{"id":109,"date":"2022-11-04T07:57:05","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T07:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/?p=109"},"modified":"2022-11-04T07:57:05","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T07:57:05","slug":"balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/04\/balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Balance\u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We had many joys in our class on Sunday and only 3 sorrows. \u00a0The scale was tipped and weighed down with joy stones, but two of the three sorrows were about death. \u00a0One a fish, one Grey Papa.<\/p>\n

This week in Spirit Play, we listened to the story of The Buddha and the Mustard Seed. \u00a0In this story, a mother\u2019s son dies and she appeals to the Buddha for help. \u00a0He sends her house to house looking for a special ingredient to make a medicine; a mustard seed from a home where no one has known death, sadness or sorrow. \u00a0Our storyteller went around the circle asking the children one by one if they had ever been sad. \u00a0One child looked down and said, \u201cYeah, lots of times\u201d. \u00a0None of us had a seed that could help. \u00a0The neighbors in the story didn\u2019t have one either.<\/p>\n

I was ready to have an interesting wondering conversation about what helps us when we face death, sadness or sorrow, but what emerged was Buddha. \u00a0With giggles, one of the children whispered, \u201cIt\u2019s funny. \u00a0Buddha. \u00a0It sounds like booty.\u201d \u00a0Hmmmm.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In our work time I found myself on the rug with a child who was stacking nesting blocks to make a tower. \u00a0We have two sets and he was trying to stack them all together. \u00a0This was difficult to do as boxes of the same size slipped off each other, larger boxes covered smaller boxes and the last ones were tippy and above his head. \u00a0I smiled while I watched him stack and re-stack as blocks\u00a0shifted and fell down. \u00a0I reached in and placed a block on it\u2019s side leaving the opening facing out. \u00a0This changed the whole possibility of the the tower. \u00a0Suddenly there were pockets to nest other blocks in. \u00a0Suddenly things stabilized as the opening shifted.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I feel this illustrates the story of my teaching (and my parenting). \u00a0I want to stack the blocks a certain way. \u00a0I want them to line up straight. \u00a0I want to make them tall. \u00a0I want to comfort those two children with big sorrows and instead, the blocks tumble down; instead there are giggles and silliness. \u00a0The opening isn\u2019t where I expected it to be. \u00a0But in every moment there is the possibility of finding all we need. \u00a0Maybe the simple act of hearing everyone in our classroom say that, yes, they too have felt sadness was a comfort to our children\u2019s grief as it was for the grieving mother in our story. \u00a0Maybe the laughter was it\u2019s own healing medicine. Maybe playing with what is here creatively in the moment is enough to steady what is uncertain and open the possibility for a new thing.<\/p>\n

In service on Sunday we celebrated our community by hearing the collage of voices that we have been creating for the past several weeks in worship. \u00a0Hearing our many poignant and sometimes humorous voices say what we find here in our church\u00a0felt like a pilgrimage similar to the grieving mother. \u00a0As she wanders door to door looking for a house with no sorrow, she finds community and compassion. \u00a0And as we come to Unity we find others here with broken hearts, with joyful songs, with tears and laughter. \u00a0We find others who have a desire and willingness to make their own lives and our world more loving. \u00a0We hope to be a place to find and keep our balance. \u00a0And my guess is we also find here things that surprise us and challenge us and open us in ways that we didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n

So this week I am looking for where the opening really is, even if it doesn\u2019t look like what I expect it to. \u00a0This week I am trying to look beyond my ideas of what I think the right or wrong way is and to see how the blocks are really stacked. \u00a0I want to look at them and wonder what might happen next? \u00a0I want to hear our voices, the voices of our children and our adults and know that this is the community of my belonging. \u00a0I am not alone. \u00a0I need you. \u00a0I need your laughter and your tears, your joys and your sorrows. \u00a0Let\u2019s hold them all together and see what new thing emerges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had many joys in our class on Sunday and only 3 sorrows. \u00a0The scale was tipped and weighed down with joy stones, but two of the three sorrows were about death. \u00a0One a fish, one Grey Papa.<\/p>\n

This week in Spirit Play, we listened to the story of The Buddha and the Mustard Seed. \u00a0In this story, a mother\u2019s son dies and she appeals to the Buddha for help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-category"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}