The Feast of the Transfiguration
My parish sponsored a quiet evening tonight, Transfiguration Meditations. I volunteered to provide related activities appropriate for kids and, as I put it, antsy adults!
The Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ is told in Luke 9, verses 28-36.
For Transfiguration and Imagination activities, here's what I put together.
A Godly Play story for me to present. Jesus Is Baptized (my version), with the desert box. (Connection to the transfiguration: parallel events, and "behold, my beloved son...")
Art, open-ended. Plain white paper and crayons, thin markers, colored pencils.
Art, structured. Photocopy of stained-glass-type Celtic cross design that's fun to color.
Visual/tactile. Two Godly Play presentation materials, the Faces of Christ (connection: important times in Jesus's life), and the Lenten puzzle inside its purple velvet bag (connection: future of Jesus, white as celebration color).
Prayers. Stiff postcard-size papers and markers to create prayer cards, with pictures and/or words, to be used in the Prayers of the People in the closing Eucharist.
Verbal/reading. Bibles, a card with the reference to the transfiguration text, and paper and colored pencils.
Just a few came in to try some of the activities. If there had been more, I would have presented the story of Jesus's baptism; sent folks to find something that interests them at the various tables, taken a break later to read aloud the text of the transfiguration; and let them get back to their work.
It didn't go that way, but I do like the activities I dreamed up. I may introduce two of these — making prayer cards, and reading a related Bible text — to my Godly Play class this year. Tonight I actually chose to write out the text of the transfiguration, and beforehand I made an example prayer card. The room was pretty quiet, we knew the other participants were elsewhere around the church and grounds in prayer, and writing out the central text felt like a meditation itself for me. Pretty cool.
The Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ is told in Luke 9, verses 28-36.
...as he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white.... a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my son, my chosen; listen to him!"
For Transfiguration and Imagination activities, here's what I put together.
A Godly Play story for me to present. Jesus Is Baptized (my version), with the desert box. (Connection to the transfiguration: parallel events, and "behold, my beloved son...")
Art, open-ended. Plain white paper and crayons, thin markers, colored pencils.
Art, structured. Photocopy of stained-glass-type Celtic cross design that's fun to color.
Visual/tactile. Two Godly Play presentation materials, the Faces of Christ (connection: important times in Jesus's life), and the Lenten puzzle inside its purple velvet bag (connection: future of Jesus, white as celebration color).
Prayers. Stiff postcard-size papers and markers to create prayer cards, with pictures and/or words, to be used in the Prayers of the People in the closing Eucharist.
Verbal/reading. Bibles, a card with the reference to the transfiguration text, and paper and colored pencils.
Just a few came in to try some of the activities. If there had been more, I would have presented the story of Jesus's baptism; sent folks to find something that interests them at the various tables, taken a break later to read aloud the text of the transfiguration; and let them get back to their work.
It didn't go that way, but I do like the activities I dreamed up. I may introduce two of these — making prayer cards, and reading a related Bible text — to my Godly Play class this year. Tonight I actually chose to write out the text of the transfiguration, and beforehand I made an example prayer card. The room was pretty quiet, we knew the other participants were elsewhere around the church and grounds in prayer, and writing out the central text felt like a meditation itself for me. Pretty cool.
posted by Barbara | 11:35 PM
3 Comments:
The Godly-play that you write about reminds me somewhat of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. It's a Catholic formation program according to Montessori principles. My boys go to a Montessori school that uses this catechesis program, and it is great. More info on the catechesis at http://www.cgsusa.org/
Steve, thanks for the note, and you're right, there are a lot of similarities between Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. They're closely related and developed from the same source. If I remember correctly, Jerome Berryman, who developed Godly Play, studied under Sofia Cavaletti (CGS) and then took it in another direction -- though still clearly closely related to CGS.
For the Faith at Home Web site I've collected a variety of resources for both CGS and GP on the Godly Play resources for teachers page.
They are deep in somewhat similar ways. I've been thinking lately that CGS seems to me to be very atrium-focused and Christ-focused whereas Godly Play seems more adaptable to a variety of situations and whole-story-of-faith oriented. Neither is better, in my opinion, though others will certainly differ.
There's similar stuff being done elsewhere as well. Gretchen Wolff Pritchard's BeulahLand work is several steps beyond GP in the same direction.
I really love all varieties of this imaginative religious play for faith formation.
oops, I meant "many similarities between Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and Godly Play"!
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