Category Archives: Religious education

The story of the Christmas candles

Here’s the story I’ll be telling to start off our Christmas Eve candlelighting services this evening….

Each year on Christmas Eve, we come together as Unitarian Universalists to hear the old, familiar Christmas story through words and songs. We also light candles together. It’s pretty obvious why we tell the Christmas story — because it’s Christmas time! But why do we light candles? For one answer this question, I would like to tell you the story of the Christmas candles as I heard it from Dana Greeley in the Unitarian Universalist church of my childhood.

We begin with a single light. This single candle stands for the light of the ages. The light of the ages is the truth and the light that is known to all peoples, in all times and places. Unlike the candle that symbolizes it, the true light of the ages never dies out. The true light of the ages is everywhere, and can be found by anyone, if we would but seek it out.

From the light of the ages, I’ll now light these next two big candles. These represent the prophets and sages. Every culture and every generation has at least one prophet and sage, men and women of exceptional wisdom and insight who bring the light of the ages to their generation. Jesus of Nazareth was one of those prophets and sages, and tonight we remember his wisdom and insight.

After we sing the first carol, we’ll light the flame in the chalice, which has become a symbol of Unitarian Universalism. That small flame will represent the prophets and sages in our religious tradition, many of whom have been inspired by Jesus — people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Hosea Ballou, and Eliza Tupper Wilkes, the woman who was the very first Unitarian minister in Palo Alto.

A little later on, I will light these candles here in front from the candles representing the prophets and sages (see if you notice when I do). These smaller candles represent the teachers, those who pass on the light of the ages to the rest of us. These teachers might be schoolteachers, but they are also mentors and friends and parents and grandparents, everyone who teaches us.

And finally, at the end of this Christmas Eve service, when we each receive a lit candle, we will symbolize the way the light of the ages comes to us, passed on to us from our teachers, who in turned received it from prophets and sages. And when we get done here tonight, it will be up to us to take our own light out into the world, to make our world a better place.

Two miracle birth stories of Jesus

This Sunday in Sunday school, I will be teaching the children about the two stories that we tell about the birth of Jesus. In popular culture, we mush these two stories together — angels and shepherds get mushed in with wise men and the star in the east — but they really are two different stories, told by two people with differing theologies.

Part of the basic Biblical literacy I want to make clear to children that there are indeed two different stories. I don’t want to go into the subtle differences in the theologies of the two stories; it is enough for me that children learn that there are two stories. This will lay the foundation for later, when they can learn that the Bible is a collection of books by different authors, with different viewpoints. I also hope that having a good knowledge of the Biblical stories of Jesus will help them begin to distinguish the other additions that our culture has made to the Jesus birth stories — additions like putting animals in the stable, determining how many wise men there were, etc.

The Miracle of the Wise Men and the Star
The Miracle of What Angels Told to Shepherds

Continue reading →

The Miracles at the Birth of Muhammad

Once again, my purpose was to come up with a story that would be suitable for use in a Unitarian Universalist worship service, to show that many great religious leaders and prophets have legends of miraculous births. The legends about Muhammad’s birth (peace be upon him) interest me because they appear to be less important than the miracles told of Jesus’s birth (whcih make it into two of the four Gospels) or of Buddha’s birth (which make it into the Jataka tales) or of Confucius’s birth (which make it into the cultic traditions of Confucianism). Thus, when referring to miracles in this story, I have tried to use statements like “some people say,” etc.

Introduction

At Christmas we like to remember the old story of the miraculous birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But did you know that there are other miraculous birth stories of other great religious leaders? Today I’m going to tell you about the birth of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and I’ll tell you some of the legends that some people tell about his birth. See if you think these legends are at all like the legends that are told about Jesus’s birth.

The Miracles at the Birth of Muhammad (peace be upon him)

Once upon a time, many many years ago, far away in the land of Arabia, there lived a man named ‘Abdel Muttalib. As this story begins, ‘Abdel Muttalib was about 70 years old, and was the foremost leader of the city of Mecca. His son ‘Abdallah was then 24 years old, a young man renowned for the beautiful light shining in his face. ‘Abdel Muttalib took his son ‘Abdallah to some distant relatives, and gave him in marriage to Amina, the daughter of Wahb. Amina was said to be pure in her thoughts and deeds. (1)

The wedding took place at the home of the bride, as was the custom. After they were married, ‘Abdallah stayed with Amina for several days. Soon Amina was pregnant, but ‘Abdallah had to set forth on a journey with a caravan of merchants traveling to the distant city of Ghazza. As the caravan returned to Mecca, while in the city of Medina, ‘Abdallah became ill. He stayed there with cousins on his father’s side. Continue reading →

The Miracle Birth of Confucius

This is a complete reworking of a story I posted last year. The previous version was a simple rewrite of an old Sophia Fahs story, but I was not happy with the Fahs version for a number of reasons I won’t go into here. For this version, I did some additional research into myths surrounding the birth of Confucius, and I have provided footnotes (if you have corrections or comments, please leave a comment below). As with all myths and legends, there will be many different versions; I have tried to provide a story that is a reasonable compromise between the different versions I found. You may wish to know that traditionally Confucius’ birthday can be celebrated on September 28 (Quifen 27 in the Chinese lunar calendar).

Once again, my purpose was to come up with a story that would be suitable for use in a Unitarian Universalist worship service, to show that many great religious leaders and prophets have legends of miraculous births. I’ll be telling this story this Sunday at the Palo Alto Unitarian Universalist church, and wanted to share it here in case someone else might find it useful.

Introduction

At Christmas we like to remember the old story of the miraculous birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But did you know that there are other miraculous birth stories of other great religious leaders? Today I’m going to tell you about the miraculous birth of Confucius, a story with angels and wonderful animals and wise men. See if you think this story is at all like the story of Jesus’s birth.

The Birth of Confucius

Once upon a time, in a place called Tsou, there lived a man named Shu-liang Ho, who was also called K’ung Ho. He had been a soldier, now retired, and he was so tall that people said he was ten feet tall. He lived in China some two thousand five hundred years ago, at about the time when Gautama Buddha lived in India.

K’ung Ho was an older man, perhaps 70 years old. His first wife had died, and leaving him the father of nine daughters. But K’ung Ho also hoped to have a son. So he went to the head of the noble house of Yen, and asked for one of their daughters in marriage. The youngest daughter, Yen Ching-tsai, said that she would be willing to marry this older man. Continue reading →

How best to reach visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners

I promised Joe that I would post a link to this…. In an article on the American Federation of Teachers Web site, Daniel Willingham, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Virginia, answers the question: “What does cognitive science tell us about the existence of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and the best way to teach them?”

The short answer to this question: “What cognitive science has taught us is that children do differ in their abilities with different modalities, but teaching the child in his [or her] best modality doesn’t affect his [or her] educational achievement. What does matter is whether the child is taught in the content’s best modality.” [Italics in original.]

For years, I’ve been teaching Sunday school teachers to be aware of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners, but on the basis of this article, I will be rethinking my training strategy. You can read the whole article online, and draw your own conclusions.

Intergenerational worship service

Series of entries in my teaching diary about an experimental Sunday school class. First entry.

We didn’t have Sunday school today; instead we had an intergenerational worship service. Dorit and her mom forgot that it was going to be an intergenerational worship service, so Dorit came up to me before the service started, and said, “We made banana-nut muffins for class today!” I ahd to explain that there was no class today. Dorit, being Dorit, heard this news with equanimity, and we quickly figured out a way to share the muffins after the service. Heather also came this week, and I think a couple of our other regular Sunday school attendees.

Amy, our parish minister, and I had thought hard about how to make this intergnerational worship service both kid-friendly and meaningful to adults. We decided not to change the order of service; we wanted children to experience a normal order of service as part of their religious education. We talked with the lay worship associate, Dave, about how to communicate the theme for the worship service, which was “gratefulness.” We made sure children and young people would be part of leading the service. And we made sure that no one element of the service would last too long.

The prelude was played by a 7th grader from the morning session, who is an accomplished classical guitarist. Dave lit the chalice, and told briefly how the chalice grew out of the work of the Unitarian Service Committee in the Second World War, and how the chalice still symbolizes our commitment to living out our faith through social justice work. I told the old story of Thanksgiving. In his reflection, Dave mentioned many of the things for which he felt grateful. The Children’s Choir sang twice, once early in the service and once at the offertory. Amy began her homily with a reference to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and she looked ahead to the Christmas buying season telling us that while nowadays we are meant to believe that the best gifts have to be purchased, that isn’t necessarily so.

The Children’s Choir had to sit through all this twice. They were not as attentive in the second service as they had been in the first service, but they stayed calm — and they seemed to quite enjoy hearing the adult choir sing at the second service. At the beginning of the service, Heather had left her parents and gone to site with the eight girls of the Children’s Choir. After the service, I heard that Heather was going to start singing with the Choir — since they rehearse between the two worship services, I hope that Heather will still be able to attend the 11:00 Sunday school.

Comments

(a) We have the children attend intergenerational worship services to help us reach our goal of raising children who are likely to become Unitarian Universalist adults. If children don’t get to attend worship services with a fairly ordinary order of service, if they don’t learn how to sit through homilies and sermons and reflections, I believe that when they get to be adults it will be more difficult for them to make the transition into the adult religious community.

(b) I believe a key educational moment in this intergenerational worship service was having the Children’s Choir sing. Although this is a new choir (less than a year old), they have come a long way: they had good volume, good intonation, good enunciation, and it was pleasant to listen to them. Obviously, they made an impact on Heather; whether she wants to join them because they sounded good or because she wants to hang out with other girls her age doesn’t matter much. What does matter is that now Heather can see herself as being one of the children who will participate in the worship service. As for the children who have no interest in singing in the Children’s Choir, they now see that children can contribute to worship, and are an important and valued part of the congregation.

We work on our quilt

Series of entries in my teaching diary about an experimental Sunday school class. First entry.

Before we went into the worship service, Melissa found me and said that had something come up at the last minute, and she would have to leave before the class time was over. We had planned that I would tell a story about Theodore Parker, and then she would get the children to finish painting their quilt squares with chalice designs — but since she had to leave early, we quickly decided that she would start the children off painting their quilt squares, and then after she left I would read the story.

Four children came to Sunday school at 11:00 a.m. this week: Lily, who had come once before, was here while her parents were in a meeting; Kali, who usually comes to the 9:30 session; Dorit; and Heather. Their parents told us that Zach and Andrew both play football, and both had games this Sunday morning. I learned later that Sonnet, Heather’s sister, decided to stay in the worship service this week. Monty and Perry, our other regulars, attended the 9:30 session this week.

We had a quick check-in time, and then Melissa started us in painting our quilt squares. Melissa brought regular acrylic paints instead of fabric paints this week, and we all found that it was easier to use the acrylic paints. I asked the children if any of them wanted an apron, but no one did — we had not had any problems in the past while using fabric paints, so I let it go.

Melissa told us that she hoped this would be the last week for painting, and that she would try to assemble the quilt over the next two weeks. There were some quilt squares left where children had outlined a design in pencil, but had never painted; we all decided that those of us who were in attendance could paint in these outlined designs. We all got to work.

We painted away, and talked about all kinds of things — no big topics, nothing important, just the idle but very satisfying chit-chat that people carry on while they’re working on a project together. Dorit completed her intricate chalice design, and announced that now she had to paint in the entire background of her quilt square with light green paint. As she started painting, she sighed and announced happily, “I’m never going to be done!” Soon Melissa had to leave, so Hong, the Religious Education Assistant, came in to be the second adult in the room. All the children were still busily painting their quilt squares, so I decided we would skip the story for this week — we wanted to complete the quilt squares this week.

Before I knew it, it was ten past noon — past time for us to end class. Kali still hadn’t finished painting her intricate design, and she asked Lily and some other children to help her paint in the last details. Dorit painted madly and finally filled in the background on her quilt square, stopping once to declare again, “I’m never going to be done!” The rest of us cleaned up around them, and I began to realize that some of the children had paint on their clothing: Dorit had a splotch on the front of her shirt and one on her pants; Lily had a bit of paint on the sleeve of her dress. Dorit said that her mother wouldn’t care about the paint (which proved to be true). I was more worried about Lily, who takes great care in what she wears, demonstrating far more visual skill and creativity in her dress than you’d expect from a nine year old; but she managed to get most of the paint off, and didn’t seem too worried.

At the end of the class, Sara came in to get her sister Heather. “Sorry I didn’t come today,” she said; she had stayed in the worship service with her parents, which is a good thing for an eleven year old to try. I told her it was good to see her, and then I introduced her to Lily, telling them that they were the two most creative and talented dressers in the Sunday school: “Of course, Lily, you are more arty-funky, and Sara, you dress more like a fashion plate [this was a phrase I had heard Sara use about herself], but even though you have different styles, you’re both really creative.” They nodded to each other, and I think they were pleased to be recognized for their obvious talents. I looked at the other children and said, “We’re witnessing a historic moment, when the two best and most creative dressers in the Sunday school get to meet.” The children expressed extreme skepticism at this judgment of mine — “I don’t this this a historic moment” — but I assured them that I thought the New York Times would carry this story.

By the time we finished cleaning up, it was twenty past twelve. All the quilt squares were finally painted, and set out to dry in the storage closet in our classroom. There had been no time for the story, but it felt like it had been a successful and satisfying session.

Next entry.

Comment

(a) While there was no formal learning in this Sunday school session, we nonetheless made progress towards one of our four big goals:– we had fun and built community by working together on a group project. To a lesser extent, we worked on a skill important to our religious community:– the children gained experience in working cooperatively at church, important preparation for the kind of work adults do in our church on committees, in social justice, as worship associates, etc. I would also argue that we probably made some progress towards another of our big goals, to raise children who are more likely to grow up to be Unitarian Universalist adults, but it would be difficult to say exactly how that took place.

Questions for reflection

(1) Most often, we think that Sunday school should focus on communicating religious knowledge and information. However, one explicit goal in our program is to build community and have fun. How do you feel about not doing any teaching of religious knowledge in a class, and just focusing on building community and having fun? Does that feel like a wasted session to you? Do you think it will feel like a wasted session to children and/or parents/guardians?

Teacher’s meeting

Series of entries in my teaching diary about an experimental Sunday school class. First entry.

Susie, Lee, Melissa, and I met this morning to plan out the next few months of our Sunday school class. We have just about finished up the fall quarter, when we have been focused on Unitarian Universalist identity, and we’re about to move into the winter quarter, when we will focus on our Jewish and Christian heritage. (And Melissa and Susie have promised that they would write up a short description of last week’s class, which I couldn’t attend since I was preaching.)

We decided that we will have to try to finish up our UU identity quilt this Sunday, the last Sunday in the fall quarter. Then we talked about the winter quarter. I suggested that we spend the weeks in December talking about the Christmas story, relating it to other miracle birth stories (the birth of Buddha, etc.). We all agreed that we like our current method of telling stories about people — it seems to work well with our wide age span — although Melissa is pushing us to bring in more of the Unitarian Universalist seven principles. So we chose two Bible characters we wanted to present. Melissa said she would like to do a unit on Esther, and Susie suggested we do a unit on David (of David-and-Goliath fame).

We had all noticed that four children who had been attending regularly had not been to Sunday school in two or three weeks — Perry, Monty, Heather and Sara. So each of us hand-wrote a note to one of the four saying that we hoped the child would return to Sunday school, and we each signed all of the notes.

We also talked about what had been going on in class, especially this past Sunday (we had to explain to Melissa what had happened while playing Red Light Green Light). We talked about the children — how much we enjoy Monty and Perry swapping nametags to confuse us, interactions between siblings, the newcomers who started with our class then moved to the earlier session of Sunday school, etc. And we seemed to talk quite a bit about our own lives, too — jobs, and families, and so on. I find that I really enjoy working with this teaching team, and I enjoy just spending time with them — Sunday school is not just about the kids, it’s also about the friendships that develop between the teachers.

Next entry.

We play games, and experience conflict

Series of entries in my teaching diary about an experimental Sunday school class. First entry.

During the first 15 minutes of the worship service, Amy, our parish minister, told a really good story about a rabbi who dreams about treasure (Amy sometimes reads this blog, and I let her post a summary of the story in the comments if she feels like it). Then we sang “For the Beauty of the Earth,” a lovely hymn that we want the children to know. Those of us going to Sunday school went out during the fourth verse of the hymn.

Melissa was going to be the lead teacher this week, but she had sent email to Susie and me, asking if one of us could take over for her. Susie had replied that she’d come up with something, but when we got to our classroom, Susie said she had been ill. She was ready and willing to lead the class in — something — unless I had something I’d like to do….

Now one of the things I’ve learned teaching Sunday school is that it’s good to always have activities in mind that you can use. Sometimes planned lessons turn into disasters, sometimes I have had to fill in at the last minute, sometimes I have planned a lesson only to find that one of my co-teachers did pretty much the same thing last week when I was off — so now I always have some activities ready that aren’t related to the formal curriculum, but which will help us work on our big educational goals. this week, I had been thinking about some theater games, and I also had a story that I wanted to tell the class…. Continue reading →