{"id":64,"date":"2022-11-02T18:23:09","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T18:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/?p=64"},"modified":"2022-11-02T18:23:09","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T18:23:09","slug":"are-you-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/02\/are-you-ready\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you ready"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fall is here.\u00a0 School is underway.<\/p>\n

Are you ready?<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And now our own school (RE) at Unity has begun.\u00a0 In teacher training this fall KP challenged us to bring our passions to our practice of teaching; to practice meeting the passions of our children, to risk being undone.\u00a0 A beautiful and sober invitation as we begin the year.\u00a0 At it\u2019s heart we are called to prepare ourselves to be fully alive and fully in relationship to ourselves and the children we companion and witness in our classes. \u00a0It is to be ready to be lit up like our flaming chalice. \u00a0We are called to be present in kindness and generosity whether we judge our class successful or wanting.\u00a0 And there is always something to learn.<\/p>\n

This Sunday we learned to \u201cget ready\u201d in our class.\u00a0 We get ready as we begin by sitting criss cross apple sauce with our hands in our lap.\u00a0 We quiet our minds and our voices and our bodies so that we can listen.\u00a0 We practiced this in my class several times when the attention of the children began to wander.\u00a0 I practiced it myself as I realized a piece of ritual I missed or did out of order, remembering for myself and my class that we are all learning Spirit Play together.<\/p>\n

Part of the philosophy of Spirit Play is to use whatever comes up as an opportunity for us to learn in community and this is something that I sometimes am not quite ready for.\u00a0 This week we had one child who wanted to play at the sand table instead of sitting on the rug or with the door teacher.\u00a0 I invited him to sit a few times, but he did not accept my invitation.\u00a0 After a few attempts I brought my attention back to our circle and let the moment be what it was. \u00a0We began our circle and one child heard the scraping of a tool scooping sand against the bottom of the table and spoke up to say she was distracted. \u00a0I listened and suggested we all get ready again and focus our attention on what was happening in our circle. \u00a0We moved on with class and a second child raised her voice to say that the sound of the sand table was distracting. \u00a0I also listened to this comment and reflected back to her that it was hard to listen with that noise and then I kept going with class. \u00a0I recognize in myself my desire to smoothly lead our class ritual and my loss at what to do after having extended an invitation that wasn\u2019t accepted. \u00a0As I play it back in my head, I wish I would have let our community of children voice their distraction and offered\u00a0it as another invitation into the circle. \u00a0Or to have started a conversation that might include the question, \u201cWhat would help you come into our circle?\u201d \u00a0I wanted to model acceptance and kindness, which maybe felt more accepting to the sand scraping then to the children asking for help to not be distracted in the circle. \u00a0I maybe forgot that we all have a place and a voice, and part of what church is, is to navigate that in community and in love. \u00a0If I had gone this imaginary route, maybe we would have all come to awareness that our friend at the sand table arrived at\u00a0class needing to go to the bathroom which was making him uncomfortable. \u00a0Instead, as we went on with our circle, he had an accident and then happily joined us on the rug after he was relieved and clean. \u00a0There are many ways to get ready.<\/p>\n

So, how do you get ready? \u00a0In what ways are you quieting your mind, heart and body in order to listen to the moment? \u00a0Are you showing up to class having met the needs of your body and soul? \u00a0Are you receptive and open to the unexpected lessons that emerge in this\u00a0room every week?<\/p>\n

Come, let us wonder together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fall is here.\u00a0 School is underway.<\/p>\n

Are you ready?<\/p>\n

And now our own school (RE) at Unity has begun.\u00a0 In teacher training this fall KP challenged us to bring our passions to our practice of teaching; to practice meeting the passions of our children, to risk being undone.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","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\/64","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=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/66"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarahcledwynblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}