Tag Archives: kids

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Dancing a Sacred Song

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I like to look around in places where we aren’t supposed to notice other people. One of my favorite places to look around is church. People do surprising things at churches. The only churches I’ve ever gone to regularly are contemporary, postmodern types where it’s not really clear what denomination anyone is. I can’t really see myself being happy anywhere else. I am too much of a pluralist to find denominational churches appealing. And one of the pluses of non-denominational churches is that they typically have really good contemporary music. I’m not much of a singer so I really like worship bands that are loud. That way the loudness can kind of drown out all of my self-conscious thoughts about being a bad singer. Plus, I just like hearing music that sounds like music I might hear on the radio. It makes it feel like I might be worshiping all the time, not just on Sundays when the worship team is leading the congregation in Psalms.

Anyway, the best time to look around at church is while everyone is singing. Everyone’s kind of into their own thing. I imagine if you were some sort of psychologist and knew what all the signals meant, you could really tell a lot about people based on what they do while they are supposed to be singing at church. Some people are spending time with God. Others are doing what they think makes them look like they are spending time with God. There are a couple of people who are more concerned with what their neighbor is doing. Some dudes are standing with their arms crossed. They can’t even soften up at church. Parents are busy trying to keep their kids from going somewhere they shouldn’t, which always kind of strikes me as silly because one of the best things about worshiping at church is when one of the small kids breaks away from her parents.

Corinna Phillips and Kim Lyons by Barbara Jewell © Barbara Jewell/Lois Greenfield Photography Workshop!

She never really goes anywhere. She just stays there right in front of her parents and starts to dance. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because of the simplicity of the thing. She doesn’t comprehend all of the metaphysical things we are taught to think about when we are worshiping – raise your heart to God, let the words be a prayer to God, praising God as a community is important, and all that sort of thing. Instead, she hears music, and she dances. She probably knows that she is in God’s house and that God loves her very much. And so for her, it’s kind of like dancing in front of her grandparents. And it kind of makes me think that we spend all of this time stressing out about God’s will, and we really shouldn’t. All of that stressing out could be avoided if we just started dancing. We won’t always get it right. But that’s okay because God has our back. Sometimes the little girl tries to climb up on the pastor’s chair on the stage, and at that point, her parents have to lovingly tell her to come back.

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Script It

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My college does this really cool thing where they go and teach middle schoolers about writing. So every Friday they graciously let me go spend time with 12 and 13-year-olds. I think mostly I have very little business being around children. I’m not a very good disciplinarian, and I like talking to them more than I like teaching them. But whether or not the students get anything out of it, I love hanging out with them.

Yesterday was our first day of this year, and so we spent our first lesson doing introductions. Introductions are interesting things. As adults, we’ve figured out how to finagle the system. Growing up should really be called “growing better at avoiding meaningful interactions with other people.” When we introduce ourselves, we use a script. When you ask my name, I will say Spencer, maybe Spencer Smith, but never Spencer James Smith. When you ask me what I do, I will answer student but never how I sometimes sit in my apartment eating Rice Crispies and watching marathons of The Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo. And when you ask me how I’m doing, I will always say good. Even if it’s not.

Twelve-year-olds haven’t figured that script out yet. They still value things like creativity and individuality. Certainly, by the end of the year they will be much more scripted, but for now, they are pretty honest. Funny thing is, though, that their educators only push them more and more towards the script. As part of the introductions, each student in our class was asked to write a brief bio, the contents of which had been determined for them – a couple words to describe themselves, their likes, their dislikes, their fears, and their hopes. Amazingly, though, even given physical scripts, the students were themselves.

They talked about fearing robot uprisings, being hurt in football, and losing loved ones. They talked about loving school and hating school. They talked about their dislike of the difficulty of dieting. And they talked about being adopted, their compassion for famine in Africa, and moving to a new country. And I learned all of these things from a 30-second scripted introduction.

I have a friend who is obsessed with being genuine and another who is obsessed with innocence. I laugh at them when we are together because they think they are arguing when they are actually agreeing. Innocence allows us to be genuine. As we learn more about the world, we also learn that it sometimes makes people uncomfortable when we are completely honest.  And so we stop being honest and genuine. And we start saying things like “My name is Spencer. I am from Springboro, Ohio and I am 20 years old. I like ice cream, pizza, and reading. I dislike exercising, peas, and textbooks. I fear snakes. I hope that one day I will graduate. And one day I would like to visit Egypt.” Who’s the twelve-year-old now?

Weekend Bonus*:

Someone said she sought someone
Per positions plagued perilously,
Ergo ego  economically
Now new inquiries inside.
Commonly commenting
Ego
Responded, “I am Spencer.”

*I’m going to try and do the same assignment that we give the students each week just for fun. This week’s: acrostics.