When we finally got started on Wednesday, the first Elementaries arrived. We all went into church, led by our new First Graders. One of our Fourth Graders, Marc, told us all what a saint is--a holy person, who loves to know a lot about God. Matt from Third Grade explained what special friends are--people who trust and respect each other and like to hang out with each other. We figured that saints are God's special friends, and we looked around the church and saw that it was filled with saints--special friends of God, who came to KidsRelig because they love to know a lot about God; they trust and respect God, and they want to hang out together with God. With all these saints around us, it was natural that we pray their very own prayer--the Litany of Saints, and our newest saints helped us out. We called up each new First Grader to say his/her first name out loud. Right before each name we said, "Saint," and right after we said, "Pray for us." It was to the sounds of this litany that the First Graders were sent off with their teachers to class. Then, the other grades followed.
On Thursday, our second day Elementaries were just as saintly as the Wednesday crowd.
For the first Middlers, who arrived Thursday, it was all about spirits, as we gathered in church before class. We met one of those spirits we all all meet from time to time--a ghost--a spirit we dream up in our brains to scare us out of ourselves. Then, with the toss of a couple footballs, we met the spirit that fills our bones and makes us try as hard as we can to achieve what we think we must. And then some cheerleaders arrived with that spirit that stirs our feelings to cheer ourselves and others. Spirits all, but not the Spirit we really wanted to meet--the Spirit of God with us and us with God. Like someone special in our lives, whom we know so well and love so much that he/she is always with us no matter how far away (I gave my grandson Hudson as an example), the Spirit of God can always be present to us. And like that someone special, it is that Spirit who makes us think and say and do only what makes God proud of us and never ashamed.
Our teachers gathered around our kids and prayed that the Spirit fill them all with wisdom, understanding, right judgment and courage, with knowledge and reverence and wonder at God's presence.
And so KidsRelig began!
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