This morning was the first day in weeks when it was actually nice to step outside.
There had been more fresh snow overnight, sigh, but the sun shone and the temperature was a balmy -10C.
As usual I hurried around first thing and was ready at 9am for a ride to St. Stephen’s House with Nick. Today’s early morning task was to iron the long strip of purple fabric, which we drape over the mantle piece in Lent. This year, each of our Lenten Speakers will be asked to bring a symbol to place there at the beginning of our Gathering as a hint to the sermon topic, since we are focusing, each Sunday, on a different Spiritual Discipline. Today Nick was speaking on Penitence and so a small dish of ashes was placed on the mantle.
One of Nick’s Scripture texts was Psalm 51, which became the springboard for our Children’s Ministry group.
After our joint snack time with the Toddlers we read Psalm 51 and then worked on an illustration activity. I had found some sheets of red and white foamcore board and cut out a large heart for each child. I had also typed out a list of both positive and negative human characteristics-those we would want to cultivate in a “clean heart” and those we would like to remove.
We looked at the list together and then cut apart each word and placed them all in take home bags. On the sample heart we glued the “good” words on the red (or healthy) side and the “bad” ones were placed on the white side, held down with black labels. It was so interesting to hear the children’s definitions of various words. When I asked for the meaning of “Selfishness” George told us about a book he had in which a crocodile wanted the whole lagoon to himself, definitely a “selfish” crocodile!!
Malachi, now 8 years old, was able to read most of the words and even 6-year-old Seren picked out “joy” and “love”. It was such a good time talking with them, even though they were in a very giggly mood today!
Since just this past week I had settled on the Rend Collective’s “Create in Me” as the Day Camps 2015 Liturgical Dance song I
decided to give the children a taster of the music and teach them a bit
of the choreography. Sadly we only had time to listen to it once before
the Gathering ended but they really liked the tune. After a quick sharing of the Grace we then trooped back downstairs to join everyone else for lunch.
It was a real blessing to have a ride home with the Brady’s and next it was time to shovel yet again.
Soon I shall be off on our Wil walk and then hope to squeeze in an hour or so on Pysanky crafting.
A good start to Lenten Sundays. The next All Ages Gathering is only 2 weeks away so this coming week I intend to do some serious prep work on that, the focus being “Prayer”.
There is an intangible feeling to Lent. A mixture of the scent of ashes lingering in the air at church, that of beeswax as I bend over a Pysanka, times of extra prayer and reading, a special, Holy and reflective time. I pray that I can truly keep that feeling close to my heart over the weeks to come.