Christmas Tree Blessing

I've really enjoyed Traci Smith's Seamless Faith for it's everyday suggestions about how to incorporated conversations and easy rituals into family life. The following is a seasonal example as we approach Advent and the annual installation of Christmas decorating:

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This tradition allows families to bring a moment of spirituality to the secular tradition of decorating the tree. Try having a different family member read the blessing each year.

Designed for All Ages

Time Investment: 1-2 minutes

Materials:

1. Blessing (printed below)

2. Christmas tree (before decorating)

3. Manger scene/crèche scene (optional)

How To:

1. Before the tree is decorated, gather everyone together around and read the following blessing:

God who created the bird in the air, the fish in the sea, the stars in the sky, and the trees in the ground, bless this tree as we decorate it and make it a joyful symbol in our home. May its branches remind us of the shade and shelter you provide for us and for many creatures. May its trunk remind us of your strength. May its light bring us peace. May we remember your gift to us this season, the gift of the baby Jesus. Amen.

2. Optional (see note below) – After decorating the tree, set up crèche or manger scene below the tree.

Note:

In the United States there seems to be a sharp division between secular Christmas traditions (the tree, the stockings, Santa) and Christian traditions (the manger scene, attending church, singing Christmas carols). As the tree is the focal point in many homes during Christmas, blessing the tree and setting up a manger scene under the tree (as opposed to gifts) can highlight the Christian significance of the day, something culture has lost sight of.

Variations:

· Print the blessing on an ornament and say it as the ornament is hung on the tree.

· Write a new blessing each year and collect them from year to year.

· Cut down your own tree and say this blessing before the tree is cut down and brought home.

· Adapt the language of the blessing to the age of your children or your own traditions and culture.

Around the Thanksgiving Table

Thanksgiving

Gratitude is kind of becoming a thing, but just because something’s trendy doesn’t make it a bad idea.  A regular practice of gratitude, as with any regular practice or spiritual discipline, begins to shape our outlook on the world.  As Douglas Wood writes in The Secret of Saying Thanks, a picture book about gratitude:

“The more we say thanks, the more we find to be thankful for.
And the more we find to be thankful for, the happier we become.
We don't give thanks because we're happy. 

We are happy because we give thanks.”

Carolyn Brown, from Worshiping with Children, who I’ve mentioned often as a great resource, suggests that just as we plan for and prepare our meal on Thanksgiving, we should also consider preparing for a time of giving thanks as we gather.  While we are together with our families or friends, we have an opportunity to use a little time before, or along with, or even after our meal, to be intentional in naming our gratitude.  Some of the suggestions below are Carolyn’s and some are mine.  Maybe you can use them or maybe they’ll inspire you to come up with your own thanksgiving tradition.

·         One person says a prayer they have thought about in advance expressing the family’s gratitude in words and ideas that will make sense to and include all the people at the table.

·         Invite the people coming to the meal to prepare a few sentences or short prayer about their gratitude and have a ‘round’ of prayer.  If you hold hands, the pray-er squeezes the hand of the next person when she is done.  Conversations among family members as they prepare these prayers can be more important than the prayers themselves. 

·         If you haven’t had time to prepare, or want to be more spontaneous, ‘popcorn’ a prayer around the table.  Including a corporate call/response after each gratitude like, “For all I’ve said and so much more…” “…We give God thanks,” can invite everyone to participate, even if each person doesn’t have something personal to add.

·         Sing a Thanksgiving song together as your prayer.  If it will be a new song to some at the table, practice it together (maybe at meals?) earlier in the week.  Print a copy of words which children have decorated at each plate.

·         Brainstorm a list of the blessings of those at the table.  Then sing the “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” as your Thanksgiving prayer

·         Use a psalm of praise like Psalm 126 or one of the lectionary’s other suggested texts as your thanksgiving prayer.

·         Decorate paper napkins with drawings of things for which they are thankful.  Or create a place card for each person at the table with a drawing or words of thanks on it.

·         If you are well known to each other around the table, offer thanks to others at the table, or to God for the people around you, being specific about what things you are grateful for. 

To Remember is to Work for Peace

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day in the United States.  I grew up in Canada, where my experience was with Remembrance Day, also celebrated on November 11.  Similarly, it is a day to celebrate and give thanks for those who gave their lives in war, particularly in the World Wars.  In Canada it is traditional to wear a red poppy as a sign of remembrance and respect.  You may have noticed these poppies if you've been following the recent news of the Canadian elections; all the newly elected officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are wearing poppies.

The symbol comes from the poem "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrae.  It speaks of the poppies growing between the cross-marked graves of soldiers killed in the trenches of WWI Belgium.  It's a poem I copied and decorated with red poppies along with "Lest We Forget" posters. I actually gave this very little thought as a child, but now revisiting it, I realize that it calls those who live to ‘take up our quarrel with the foe’!

It is appropriate to remember deaths as a result of war.  It is in fact important to remember: war kills.  Our remembering should be an act of saying ‘no’ war, to loving our enemies, to reconciling rather than to continuing the ‘quarrel’! Jesus' way is the way of peace and we, his followers, remember so that we can work and walk in that way.  Mennonite Central Committee Canada has for years been offering red poppy-alternate buttons for peace-minded followers of Jesus to wear.  They are a witness and a reminder of exactly this call on our lives.  “To remember is to work for peace.”

Many schools have assemblies that offer stories about war 'heroes', or invite military recruiters to make presentations during this week.  What alternative narratives are we offering?  What peacemakers can we remember who worked during times of war or who make peace in our communities?  What stories can we tell and celebrate?  Who are the people in our lives and in our families who have said no to violence and embraced peace instead?  What small acts of peace-making can we do this Veteran’s Day?  

Check out One Thousand Acts of Peace for small acts of peace you could do this day and ever day.  And this video from MCC Canada.

I can barely handle it

I spent too much time looking at pictures this morning. I found I could not stop gazing at the joy and beauty and tenderness captured by Jim of our blessing service for the children of the congregation. They are indeed all of our children. My absolute favorite pictures are those of people delighting in the children in their arms who are not their own. I can barely handle it, you guys. This is what I’m talking about when I say you are saints! We bear this beautiful gift and joy together.

Yet even as we dwelled in and cradled the sweetness of new life, we began to understand that we are also holding the tenderness of great pain and grief. Lives have been lost this year, my friends. People we love are no longer with us. It broke my heart. You broke my heart. Each poem, each name, each candle and the knowledge that there were poems, names and candles unread, unsaid and unlit in folks who stayed seated. I can barely handle it. We bear this terrible weight and sorrow together.

I am so grateful I can barely handle it. I bless you. I bless you. You have blessed me so much.

All My Saints

I have been so grateful for the people in my congregation as I parent.  This week I offer this letter of gratitude and confession:

Saint With Slightly Bent Halo, Richard Kirsten Daiensai

November 1 is the day the world wide church celebrated All Saints.  This day began as a day in the Catholic church for all those who have feast days – the ‘big S’ saints – and evolved as the church evolved beyond Catholicism to a celebration first of all the baptized– the ‘small s’ saints – and further to recognize either all true believers (living and dead) or even to a celebration for all whom we particularly remember who have blessed and influenced us to further the kingdom of God. 

In our worship this year we are recognizing All Saints Day and in that context bringing infants to be blessed and dedicated to the care of God of this congregation – their cloud of witnesses.  And let me tell you, friends, you are my saints.  You are my saints because of your sincere prayers and love.    You are my saints for your graciousness and understanding.  You are my saints because of how you respond in times of need.  You are my saints because of meals delivered, prayers said, hugs offered. You are my saints because when my child is melting down at ten o’clock on a rainy night at Camp Casey you hold my baby, pack me up and get me on the road home in record time.

Nadia Bolz Weber writes in her new book Accidental Saints,

"It has been my experience that what makes us the saints of God is not our ability to be saintly but rather God’s ability to work through sinners.  The title “saint” is always conferred, never earned.  Or as the good Saint Paul puts it, “For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).  I have come to realize that all the saints I’ve known have been accidental ones – people who inadvertently stumbled into redemption like they were looking for something else at the time, people who have just a wee bit of a drinking problem and manage to get sober and help other to do the same, people who are as kind as they are hostile.”

I confer upon you, followers of Jesus at Seattle Mennonite Church, the title of saint, for you have indeed willed and worked for God’s good pleasure – or at the very least have pleased this humble servant of God.

Megan has a piece of artwork in her office entitled “Saint with slightly bent halo,” (bad photo above) and friends, I feel my own halo is more than slightly bent.  It is mighty dinged up.  By God’s grace I trust that I too am still enabled by the Spirit to work for God’s good pleasure.  But the dual call to both parent and to pastor has at times been really difficult and even painful as I have rarely felt fully able to give myself to either one.  I bring my little one to be blessed in this congregation with great joy this All Saint’s Sunday because you are indeed my saints and his.  And yet you will likely not see either of my children often for a while after that.  I have kids – both of them, but maybe especially the elder – who right now need way more than I can offer them and still be present my a pastoral role on Sunday mornings. 

I pray with hope that at some point in the future I will be able to be in worship and at other events of the church with both children in a way that will be an experience that honors all of us.  And I ask that you will continue to offer grace to me, offering pastoral leadership in the area of family ministry even while my own family can’t accompany me.  May we with all of our dinged up and dented halos receive God’s blessing as we seek to do God’s pleasure.

What do you want me to do for you?

This week we’ve been preparing worship with the story of Bartimaeus, (Mark 10:46-52) a blind man who wanted to get to Jesus but was shushed and pushed aside by the crowd.  Children and youth most certainly know what it feels like to be shushed, told to wait because more important people are talking, instructed to get out of the way because they’re too small, not significant.  When this happen to Bartimaeus, he is not deterred, even though the crowd is “sternly ordered him to be quiet.”  I cringe thinking of the way I may sometimes have been overly ‘stern.’ But unlike a frustrated parent or teacher who has had enough of interruptions and begging, Jesus turns toward the nuisance. 

“What do you want me to do for you?”  Jesus gives Bartimaeus agency and Bartimaeus receives sight.  And then he becomes Jesus’ follower!  

It can be really hard to listen to children when they are being ‘pests’.  We teach them that to be respectful they need to be quiet.  I ran into a funny video this week in which three parents talk to each other as if they were talking to children and the first 10 seconds hilariously illustrate how ridiculous it would sound if we shut down another adult for inserting an opinion or response.

Okay, I’m not saying it’s bad to teach respect.  But I had a bit of a ‘How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk’ moment with the text.  When he is given agency and a voice, Bartimaeus becomes Jesus’ follower.  He makes a choice toward relationship with the one who listened.  That’s certainly what we want with our own children and what we want in their relationship with Jesus and their faith.d their faith.

Inside Out

You may already have seen the newest offering from Pixar.  Like almost all Pixar movies it’s really well done and the media loves it.  There are some good reasons for that.  It’s colorful, fun and funny.  There’s great voice acting and casting.  (I’m a big fan both Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling.) It appeals both to little ones and to parents.  But more than that, it’s central message is about the importance of acknowledging all of our emotions, not only the ‘good’ ones.

Inside Out takes place mostly inside the brain of a girl named Riley and centers around the personification of 5 emotions: Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear (pictured above).  For all of Riley’s 11 years, Joy has been used to being the centrally experienced emotion, but as Riley goes through a big move, other emotions come into play.  Suddenly there’s a shift in which emotions are at the helm, and which emotions are coloring Riley’s memories.  The feelings need to re-establish a balance and they learn how important each of them is.

I love all of this about Inside Out.  When our SMC children were doing the Circle of Grace curriculum, they learned that our emotions are signals from the Spirit.  Paying attention to what we’re feeling is an important way of hearing God speaking to us about what we’re experiencing.  It helps us understand how to respond to others and to situations.  Tiffany and Kyle have always begun their Sunday school lessons asking the children in their K-2 class which ‘color’ (feelings fit into several color categories) best fit them that morning.  This helps the children find their place with each other and with their teachers. God has given us feelings to help us experience the world and be in relationship with each other.  Finally, as the parent of a school-aged daughter I loved that there is a girl (who is not a princess) at the center of this movie.  God made us male and female, but boys are over-represented in popular media.

The questions I had for this movie come arise out of having the emotions placed literally at the helm of Riley’s brain.  They control her responses.  It makes for some great comedy but  seems to take away both awareness and autonomy from Riley or other characters whose ‘control centers’ we see glimpses of.  Maybe that’s the reality for and 11-year-old – a non-awareness of emotional responses – but I’d like to think that as persons we have the choice, even though we’re burning up with anger, to respond with gentleness, if not joy.  It also seemed to me that even though the characters discover a new kind of balance, it comes down to Joy being the centrally important character and our goal should be to be happy in the end. 

I don’t think my reservations would get in the way of this being a worthwhile movie to see – especially if you’re looking for an air conditioned way to spend a few hours with kids.  It’s fun and it does help to talk with kids about the feelings that their experiencing.   It gave me the opportunity to ask questions like, “So when X happened, which character do you think was pressing the buttons in your brain?”   I also wondered in conversation what other emotions might be there or how other emotions might look. 

I have heard from parents of pre-school children that they don’t ‘get’ this movie the way older children might, but it’s still enjoyable strictly from an interesting-stuff-is-happening level.  So go see it and when you do, tell me what you think!