Mapping our Lenten Journey

9th March:

Liturgical Season: Lent

Story: St Benedict

Today we sat out on Bec's deck and set up our Lenten garden/ maps stepping stones through to Easter Sunday. We marked out 47 days as we started from today as Ash Wednesday. Our first marker was a lump of coal. Piper, the eldest made her own and Bec and Jas made one for their family and Matari and I for our family. Eloi and Jet were busy burying as many stones as they could in their own dish of sand, happily amused and freeing us up to focus on our creations.

Some us us laid out a spiral into Easter and others a windy journey. We created markers along the way with gemstones that held a resonance for us. Piper choose a mustard brown coloured gem for Mary of Egypt as it was a similar colour to Lentils. (Last year we had learnt her story about living on three lentils). She also noticed the colour change of her stones from grey through to reddish/brown for Mary and remarked, "see, its like gradually going into the desert and i didn't even try to do it!".

Other markers along the way were green stones for St Patrick, stones painted half and half for the autumn equinox, a cross with flowers coming from it for the veneration of the life giving cross, a stone painted with a ladder for John Climacus, Rose and Purple coloured stones for the Annunciation and Archangel Gabriel. a fern frond for Palm Sunday, a cross for Good Friday and a black stone for Holy Saturday. Easter Sunday/Pascha was filled with colours, flowers and stones painted like easter eggs. We also added markers for activities that we will do along the way to prepare for Easter. We included red stones to remember the story of Mary Magdalene and the red egg, which we will be dyeing before Easter, and a mini Easter garden as a foretaste of the garden we will hopefully have growing as an Easter scene for Easter Sunday.

This all went well and despite our little clashes with our children, we got there. It was great to see them articulating points of resonance and creating meaningful art to help them map this Lenten Journey.

Materials we used were:

Tray, Box any kind of containing vessel, Bec used a palm seed case!

Sand to fill in with

Stones (47 each)

Some precious stones for special points along the way- feasts etc

Sticks to make crosses

Flowers

Fern Frond

Paints to decorate stones

Piper and Matari both suggested they would like to have a little person or saint figurine to journey from stone to stone with them each day, this seemed like a good idea and might make some of the children's patron saints.

A Re-visioning of Christian Education

http://www.antiochian.org/node/23645
This is an interview with Carole Buleza, who now heads up the Christian Education program of the Antiochian Church in the US.  In the introduction there is a powerpoint presentation which summarises her basic viewpoint: the Protestant model of filling children's heads (which many Orthodox churches have adopted) with knowledge isn't working. An assumption has been made about youth learning the Orthodox way, but this hasn't happened. She maintains that a specific goal is needed, and this is one which has always been the main goal, or the one thing needful in the Orthodox church- attaining union with God- theosis. Her recommendations focus more on character-based components like: wisdom, struggle, liturgy, repentance and conversion, which underpin the learning which takes place.  A worthwhile rationale.

Some interesting links

The Antiochian Orthodox Church has a wealth of links and resources. Some are listed below:

SAINTS IN TROUBLE
http://www.dce.oca.org/Sections/Resources/saints-in-trouble.pdf
This is a 100-page booklet with information on a dozen or so key saints who suffered for their faith with bios, colour icons, troparia/kontakia, activities, maps, etc.

ONLINE RESOURCES- ORTHODOX EDUCATION

http://www.antiochian.org/node/20566

A plethora or links to activities, curricula, websites, games, the arts and lesson plans.

Making Prayer Beads: February 23rd

This week we made our own set of prayer beads to use for the Jesus Prayer.

We begun with the book The Monk who grew Prayer by Claire Brandenburg. This story shows a monk cultivating the Jesus prayer as he goes about his daily work living on his own in the forest.

We used wooden beads and thin elastic to make our prayer beads. We asked the children to choose 33 beads: three sequences of 10, separated by 3 special beads to represent the trinity. We were not organised enough to have cross beads to mark the beginning but they easily adapted with choosing another bead to represent the cross.

This activity was very successful, although the elastic was not so strong and a few repairs have already been made to our beads. Having said that, they are wearing them all the time and even teaching the prayer to their friends.  "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me."

It is good to have been able to equip them with a tool that they have made themselves and can use themselves too. Matari told me the next morning that he did not need to say prayers with me, he had already done them with Eloi on their prayer beads!

(Text: Jacqui, images: Bec)

The Forgiveness Circle. March 2nd

We will begin as usual on our prayer mat, with our candle and incense and our opening rhyme and time of open prayer. We will follow this with a round of the Jesus Prayer on our newly made prayer beads.

Afterwards we will tell the story of the Prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32)

We will set up a circle outdoors with some boundary rocks, then cense the circle and place a cross, candle and an icon in the middle.

To prepare to enter the circle, each participant will have enough gifts to share with those who they will offer forgiveness to, and one for Christ. ie. if there are 5 people in the circle, each will need 5 gifts. It would be helpful to have a basket to carry these in. These gifts are in remembrance of the the gifts given by the father to the prodigal son upon his return. It may be a flower, a crown, a cape or some other adornment to use for the circle.

The first person will enter the circle on the left and offer the first prayer to God.

"Please forgive me, Christ." Then place their gift on the table with the icon and cross.

The second person will then enter the circle, offering the same prayer to Christ and a gift.

They will then approach the first person saying,

"Please forgive me (name)".

The first person will respond with

"I forgive as Christ forgives". As the forgiveness is offered the gift of adornment is also given. Perhaps a cape around the shoulders, or a flower in the hair.

The first person will then ask for forgiveness and the second will offer it, and a gift, then take their place in the circle.

The third person will then enter and will have the same exchange, with Christ, then with the first then with the second person. Then take their place around the circle.

By the time everyone is done, everyone should have received and given the gift of forgiveness to each participant.

we might then hold hands, and following the last person to enter the circle, we would then exit chanting a song, following the leader around the garden.

We may finish with a celebratory feast like the father of the lost son.