Teach Me to Dance

"Teach me to dance to the beat of your heart
Teach me to move to the power of your Spirit
Teach me walk in the light of your presence
Teach me to dance to the beat of your heart"

"Teach Me to Dance" lyrics by Greg Holland

As we did with Alpha last Spring, Beth and I started off our first !TNT! meeting this semester playing this song from a CD called Devotion by the African Children's Choir. We encourage the children to get up and dance and "get the wiggles out" before we get started. In the past, we have had few takers (other than our own daughter). This week, though, we had one new boy from our church and two new girls who first made connection with us via our VBS up in the Village.

I am no dancer, and in fact I grew up in one of those kinds of churches that viewed most dancing as sinful (unless, maybe, it was the Virginia Reel). It isn't easy for me to get up and move to music if anybody is watching me, even if they are young kids. But I needed to set the example, so I was up and moving to the music, and eventually they all got into it, sometimes even dancing with me.

I tend to approach life in a rather academic way, and I often confuse things of the spirit with things of the mind. I tend to think of discipleship as something that is taught, like algebra or history, but it is really a lot more like learning to dance, watching the Teacher and trying to move like he does.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

"Busy, busy, busy, busy as a bee/Martha was so busy, she did not have time to breathe."

That's the refrain from Bob Hartman's story of Martha and Mary, which we read at family devotions the other night. It is also very much in my mind as I work to finish sewing a Bee puppet for our !TNT! (Thursday Nights Together) meeting, beginning this week. As with last spring, Beth and I will be teaching the younger children (K-4th grade), and this semester our topic is the Beatitudes. Last Spring, we were doing the Alpha curriculum, which seeks to answer various questions about basic Christianity, and our mascot/recurring character was a young owl named Alphie, who had a lot of questions and wanted to be wise when he grew up ("Who ever heard of a DUMB old owl?"). So, as I thought of the Beatitudes, the pun "Bee-Attitudes" came to mind (though obviously I'm not the only one to think of it, as a casual search on Google will show!). Though, the more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me the stereotypical attitudes associated with bees (always being busy being the chief one), the more I saw that the "Bee-Attitudes" might differ markedly from the Beatitudes that Jesus taught. A "Busy Bee" might even be upset that Jesus "sat down" to teach!

And so, I created Benny as a rather high-strung (not "stung") honey bee. He is eager to help teach the kids, and assumes he knows what the Beatitudes are (because they sound like Bee Attitudes), but in fact he is in need of some gentle correcting from my wife, who works as the main teacher for each series. For the voice, all I had to do was speak rather excitedly and change all my s's to zz's, and stretch out any long e's.

For his first outing, Benny had only four legs, no wings, and no stinger, but I'm hoping to have him finished by next week.

Pirates, Saints, and Bees--Oh, My!

After a long stretch of little creative energy, I suddenly find I'm SWIMMING in writing projects! Some are work related, and others are "just for fun" (or profit, if any of them would sell!)

First off, we re-staged our "Pirates in Paradise" VBS program (originally written and performed in 2007) this summer. Because we opted to do the VBS in the evening, and wanted to keep the final night as the presentation to the parents, I had to rewrite it to fit the storyline into four episodes rather than five. Since I was rewriting, and had a couple other actors who wanted to be pirates, I created a few new roles, and I was able to polish parts (and write some parts which had originally been ad-libbed). At any rate, that inspired me to think more about these characters and about the sequel I had proposed writing for last year's VBS (which we pulled the plug on due to insufficient volunteers). The original Pirates VBS deals with teaching the pirates to claim the Royal Pardon, forsake piracy, and store up treasure in heaven; at the conclusion most of the pirates do so, rechristening their ship "The Heavenly Pearl" and setting off to tell others the good news. So, the sequel focuses on the converted pirates' missionary journeys (and the Pirate Captain's attempts to somehow get back his ship). I spent a good part of vacation jotting down notes and working out the plot and I feel like I'm ready to write it now.

Of course, that is far from pressing. On September 23rd, we will be re-launching !TNT! (Thursday Nights Together), a family based program for which my wife and I will be leading the youngest component (K-4th grade) through a study of the Beatitudes. Last Spring we did a child's version of Alpha, and the featured character (puppet) was a young owl named Alphie who had a LOT of questions he wanted answered. This session, since we're doing the Beatitudes, I thought the featured character should be a Bee. Though as I'm thinking about it, the "Bee Attitudes" are probably very different from the Beatitudes. The Bee character that is developing is someone who stays very busy, always working to make more honey, and not too good about sharing it. So he will prove to be more of a foil to my wife, who will have to correct him and teach him to be more humble and relaxed about things.

At the same time, we are revamping our "Church School" to become "Children's Worship," following more closely the pattern of what is going on in the "adult" service upstairs. The storytelling time (serving as the sermon) will be surveying what our Bishop has recommended as the 100 Essential Bible passages, and we are hoping to do so creatively, with Godly-Play style interaction and some puppet shows. I have offered to write a puppet show for the Joseph story. We also hope to have the children present a puppet show for the adults on All Saints Day (observed). Speaking with our rector this morning, he would like us to focus on the heavenly worship as described in Revelation... which I did a couple years ago for the closing semester of KidzLife. So I'll be dusting off (or adapting) some of my "Visions of Patmos" material, and figuring out how to do that with little children as the puppeteers.

What I LEAST need to work on (and am having the most fun with) is actually a writing project of my wife's. She has been kicking around an idea for a "mid-grade mystery series" (think Nancy Drew, or better, Trixie Belden), set in 1976. I started helping her with researching (and remembering) the time period, and I've gotten very into it.

Then there is the adult play dealing with Simon the Pharisee/Leper and the Woman with the Alabaster Flask who anointed Jesus at Simon's feast. I began that last spring, and haven't done much with it lately, but it feels important and like something I really need to do.

The question is, WHEN?

Camels and Pigs

In addition to the Pirate storyline in VBS, we had a "Story time" built into the curriculum. When we did it in 2007, this was one of several stations that the children would rotate through, and I designed it as more of an interactive teaching station. This year, because of space constrictions, we were not able to break into groups and had to do everything as a big group in the same space, which inhibited the "interactive" piece of it. We decided to use a version of "Godly Play" to tell the story three of the nights, and do puppet shows the other two.

The two stories we decided should be done with puppets were The Rich Young Ruler and The Prodigal Son. Trying to think in terms of how best to tell these stories using puppets, I keyed in on the animals in the stories; in the case of the Rich Young Ruler, I decided to tell the story from the perspective of a camel, as if ANYONE knows how impossible it is to get a camel through the eye of the needle, it would be a CAMEL. With the Prodigal, the obvious animal choice was to tell the story from the point of view of the pigs that the Prodigal was hired to feed at his lowest point.

Having neither a camel nor pig puppet, having no budget, and running out of time to make anything from scratch, I ran down to my favorite thrift store (Red White and Blue) in hopes of finding some second-hand stuffed animals I could use. The pigs were easy to find, but, as you might guess, there were no camels to be seen. I ended up piecing together the head and neck of a snake, the mouth of a donkey, and the body of a leopard (all pinned together and covered with a tan cloth) to create the camel.

Driving home from the thrift store, I was given the voice and character of the camel, as well as the name, "Canticle, the Cantankerous Camel." It was a low voice with a southern twang (something in the neighborhood of Foghorn Leghorn, without the constant repetition), and as a beast of burden, he had a lot of complaints about people with "lots of STUFF!" The voice and character came so strong, I ended up writing the piece as a monologue, with Canticle talking about Camels' place in New Testament society and in Jesus' teaching, and then recounting the story of the "this Rich Kid with all this STUFF which BLINDED him to th' fact that he GOD ALMIGHTY was standin' there RIGHT in FRONT'v'HIM! WHADDIDHE DO? He TURNED AROUND and walked AWAY! 'TseNUFF to makye wanna SPIT!!"

I couldn't tell how well the story went over on the other side of the puppet booth--there was a lot of chatter in the room at the time--but individual kids who saw the puppet before and after the performance really seemed to respond well to him.

The pigs' story failed to materialize, but I think that was just as well. I decided that needed to be more interactive, so I used a version of the Prodigal by Bob Hartman, which involved the audience in saying certain rhyming words and making certain gestures throughout the story. We did use puppets to act out the story, but that was more of a backdrop to the Hartman interactive storytelling piece.

The Heavenly Pearl Sails Off Again!

We just concluded the 2010 version of "Pirates in Paradise" VBS. The curriculum and original skits were written and first staged here at COTS in 2007, followed by "The Good Shepherd of the Outback" in 2008. Last year, we had planned to create a sequel to the "Pirates," but that didn't come off due to a shortage of volunteers in the morning. This year we made two strategic decisions; the first was to offer VBS in the evening (so as to get more volunteers), and the second was to stage the VBS in the Recreation Center of a couple housing projects on the north end of town. Although my personal preference continues to be for a morning VBS in our church building, it is hard to argue with the results--we had 20+ volunteers each night and a total of 60 kids who participated in the VBS this summer. What exactly this leads to remains to be seen, but I am hoping to see our church commit to some sort of follow-up, with the possibility of eventually planting a church in that neighborhood.

The biggest creative challenge in revising the script this year was in shortening the storyline from five to four days. Previously, in doing a morning VBS, we had the closing program for the parents the evening of the final day, and it was felt by the team that we needed to the keep the final evening as a summary of the story for the parents' sake, wrapping up the actual storyline on Thursday night. In retrospect, I think I would argue for returning to the five-day format, as there were very few parents who actually attended, and I think it best to send the kids off with an exciting conclusion to the story, rather than a recap in which nothing dramatic happens.

I also added two more pirates, because we had two individuals who were inexperienced actors but well-know to the kids in the village (or at least, better known than the rest of our team). It seemed worthwhile to get them up front for the dramas, but I will be dropping back to my original three pirates in the future (the Captain and two crew members. Amongst other things, the stage got very crowded with five pirates (ESPECIALLY in the cramped space of the Rec. Center), and there was no good way to work the additional characters into the climax of the show.

Personally, the biggest challenge was for me to assume the role of Milligan, the island host to the visiting children and Pirates. This character was originally written for a friend named Travis, who is extremely gifted as an actor, a teacher, and someone who has a natural gift of rapport with children. Travis also has a wonderfully peaceful demeanor, which is required for this character--he does not allow the pirates to ruffle or rile him up in any way. My own approach to acting is generally to throw myself into a character, generally very different from myself, and it helps if I can channel my own nervousness about being onstage into a nervous or angry character (which is why I originally cast myself as the Pirate Captain, Harry DuPillage). Breaking down the "fourth wall" to relate to the audience, remaining relaxed and trying to calm others, all while wearing shorts and beach shoes (which I would NEVER do offstage, except on the beach!) was QUITE a challenge to me as an actor. I think I succeeded, overall...

If nothing else, we certainly hammered the memory verses into the kids. A portion of each skit involves Milligan teaching the verse of the day to the the children and his pet parrot, Paolo. But Allie, who acted as M.C., would review the verse before the skit, and Pam, who led the music, would have the kids all SING the verses after the skit. Not that any of that was a bad idea (I was especially appreciative of the fact that Pam WROTE some original music to put to some of the verses), but these kids should CERTAINLY know by now that they should store up "treasure in heaven" rather than "treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves"--or Pirates!--"can break in and steal."

The story ends with the majority of the pirates abandoning piracy, claiming the King's Royal Pardon, and voting off the Captain and any others who want to remain pirates, rechristening their ship from "The Bloody Gem" to "The Heavenly Pearl" and sailing off as missionaries to spread the news of the Royal Pardon to pirates and other sinners they may encounter. Which prepares us for "The Continuing Adventures of the Heavenly Pearl" and a missions-themed VBS I have yet to write!

"We Really Are the Grass!"

In my job at SAMS (South American Missionary Society->Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders), each month one of us on staff writes a letter which goes out to our donors along with their receipts, sharing news, stories, or reflections on mission. May was my month, and I was a bit more personal in my reflections than is usual. At any rate, it seemed suitable to post my thoughts here, so here it is:

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May 2010



Dear Partners in Ministry,


“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls,but the word of the Lord remains forever.” (1 Peter 1:24-25)

Entering my 50th year this month, I was greeted by an old friend (a year younger than me), who commented, “We really are the grass!” Though 50 may be in the rear-view mirror for many of you, those of us approaching it still see it as a landmark of some significance, and wonder at how fast it is coming (especially those of us who were convinced we’d be raptured some 30 years ago)! This and other more serious events have caused me to think a lot recently on the transience of human life and accomplishments.

My actual birthday coincided with a visit to Virginia to the house my grandparents built 75 years ago. My aunt had rented out the place since her parents passed away, but facing financial hardships herself, had finally had to sell it. This was the last time anyone in our family would be able to gather under that roof or enjoy the spacious yard which had been the scene of so many cook-outs and croquet games. It was the final tract of a 17-acre “Crumbaugh Village” on the edge of Falls Church, and though it was no Monticello, it had stood all these years as a monument to my own connection to “the Greatest Generation.” Knowing that the new owner will likely demolish the building or renovate it beyond recognition made its passing from the family even more sad.

The emotional impact of that, however, was blunted by the fact that the same week my father-in-law had been hospitalized in Richmond with a failing heart. This came as a shock to us all, as for the past 20 years he has kept to a vegetarian diet, walked several miles a day, and done all he could possibly do to avoid just such a fate. God’s love and grace was evident in many ways while he was in the hospital (including the fact that 26 family members were able to visit, some driving from as far away as Montana), and he is home now receiving loving care from his wife (who trained as a nurse years ago). Despite the fact he is once again amazing everyone with how healthy he appears, the doctor’s long-term prognosis is not good.

The incarnation of Christ, and the way he lived his life (“Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”) teach us that this life is to be enjoyed and lived to the full. But Jesus never lost sight of his mission in this world, and the eternal consequences of what takes place here on this earth. We, too—as individuals and as a society—have a mission to fulfill in this life. While we don’t want to be “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good,” we need to keep focused so that when the Master returns (whether at the last trump or in a personal invitation to Glory) he will find us diligently doing the work he has given us to do. As the plaque on my neighbor’s kitchen reads: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Blessings,


Dana Priest
Donor Relations Associate

A Debt We Could Not Pay

Let he without sin cast the first stone if you will.
To say that my bride isn't worth half the blood that I've spilled.
Point your finger and laugh if you choose
to say my beloved is borrowed and used
She is strong enough to stand in my love.
I can hear her say..

"I am weak.
I am poor,
I'm broken, Lord,
but I'm yours.
Hold me Now.
Hold me Now."

--Jennifer Knapp, "Hold Me Now" from Kansas (1997)

I've been thinking a lot this past week about the woman with the alabaster flask and the Pharisee named Simon (and that was even before Miriam's sermon on Sunday!). I ran across the story again in my own reading the previous week, and it has stuck with me. In a brief Google search I found that there are some that link "Simon the Pharisee" with "Simon the Leper" and try to argue that this anointing and the account of an anointing at the end of Jesus' ministry (by Mary of Bethany, in John's version) are the same event, both occurring in the home of someone named Simon. Although I doubt that is the case historically, there is the argument that Jesus said "wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her" (Matt. 26:13), and Luke records no other anointing. It is also fascinating for me as a dramatist to think about the various connections that would arise if the two stories were versions of the same event--just the idea of a Pharisee (upholder of the rules of ritual purity) becoming a leper (one of the people most ostracized by such laws) provides a ton of material to wrestle with dramatically in itself! But I digress...

The point which caught my attention at first was the parable that Jesus told Simon about the two debtors. One owed 500 denarii (a days' wage) and the other owed 50, and both debts were forgiven by the moneylender. Jesus asked which would love the person who forgave their debts more, and Simon answered (correctly, according to Jesus) that the one forgiven more would love more. Jesus then made the connection between the "sinful woman" and the debtor who owed the larger sum, and used that to explain her actions (which the Pharisee thought wildly inappropriate). Simon was left to see himself as unable of experiencing a love of that level, because he'd only been forgiven a little.

NOW, the question is, "Is that true?" Did the upright (uptight) Pharisee just not sin enough? Should he have loosened up, lived it up, and become an extravagant sinner so that God could forgive him much more, and consequently he could love God that much more? Does God weigh our sins in the scales like a moneylender? Were the woman's sins REALLY ten times as much as the Pharisee's?

OF COURSE NOT! ALL sin is abominable in God's sight! Jesus died for the sins of the world, but he wouldn't have had to die any less to fully forgive one person's one sin. Death is death and sin is sin. It's ridiculous to attempt to measure either, let alone compare measurements.

So why did Jesus tell this parable? If sins cannot really be measured, then why tell a story in which God is depicted as a moneylender managing debts and parceling out pardons? Probably because that is the only way Simon could think of God. If one wants to be able to distance oneself from other sinners, if one wants to justify himself in God's sight by saying, "I thank thee, O God, that I am not like other people--they sin TEN TIMES more than I do!" then one has to imagine that God is keeping track of these things with at least as much scrutiny as we are.

BUT, if we would realize the seriousness of our own sin--of each and every "small" sin we do--and of what it cost our God to forgive it, then we could ALL love as lavishly as the woman with the alabaster flask.

Pope Benedict's Christmas Eve Sermon

Christmas Day has come and gone, and the Priest family Christmas (this year celebrated on New Year's Day but always delayed by our travels to visit other family members on the actual holiday) has also come and gone. But while we are still within the 12 Days of Christmas, I wanted to write again (as promised) and comment on the Pope's Christmas sermon.

I dimly recall watching some of the ceremonies when Pope Benedict was installed, and I suppose I heard thim then, but I don't recall being deeply affected by anything he may have said at the time. Then again, it was a service and a ceremony I was unfamiliar with. Christmas is another story, and this was the first time I'd watched the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass with "the new pope." There was also a new commentator--my wife and I joked that US Cardinal John P. Foley, who did the broadcast voiceover for 25 years, always sounded like he was covering a tennis match--and the poor guy had to try to make sense of the "shoving" incident early in the broadcast. Although Pope Benedict chose to do the ceremony two hours earlier, it was still broadcast the usual time, which was too late for my wife this year, so I ended up watching alone (which brought things back to the first times I'd watched it).

I've always enjoyed the international flavor of the service, and the camera work and editing (for someone who grew up watching Billy Graham Crusades as the ultimate experience in religious broadcasting, where all the cameramen could do was pan across the crowd or focus on the stadium flags flapping in the breeze, the Vatican offers a real treat to the eyes!) The Protestant part of me sometimes gets squeamish thinking of the oppulence and wondering how much of the lovely art and architecture of St. Peter's was purchased by misguided people purchasing indulgences, but for the most part I can buy the idea of trying to make a worship space look like heaven by using large dimensions, the best artists and the finest materials available. Heck, wasn't that what Solomon's temple was all about?

But I digress... As inspiring a person as John Paul II was, I don't recall ever being impressed by him as a speaker, or remembering any of his sermons I listened to. And it was the sermon that struck me the most this year.

The main point for me was the contrast Pope Benedict made between the shepherds and the wise men. While the shepherds lived close to Jesus, the wise men had to make "a long and arduous journey" to see and worship the Christ child. This physical distance he likened to spiritual distance; "there are simply and lowly souls who live very close to the Lord," but most of us "live our lives by our philosophies, amid wordly affairs and occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the manger." God has already made a great journey from heaven to be born amongst us, but he still must push and prod most of us to get us to "go over to Bethlehem" and meet him where he has chose to reveal himself.

God wishes for us to come to him, but we must be receptive to his call. The shepherds were "watching"--they were awake and cognizant of the world around them. The wise men came from a pagan culture, and citing Origen (who evidently was citing John the Baptist "out of these stones God can raise children of Abraham" and the author of Psalm 135, who comments that those who make and worship gods of lifeless materials "shall become like them") he says "lacking feeling and reason, they are transformed into stones and wood." But God desires to give us hearts of flesh. He became like us in order to make us become like him. This was the "sign" given to the shepherds--God's humility expressed in the incarnation and seen in a "babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger."

So, we must be alive, we must be awake, and we must be attentive to the presence and calling of God. And repeatedly, Pope Benedict the liturgy (or "Liturgy") as being of prime importance, as "the work of God" and as a time when "the Lord himself is present in our midst," if only we had the grace to see.

Liturgy is something I need to explore this year--for some very practical reasons (at home I am preparing my daughter to begin receiving communion and at the church I am pulling together a Confirmation program for our yout)--but also for my own spiritual well being. So this sermon seemed especially appropriate for me as I kick off the new year.