I spent together today. Below the pictures you can find some links to a parent-page for today's lesson as well as a couple of video versions of today's story from other storytellers. Also please head over to our News and Announcements page to see a list of upcoming stories and other important Sunday School dates. Next week we will have our first story that uses the Desert Box - another eagerly awaited element to the Godly Play room. Until next week, Genya Useful Links
Click here to see a video of another storytellers version of today's story. Click here for a second version of today's story. Click here for a copy of the parent page which includes a story summary and picture of today's materials to foster conversation with your child about today's story.
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The Story Our story today was called “Second Creation – The Falling Apart.” This is the second of the two Creation stories in the Book of Genesis: Genesis 2:4-3:24. The first Creation story tells how the People of God sought the elusive presence of God. We now begin at the beginning with Adam-Eve and how they “fell apart” from God, from each other, from God’s creation, and from the image of God in their deep selves. We learn how those relationships were restored. Here is an abridged version of what was presented today. You can skip down to the bottom of today’s post to find a link to a story-teller presenting both creation stories should you wish to see it for yourself. “When God created everything, God said, “It is good.” And God put God’s own image in the creatures that walk on the earth. In the midst of creation was God’s wonderful garden. Everything was there and so close that it was all together. God was with the rocks and plants and animals, and they were with God and each other. All the people were also together in one person who was called “Everyone” or, in their language, “Adam”. Eve was there too. She was always there, for she came from Adam. She and Adam were a kind of Adam-Eve. In the middle of the garden grew two trees. God told Adam-Eve that they should not eat the fruit from these trees. One tree was about differences and one tree was about forever. If you ate the fruit of the tree of differences, you would know about differences, and if you ate from the forever tree, you would live forever. Now, the serpent was more clever than any other creature that the Lord God made. And he suggested that Adam-Eve taste the fruit from the tree of differences. And they did. Adam-Eve ate from the tree of differences and things fell apart for them. They became Adam and Eve. The difference between them and God also came apart. And the difference between good and evil did too. God called for them and they hid, but God found them. They did not know how to be with God anymore, because of the differences. There were: good and evil, close and far, high and low, God and people, Adam and Eve...and many more. The differences also did something wonderful. Now Adam and Eve could take things apart and put them back together again, becoming creators, almost like God. They couldn’t create something out of nothing, but they could create out of differences. After the differences, Adam and Eve couldn’t go back to when everything was all together in the Garden. They could only go forward and they did. God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden. They couldn’t go back, they could only go forward. God went with them on their journey to help them be the best creators they could be, and to be with God in this new way, and to stay one with God.” The Wondering Today’s story was followed with the four standard wondering questions we tell after a sacred story. Beneath each I will share some of what we heard from the children today. I wonder what part of this story you liked best?
I wonder what part of the story was about you, or what part you were in?
I wonder what part was the most important?
I wonder if we could leave anything out of this story and still have all we need
Creative Response Time The kids dove right in to work today. We had painting, drawing, chalkboard work, modeling clay, reading, and story retelling all going on today. Some continued work began last week while others dove into working with today's story. Several began paintings and drawings of the Garden of Eden and couple of snakes and an apple were modeled from clay. After helping a few get out their materials, Hannah and I were able to largely observe the kids, take a few pictures, and whisper about how wonderful it was to see the kids focused and self directed an their own meaningful work. Restoring the Classroom I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. The kids did an amazing job today of restoring the room to it's original state. I just love seeing them work together to take care of our wonderful space. Praying Before Breaking "Bread" (okay - they were gluten free oreos today) We are still experimenting to find the best way to reorganize for our feast at the end of class. Today we passed the candle around and prayed before bringing out the snack. It is nice to see the the kids becoming more and more comfortable with each other and with this part of our time together. So much of what is wonderful about this program is the community it creates among the children - today it was nice to have plenty of time left for each child to offer a silent or spoken prayer, to share in our feast, and to spend some time just talking as we waited for parents to come pick everyone up. Check back next week for a blog about one of the new stories we were able to purchase this year - Noah and the Flood. The kids have been eyeing up on the shelf for weeks now. I'm looking forward to adding it to the mix next week. Thanks for reading. Please feel free to add comments or questions below - we'd love to know if and how Godly Play has come up outside of the Sunday School classroom or what other questions parents and visitors have for us. Also please visit our news and information page for information on how you can help support us in this work. Until next week, Genya Useful Links
Our creative response time was cut a little short today in order to have time clean up and practice a fire drill together. It was a little jarring to say the least to see the room go from a very calm, self-directed, and focused creative workspace to a fire drill. The kids did do a great job of exciting the classroom and building quickly. We talked through a few ideas for how the big kids could help take care of the little kids when we need to walk around the building to the parking lot and then headed back up to finish our class with our feast. Once we all got back upstairs the calm, quiet spell had been lost and we had a room full of boisterous and giggling kiddos. I returned to the front of the room and asked the kids to join me - I silently picked up our Christ Candle and lit it and asked Christ to be with us as we prayed before sharing our feast. It was amazing to watch how quickly our circle of prayer brought the children back together, and, as they began passing the candle around the circle and sharing, either silently or aloud, a small prayer, you could see the calm passing around the room with the candle. Thank you for sending us your wonderful children today. It was an honor to share in their gifts. Genya Useful Links |
Godly Play TeamHannah Hannover, Minister to Children and Families and Genya Coffey, Christian Education Team Coordinator make up our current team of guides and storytellers. Both have attended workshops in order to receive certification from the Godly Play Foundation. They will take turns authoring the blog posts found here. Interested in joining the team? Be sure to let them know through the contact page. Archives
September 2016
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