We’ve been talking for the past month or so about the Holy Spirit, and about ways we have to try to capture in language and image the idea of it. Flames, wind, breath, music, doves. We talked about things we cannot see, but can feel, or know to be real.
And since before Easter (since the Jesus in the curriculum grew up enough to be a young boy, and then an adult), we’ve talked about how Jesus used stories to tell us things, and to help us learn. Recently, six-year-old Louisa has been growing adept at classifying things “fiction,” or “non-fiction.”
Today we made little gardens of sand and play-doh, and talked about the story of the gardener, sowing seeds into soil that was rich and fertile, and soil that was too hard, had birds, or was full of weeds.
“The soil is fiction,” Louisa asserted.
”Yeah,” I said, “I think he’s talking about our hearts, wanting our hearts to be rich where things can flourish.”
“I have that kind of heart,” she said.
The craft for today was only tangentially related to either of those– while talking about Jesus and his stories (fiction), and the ways we try to understand the Holy Spirit, we made kaleidoscopes, following instructions from here. It was cool to look through the tiny hole and see the colored light against the tinfoil, to see what had been merely sequins and glitter become wide shapes, colored and new.
I tried making a pinhole, but Louisa grabbed a pencil and shoved it through the black construction paper, saying, “I can’t see enough; I want to _see_.”
That is wonderful.