Godly Play Foundation

Thank you! Wow!

2010-05-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

Thank you! Wow!

We were completely blown away by the overwhelming expressions of support and enthusiasm for Godly Play this past week. Since reopening Godly Play Resources on April 28 the phones have been ringing off the hook and the kind words on the other end have been so encouraging and much appreciated. We received more orders in a week than we used to get in two or three months. Teresa and Connie are scurrying to get things packed up and shipped out just as quickly as humanly possible.

Thanks again for your loyal support of Godly Play Resources.

We are here to serve you.

Give us a call anytime at 620-635-4018.

Blessings, Tim Alderson
Executive Director, Godly Play Foundation
President, Godly Play Resources, Inc.

Spring

2010-04-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

It has been a very long winter at the Godly Play Foundation but Spring has come. I am coming out of hibernation and hope to keep this site active again. Here's the latest news from the Foundation:

Godly Play Materials Available Again

Thank you for your patience. After several difficult months for all of us in the Godly Play community I am very pleased to let you know that Godly Play materials are finally available for purchase again. Starting today, you can get them directly from Godly Play Resources in Ashland, Kansas where they have been made with love and care for twenty years. Call Teresa at 620-635-4018 to place your order and she will get your materials on their way to you right away. Inquire about the current special they are offering as a thank-you gift for patient and supportive customers.

Please check out our new website godlyplayfoundation.org and check back often for ongoing development. Materials can also be ordered through this site by clicking on the materials link.

Thank you for the work you do with children. Thank you for your loyal support of Godly Play. We at the Godly Play Foundation and Godly Play Resources are committed to supporting you in this work in every way that we can. Please feel free to contact me directly anytime at Tim.Alderson@godlyplayfoundation.org to let me know how we can improve our service to you and the children you serve.

Blessings,

Tim Alderson
Executive Director, Godly Play Foundation
President, Godly Play Resources, Inc.

Stages...

2009-07-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

In preparation for giving the Great Family story recently I was re-reading the Genesis chapters where the story comes from (always a good idea!). I noticed again a repeated phrase that has caught my attention before about Abram and Sarai's journey:

And Abram journeyed on by stages...(12:9 and 13:2) In The Message it's translated: Abram kept moving, steadily making his way...

The word "stages" has been helpful for me recently. The organization of Godly Play is steadily making its way as an organization - and we are going through different "stages".

I was reminded of a piece by Teilhard de Chardin that one of our trainers passed on to me some time ago and I often use during a core training:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability...
and that it may take a very long time.

The whole piece by Chardin is at the end of this post. It always speaks deeply to me. I commend it to you.

I'm not sure exactly what stage we are in but I am convinced that we are steadily making our way - We're certainly not there yet (are we ever?) but we continue to journey steadily!

Organizational Update

We recently did some work with a wonderful consultant who has worked with us before. She works with non-profit organizations and helps them recognize and maneuver through the different stages of development. She helped us recognize this "formative organizational" stage we are in where we are moving from a founder based organization to a more organizational structure. She reminded us that its a bumpy ride. One of the characteristics of this stage is trying things and seeing what works and what doesn't - all the while a lot of activity is going on. It's a fairly chaotic but energetic time.

There has been a recent revisiting of some key organizational decisions. Some of the main questions we have asked are: Where is the best location to "do business"? What jobs are actually needed to do our work? How can we best spend the limited amount of money we have on these jobs? The bottom line of all of this is that the
Foundation board felt it would be best for the Foundation offices to move back to San Gabriel where they were before the move to Seattle. It is where Tim Alderson, our Executive Director lives. The Foundation offices are now back at The Church of Our Savior in San Gabriel. The Rector of the church, Michael Battle, is on the Godly Play Foundation board and the Bishop of that diocese is an ardent supporter of Godly Play so we are in good hands.

New contact information:

Godly Play Foundation
535 W. Roses Road
San Gabriel, CA 91775

toll free 877-569-8656

San Gabriel office phones:
626-872-6330 main
626-872-6331 alternate
626-872-6332 fax

We ask for your prayers as we work to facilitate Godly Play's growth and expansion and work to protect the integrity and spirit of this great gift.

As Chardin reminds us: "give our Lord the benefit of believeing that God's hand is leading us and accept the anxiety of feeling in suspense and incomplete."

We will keep moving steadily - making our way....

With you on the journey - in stages!

Caryl

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability...
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually...let them grow.
Let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on, as thought you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit, gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
1881 - 1955

Kanuga - summer camp

2009-06-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

I'm headed to Kanuga for the week. Candy tells me its a wonderful experience and a great place at the Episcopal Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina. I'm looking forward to being there and playing with Godly Play along with Mary Gardner. Here's the brief description of what we'll be doing.

Understanding Godly Play’s Spiral Curriculum

Becoming fluent in Godly Play is a process similar to any spiritual practice.

It involves time and experience with the core practice; learning the core stories and working (playing) with them together with children.

The enrichment curriculum* is then best added (a minimum of several years later) as an extension and deepening of the core curriculum, using it within the context of the experience and practice of the core.

This spiral journey takes not only the children to a deeper experience but the adults as well who are privileged to journey together with the children in this way. Godly Play can also become a practice for adults to make meaning in their own lives as well.

We are offering working on offering training to better reflect this process. This week at Kanuga will be a unique opportunity to experience and reflect on Godly Play on three different levels. We will be taking one core lesson and using it in these three different but connected venues. We will use one of the core stories to introduce Godly Play for those who are new to this curriculum which will also serve as a refresher to those already familiar with it. (It is always valuable to regularly ground ourselves in this core practice.) We will use the same story and extend the experience by exploring ways to deepen and enrich this practice. Using the same story once again we will invite participants in a retreat model to reflect on how to use the language of this story to name, wrestle with and make meaning of their own story

As always, Godly Play will be an experiential workshop that will invite you to go beyond theory (which you will get) and enter the experience which promises to be deeply meaningful and playful for the novice as well as the experienced Godly Play practitioner.

I'm on my way with expectancy and enthusiasm!

*this would include vols 6 and 7 of The Complete Guide to Godly Play

It's all holy ground

2009-05-28T16:31:00.001-07:00

It's been good to be home this week after visiting Chicago, Indianapolis, New York and Philadelphia. Sleeping in my own bed and weeding my flower beds has felt quite delightful after being on the road for almost three weeks.

The Godly Play teacher training at Pendle Hill, a Quaker retreat center in Philadelphia, was a deeply satisfying and enriching experience. Quakers from 15 different states built a circle and engaged and experienced Godly Play, substituting their unique and particular "liturgy" lessons that reflect their practices of worship and experiencing of God.

We joined the staff and visitors every morning in silent worship, sitting for a half hour in silence together. During the silence of Sunday morning worship, a woman stood and sung a simple and beautiful refrain: "This is holy ground."

Later in the day as we built a circle for the last time and got ready to say our goodbyes, we were reminded of the parable we had just worked with earlier that was also about ground - about soil.

"There once was a person who did amazing things and who said such wonderful things that people followed him and asked him about this 'kingdom' he was always talking about...and one time he answered them by talking about ground - about soil: hard, packed soil, soil with rocks, thorny soil, and good soil that was ready. And as we stood together in a circle thinking about the soil of our journey, personally, with Godly Play, and in our journey of that weekend we made the connection with morning worship: IT'S ALL HOLY GROUND - ALL OF IT!

Godly Play working groups

2009-05-15T07:41:00.001-07:00

I am in Philadelphia after doing a core training at a wonderful hospitable church in Chicago last weekend with Susan Mallison.

I am starting a training this evening at Pendle Hill, a Quaker retreat center here in Philadelphia. I love the name of the workshop - "Playing in the Light - Godly Play for Quakers".

A group of Friends began a working group four years ago, meeting once a quarter to develop Liturgical (worship) stories for the Quaker tradition and practice. I joined them on Wednesday for their quarterly gathering. They have been working on a story on the Quaker testimonies (SPICE - Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality). It was an invigorating and hearty conversation. I came away envious and desirous to be in such a community that regularly and intentionally engages Godly Play practice, storytelling, reflection and listening in the circle.

I was talking to Amy Crawford, trainer in Canada, about the experience and she wisely reflected that some of the newer developing Godly Play circles - i.e. Germany, Finland, where they have had to translate and engage the stories results in a dynamic freshness and authentic wonder about this work. Amy talked about developing local storytelling guilds and learning communities. The Foundation is wanting to be more intentional about helping form continuing education resources for people who are doing Godly Play.

It has been a good reminder that I bring to the circle my own wonder and openness and comfort with the mystery of this journey.

Query: How are you, in your own spiritual practice, engaging and reflecting in ways that keep Godly Play alive and dynamic and full of wonder for you personally?

From Godly Play, An Imaginative Approach to Religous Education by Jerome Berryman (note: I think everyone who does Godly Play should re-read this book annually!)

"The key to the spoken lesson is the teacher as the storyteller. The goal of the story telling is to engage wonder, the creative process, and the awareness of our existential limits as human beings in both the speaker and the listener. This is a cooperative venture between the children and the adult teachers.
When the teacher is truly wondering, the children sense wonder in the air. It manifests itself in the playfulness present in the room. Permission and reinforcement are present to encourage it. When the teacher enters religious language with wonder, he or she shows the children by example how to open the creative process.
...The teacher’s attitude toward existential issues is also important. Experiences such as death, the threat of freedom, the need for meaning, or the unavoidable aloneness that marks us as human beings often raise the defenses of both adults and children. Awareness and permission work together to counteract such avoidance. If we are repressing the awareness of existential limits in our own lives, we will communicate that to the children. Awareness of such limits and permission to deal with them enable the children to be deeply realistic about who they are."
pp. 63 and 64

Quaker Godly Play resources:

http://www.fgcquaker.org/faithandplay/
www.quakerbooks.org (look for Faith and Play)

Spirituality of Children

2009-05-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

I have been to Kentucky and back working on a Godly Play enrichment weekend for people who have been doing Godly Play for a long time and just want a weekend of going deep in the stories for themselves and their spiritual practice. It was so good! I have beautiful images in my mind of the verdant green horse farms and beautiful spring hills in that beautiful part of the country. I will post more about this "going deeper" in days ahead.

I have recently been putting together some resources on children's spirituality. I am aware of my own long journey in even beginning to really, really be present to children - convinced of their innate and deep spirituality.

Here are a couple of stories that have been helpful for me.

Do you have a similar story of your own? It was when I heard Madeline L'Engle's story below that I connected with an experience of my own - climbing a tree when I was five years old.

We talk about children's spirituality but it still so often is within the context of "adult measures". I wonder if someday we will look back at children in the church the same way we look back now at women in the church 100 years ago and realize how far we have come (hopefully!)

Madeleine L’Engle, From: Glimpses of Grace, p 2

One time when I was little more than a baby, I was taken to visit my grandmother, who was living in a cottage on a nearly uninhabited stretch of beach in northern Florida. All I remember of this visit is being picked up from my crib in what seemed the middle of the night and carried from my bedroom and out of doors, where I had my first look at the stars.

It must have been an unusually clear and beautiful night for someone to have said, “Let’s wake the baby and show her the stars.” The night sky, the constant rolling of breakers against the shore, the stupendous light of the stars, all made an indelible impression on me. I was intuitively aware not only of a beauty I had never seen before but also that the world was far greater than the protected limits of the small child’s world which was all that I had know thus far. I had a total, if not very conscious, moment of revelation; I saw creation bursting the bounds of daily restriction, and stretching out from dimension to dimension, beyond any human comprehension.

I had been taught to say my prayers at night: Our Father, and a long string of God-blesses, and it ws that first showing of the galaxies which gave me an awareness that the God I spoke to at bedtime was extraordinary and not just a bigger and better combination of the grownup powers of my mother and father.

And here's one more story:

From: To Leave Before Dawn by Julien Green

quoted in The Religious Potential of the Child by Sofia Cavaletti

In the course of these dim years, I can remember a minute of intense delight, such as I have never experienced since. Should such things be told, or should they be kept secret? There came a moment in a certain room when, looking up at the windowpane, I saw the dark shy and a few stars shining in it. What words can express what is beyond speech? That minute was perhaps the most important one of my life and I do not know what to say about it. I was alone in the unlighted room and, my eyes raised toward the sky, I had what I can only call an outburst of love. I have loved on this earth, but never as I did during that short time, and I did not know whom I loved. Yet I know that someone was there and that, seeing me, loved me too. How did the thought dawn on me? I do not know. I was certain that someone was there and talked to me without words. Having said this, I have said everything. Why must I write that no human speech have ever given me what I felt than for a moment just long enough to count up to ten, at a time when I was incapable of putting together a few intelligible words and did not even realize that I existed? Why must I now write that I forgot this minute for years, that the stream of days and nights all but wiped it out of my consciousness? If only I had preserved it in times of trial! Why is it given back to me now? What does it mean?

Core Training

2009-03-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from southern California....I had hoped to have a break from the Northwest rain and cold and find some warm sun....it was instead disappointingly cloudy and windy but.... beyond expectations in the work together with a community from Pacific Palisides.....there was true sun and warmth in that core training event this past weekend. They will begin Godly Play this fall and have been very intentional about getting ready....a process that is so necessary and important in Godly Play.

The Foundation has recently changed the title of the three day training of teachers that we have been doing now for several years. We have called it in the past a teacher accreditation event and if participants are present for all 18 hours and practice giving a lesson they have been "certified" by the Foundation as an accredited Godly Play teacher.

We have changed the name to more accurately reflect what this training truly is: the necessary core training to get started well. Handing someone a piece of paper after a three day training does not make one a Godly Play teacher. A couple of years of practice with regular contact with children is more likely to be what would identify a Godly Play teacher.

The content will stay basically the same - it has proven to be excellent content:

Experiencing Godly Play in a full session
learning and experiencing the 4 genres of Godly Play:
Sacred Story, Parable, Liturgy, and Silence.
Practicing a lesson with a small group and
each person presenting a lesson and receiving valuable feedback.
3 main presentations:
Spirituality of Childhood
The environment and the unspoken lesson
Supporting the Circle of Children
And all of it is done as a spiritual retreat where each participant is supported to enter this and experience "coming close" for themselves.

But it is just the beginning! Like learning a language, it is the practice and the use of the language that it takes to become fluent. So we are calling it a "Core Training" with clarity that there is more to sustain and build a strong and vibrant program.

And we will still give you a nice certificate if you want - to say you are on your way!

Godly Play is "boring".

2009-03-16T12:11:00.001-07:00

A pastor friend recently e-mailed me who has a Godly Play program now in its third year. There is concern among their team about Godly Play getting "boring" for some of the children hearing the stories now for the third time. Below is most of the response I sent.

(My grandaughter Emma)

Have you ever encountered this issue?
How did you respond?

Dear Friends,
I want to commend you on your ongoing work and reflection on your time with the children of your church using Godly Play. I am always impressed with the contact you maintain with each other on your team. Your weekly e-mails to each other reviewing the session and talking about issues is exemplary.

I wanted to comment, with your pastor's encouragement to do so, on your concern about repeating the same stories now for the third time in your Godly Play program and your concern that your children are getting bored because they have already had these stories. I think your concerns are very valid about recognizing a change in the older children and their need to go deeper.

The best way I know how to talk about this is how Jerome talks about Godly Play as a language – a language to make meaning - to name, wrestle with, and make meaning out of our own existential issues (loneliness, freedom, death and the need for meaning). Like learning any language, The first few years of doing Godly Play is just learning “the sounds and words” – learning the scripts and the gestures and the wondering questions and how we are with the children. I have been told it is similar for children in Montessori schools that the first years are about getting familiar with the materials – how to get them out and put them away and use them. But we all know the difference between being able to repeat key phrases in another language and being fluent in a language. Any Godly Play program after the first few years is challenged with this key transition from learning the language basics to the stage of language development where a level of fluency allows one to begin to actually make meaning and express and dialogue using that language. Godly Play is often seen in a very limiting way as a great method of storytelling – and it is that to be sure – but it is so much more – much, much more. It’s about learning to use that language. I believe that you are at a critical juncture in your program where you have a level of fluency after doing Godly Play well for almost three years now. You have very bright children in a community that encourages authentic questions and you know how to host those questions.

So how does this translate into some practical “how to” specifics??
Godly Play truly is a spiritual practice and like any spiritual practice – it’s about practice. And language development is a gradual, ongoing, regular practice of using that language. I was recently at a wonderful church in Austin, Texas, the Church of Conscious Harmony. (check out their website and read about their Godly Play program). They have been doing Godly Play for 10 years or so – 60 people on their Godly Play team, half of them men and half of them women, beautiful classrooms each with a prayer corner because centering prayer is very much a part of their community and a deep commitment to growing along with Godly Play. They told me that for years there had been a mass exodus from church when children entered adolescence and young adulthood. But they are experiencing in the past few years an exploding youth group of children who have come up through Godly Play and have experienced something that is compelling and meaningful and has given them a sense of belonging that is evidenced in the health and size of their youth. Their "practice" of this language has resulted in a "fluency" where these kids are finding it to be meaningful and valuable.

And yes, there are resources about using Godly Play with older children that are helpful. A number of our trainers have given extensive time and reflection on how to use this practice. Kim McPherson in Denver at St. John’s Cathedral spends a whole year using the Creation story. Check out her SOWhAT (Story, Outreach, Wonder, Arts & Theology) class that she does with older kids. (sjcathedral.org ) There is good information in volume 1 of the Complete Guide to Godly Play in making object boxes and there are helpful suggestions throughout the volumes on how to deepen the lessons using side-by-sides and synthesis lessons. Another part of this conversation at some time needs to engage volumes 6 and 7. They are ENRICHMENT lessons – not the same as the core stories of vol. 2 – 4. They are not to be used as just more stories. But that is another conversation. While not minimizing the need for practical suggestions I want primarily to speak about more of the “unspoken lesson” which is always at the heart of Godly Play.

As always in Godly Play, the first place to check when there are challenges is to check ourselves. Where are we in our own practice? Are we using this language ourselves? How is the language of these stories being integrated into our own experience and journeys of faith? Do we authentically come to these stories expecting to find God in some new way for ourselves? I recently participated in a Godly Play enrichment day where we took the story of Exile and Return and spent the whole day with that story – first of all just experiencing a full session – then engaging that story with our own stories – laying our own life journeys next to that journey as a side by side to see what that story had to say to our own stories. Then we explored what that story had to say to us about our Godly Play classrooms. We as adults needed to enter that story in new ways ourselves. Getting together periodically yourselves, building a circle, hearing a lesson and engaging it personally is a great practice to be able to hold the stories for our children in an open way - being convinced ourselves that they are timeless, and always new because we ourselves are always in a new place. The attitude of the adults in the room to these stories is such a critical piece. The storyteller’s own attitude towards the stories creates the emotional and spiritual space that is available to the children with these stories. What happens sometimes in programs is that children are often more fluent in this language than the adults in the room. It is important for programs like yours to have adults that have been using this language as long as the children have. You are in a good place together to explore this next stage.

After checking ourselves, it is right that we are observant and reflective about how this is for children who have heard these stories for several years and you are accurate I believe in discerning that they want to have more. But again a reminder that Godly Play is not about just knowing information and getting more of it – as interesting and helpful as that might be – but about a language to engage those core life issues that are a part of all of our lives. (Having said that, it is important to have good resource materials – but not overly burdened with them – in your classroom for older children.) Another piece of this picture is about the wondering and the queries that are used. Wondering is also an art – and it just takes practice – practice at listening to the children – practice in discerning what the thread of conversation is and how to nurture it and encourage its development and expression and to genuinely be convinced that each child has their own deep experience and intuitive knowing so we truly are not the teachers but fellow travelers together. This takes much practice and trusting of this process. But it is such a critical piece – not just knowing the right wondering questions out of the book but about hosting and holding the wondering of the children. And of course so much of all of this is about relationship. Relationship has to be established and it is so strong in your circle.

This is much too long but I want to support you all in whatever way I can. I entrust you always to the care of the Good Shepherd who will show you the way and you have all you need to recognize that voice.

Peace.

Caryl

New Executive Director

2009-03-05T21:26:00.005-08:00

After eighteen months of transitional leadership Rebecca McClain has resigned her position as Executive Director of the Godly Play Foundation and has been elected to resume a seat on the Board of Directors. Board President Tim Alderson, after resigning from that position, was elected by the Board to replace Rebecca as Executive Director.

Tim Alderson,
Executive Director
Godly Play Foundation.

In April of 2007 the boards of the Center for the Theology of Childhood and of Godly Play Resources met separately to discuss, among other things, how to find their way into the future beyond the impending retirement of founder Jerome Berryman. Tim Alderson had been newly elected to both boards based on his history as a Godly Play practitioner and successful entrepreneur. At those meetings Tim helped to formulate a plan for a new organizational structure that will carry Godly Play forward while insuring its integrity and growth for future generations. At that time Rebecca was elected to replace Jerome as Executive Director of the Center and to provide leadership in the transition.

Much has happened in the intervening months. First, was the challenging legal work, led by Board member Jim Daugherty, of creating a single entity that will hold all the pieces of Godly Play (research, publications, materials, and training) within a single, centrally managed organization. This came to fruition in December of 2007 with the formation of the Godly Play Foundation. Rebecca became the Executive Director of the new Foundation and Tim was elected President.

While all this was in progress, in October of 2007 Jerome, Tim, and Rebecca met with Davis Perkins and Pete Velander of Church Publishing to talk about a number of issues related to CPI’s recent acquisition of Living The Good News, the publisher of The Complete Guide to Godly Play series. After a successful meeting, during a fine Italian meal Tim proposed an idea that seemed a bit bold at first, but rapidly got traction during the course of that meal. The proposal was for the Foundation to enter into a strategic partnership with CPI that would put CPI in charge of all the commercial activities associated with Godly Play. The idea seemed to complete the picture of creating a single structure to carry all of Godly Play forward in a concerted way. In November of 2007 Tim was appointed by the Foundation board to lead the negotiations with CPI. That deal was completed in May of 2008.

In August of 2008 Rebecca and the Foundation office moved to Seattle, WA. The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia offered generous hospitality to the Foundation and Rebecca was asked to provide yet another kind of transitional leadership. She was appointed Canon Missioner for St. Mark’s Cathedral and was asked to shepherd that congregation as they find their way into their future. This is the sort of work for which Rebecca is uniquely suited. Her expanded role with the cathedral, however, meant that new consideration needed to be given to the leadership of the Foundation.

As the organizational structure of the new Foundation came together and the course was set for future growth, the role of the Executive Director expanded dramatically. Rebecca recognized that it was time to return to an advisory capacity on the board and away from the day-to-day operations of the Foundation. Tim Alderson, who had just completed the sale of a company he had been running for the past seventeen years, became the clear choice of the board to step into the role of Executive Director. Over the past twenty-five years Tim has created and operated a number of companies, both for-profit and non-profit. He is an experienced Godly Play practitioner who is on the floor with children in his Godly Play classroom every week. The combination of his business background, Godly Play experience, and his vision, leadership and hands-on involvement through the transition to the new Godly Play Foundation make Tim uniquely qualified to take on this role.

Tim is excited by this new challenge and looks forward to the work of insuring the integrity of Godly Play for future generations while expanding its reach so that every child of God can be invited into the Godly Play circle.

Thea Berryman's funeral

2009-03-04T20:18:00.000-08:00

Too many days have gone without posting what is going on here at the Foundation...and there is a lot going on! I will try and catch you up in the coming days. I just got the homily below from Thea Berryman's funeral. I wish I could bring you the drumming of the African drum choir, the singing of the Houston Boy's choir, the classical guitar, the hymns we sang.... oh, and the lemon meringue pie!

Jerome and Thea Berryman, founders of Godly Play

Please remember Jerome and his family in your prayers during the coming days and months.

Celebrating Thea (1941 - 2009)
When Thea and I began to talk about her funeral she told me that there had to be lots of music and there is. Then she said that she wanted me to do the homily. I was not sure that was a good idea, but she said that I was her priest and I would do a good job. I don’t’ know about that, but I told her I would do my best.

Thea loved us in many ways and we loved her as “Thea,” as “Mom,” as “Grammy,” and as “Mrs. Berryman.” I first saw her in 1960, walking down Nassau Street in Princeton. She was dancing along in her black tights and short kilt, with her long braid swinging back and forth. My life suddenly went from shades of brown to intense colors, which blended into the pastels she began to wear, as the decades passed. I have been falling in love with her ever since that day and we have walked together through much sadness and happiness since then.

Once we even walked over the great divide together, a hike of some 24 miles, much of it above timber line, over the high mountains from Bear Lake to Grand Lake in Colorado, but we also climbed up and down the stairs in our own house one last time together, a challenge that was much tougher. Still, being together, as always, was enough to bring great joy. Do you know what you get when you mix lots of happiness with lots of sadness? You get joy and we had much of that together.

Thea was a wonderful wife, full of life and fun and yet as down to earth as her love of shoes. One of the many things we created together, as a labor of love, was something called Godly Play, an approach to religious education, which is now used all over the world and has been translated into Spanish, Finnish, German and Swahili. Teaching together was always wonderful. That was the part of this we liked best.

Last year, when we realized that we would not be able to go to our mountain house much longer we had a beautiful garden planted in our backyard. The people from Garden Gate and Sabrina came to place the arbor for the climbing roses. Thea came home from school that day at noon to rest before her afternoon classes and to make the final decision. She walked wearily but erectly and gracefully through the grass to the very spot and then suddenly did an astonishing plie, bending at the knees with her back straight as her expressive arms and lovely hands showed the place. The arbor with the climbing roses is still there.

How did we ever meet, a boy from Kansas and a girl from New Jersey? I will never know but I will always be grateful. God laughs and plays.

When our girls, Alyda and Coleen, were born Thea created a safe place for them in her heart and in our home, which they could explore from and retreat to when they needed to. She rocked them in the chair her grandmother Schoonyoung had been rocked in and made our home a place of adventure, attunement and consistent warmth.

One of the great times for us as a family was the year we lived in our tiny appartamento in Bergamo, Italy, while we studied the Montessori approach to education. That is where we discovered the wonderful Christmas bread from Milano called panettone, which was one of the last things Thea was able to eat with pleasure. We warmed it in the oven so she could smell it and gave her tiny pieces to savor. That is why you will find panettone on the table during the reception. You will also find lemon meringue pies there because three generations, including Thea’s mother, collaborated to make this treat for her. The pies at the reception were baked with love by the parents of School of the Woods.

Thea was a magical mother who loved her daughters deeply and she cared for them as they were growing up with wise delight. The exuberance and excitement of our home was especially alive during the many holidays that Thea loved to decorate for and celebrate with her family. She gave her girls the qualities of intelligence, creativity, sweetness and toughness as well as a love of life --- all of which she had in abundance to share. They have loved decorating for this celebration, especially all the photographs!

Thea is also loved as “Grammy,” by her beloved granddaughters --- Lexi, Maddi and Tori. There was a spring to her step and a broad smile on her face that was reserved just for them. Their telephone calls to her from their home in Colorado, when she could no longer get out of bed, were a wonderful treat for Thea. Her face was content though her voice had trouble making the words when they talked.

Thea loved being “Grammy” and passed on to her granddaughters the qualities she gave her girls. She loved looking for just the right gifts to surprise and astound them. Just being near them gave her immeasurable happiness and gave meaning to her life that can be understood only by those who have devoted much of their lives to the children of other people.

The School of the Woods children loved Thea as “Mrs. Berryman.” I heard that after she could no longer teach, some of the children cut out a big, paper “Mrs. Berryman,” which they carried around the music room, so she could be there with them. I like that idea very much and I have done much the same, but my “Mrs. Berryman” is deep inside so she can go with me forever, wherever I may go. It is good to have someone like her always near just in case you need help to do something that seems impossible at first, you know like a guardian angel.

The doctors, nurses and caregivers also loved Thea as “Mrs. Berryman.” She was a gracious and inspiring patient, who loved them for their wonderful work, especially Dr. Michael Bevers, her oncologist, and his staff. They were magnificent. I had to look twice to be sure what I saw the first time Dr. Bevers operated on Thea. He was walking alongside the gurney holding her hand, as she was wheeled toward surgery. His great knowledge and skill converged with respect and love to make him a true healer, despite the existential limits to life.

Among those who loved Thea was our dog, Monte, a Great Pyrenees of large dimensions. He loved Thea as “Alpha Dog” and he misses her too. He is grieving for her by chewing on various parts of his body, which is something I don’t recommend.

Yes. There was something lovable about her, but there was also something else. It is harder to define, but it is also why we ache and smile today with such depth. Thea was a person of substance who seemed to weave together within herself two great themes in Western Civilization, as easily as she braided that long braid, which went all the way down her back and danced as she walked.

Thea embodied the qualities of faith, hope and love, which run deep and true in the Christian Tradition like a warm current in the ocean. She was a safe place of faithfulness to return to and rest in when you were weary and a place to venture out from in hope. She was a wonderful companion to share hope with. Her eyes would sparkle and her sly smile would light up to say, “Let’s do it. It’ll be fun!” Love may be the greatest of these three --- faith, hope and love --- but without all three there is no love and this lovely creature of God lived all three theological virtues to the brim.

Thea also embodied goodness, beauty, and truth, which the ancient Greeks thought were connected and I can testify to the fact that they are, because I was married to such lovely symmetry for almost fifty years. Thea was beautiful and yet her beauty was full of goodness and both her goodness and beauty were deeply true, as true and natural as the sun coming up in the morning and going down in the evening. When she was so ill she could hardly walk she stopped in the grocery store to help a lady who had fallen to the floor and was disoriented, as everyone else passed by. She stayed with her and talked to her until several people arrived to help her get back on her feet. Then Thea needed help to get up herself. Goodness, beauty and truth. That’s who she was.

It was music that drew all of this love and virtue together and expressed it in a way that was completely Thea. She loved all of us but she also loved music and the music in us. As a performer, she studied dance and voice --- as well as the piano and other instruments, including the nose flute and the digeridoo. When she was in high school one of her student dance recitals was in Carnegie Hall in New York, which included her own choreography. At Westminster Choir College in Princeton she was a soloist with the Westminster Choir, which performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic. In the town where Alyda was born, Hutchinson, Kansas, she performed the lead in Cosi Fan Tutti, a rollicking Mozart opera, that she and some other young people put on to the astonishment of many, including myself, just for the fun of it. She continued her ballet as a young mother and also studied the dances of India with Rang Vitthal in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As a music teacher, “Mrs. Berryman” taught at School of the Woods from 1974-2009, where she shared her tremendous talent and love of music in creative ways with the children she taught. As she often said, “I get to sing and dance all day.” Among her many remarkable accomplishments as a teacher, all done with quiet dignity and a seemingly effortless grace, was taking hundreds of children each year to the opera and then afterwards to celebrate with a proper Italian meal. I loved going on these expeditions and visiting her classroom just to watch her in action.

She also loved supporting young musicians in any way she could, especially through Houston Young Artists with Sho Hao Pao, The Houston Boychoir with Carole Nelson and through her own after-school music program. You heard some of the students from the after-school program she started at School of the Woods during the prelude and the boys of the Boychoir have donated their voices and love of music to her today as they join us to say good-by.

Thea was a real teacher, always thinking about teaching music and the children she taught. The trunk of her car is still full of works in progress for her teaching. For Thea music was everywhere and in everyone, as the series of lessons she created called “Music from the Beginning of Time” eloquently showed. Music makes the qualities of goodness, beauty, and truth as well as faith, hope and love possible, especially if you were taught music by Mrs. Berryman.

Do you children from School of the Woods remember the only rule in Mrs. Berryman’s music room? Sometimes teachers have long lists of rules, but in the music room there was only one. It was to be kind. When you were kind the problems got solved and that is worth remembering as you grow older. Being kind is a kind of strength that is very powerful, even if many people are afraid to try it. Mrs. Berryman was not afraid to try it in her classroom or in her life. Music is good for your soul, at least the kind of music that Mrs. Berryman taught you, and the quality of your soul is what really mattered to her, because that is where being kind comes from.

So we say good-by to --- “Thea,” “Mom,” “Grammy,” “Mrs. Berryman,” and “Alfa Dog” --- with the drummers drumming, the guitars playing, the Boychoir singing and all of us joining in to give thanks for the gift that God has given us. This place, which Thea loved, is a house of stories so it is fitting that her story comes to an end here in the midst of your love and amid the beauty, truth and goodness of God expressed in the stone, glass, wood, words, people and music around us. And when we have finished saying good-by we will go out and on our way, singing of joy. Thea would like that, wouldn’t she!

AMEN.

With love by her husband,
The Reverend Dr. Jerome W. Berryman

Homily
The Burial of the Dead, Rite One
St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Houston
February 6, 2009

Texas and Liturgy

2009-02-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

Texas and liturgy

I’ve been in the great state of Texas for a week now. I have been privileged to participate in several events:

The Episcopal NAECED conference in San Antonio last week was a great gathering of people who are about sharing and exchanging ways to support each other in this great work we call Christian Education. A workshop on the similarities and differences between Catechesis and Godly Play was particularly helpful and insightful. There was a circle of dialogue where we together acknowledged and celebrated that at the core both of these programs are deeply rooted in our love for children and our deep desire to journey with them well, honoring their innate and deep spirituality. It was also helpful to clarify where and how they are different and what the implications are of those differences. I will be able to speak with much more clarity now after that insightful conversation.

Several of us who were at the NAECED conference left Friday morning for Thea Berryman’s memorial service in Houston. There were pews on the right front behind the family pews for “Godly Play Trainers and Staff” and we filled up several rows. The Children’s African Drum Ensemble and the Houston Boychoir filled St. Martin’s rafters with exquisite music and rhythm. It was Jerome, slowly finding his way up the stairs to give the homily himself that so deeply moved our hearts with compassion and gratitude and laughter as he paid tribute to Thea and celebrated her life. I hope to post a transcript of his words so you can all hear them for yourself.

I have been in Austin since the funeral with my main focus on preparing for the first teacher training from the Foundation in Spanish here in the United States. Several people have carefully and tenaciously birthed and nurtured this dream and the time has finally come. We begin this afternoon with participants from all over the country. Please keep us all in your prayers as you think of us this weekend. I’ll keep you posted!

On Monday, Sharolyn Browning, Godly Play trainer here in Austin had invited a number of Godly Play practitioners and interested people from “non-liturgical” or “quiet-liturgies” as Sharolyn called them, to gather for an evening of conversation about Godly Play and liturgy. It was a wonderful evening with Quakers, Mennonites, and members of the beautiful facility of The Church of Conscious Harmony that follows the teachings of Father Thomas Keating. They have many beautiful classrooms, around 60 Godly Play teachers – an equal number of men as women, and a leadership team of support and nurture that is exemplary.
We talked about liturgy being the work of the people - that it is simply how a particular people practice creating a space to “come close” to God. They are those practices that a particular community has found to be the best way for them and the most helpful ways for them to experience God. There is no right or wrong – its just the way that each community has found to be meaningful and helpful and those ways that mediate God’s presence for a particular faith community. Each Godly Play room will have lessons that will reflect the practices and important ways of that particular denomination – the practices that the children will see and experience when they are with the entire community in worship. It was a great conversation.

Death and Dying

2009-01-31T17:51:00.000-08:00

Thea Berryman, *Jerome Berryman's wife, died last Sunday afternoon in Houston. She had waged a courageous battle with cancer for eight years.

I saw Thea twice at Godly Play trainer gatherings. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. I know she was a dancer and a musician and that she worked with Jerome and the children for years and years. I never had the privilege of knowing her other than through Jerome when he came to Portland as a scholar in residence for a month at our Quaker Meeting. He would often speak of her and of how much he missed her. I have always sensed that she was behind this work of Godly Play and next to Jerome in strong ways.

Please remember Jerome and his family as they journey through this loss.

We want to acknowledge and honor all the ways that she has been a part of birthing and giving Godly Play to us and to the world. We are deeply grateful to you Thea. Thank you.

I invite you to post remembrances or stories of how you have known Thea. I hope many of you will share your experiences with the rest of us.

One of the many great gifts of Godly Play both for children and ourselves is the language it gives us to talk about death and wrestle with this existential issue. Over and over again when I have given the lesson of the Great Family and I ask what part they liked the best, children will be drawn to and talk about Abraham and Sarah's death and their burial in the cave of Machpelah by the Oaks of Mamre. I was unsettled by it at first and then realized it was my own discomfort with death and dying and I have since learned to better receive their response and hold that space for them. One little three year old boy chose that story several times after he had heard it and spent the whole time just burying Abraham and Sarah in the sand. His great grandfather had recently died and my sense is that it was the work he needed to do. We need a languge and we need permission to name and talk and wrestle with these issues. Godly Play gives us that opportunity. It matters that these stories aren't "cleaned up" but include these core issues.

I have been enjoying John O'Donohue's book of blessings. He is one who finds the right words and the right spaces to talk about our existential issues, including death.

A poem by John O'Donohue

from his book
To Bless the Space Between Us, A Book of Blessings:

Entering Death

I pray that you will have the blessing

Of being consoled and sure about your death.

May you know in your soul

There is no need to be afraid.

When your time comes, may you have

Every blessing and strength you need..

.
May there be a beautiful welcome for you

In the home you are going to.

You are not going somewhere strange,

Merely back to the home you have never left.
.

May you live with compassion

And transfigure everything

Negative within and about you.

When you come to die,

May it be after a long life.

May you be tranquil

Among those who care for you.

May your going be sheltered

And your welcome assured.

May your soul smile

In the embrace

Of your Anam Cara.

*For those of you new to Godly Play, Jerome Berryman is the founder of Godly Play and has made Godly Play his life's work.

The gift of space

2009-01-20T07:36:00.000-08:00

Moving my office from the Quaker Meeting where I have pastored to my already full house has been a challenge! I have a couple of chairs left and a nativity set somewhere and I will be done! Now that it's all in my house I look around and a familiar, yet disturbing image surfaces...the person in the parable of the great pearl that has so much stuff in his house there is no space left at all.

I have such good stuff! But....I want to live simply and uncluttered...like Godly Play stories: an economy of words and gestures. Just the essence, not the extra, detracting, watering down that so often characterizes how we talk and live so much of the time. What can we leave out and have all we need? Quite a bit I think these days, quite a bit. It is a gift to give ourselves and the children the "just enough" that ensures that there is plenty of space and actually guards that space by our careful intention to not fill up the space....so that there is plenty of room, lots of room.

It takes a courageous storyteller not to fill up the space.

What are your challenges in telling stories (or the stories of how we live) that are full of space and grace?

Prayer for President Obama

2009-01-20T07:27:00.000-08:00

Prayer for President Obama

(by Arthur Roberts, Quaker writer and poet)

Lord God, we pray for President Barack Obama.
We praise you for the gifts you have nurtured in him:
to think clearly, to speak eloquently, to interact effectively.
Guide him, God, to use these skills both wisely and well
as he leads our nation and serves our world.
Thank you for his bright summons to audacious hope.
May we citizens bracket that vision with faith and love,
so that civility and justice mark our nation’s journey
into an unknown and somewhat scary future.
May the glare of publicity never blind him to truth.
May political power never dull empathy with ordinary people.
May pride of position never corrode his conscience.
Warn him, Lord, when evils, disguised as good,
tempt him to stray from what is right and true.
Teach him to backtrack from wrong turns amiably,
but to follow right roads tenaciously.
Strengthen his commitment to servant leadership.
May neither acclaim nor criticism tarnish his congeniality.
Show him patterns of patience that tarry but do not dawdle.
When he is tired and stressed, refresh him, Lord,
in his body, in his mind, in his spirit.
When alone he wrestles over difficult ethical and policy issues
may this follower of Jesus heed his Master’s guiding voice.
Oh, and Lord, in busy times remind President Obama
of his heart-felt pledge and studied practice:
to be an attentive and loving husband and father.
Amen!

-Arthur O. Roberts February, 2009

Update from Candy Moser, Director of Operations

2009-01-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Candy is working diligently and creatively to bring the organization of the Godly Play Foundation to a new and vital place of efficiency and operational accessability. We are so lucky to have her gifts. She is just an incredible human being who gets Godly Play in the deepest way. Thanks Candy for all you do and all you are!

Here is an update on the Godly Play Foundation from the Director of Operations, Candy Moser.

Over the past 18 months our organization has gone through several transitions. First of all, we have become the Godly Play Foundation and have entered into relationship with Church Publishing Inc. Rebecca McClain became our new Executive Director on August 1, 2007. She has shepherded us with the help of the Godly Play Foundation’s Board of Directors to a place where we can move forward in a new way.

The Center for the Theology of Childhood with Jerome Berryman as Senior Fellow is located in Houston. Jerome is now free to concentrate on writing which is a blessing for him as well as for all of us.

In August 2008 Rebecca moved the Godly Play Foundation offices to Seattle, Washington. We have found a home at Saint Mark’s Cathedral where Rebecca is also serving as Canon Missioner. In October Caryl Menkhus and I (Candy) were hired to oversee training and operations for the Foundation.

We have spent the last few months looking at our training models, the feedback of participants and trainers, and the results of a focus group study done by a professional focus group moderator. It has become clear to us that we need to make some adjustments in how we deliver training.

Becoming proficient in the “art of Godly Play” is an ongoing process that includes time spent with children in a Godly Play classroom. Today being an “accredited Godly Play teacher” simply means “I have attended a teacher accreditation training event”. Everyone who attends and is “fully present for the whole time” becomes an accredited Godly Play teacher. What we realize is that it says very little about how skillful one is or the level of understanding of that teacher. In fact there may be Godly Play teachers that have never attended such an event who are far more skilled and have a deeper understanding of Godly Play.

We want to be able to provide training that will take someone from curiosity about the program to mastery. One can chose the level to which they wish to aspire. We want to make the process flexible, accessible and as affordable as possible.

We are excited about the new model that is emerging. We will be offering Introduction Workshops, Core Training, Enrichment Training, Supporting Workshops and Retreats which will be offered at training sites across the country on a regularly scheduled basis. Registration of these trainings will be handled on-line as soon as our new website is up and running. All things Godly Play will be on one site – books, materials, training and much more. The capacity of the site will grow over time but we hope to have the basics in place on or before June 2009.

There is still much work to be done before we can fully roll this out. We will be looking for training sites that are interested in partnering with us to provide these regularly scheduled trainings. We need sites that are strategically located, have the capacity to provide hospitality and above all are committed to Godly Play. We will also be looking for more trainers especially in areas where there are no trainers. The more trainers and sites, the more accessible and affordable the training will be.

More details will be outlined in the coming months as we move forward, but we wanted everyone to know what is on the horizon.

All the children of the world...

2009-01-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

The "knights" of the round table under the pine trees in Madrid this summer: Godly Play practitioners from England, Germany, Spain, Finland, Norway, Canada and the United States.

It was a delightful surprise to have an initial burst of response to this blog. Thanks to all of you who already are participating and signing up to follow the postings. You may have noticed that two of the responses were from Germany and Spain (from good friends and colleagues, David and Martin!). It is a testimony to the growing circles of Godly Play around the world. In addition to Europe, Godly Play is in Africa and Latin America. We've gotten recent e-mails in the past weeks from Panama and New Zealand. Check out the Godly Play website (godlyplay.org) to find information on international contacts.

Whether or not the words are the best, I have new appreciation and vision for that song I remember singing as a child:

Jesus loves the little children

all the children of the world

red and yellow, black and white

they are precious in His sight.

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Thresholds

2009-01-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts about thresholds...

This is the threshold I crossed for years when I was growing up in the village of Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico. I went back there this summer after doing some Godly Play with orphans in Tapachula, Chiapas. I found our old house that I still recognized after 35 years....remembering the dusty streets, adobe walls with doors like this with little hint of what was found on the other side. Doors that gave one entrance into a courtyard with flowers, pomegranate trees, guayaba fruit and patio walkways to the other rooms...such a difference on one side from the other...

Happy New Year!

I spent New Years Eve sitting in candle light with a small group of Friends at the Quaker Meeting where I have pastored for the past five years until I took this new position with the Godly Play Foundation in November. Meeting had been canceled for the past two weeks because of snow. We also were not able to have our annual Candlelight Christmas Eve service because of the weather so we decided to gather on New Years Eve....

It seemed good to be sitting in silence and having time to reflect on what this past year has held and to look forward to this new year.

My thoughts, as they often are, find language from Godly Play to help me: ....endings that are beginnings and beginnings that are endings....time, time, time....

Thinking of new beginnings I have found myself reflecting on the understanding we have in Godly Play of the critical importance of thresholds...that deep awareness of being awake to those events, times, places that mark and help us mark transitions and remind us of the importance of being ready.

Jerome Berryman came to the Quaker Meeting where I was on staff some 10 years or so ago. He was there for a month as a scholar in residence and among other things, helped us build a Godly Play classroom. I'm sure we talked about the importance of crossing the threshold into that space and of being ready but like many parts of Godly Play (or any spiritual practice), I didn't really "get it" until several years later. We were sloppy about how the children came into the room and sloppy about how we got ready. It wasn't until I did some training and experienced it for myself and saw how it was really done, that I had one of those "aha!" moments of understanding what crossing the threshold is really about. I now talk about my experience in the trainings and really believe it to be true that 80 - 90% of the "problems" that are concerns in the Godly Play circle are almost eliminated if there is good enough attention given to how we cross the threshold and get ready. I would encourage all of you who do Godly Play to look periodically about how you cross the threshold and revisit the importance of that.

In this new year, I wish for you places and people and practices in your lives that help you get ready and help you be awake and aware of the thresholds in your lives. May you continue to practice stopping and checking in with yourselves about where you are and you are as you come to thresholds.

May you be intentional and attentional about how you enter.

Caryl

First Posting

2008-12-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first posting from the Godly Play Foundation! Our hope in starting this blog is to have a place for those of us who love Godly Play to share our experience, stories, questions, reflections and insights.

Most of the postings will be from Candy Moser, Director of Operations and myself, Caryl Menkhus, Director of Training. We are both trainers who have recently been hired by the Godly Play Foundation to help provide leadership and direction as we move into this next phase of growth and development. It is big work...it is exciting work...and we are working hard to figure out how best to do this work! Our intention is to use this blog to communicate regularly with you to keep you informed about this journey and invite you into the conversation.

I live in Vancouver, Washington - just across the Columbia river from Portland, Oregon. I take a three hour train ride every Monday up to Seattle where Rebecca McClain, Executive Director and Candy both live and where the Godly Play offices are housed at St. Mark's Cathedral. I spend a couple of days there every week and work out of my home the rest of the week. We had a big snow storm last weekend (they say the biggest snow storm in years). We were all snowed in so none of us went anywhere! The picture is of a bird bath in my yard that shows how much snow we had! It was beautiful.

I really have come to understand Godly Play as a spiritual practice and I believe so much of spirituality and so much of Godly Play is just paying attention...paying attention to what you pay attention to and noticing what you notice and seeing what you see. The seasons are always such rich mediums that help me pay attention. Here is a poem recently sent to me from Parker Palmer's organization which uses the seasons as a way of noticing and paying attention. I thought it was appropriate for us all and for the Godly Play Foundation as we begin a new year.

May you be blessed

with vision

in these shadow times.

May light invade the darkness.

May it be a soft brilliance,

as bare as candlelight,

guiding you through

twilight 'til dawn.

And when the dawn breaks,

may you find yourself

upon a threshold.

May you enter

and go through,

and may you emerge

into the dance -

a whole and holy new

dance of grace.

-Maureen J. Hilliard, SND

In this winter season of both light and dark, may we all be blessed with vision, with courage and with hope.

Caryl