Through Children's Eyes

We are getting closer--the lights and garland are on the tree, if not the ornaments. And the first candle of my advent wreath has been lit, Songs of Angels playing in the background. Not sure how life got more complex, while also getting simpler! There are just a lot of great things to do in our life now, since moving to Beacon...taking a moment to focus and center is both challenging and essential. (But I did get Camille to sit five minutes on a cushion with her eyes closed before the lit candle, before getting started on Noggin! Elisa meanwhile was running all over the house, but is now making up stories and acting out scenes with shepherds and wisemen from our miniature Christmas manger!)

Just watching my girls, my spirit grows. I learn. It is through them(and a disgruntled email I received yesterday...) that I have found the inspiration for Christmas Eve service. I have decided to theme it: Through Children's Eyes. The email I received was a rant against intergenerational services; I could not comment on the past few at church, as I haven't been attending regularly due to schedule, distance, and getting adjusted to my new home. I do admit that it takes more than just having children present to call it "intergenerational". And I also know that some of the things that might bore a child, also bore an adult! A good service for children is also a good service for adults! Of course there are times when we need to be adult-directed, and times when we need to be child-directed--but the most joyful services of all are found in the center, in the overlap of all ages.

This year Christmas Eve is a family service--music, children's procession, storytelling, dancing, celebrating--these are the elements of true worship. All good poetry is a story, and it is the narrative around which we build our lives and our worship. Narrative worshhip might be a better way to imagine intergenerational worship.

With christmas, the story is here already, but in Unitarian fashion, it is the imagination which creates the new. As Camille once added the Little Mermaid to the manger scene, and Elisa now enlivens the characters of this timeless story once again, so we must also create a new story of what it means to open the inn, to let in the stranger, to share in hospitality with all.

The RE program has looked at the curriculum "Creating Home" this past year; the children have collected toiletries, hats and gloves for the homeless... perhaps then it is the children who have the most to teach us about this season.

And perhaps, at home, it is my own children who are the candle of my season's meditation.