Listen, dear friends, to God's truth, bend your ears to what I tell you. I'm chewing on the morsel of a proverb; I'll let you in on the sweet old truths, Stories we heard from our fathers, counsel we learned at our mother's knee.
We're not keeping this to ourselves, we're passing it along to the next generation— God's fame and fortune, the marvelous things he has done.
He planted a witness in Jacob, set his Word firmly in Israel, Then commanded our parents to teach it to their children so the next generation would know, and all the generations to come—
Would know the truth and tell the stories so their children can trust in God. Psalm 78 (The Message)
Please Come to Open House
Anyone who spends time in the presence of children knows that when we look at things through their eyes, the shift in perspective is often a great gift to us. Children look for the delight, the laughter, the play. They expect joy and surprise. That playfulness and joy brings new life right into our midst. On September 12, immediately following service, we will open up the Godly Play classroom and the nursery for an Open House. We invite you to come and experience the wonder, the joy, the play of our children. Take some time talking to the teachers and volunteers, share a moment with a child making something delightful.
Our children’s Sunday School curriculum is Godly Play. Our classroom is filled with Bible stories that surround the children. These stories offer children the opportunity to explore their meaning and then respond to it in their own time and in their own way alongside adult leaders and their peers.
The material is quite beautiful in and of itself - inviting you to touch and to wonder at the story they tell. Each week one of our loving teachers tells a Bible story using these lovely materials. The ability for each child to actually “touch the story” provides the concrete learning support that children and adults often need. As we wonder together about the story, teachers invite our children to express their ideas and their questions about God and the spiritual element of our lives. All of this helps to build on their inherent faith – and calls it out.
We invite you to come and experience faith through the eyes of our children. All are welcome. So please come out and play with us!
There Was A Child Went Forth by Walt Whitman
There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became; And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part ofthe day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird, And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there--and the beautiful curious liquid, And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads--all became part of him.
The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him; Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had lately risen,
And the school-mistress that pass'd on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that pass'd--and the quarrelsome boys, And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls--and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.
His own parents, He that had father'd him, and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb, and birth'd him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave him afterward every day--they became part of him.
The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table; The mother with mild words--clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust; The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure, The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture--the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsay'd--the sense of what is real--the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time--the curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets--if they are not flashes and specks, what are they?
The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows, Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves--the huge crossing at the ferries, The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset--the river between, Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide--the little boat slack-tow'd astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping, The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by itself--the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.
