VI. IDEAS FOR ENCOURAGING CHILDREN TO EXPERIENCE THE MYSTICAL

KEY: Asterisks indicate the appropriate age levels for each section: * A single asterisk indicates that the idea is especially appropriate for children. ** A double asterisk indicates it is appropriate for both children and teenagers. *** A triple asterisk indicates that the idea is best suited for teenagers. **** Four asterisks indicate it is ideal for all-ages.

* ANGEL FASHION SHOW: Have the children dress up as angels. Give an angel fashion show for another class.

Discussion question: What does it feel like to look like an angel?

*** CLIMB A MOUNTAIN: At the top, talk about other "mountain top experiences," which they have had.

*** DESCRIBE THE DIVINE: Ask children what words they like to use to describe the Divine.

*** DRAWING: Have children draw their response to one of the following: What I do to listen to God's "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12) or a time when I felt God was present with me.

** INTERVIEW MEMBERS OF MEETING: Interview and record or videotape meeting members. Ask the question, "What do you believe?"

** JOURNALING WORKSHOP: Have children or youth bring their journals to class. Provide notebooks for those without one. Assign a question that class members write about for five to ten minutes. Then ask if they would volunteer to read parts of what they have written from their journals. After a few have read, give them another topic. Topics may include:

• If I were a color, an animal, another person, what or who would I be?
• Where are my monsters hiding?
• Things I'm thankful for
• Things I'm afraid of
• Questions I'd really like to ask my best friend
• How I've changed
• The most fun thing I ever did
• The best dream I ever had
• The gift I would most like to give my friend and why
• The gift I would most like to receive and why
• Where in the world I would most like to visit

*** JUNIOR MEETING FOR WORSHIP: Instead of First Day School, have Junior Meeting for Worship once a month. Include centering activities and worship sharing. (Debby Hollingshead)

*** MEETING FOR WORSHIP DISCUSSION QUESTION: What are Friends thinking about right now in the meetingroom?

** THE MYSTICAL CIRCLE: Have children lie on the floor in a circle with their heads or feet touching in the center and their hands reaching out on either side of them to touch the hands of the next person. (Because they are looking up at the ceiling and not at each other, his exercise helps children be less self-conscious. This activity is very good out-of-doors on a nice day). Ask the children to close their eyes and take three deep, slow breathes. Ask them to listen to the sounds around them. After a minute or two of listening, ask some or all of the following questions. Children may respond out of the silence, leaving time between their responses, or simply meditate. For older children, you could have them meditate while in the circle and, afterwards, write their responses in their journal. Journal entries could then be shared with the group voluntarily.

• Have you ever felt what some thing, some animal, or some other person was feeling?
• What causes joy for you?
• What do you know this year that you did not know last year?
• What could you do this year that you could not do last year?
• What does it mean to listen to God?
• What do you need God's help with?
• How can God help you know what to do?
• Have you ever planned how you will act?

** PLAYING MUSIC: Teenagers bring a recording of their favorite music to class. After playing it, they describe why they like it.

** PRAYER PARTNERS: Have an experienced Friend talk about prayer in his or her life. Ask your class if they would like to have adult prayer partners. If some indicate they would, call them during the week to ask whom they would like for a prayer partner. Set up matches. Prayer partners can meet together for a few minutes on First Days and call each other during the week.

*** SILENCE BEFORE MEALS: Talk about what we do during silence before meals.

Discussion questions:

• What do you do during silence before meals?
• Is this silence different from other silence in your life?
• What happens to you in the silence?

*** SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS: Invite elderly Friends to attend your class and talk about their spiritual journeys. For younger children, have a five-minute talk. Then have the children create a picture story of the speaker's life. Each child can draw and color a different aspect of the speaker's story. One child could make a cover. Staple the picture story together and give it to the speaker. For old children, a longer talk would be appropriate. Allow time at the end for questions.

** SPIRITUAL SIT-UPS: With your class, brainstorm a list of virtues-kindness, gentleness, honesty, and so forth-that they would like to have or would like their best friend to have. Have the children lay on the floor. Have each child think of one virtue that they would like to work on. They may call out that virtue, if they wish. While thinking of that virtue, slowly do one sit-up. When finished with that sit-up, they lay on the floor until they think of another virtue they would like to work on, and then they do another sit-up.

*** SUPERSTITION AND SPIRITUALITY: Bring in and read articles, such as encyclopedia articles, on superstition. This is a particularly good program before Halloween.

Discussion questions:

• What is the difference between superstition and spirituality?
• Since both are about the unknown (things that can not be proven rationally), how can we tell the difference between them?

* TELL ABOUT A TIME WHEN: Ask each child to tell about a time when... For example, "tell about a time when you were in a very dangerous situation and how you got out of it."

* TIME-OUT BOX: Arrange in advance to have a disruptive child sit in the corner of another teacher's classroom, without participating. If he or she is disruptive in the second class, he or she is immediately taken to sit with his or her parents. (Use such an idea with discretion, as you not want the child to disrupt two classes.) Alternately, ask weighty Friends to volunteer to be taken out of Meeting for Worship, as needed, to spend one-on-one time with the disruptive child.

*** WALK-AND-TALK: Take a walk with your class. Provide discussion questions. Class members walk in groups of two or three and discuss the questions. They change groups for the walk back.

** WALKING MEDITATION: Take a silent hike with your class. Ask children to observe something, such as the sounds of birds, while they are walking.

Discussion questions:

• What did you hear?
• What was it like to be doing an activity with others and still be silent?

* WORSHIP IN THE OUT-OF-DOORS: Have a 20-minute meeting for worship outside. Have children, in pairs, mark off a 12-inch by 12-inch area of the lawn. During worship, they observe their area and, afterward, report everything they saw-bugs, varieties of plants, color of the soil, stones, movement . . .

 

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