Real presence?
My son gave me Communion today. We spent much of yesterday at this special workshop on including children in worship, featuring Children at Worship, Congregations in Bloom and Fiona Vidal-White leading music. Fiona is absolutely terrific; Children at Worship gets more mixed reviews from us. They had some interesting ideas, but we were a little frustrated by some of the things they didn’t seem to be thinking through. For example, if you’re trying to rethink church to be more inclusive and welcoming, why would you arrange the chairs for your workshop with everyone facing the “leaders” at the front, and nobody able to see each other, and people at the back not able to see what’s going on? That’s not thinking enough outside the box, if you ask us. Still, it was an interesting day, and Tilt and I enjoyed being there together and talking it over afterwards.
UPDATE: Please see here for a dialogue with the Children at Worship folks about my comments on their workshop. For anyone too lazy to follow that link, please know that I think Children at Worship is doing very important work and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them as a resource to congregations trying to rethink their liturgy.
This morning the Children at Worship folks had some role in the Sunday liturgy at the church that had hosted the workshop. After fulfilling my responsibilities at the church where I work part-time, we zipped up to this church, arriving only a little late for the main service. It was a nice enough service, but nothing terribly new and exciting. They did some work making the lessons more engaging, which I approve of in principal even if I’m not always on board with specific approaches. Anyway, Zag was restless – it was getting on towards his lunch- and naptime – and the service was nowhere near child-friendly enough to hold his interest. So I eventually let him escape from the pew and followed him out of the nave, the main worship space.
Exploring a little, we discovered a small chapel a few rooms away. I found some paper and crayons in a corner, but Zag had other ideas. The room had chairs arranged in a circle around a small table, on which there was a large white candle and a large footed glass bowl. Zag went right to the bowl, picked it up by the foot (with some difficulty; it was heavy), and told me, “Jesus took some wine.” I came over to him, and he gave me some “wine” from the cup. I asked him what comes next in that story. He said, “Jesus lights candle,” but that obviously didn’t seem right to him. So I suggested we could go try and find some bread, to finish the story with.
So we stopped by the fellowship hall, where some refreshments were laid out. Zag selected a muffin. Now, I figured the Eucharist game was over; he would eat the muffin and perk up a little, we would sit in our pew and draw some pictures, we’d take Communion, we’d head home. Zag had other ideas. When I tried to take him back into the nave, he burst into tears, telling me angrily that he wanted to go back to his church. Finally this got through to me, and we went back to the chapel. Zag immediately took the muffin over to the little table and announced, “Jesus took some bread.” I went to kneel opposite him, and reminded him what Jesus says about the bread – “This is my body.” (Zag likes that part and often remarks, “Body!” while the Eucharistic prayer is going on.)
Zag said, “This my body,” broke the bread and gave me some. Then he decided to try it at the little altar rail surrounding the small altar at one end of the room, so we went up there, and he practiced distributing Communion some more. Tilt came in at about this time, to check on us, and Zag gave him Communion too. He gave him some muffin and said, “Bread of heaven.” Then he got me to help with the wine bowl, since it was so heavy, and said, “Cup salvation.”
After that, we pretty much decided we were ready to go. Eucharist in the main church couldn’t add to what Zag had offered us.
It’s going to take me a while to unpack this. Here we have a church full of people trying to be inclusive of children and invite them into participation in the church’s worship – but there’s still nothing for our kid to do, or look at, or engage with. And here we have a two-year-old who knows perfectly well how to do church and is ready to administer Communion. Where do we go from here?
October 21st, 2007 at 1:54 pm
And there you have it – “a little child shall lead them.” He gets it. Let’s let him lead the workshop next time – and worship next Sunday too! I have come slowly and reluctantly to the idea that the model of church we have enshrined on Sunday mornings CANNOT (and maybe SHOULD NOT) be fixed. Thinking outside of this box means leaving this box totally behind!
October 21st, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I understand that Cyrus was priested and made bishop on the same day … why not St. Zag of Hogwarts? Clearly none of us have anything to add to this ministry, for all of our studies and whatnot. Something to ask your bishop and COM next time you see them! Should be interesting to see what they say.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:41 am
I have been slow to comment on this blog entry
because I am awed by the holiness
of the experience you describe
and because I did not have an answer ready to hand.
Here’s what I think today.
If Zag has this story, the bread and wine story,
written on his heart,
maybe it’s time for the next story.
We have a batch of good stories.
All I remember of church from my childhood
is generous food, strange, wonderful stories,
and helping with things. Helping is big.
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 am
Wishing Zag were still at the Advocate to help lead the IATOTA (Infants and Toddler’s of the Advocate) Mass each month. We pile up the Lenten kneeler cushions (made by Zag’s mom) in front of the altar to form a kind of mini mosh pit. The kids roll and tumble throughout the “liturgy”, honing in on the priestly stuff and sharing their perspectives as they are led. It’s a pretty holy affair.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
More stories… I”ll think about that.
The IATOTA Mass sounds like just Zag’s thing. Wish we could be there, too…
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Lisa, I can’t find anything about this on the ECOTA website – although, to be fair, my ability to find things is generally considered to be substandard. Do you have pictures up someplace? More of an explanation?
October 22nd, 2007 at 5:12 pm
What a great church experience. Too bad the worship commission didn’t come up with it. I went to church on Sunday only to end up being Epistle / Chalice. I haven’t played that role since She Who Shall Not Be Named and Canterbury. But it was OK. Maybe time heals all wounds. Although I woudn’t say that head to toe white with a rope around the waist is a good look for me.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:06 am
There’s a significant generational disconnect that informs this situation…people my age (ahem!) who tend to be running things and planning things and what-all raised our children duing a time when the practice was to put small children in the church nursery; thus, our tendency now is to devote our energy and resources to ehancing the splendors of the church nursery so that children will want to go there on Sunday morning.
However, parents seem now to have a very different vision of what Sunday morning should be. I caught on to this when I interviewed the parents of small children at our current church. Turns out they did not want a nursery; they wanted to spend good and holy time with their children in church together. They were away from their childrern, at work, all week. It was very important to them to worship as a family.
Bird, I know this is obvious to you. I would guess, however, that it is not at all obvious to the older people who are trying hard to plan worship. Maybe you and Tilt should write a Manifesto?
This matter is of critical importance, and not just to my grandson. We count on parenthood to re-connect adults into participation in a church. If we fail – by not understanding their vision of the beloved community – it is a serious failure.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Baba Yaga, the thing that I found so frustrating about this workshop was precisely that their language seemed very much like they got it. I though the Manifesto was there. They were all on about how important it was to have liturgy that includes and embraces children. The bits that aren’t behind the paywall on their website certainly suggest that they get it. And yet, when it comes to practice, both in the way they ran and lead their workshop, and in the Sunday liturgy, it just didn’t seem to come through, and I find that very puzzling.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Weird Bird, the comments have taken over your blog.
I looked at the Children at Worship site also, and what struck me was that it seemed to speak to parents and Christian educators – as opposed to, say, worship committees. Lots of swell ideas – how do they get communicated to the person who plans worship?
I note that Caroline Fairless is a priest, which would considerably shorten the worship-idea communication process. I note also that she has received a great charism for this work, which would not necessarily be true of everybody. Alas.
I note also that the style of worship described on the Web site took some considerable number of years to develop and soaks up quite a lot of volunteer adult energy. Was there a presentation of how to get started on this? I feel overwhelmed just reading the home page.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Hi there, I’m an LTLFTPLTSILTWB (Long-Time Lurker, First-Time Poster, Longer-Time Sibling-In-Law To Weird Bird)
So anyway, Tilt and I were raised Catholic (as WeirdBird already knows), and one Sunday when I was maybe three or four our Mom was feeling particularly ill, and the decision was made not to go to church. This left an obvious hole in our day, so I set out to remedy the situation via my traditional method: I built a chalice out of Duplo Legos, filled it with Cheerios, and promptly administered communion-o’s to my parents.
Is there a gene for this kind of thing?
The sad part of all this, I think, is how many priests there are (Catholic and Episcopal) who would kindly, gently explain to a child that they were not really administering a sacrament, and would take it as understood that Weird Bird had not “really” received communion in this instance.
Anyway, I’m quite charmed to know that the little Zagazoo has, at his young age, figured out at least one of those things that we adults tend to over-complicate. Go Zag, Go!
November 12th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Dear WeirdBird,
I don’t know if you remember me; my kids share a godmother with you. Said godmother sent me a link to this post, and I’m writing to ask your permission to use it (and excerpts from the comments) as part of an Editorial Page with THE SUNDAY PAPER. That means it would also be posted on my blog, http://www.sundaypaperblog.blogspot.com.
Please let me know whether I should attribute this–would you prefer I simply reference your blog (or merely quote anonymously, as “a friend pointed out …), or refer to you by name, and if so, what your married name is (if different from birth name).
Thanks! And wishing you much joy of your sweet Zag. (And loving the toothbrush episode also.)
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 am
[...] to come clean. She hurt some folks’ feelings, and she hates that. Children at Worship came across my earlier post and heard my thoughts on their workshop as an attack on their work. They were, reasonably enough, [...]