Unitarian Confession

One of the reasons I became a Sunday School teacher (besides the money, of course) was it makes me a better Unitarian.  Sure, I get more in tune with the church and if someone up there is keeping track, I’m sure I get a couple of celestial kudos every weekend I participate with the kids.  Beyond that, it helps me because it actually forces me to learn more about my religion and religion in general.  We wrapped up our Sunday School curriculum with a lesson on atonement and reconciliation.  The UU church doesn’t have a formal way to handle these concepts.  However a number of other religions do.  The lesson plan suggested we mention Yom Kippur and the Sacrament of the Penance as examples.  I would have been happy to… if I knew what either of them was.

I’d heard of Yom Kippur.  I’ve seen it marked on the calendar and I knew Israel fought a war back in the seventies on that day.  Other than that, I had nary a clue.  Yom Kippur is celebrated by Jewish people (though “celebrate” might be the wrong word).  God keeps tabs on their transgressions through the year and they have ten days – at the start with Rosh Hashanah – to get things in order before Jehovah puts it in their permanent records.  Yom Kippur is the tenth day, the Day of Atonement, when they fast and abstain from all sorts of activities in an effort to settle their balance.  In Israel, you can’t see movies or drive cars.  They turn off the television and radio stations (which is why it was such a big deal when the war started on Yom Kippur in 1973).

I had never heard of the Sacrament of the Penance at all.  It turns out to be what non-Catholics would call “confession”.  I had seen that demonstrated on television, but it turned out to be a bit more complicated.  Basically, a priest has been deemed eligible to speak for Jesus by the Catholic Church and is able to listen to someone confess mortal sins, make an appropriate measure of their conscience and suggest an act of contrition to perform.  Once done, the confessee is absolved of their sins.  I wasn’t familiar with the definition of “mortal sin” versus any other kind (I thought they were all pretty bad), but it turns out there are two main groups: mortal (the stuff you go to Hell for) and venial (the stuff you hang around in Purgatory for).  That prompted more research on what – exactly – Purgatory was.  So, three hours of research later, I was finally prepared for the lesson plan.

Often I’ve found that the more you learn, the more you realize there is to be learned.  I was a little concerned walking into class, but – actually – everything went pretty smoothly.  We played a game; I went through the lesson and spoke confidently about the Catholic and Jewish faiths.  We added our last tool – a level – to the toolbox of our faith and called it a year.  As I was cleaning up, my aide came up to thank me.

“I really enjoyed working with you,” she said.  “I have to admit that I didn’t know anything about Yom Kippur before today’s class.”  I could have just been gracious in my acknowledgment of her thanks, but that would have been the sin of pride.  I don’t remember if that’s mortal or venial, but why take the chance?  I confessed my ignorance as well and was granted secular absolution after my recommendation of Wikipedia.

Dear Homeless

It was Service Project Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockford.  We have them once a month in between the Toolbox of our Faith coursework and doing something fun.  We’ve been focusing our Service Sundays on the plight of the homeless these past few months.  Sadly it’s a problem that’s not getting any better in Rockford.  This time, the kids from all the classes got together for a letter writing campaign in the art room.

“How are they going to get the letters?” asked one little girl about five or six.  I explained we were writing letters to people who could help the homeless rather than the homeless themselves.  That opened up a can of worms.

“But wouldn’t the homeless like to get a letter?” asked another girl.  I supposed that they would like to get a letter, but that it might be better to write people who could help.  Like the mayor perhaps.

“My dad says the mayor can’t even fix the potholes,” said a third grader.  I just let that one slide.

“The homeless need letters,” explained a dark haired girl.  “They don’t have any friends or family to count on.”  We had just read a story about a homeless girl living in a shelter and how lonely things were for her.  So, we all ended up writing letters to the homeless.  We offered our thoughts and prayers, some jokes to make them laugh and some good ideas to help them find permanent places to live.  I hope the homeless have good eyes.  The art room didn’t have any regular pencils or pens and a number of the letters were written in yellow marker instead.

The Sounds of Sunday

This week’s tool for Sunday School was a stethoscope.  I knew I’d get the normal argument about how a stethoscope would never be found in a real toolbox.  Still, it looked like an interesting lesson on listening.  I was in luck.  Meka had taken training to be a nurse’s aide and had a real stethoscope.  I borrowed it and spent several minutes trying to locate my heartbeat.  It’s not as easy as you’d think.  After some anxiety, I did manage to determine I was still alive.

There were a number of suggested activities in this lesson plan.  The stethoscope was one.  The other was sound effects.  I used to work in radio and I used to make movies.  I loaded up my iPod with lots of sound effects.  Individual sounds could be used in a guessing game.  I had wide stereo “soundscapes” to evoke mood.  These sounds of a thunderstorm, a city, a train going past, crowds shouting and cheering, these could all be perceived as “happy” or “scary” or “sad”, depending on what they focused on.  It would fall back to the stethoscope.  It only took me a few minutes to learn how to use it; it took a career to interpret those sounds to make medical diagnoses.

That was the part I was most excited about.  It wasn’t enough to hear, but to actually listen.  I had some sounds that weren’t “sounds” in the sense we could hear them with our own ears.  I found a recording of humpback whales moaning in the ocean.  I also found the eerie whistling of the aurora on Saturn coupled with the low windy sounds blowing out from the sun across space.  I also found the steady, rhythmic tapping from a pulsar, spinning in space like a cosmic metronome.  Once we learned to listen, we found out more about the world around us.  We could apply that lesson to each other and truly come to consensus when we applied the Golden Rule: listen to others like you would like to be listened to by others.

It turned out to be a pretty good class.  The kids liked the soundscapes, describing them in a myriad of emotions.  They guessed at the individual sounds and were surprised that what they thought were drums was actually someone chopping down a tree.  We expressed our joys and concerns and – in the end – were ready to add the stethoscope to the Toolbox of our Faith.  It was then and only then that I discovered that I was a week off; they had learned to listen the week before and applied the Golden Rule this week to my repeat lecture.

Getting Hammered in Sunday School

To use the parlance, I had some “joys and concerns” about this week’s Sunday School class.  We use a curriculum called Toolbox of our Faith.  Each week, the lesson learned is symbolized by a different tool.  So far we’ve had magnifying glasses, chalk and mirrors; hardly “tools” as defined by my class of fourth and fifth graders.  I read through the lesson plan Saturday night and was happy to see the tool for this week was a hammer, a metaphor for the appropriate use of strength and power.

Generally, the class is divided into parts.  We sit in a circle and talk a bit, we pass around the tool of the week, sometimes we do some exercises together or listen to music and then I tell a story.  The suggested exercises sounded like fun: build a human pyramid.  I was also supposed to bring in enough hammers for the class along with nails and scraps of wood.  I planned to add a moment to the syllabus to talk about shop safety.

The recommended song was – of course – If I Had a Hammer.  Looking in my vast audio archives, I discovered three versions of the song to choose from.  I had the Trini Lopez version.  That was a hit back in the early sixties, but sounds a bit dated now.  Completely opposite of that, I have a version by Leonard Nimoy, of all people (should have been called If I Had a Phaser).  I ended up uploading the Peter, Paul and Mary version onto my iPod in lieu of one featuring Pete Seeger himself.

I walked into church as if I always carried in a bag of hammers.  I also had a handful of nails and a pair of long wooden stakes.  It might have caused a raised eyebrow or two in a Christian church, but UU’s are pretty laid back.  I trekked down to my classroom and got set up.  My iPod locked up as I was connecting it to the speakers.  Nothing worked; I couldn’t get the shuttle dial to do anything, I couldn’t even shut it down.  I’m used to Windows products crashing and have any number of ways to deal with that.  I was stymied with the Apple product (I thought about hammering it all over this land, but decided against it).  The parking lot was packed, but I ended up with just two students.  The human pyramid was out the window.  In the end, we talked a bit longer than normal and hammered several nails into the wood.  I read a story about Millard Fillmore and learned he was a Unitarian, bringing my sum Millard Fillmore knowledge up to… one item.

The Unexpurgated Jingle Bells

Everyone knows Jingle Bells.  It’s one of those traditional songs of the season.

Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way (HA-HA-HA!)

Everyone knows the words though few of us these days know – really – what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh (hey!).  It’s one of those songs that seems to show up – year after year – in Christmas pageants, school functions and the like.  Jingle Bells was written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont who happened to be a Unitarian.  Because of this “special” connection to the song, we sang the complete version of Jingle Bells in Children’s Chapel on Sunday morning.

Before you ask, the complete song does not include any references to Batman.  It does, however, mention a certain Miss Fanny Bright whose name elicited at least as many giggles as the Dark Knight would have.

A day or two ago
I thought I’d take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
He got into a drifted bank
And then we got upsot

Upsot?

I thought it was a typo at first, but – no, it rhymed.  A couple of the other teachers were looking up from their lyric sheets, as upset about upsot as I was.  It turns out this was a real word back in the day, 1800’s slang for “capsized” (thanks once again, Wikipedia).

I suppose there’s something to be said about singing the complete and unedited version of Jingle Bells.  From the perspective of a trivia buff, it was interesting to find out I didn’t know the whole song.  However, I think the forgotten verses are best left that way.  They take away from the Currier and Ives image the first verse gives us.  They would have been more at home in a Beach Boys song about driving fast and getting girls.  None of them were particularly well written and – frankly – didn’t hold up well.  If I need an extended version of the song, I think I’ll stick with Robin laying an egg.

It’s tradition.

My Impressions of Expression

Normally, I teach Sunday School every other weekend.  However, I taught two weeks in a row in November.  It worked out for the best that way.  The first class we learned about “reflection” and the next we covered “expression”.  We finished up Children’s Chapel and sat on the floor in our classroom.  We went around the group and talked about all the ways we express ourselves.  It didn’t start out well; someone said talking and left it at that.  But then someone mentioned playing an instrument.  Another said she expresses herself through Irish dance.

“We’re doing the Nutcracker,” she said.  “It’s an expression of Christmas.”  I nodded while trying to imagine how a Russian ballet was being translated into Irish dance.  One girl couldn’t think of anything.  Art?  She didn’t think she drew very well.  I suggested writing.

“I think it’s a waste of time,” she replied.  I think I broke into a rash at that, but my gentle smile didn’t crack.  A couple of the other kids sat up straight, but I motioned them to stay calm.

I asked, “Do you like to read?”  She nodded.  “Well, they’re two sides of the same coin.  Someone may express themselves by writing and you get the benefit.”  One of the disadvantages of teaching older kids is I don’t get the “lesson learned” look as often as I did when I worked with the five and six year olds.  But I watched her expression change as she worked it out in her head.

Lesson learned.

I was going to build on that success when one of the kids looked up towards the windows in the back of the room and stood up suddenly.

“Snow!” he shouted.  All the kids got up to take a look.  I closed my official teaching binder as I knew the class was over.  It didn’t matter what I pulled from the “Toolbox of our Faith”, nothing was going to compete with Mother Nature’s expression of winter as the first snowflakes of the season drifted down from the sky.

The Wiz That Wasn’t

Most Sundays, we start church school in the Children’s Chapel.  All the younger kids – from four to ten years old – meet in there before going off to their respective classes.  We light the chalice, we say the seven principles, and we sing.  We sing a lot.  I’m not a professional singer by any stretch of the imagination (unlike the kids’ music director), but I’m one of the Sunday School teachers.  I try to help keep everyone in time and in tune to the best of my ability. 

The last few weeks have been devoted to practicing songs the kids will be singing upstairs in December to the whole congregation.  It’s a varied set; we’re doing “Let Us Give Thanks” along with “Black and White” from Three Dog Night.  At least I knew the words to that one.  I came in Sunday and the kids were learning “Ease on Down the Road” from The Wiz.  I knew the words to that one as well, so I helped to prompt kids as needed as we ran through the song a few times. 

Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road…
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road…

Things got a little more challenging when the music director sat down to play the piano.  The other teachers had wisely stood behind the kids, while I was up front on one side (the curse of being early).  After another couple of takes, we kicked it up a notch and added some gestures. 

Don’t you carry nothing
(crouch and spread arms wide like an umpire calling a runner safe)

That might be a load
(lift hands like a shovel and throw them up and out over your head)

Adding the hand claps was a bit more challenging than I thought it would be.  Instead of 4/4 time, which I can handle, it was something rather funky.

Come (CLAP) on, (CLAP) (CLAP)
ease on down (CLAP)  
ease on down (CLAP) the road (CLAP) (CLAP)

The final straw was when the dance moves were added.  As a Unitarian Universalist, it is anathema to me to fall back to stereotypes, but in this case I think I have to say it: white people are rhythmically challenged.  There we were, a couple of dozen children lurching and stumbling down the road, whacking each other with their non-existent loads, led by someone who apparently should never try walking and chewing gum at the same time.  The only thing going through my mind was Diana Ross easing on down the road with Michael Jackson.  I mean, we were trying to outdo Michael f%^&ing Jackson.  The guy may be flaky enough to be his own breakfast cereal, but you can’t deny his moves. 

The stink of doom hung heavy in the air of the Children’s Chapel as the last piano notes faded away.  I could take heart in the fact no one had lost an eye.  The music director stood up slowly, pursed his lips, and ran a hand down his face.  I didn’t hear the exact exchange between him and the curriculum director, but I thought I heard “rethink” and “perhaps not the time”.  There was some whispering and nods and we spent the rest of our time together singing “This Little Light of Mine” while seated safely on the floor.

Sunday School Tools

I got a promotion at the church over the summer. I used to teach Sunday School to the Kindergarten and first graders. Now I’m teaching the fourth and fifth graders. I have a couple of Sundays under my belt, but I can’t say whether the experience is better or worse. It’s just different.

I do have more homework teaching the older kids. I didn’t follow the complete lesson plan for the younger ones. It was my experience they could handle one activity a week and we spent the rest of the time having our snack or playing with the toys. This past week, not only did I finish up all the activities, but we had something like twenty minutes left in the class. We ended up talking for awhile then doing a drawing project. I’m still getting used to the maturity level. I generally had my bluffs called in the younger class. I don’t think I fooled anyone into thinking the “additional lesson plan” was anything but an audible. Still, no one called me on it and things went pretty smoothly.

This year’s curriculum is called “Toolbox of our Faith”. The first class we hung up a poster of a toolbox and every week we’ve added a new “tool”. This past Sunday, we added a “moral compass”.

“A compass isn’t a tool,” said one of the boys. “Besides, you wouldn’t put a compass in a toolbox. It would get smashed by the hammers.” So far, our toolbox has a magnifying glass and a ruler to go along with the compass. One could argue that none of those things would be found in your average Craftsman box. I explained the coursework uses the toolbox as a metaphor, albeit not a very good one. It’s not meant to be an actual toolbox, but rather expressions of our beliefs in church that can be made into a nice poster.

The older kids have heard of metaphors and they’ve been around long enough to know that almost anything even remotely educational can be put on a poster somehow. Again, they let me slide.

Sunday School Promotion

I’ve been working with the younger kids at church ever since I volunteered.  I was an aide for a year, helping out with the Pre-K to 1^st grade class before being promoted to full-fledged Sunday School teacher two years ago.  However, we have a new Religious Education Co-ordinator and I’ve been given a “promotion” to work this fall with 4^th and 5^th graders instead.  I haven’t decided yet whether I’m happy or sad about this change.

We’ve never had much in the way of deep discussions.  We did manage to sit all together in a circle most Sundays and talk about something good and something bad.  We came up with fun games that had some modicum of educational value and there were a few times I feel we did accomplish something towards one of our seven principles of UU-ism.   However, there were a lot of Sundays where I felt less like a teacher and more a babysitter. 

I knew where I stood with the younger kids.  I teach adults and find they give me very little direction on how the course is going until the end when they fill out the surveys.  I’ve never had that trouble in Sunday School; the kids tell you exactly what’s on their minds.  I also had the advantage of actually once having a child of that age, so I knew what to expect.

I don’t know any 4^th or 5^th graders personally and I only vaguely remember being one.  I am excited like I was when I first volunteered, but I’m nervous too… also like when I first volunteered.  The teachers will all probably get together some Saturday morning in September before the education track starts again.  I’ll pick the brains of the former 4^th and 5^th grade teachers while dispensing what wisdom I can to the people replacing me at the lower level.  But – ultimately – when that first Sunday comes this fall, it will be uncharted territory.

The Final Sunday School Class

I taught my last Sunday School class for the year the weekend our MRE retired (that’s “Minister of Religious Education” rather than “Meals Ready to Eat”).  The kids had a special role in the program, so everyone had to be there an hour early.  I hadn’t slept very well the night before, so that was just that much more of a challenge for me.  When we arrived in the Sanctuary, we were given an additional curve ball: someone was going to read a story and the kids would have to answer with sign language.  We practiced for an hour and got the parts down pat.  The Sanctuary filled up with well-wishers and the kids did their singing and their sign language, and then filed out with nary a problem.

When I got downstairs, I found out I was working with a dozen kids with no help.  On top of that, the curriculum was rather thin.  The thought was we wouldn’t be together as long.  What remained was a recurring exercise that has led to disaster every time I tried it.  It sounds good in theory: have the kids start a drawing and then pass it to the kid next to them so it can continue.  Once it goes all the way around the table, they all go home with a team drawing.  The problem is the kids want to draw their own drawing and the other kids are just “screwing it up”.  We’ve had fights and tears and ripping of paper.  One kid got fed up and just drew black x’s across every picture that came his way.  Without any assistance, there was no way I was going to try that again!

So, I made it up.  We sat in the circle for a bit and I asked what everyone liked about Sunday School.  The consensus was they liked when we went outside to play on the playground.  It was a nice day out.  We could see the blue sky and green grass through the windows of the room.  But it was out of the question.  Instead we played a little game I invented a few months back.  We sit on a big circular rug.  I had everyone stand up and asked them if they liked something.  If they did, they jumped on the rug.  If they didn’t, they jumped off the rug.  We went around the class, so everyone could think of something.  It shows how we all things in common, but we don’t have everything in common.  That killed about ten minutes.  We had a snack and then I let them play with the toys.  We have some board games.  I played Candyland with a couple of kids (I won).  Some kids played “house” in the corner with the toy stove and refrigerator.  Others played “store” with a toy cash register.  I started glancing at the clock more and more often.  Time was passing, but no parents were showing up.  That wasn’t a big surprise; our MRE had been teaching for 19 years.  She would have a lot of goodbyes to get through.

I knew I was in trouble when the kids got bored playing with toys.  I read them a book called Ordinary Mary.  Mary did one nice thing to one person, who then did nice things for five other people.  Those five people did nice things for five people each… and so on… and so on…  Eventually everyone does something nice for everyone else in the entire world, even Mary.  The kids didn’t get it.  They didn’t want to get it.  We’d been together more than two hours by then and they were tired.  The classroom was hot.  One little girl tore the head off of My Little Pony.  Another sat herself in one of the cubby holes for coats.  I shut the door to the class to prevent escape attempts and prayed the parents would show up before we all passed out from the heat.

A long hour passed and finally the kids started getting picked up.  I got a mumbled thanks from a few of the kids, but no one remembered to say goodbye.  I tried not to take it personally; the kids are between four and seven years old.  But I was really tired after spending almost four hours at church; trapped in a bad situation with a bunch of cranky kids.  I just wanted to get out of there and – frankly – not come back. 

But time has a way of healing hurt feelings.  After a few days of rest at work, I got a call from the new head of religious education.  Could I please help out again with the kids in the fall?

“Sure,” I said.  “No problem.”

Plant Poo

We celebrated Earth Day in Sunday School with a little project: build a terrarium.  We were going to grow some radish seeds that had apparently been bred so hardy that they could survive a group of 4 – 6 year olds and their teacher who seriously lacks a green thumb.  I got downstairs early.  I covered the tables with newspaper and then filled a jug full of water.  We were going to use a pair of plastic cups for the terrarium.  I checked and was relieved to see their recycle code was “1”.

The kids showed up a little bit late; the story upstairs ran a little long.  We sped through our circle time and went straight to the project.  Some were disappointed there were no fish (no, that’s an aquarium).  Others were mad I decided I would be the one to scoop the dirt into the plastic cups… those most disappointed were the ones dressed in the nicest whitest dress clothes, of course.

While I was scooping, one child made his brother eat some of the radish seeds.  Soon, all the kids were deliberately sticking them in their teeth.  One of the parents hanging out in the classroom mentioned the seeds would grow radishes inside their stomachs.  While (probably) not true, it did get the kids to leave some seeds for the terrarium.  The kids got more interested when I added water to each of the cups of dirt.  So, now I had a dozen kids, dressed in their nice clothes, with cups of mud in front of them.  This mud had just the right proportion of dirt and water to form a semi-gelatinous goo.  I split the remaining seeds and one kid got the giggles.

“It’s plant poop in there!” he laughed.  “Diarrhea!”  That gave me an in.

“What is plant poo?” I asked as I urged the kids to drop their seeds in the goop.  A couple of the kids laughed and a few others gave me a long “eeeeeeew!”

“Plants give off waste,” I said as I started taping the second cups on top of the dirt and seeds.  “Does any one know what it is?”  No one did.

“They poop oxygen,” I said.  I got another long “eeeeeeew!” from the crowd.

One girl remembered.   “We breathe oxygen,” she shouted.  “We breathe plant poo?!”  I nodded and got a bunch of giggles and another long “eeeeeeew!” as I finished taping the terrariums shut.  I get roughly an hour’s worth of time with the kids on Sundays to try and teach them something about one principle or another.  As they left with their terrariums (with only minor spills), I heard more than one mention “plant poo” in passing.  Maybe they’ll put it together that plants help us in lots of ways and therefore we must take care of the earth.  At the very least, maybe they’ll end up with some radishes.

Sunday School Topics

I’ve pretty much given up on whether or not a given topic is going to fly in Sunday School.  For example, a couple of weeks ago I got the topic “Rules Are Fun”.

Fun?

Surprisingly the kids loved the rules topic.  We all thought of rules that we follow: rules that we follow to stay safe.  We played “Follow the Leader” then we had an activity where we had to follow a set of rules.  We all had to draw things and – yet – we all ended up with slightly different drawings even though we followed the same rules… hmm… something to think about.

On the other hand, this last Sunday we had a topic “Working Together”.  I know I was in trouble when my assistant failed to show up.  Then, none of the kids could think of something they liked to do with other kids.  Eventually, they did think of something that is best done with someone else: fight!  We had a puppet show that turned into “Punch and Judy” and free play turned into tackle football… without the football.

I went home to make sure that we’re not covering “Peace and Love” anytime soon.  Otherwise, I might have had to call in sick.