Mayhem and Magic

Scripture Memory for Kids

Pre-schoolers have crazy-amazing memories, have you noticed?  They can pick up anything!

I was talking to my mom a while ago about possibly having the boys do an AWANA-type program.  (Do you remember those?  I went to AWANA for years!)  Mom said that if she had it to do over again she would not have put us (my sibs and I) through AWANA, because there was too little flexibility and too much pressure. 

Maybe the programs have been changed since I was in AWANA (20 years ago!), but they were pretty darn conservative back then.  Maybe that was where I learned that in order to be a good Christian you have to vote Republican.  (Just kidding.) (Only kind of.)

Anyway, my mom said something forehead-slappingly obvious which had never occurred to me.  She said, "You know, you could just help them memorize some Bible verses at home."

Doh!

(I'm actually slightly nervous about outing myself as a parent who would like her kids to learn Bible verses from memory.  Though I am pretty darn honest about myself and our family, somtimes as a blogger I avoid being "too" anything-- too judgemental, too opinionated, too religious, too political, too pro or anti adoption, etc, etc, oh give me a break, no one can be all things to everyone! I don't think I'm one of Those Parents, though.  Hang in there with me.)

So, we started with an experimental memory verse:

"Jesus said, 'I am the Beginning and the Ending.' " Revelation 22:13

They had that down in about five minutes.

So every few weeks we've been working on a new verse, practicing and talking about it before bedtime each night.  And, hello?  My kids are doing awesome!  I'm bragging on them just a little, but mostly I think they're just at an age that it comes relatively easily for them. 

The next one had to be:

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Ephesians 6:1

That took maybe two evenings.

We stuck with just those two for a while, then added:

"Do not be afraid, because I am with you.  Do not be dismayed, because I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

They continued to surprise me with how easily and how well they memorized this.

Since then they have also learned:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.  Whoever believes in him will not die, but will have everlasting life.  God did not send his son into the world to punish people, but to rescue them." John 3:16-17

and

"Dear Zion, don't give up; the Lord your God is with you.  He is a strong warrior to win the battle.  He will take great delight in you.  He will quiet your fears in his love.  He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:16-17

Pumpkin is fastest to learn them.  Sparkle would be mostly uninterested, I think, except that he wants to do as well as Pumpkin.  Mostly, we just practice saying them together, talk about what they mean, and cheer for ourselves.

Some cool conversations have come out of this, too. 

One night I told Pumpkin (about something totally unrelated), "I'm so proud of you!" and he asked, "Do you take great delight in me?"  (from Zephaniah 3:16-17).  I told him, "YES!  Yes, you are a wonderful boy and I DO take great delight in you!"

We talked about what it meant when God said he would "uphold us with (his) righteous right hand." Sparkle's idea is that it's "just like holding hands" and gave the example of holding his Dad's hand when walking in a parking lot or on a slippery sidewalk. 

Oh, my heart!!

I do want their pictures of God to be like that-- someone whose hand you hold when you need to be kept safe, a hand you can grip tightly when you slip to keep you from falling.

Overheard: Sparkle, at Age 5 Years + 3 Days

First of all, Sparkle has a loose tooth. I think.

He came to me this morning and said, "I think this tooth hurts."  (Bottom left tooth, by the way.) I checked it out, and it seems just the tiniest bit wiggle-y.  It's hard to tell, 'cause his whole head jiggles a little bit, no matter which tooth you tug on.  But my dad checked, too, and he agreed.

Oh my gosh...

He only turned five a few days ago.  I am just barely able to wrap my head around the fact that my baby is five years old.  Having a loose tooth is just...  just...  totally unacceptable.

(sigh)

Sparkle came grocery shopping with me a few days ago, right before we were going to make his birthday cake.  (It was just like Beloved's last birthday cake, per Sparkle's very specific request.)  He was rambling on about how great the cake was going to be, and how it was going to be huge.  HUGE!  Bigger than than the table!  Bigger than the house!  Bigger than the whole world!  And then he added, "But not bigger than God." 

Because a cake bigger than God is just impossible, while a cake bigger than the whole world-- why, that makes perfect sense.

On the way home, completely out of the blue he said, "Mom, some people think castles are just imaginary, but there are lots of real castles in Europe, actually, and especially in France.  Did you know that?"

And what do you know, he's right.  Of course.

I think year five is off to a good start.

(Such perfect little shining square teeth!  I can hardly stand to see them fall out!)

Christmas Bible Reading with Sparkle

Sparkle loves reading the Bible.

I must say, it has very little to do with our parenting influence.  (Pumpkin avoids Bible stories.  He'll even say, "Don't read me the God book, Mom," take away the Bible, and give me a book about dump trucks instead, which I find so, so great.)

I am not sure why Sparkle is so into the Bible, but I think it might be because it's pretty much the most violence he's ever been exposed to.  Daniel is thown into a den of lions, Peter cuts off a soldier's ear, Jesus is crucified.  It's fascinating stuff.

He asks really detailed questions, and I often don't know the answers.  Since we usually read from one of our two children's Bibles, he'll bring me an NIV and tell me, "Mom, read it from the grown-up Bible," and then sit quietly, listening intently, hoping to catch whatever information was missing from the children's story.  He can remember what I think are pretty complicated story lines.  For example, he can mostly remember that Joseph was thrown into a well, then sold into slavery, then lived in Potiphar's house, then went to jail, and then became a ruler in Egypt.  (The broader timelines, like the fact that Jesus lived long, long after Noah, he doesn't really get.  Maybe I should make an actual timeline to hang on a wall or something.  He would probably like that, but I think I might feel like a pushy-crazy-Bible-thumping parent.) 

He can process and interpret things pretty well sometimes.  Recently we were reading about Joseph, and we mostly talked about how even when things looked pretty horrible for him Joseph trusted God, and God was still watching over him, still in control, and still loved Joseph.  Just out of curiosity, I asked him later, "Why do you think Joseph's brothers were angry with him?"  (something we hadn't really talked about) and he thought for a few seconds and then said, "They were mad because they wanted a coat, too."

He's always been interested in the Christmas story (here's a post about Sparkle reading the Christmas story last year). 

Recently we read one of our little children's Christmas books that talked about the shepherds worshipping Jesus.  "What does "worshipping" mean?" my sweet, amazing four-year-old asked me.  (Man, this kid...  He absolutely keeps me on my toes every minute!)  I kind of stumbled for second, trying to think of definition that didn't include any words like "praise" or "glory."  So I ended up saying, "Worshipping God is when we tell Him that we know he is the best and the strongest and the biggest."  (I think that was a pretty good definition, on the fly.  To me, anyway, worship means acknowledging to God that we know he is God, and we're not.)

He looked puzzled for a second and said, "But, Mom...  Jesus wasn't the strongest and the biggest.  He was just a baby."

And I just teared right up a bit...  I told him, "You are absolutely right.  That is a really amazing thing, isn't it?"

My Sparkle...  He's so, so fabulous.  I'm sure this is true for people of all faith traditions (or even none), but I find parenting is such a surprisingly spiritual experience.  How many times have I heard, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" or "Hail the incarnate diety!" in Christmas songs or services?  Who knows.  A lot.  But looking at the story from the new perspective of my own child makes it more real to me.  The Biggest and Strongest God became the smallest and weakest, just so he could be with us, just so he could show us that he loves us.

Okay, so I have a bit more to say about dicussing the violence in the Bible with a four-year-old, but I better quit now and hit post before I get all church-y and all my many, oh-so-many readers are thinking, "Sheesh, I just wanted to see the pictures of your living room..."

(In this picture, Sparkle is helping to decorate the house for Christmas by putting Christmas stickers on our paper napkins.) 

Needing A New Church

One of the pastors at our church said something during a sermon that was really offensive.  I can't really vent about it anywhere else, so I'm going to write about it here.

The pastor was talking about freedom in Christ (I think) and used slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation in an illustration.  He said that once the Emacipation Proclamation was signed, the slaves were free!  They no longer had to serve their old masters!  Whoo-hoo, freedom!

Beloved and I both exclaimed in protest (not yelling or anything, but said out loud something like "No, they could not just walk away!"), and looked around to see if other people were hearing what we were hearing.  Well, apparently not.

I know most people who read this blog already understand this, but let me lay out why the illustration is offensive.

Least Offensive Interpretation:  The comparison shows a lack of understanding of the consequences of slavery, the whole civil rights movement, and current race relations in the US.  In addition, it shows a lack of understanding about how the Emancipation Proclamation actually worked and what it really stated. 

Someone who thinks (or even implies for the sake of an illustration) that slaves could have just walked away is also probably someone who would say, "Well, slavery was a long time ago.  We're all color blind now.  Why make such a big deal about race stuff?"

Highly Offensive Interpretation:  If the slaves could have just walked away after the Emancipation Proclamation and they didn't...  They must have been stupid.

Interpretation Offensive in the Extreme:  The slaves could have walked away, having been legally freed and all, but they didn't.  They must have liked being slaves and could not manage without someone else thinking for them.  Besides being stupid, they enjoyed and deserved enslavement, so slavery was not that big a deal anyway.

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The idea of the illustration was that Christ has given us freedom, but we don't recognize and claim that freedom.  So I think the pastor was "only" Highly Offensive rather than Offensive in the Extreme.  What do you think?

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We've been attending this church very regularly for the last three years.  We love our small group.  We like that it's a large congregation.  (Large churches seems to have the resources for lots of interesting programs.  But we're both introverts, and we like being able to participate where we want to and fade into the background the rest of the time.)

In the backs of our minds we always knew we wouldn't stay in this church body forever.  We've noticed paternalistic attitudes when people in the church talk about serving other people.  Kind of a racist or classist vibe here and there.  Just weird stuff that we couldn't really put a finger on but that bugged us a bit anyway.  But looking for a new church is time consuming and a lot of work, and we like so many other things about the church, so we put it off.

People who are easily offended and leave churches in a huff always seem self-absorbed and divisive to me.  We did not and will not fuss, pout, and look for attention because we were offended.  That's not it at all.  It's just that the church rather suddenly stopped feeling like a home or a haven for us.  Now we both feel cautious and a little sad. 

I guess we should start looking...  I know it's not possible to avoid all racism by changing churches, but we need to find some place that is at least trying a lot harder.