I’ve never tried to articulate my Unitarian Universalist faith to a child. My children were grown-up when I became a UU. My granddaughter is 20 months. I gracefully or not so gracefully detached myself from religious education in my UU congregation. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was the combination of my own magical memories of Sunday school of my childhood with my painful attempts to be an authentic Mormon Sunday School teacher. Mormons have no problems with the language of Reverence. They honor Reverence with a capitol R – Mormon children know how to be Reverent: They fold their arms and smile faces because they know Heavenly Father loves them and they want to make Him happy.
So my UU vocation has been with adults. In this new congregation, I intentionally said no to a request to be on the RE committee – citing my lack of experience and my over involvement in other areas. But now I am being asked to suggest children’s messages that align with the Sunday Service topic. I’ve been privy to glimpses of current rumbles about RE curriculum and content. The big problem is that God is not welcome in the RE program here.
Last week a brave soul who is speaking this Sunday on prayer asked me to find a children's message on prayer. The problem is how does one talked about prayer with children when you can’t use the word ‘God’.
Part of me says what the hell; I’ll read the ‘Old Turtle” book which is a wonderful story about thinking of God. But then I think, no, I’m new; I need to be more subtle and gradual in the language arena. I will probably put ‘Old Turtle away for another day. When I am not as suspect. Do something safe – like on being kind, sharing, and peaceful. The irony of this is that at one time I was told I was not correctly teaching Reverence to Mormon Sunbeams (3 year olds). Twenty years later, I am having a similar problem in my liberal faith. What do you tell the children?
Nancy
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