This Sunday we gathered to tell the story of the Unitarian Universalist ritual to celebrate and welcome babies into our community.<\/p>\n
It was also the first Sunday that I got to try on the door teacher role. \u00a0You have to know that I have been longing to sit at the door since I learned more about the philosophy underpinning it\u2019s role; a loving witness. \u00a0I value and honor the intention to physically embody the energy of threshold, safety and love that the door teacher assumes each week. \u00a0I think it is vital that there are eyes there, simply and powerfully to see and celebrate the presence of everyone in the room.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the practice. \u00a0For any of you who have tried out meditation, you have likely had the familiar experience of making time to sit down and\u2026your mind starts racing, you forget what you\u2019re doing, you try to be calm and centered and the quiet itself seems to incite the inner life into an explosion of things to think, feel and do. \u00a0And all you were trying to do was sit quietly and peacefully for a few minutes. \u00a0It\u2019s way harder than it appears. \u00a0And it\u2019s part of the process of meditation to sit in the midst of that and try to simply come back, remember and breathe.
\nSo I sat at the door for class and felt myself losing my focus\u2026.thinking about how I would tell the story this year if I was on the rug, wondering if I had forgotten anything as I signed folks in, musing about how I would change or re-write this story to make it more compelling for the children. \u00a0Oops. \u00a0And then I would come back and breathe and observe without the interpretive overlay. \u00a0And then I would lose focus\u2026should I stop the child moving back and forth from the door to the rug to the door again? \u00a0Should I put my hand on her shoulder? \u00a0Should I ask her to just sit still till the story begins? \u00a0Is anyone distracted by her movement? \u00a0Oops.
\nOver and over in class this process happened and over and over I simply came back and tried again. \u00a0In this story, the Storytelling teacher blesses all the children and we welcome them by name. \u00a0The text of the story indicates the teacher should start with herself and then move around the room. \u00a0 The teacher started blessing the children and my mind lost focus once more. \u00a0I wanted everyone to be blessed, everyone to be included. \u00a0Refocus. \u00a0In the present moment I simply observed again. \u00a0The children received their blessing and a rose, and then the teachers, and then the Storyteller received the blessing we all gave her. \u00a0Everyone had been included. \u00a0It had just happened in a different way than I imagined. \u00a0I almost missed it by holding too fast to my own expectations. \u00a0And, after all, what is the return to each moment? \u00a0It\u2019s a return to new life the one right here in front of us that is happening and changing with such unexpected complexity and beauty.<\/p>\n
And I too was included. \u00a0My name was recognized. \u00a0I was welcomed into the circle of our community, with all my distraction and all my attempts to come back to witness. \u00a0Even so, I am a part of it all, no perfection required. \u00a0We all are. That\u2019s truly something to celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This Sunday we gathered to tell the story of the Unitarian Universalist ritual to celebrate and welcome babies into our community.<\/p>\n
It was also the first Sunday that I got to try on the door teacher role. \u00a0You have to know that I have been longing to sit at the door since I learned more about the philosophy underpinning it\u2019s role; a loving witness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","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\/119","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=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}