The Godly Play Program

It’s about Christian education for children but Jerome W. Berryman calls his new book The Spiritual Guidance of Children. Subtitled Montessori, Godly Play, and the Future and published by Morehouse Publishing at www.churchpublishing.org, Berryman starts with early history of providing Christian education for children, both in the U.K. and the U.S.

Many of us may have heard of Robert Raikes and his first Sunday schools in England in 1780 and on. Children learned to read via Bible stories, learned the catechism and attended worship services. In America, the American Sunday School Union was begun in 1824 in Philadelphia, while the Sunday School Society began in Boston in 1831 and both spread across the country.

A little later, an alternative program for children’s spiritual quest and from a tradition outside the Sunday school movement, was being started by Dr. Maria Montessori in Rome in 1907. Montessori believed that children are “inherently spiritual,” and her teachers were trained to guide children in their spirituality. The assumption was that children have an inner faith from their beginning and they should be supported life long on their journey toward spiritual maturity.

Berryman provides a detailed history of the Montessori tradition and those who were searching  for teachers with the right combination of religious interest, educational talent, confidence and skill to express Montessori’s ideas, and realization of the importance of religion to a young child. When little children respond to something new or beautiful in nature, we may see on their faces that they believe and they want to know more.

A prominent name in this history is Sofia Cavalletti of Rome, author of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program and its teachings, plans, and helpful books. A little later in the U.S., Berryman and his wife Thea were putting together the Godly Play program. There are both similarities and differences in the two programs, though both built on Montessori’s earlier work in the Roman Catholic network. Berryman says that neither program is finished, and both continue to try to find better ways “to help children help themselves to know God.”

Begun in the Episcopalian community, the Godly Play program is quite ecumenical today. The final chapter provides information on ten examples of how Godly Play is being used and diffused into the mainstream of Christian education around the world.

—Lois Sibley

A Tale of Two Maps

Let’s begin the New Year with a fascinating book about maps called How Maps Change Things. A subtitle informs us that it is a “conversation about the maps we choose and the world we want.” Written by Ward L. Kaiser and published by Wood Lake Publishing Inc. under its imprint as Copper House, it is available at www.woodlakebooks.com in Canada, or through WestminsterJohnKnox at www.wjkbooks.com, where I saw it in their catalog.

Author Kaiser asks “What’s a Map For? Keep an open mind. And keep asking. Maps send messages...” says Kaiser, and have always been, more or less, “propaganda.” An example of a map sending messages is the Mercator, which was first produced in 1569, a map for navigation. When used for navigation, the Mercator is a dependable and useful map. For other purposes, Kaiser and other map people claim it is not accurate. The Mercator “enlarges some parts of the world and diminishes others. (Greenland is the same size as Africa!) Where size is concerned, better not depend on the Mercator.”

This book is full of copies of maps of the world done from different perspectives, and it’s easy to see what Kaiser is saying about the Mercator. Even so, many teachers, schools, mapmakers are still using it. On the other hand, after years of growing discontent with the inaccuracies of the Mercator, in Germany in 1974, the Arno Peters map was first published, claiming to be an “equal area map...for the equal value of all peoples.” It was soon in English and is now “widely available in French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, and Danish.”

This new map produced by Peters has encountered “heated opposition as well as enthusiastic welcome.” The earlier Mercator map, “widely used, was often uncritically assumed to be ‘the truth.’” Peters claimed there was no fairness in it and there was great need for an equal area map. Kaiser has included quotes from many geographers and professional cartographers, who give cogent reasons for accepting and promoting the Peters map over the Mercator.

Included is a study guide for four sessions, providing material for discussion on:1) introduction to the conventions of map making; 2) how maps affect the user’s point of view; 3) what some demographics maps don’t show, such as poverty, energy use, water consumption, life expectancy, religion; and 4) new ideas, encouraging participants to dream about how they could get involved in creating a better world.

This is not a religious book, which is what I usually review on this blog. But....this book is about so much more than just maps. It is about politics, and faith and the values we hold dear. It is about human relations, about justice and peace and budgets and environmental concerns. I think we cannot look at this map book without looking carefully, each with our own worldview, or as the Germans say: Weltanschauung. Our value system will go with us, no matter what we are thinking, discussing, sharing, reading, reviewing. God bless you as you read through 2014.

—Lois Sibley

Christmas Joy to Twelfth Night and on...

Joy to the World,The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas by Isaac Watts and Paraclete Press is an old poem with a new look, available at www.paracletepress.com. Watts (1674–1748) was a Noncomformist in England, a pastor and one who had been a poet since childhood. He wrote about 750 hymns, some of which are still popular and we sing them in our churches today.

Probably the best known hymn by Isaac Watts is Joy to the World. His poetry and hymns were known and popular both in England and in America. It may have had other music in England, but this particular poem was put to music in 1839 by Lowell Mason, an American musician whose name is familiar to any who notice who wrote that music as they read or sing through their hymn books. Paraclete counts Joy to the World as “the most popular Christmas hymn in the world.”

In 1719, Watts was finishing up a project of his to “retranslate” the Psalter into modern use. He wanted people to sing the words of the ancient Psalms in everyday English. Watts was not attempting to “rewrite” a part of the Bible, as some claimed, but rather, he hoped that hymns like Joy to the World would inspire people and encourage them to praise God. He had not thought of it as “a Christmas hymn.” Watts “intended his hymn to be about the second coming of Christ the King,” based on Psalm 98. He might be surprised to hear it called one of the Christmas hymns.

The first four chapters of this little book each use one of the first lines of the four verses of the hymn as a heading, followed by comments by an anonymous writer/editor on the birth of the Christ child, the coming of sin into the Garden of Eden, Christ’s death on the cross, his resurrection, his presence at the right hand of God the Father, and his coming again to judge as King over all. The final chapter is called “For the Twelve Days of Christmas,” and includes brief Scripture passages, plus reflections on Christ the King from the sermons of Isaac Watts. There is no name of an illustrator but the illustrations are appropriate and beautiful on every page.

—Lois Sibley

Three Carols, Story/Songs for Kids

These three carols have been sung and enjoyed for many years at Christmas time. Now, sisters Marcia Santore and Jessica Salinas have put together these old carols with some typical characters to bring the stories to life as they might be lived today.

Published by Forward Movement and available at www.forwardmovement.org, the first is a modern retelling of Good King Wenceslas. The story shows how today a man and his son could help someone who has lost his job and is now homeless, just as the king helped people in his day. Jessica tells the story while Marcia does the illustrations. There is the extra benefit of having a version of the carol that kids could play on the piano. Marcia’s husband Jonathan, who is a composer, joined in the project with his arrangement of this carol.

The Snow Lay on the Ground is another old carol that is fun to sing. From an English 19th century Christmas carol (author unknown), this is the story of the birth of Jesus. Probably no snow in Bethlehem, but children singing in England knew and expected snow at Christmas. The story is illustrated by Marcia with the same characters mentioned above as created by Jessica. The characters are typical of people from various cultural backgrounds as they act out the Christmas pageant together. The surprise on the back inside cover is a simple arrangement for piano by Jonathan that children may enjoy playing.

The third carol is In the Bleak Midwinter, originally from a Christmas poem by Christina Rossetti. Again the same characters, good friends by now, join together at one of their homes. Snow on snow on snow almost overwhelms them as they try to think of what gifts they would bring to the Christ Child, if they had opportunity. One of the children would bring a lamb, but each would “do his or her part....[deciding to] give him my heart.” Those children who still have music lessons at school will be pleased to find Jonathan’s double page arrangement for piano as well as a fingering chart and instructions for playing this carol on a recorder.

—Lois Sibley

Walking with God...

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller, available from Dutton at www.penguin.com, includes a wealth of material important to any pastor, or to any kind person who wants to help a friend deal with suffering of one kind or another. Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and he and his family have years of experience in that and other congregations as a kind of preparation for this book. It could be called “How to be a Pastor, 101” and should be required reading for anyone so engaged or interested in preparing for such a future. But there is also much good advice for friends who care for other friends.

If you read it, I think you will find, as I do, that you need to keep it nearby, because you will want to refer to it many times again. “Now what did Tim Keller say about that?” I find myself saying and I have to look it up again. It’s over 350 pages and crammed with concern, ideas, Scripture references, experiences of the Kellers, and personal stories from others who have suffered.

When you come right down to the basic thesis, I think he is saying that the person(s) who love, believe in, and trust  the Lord Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, are really in better shape through any pain and suffering they may experience throughout their lives than are those who do not so believe. He’s probably right and we will be finding out, I’m sure.

Keller divides his book into three parts. In the first part he discusses the problem of evil and how different cultures, religions, times in history have coped with it. This part is more philosophical and Keller invites readers to begin with the second or third part, especially if they are in the midst of difficult trials at the moment they are reading his book.

Part two is descriptive of suffering and how people have coped with it from biblical times to current times. And part three is  practical and provides suggestions and strategies for coping with pain and suffering, ways to walk with God through it all. Some chapters conclude with a story of someone who has done that and their stories are reminders for us to look for God’s presence with us in the midst of suffering. I predict that many of us will be thanking Dr. Keller for his insights and encouragements as we continue our own walking with God.

—Lois Sibley

Genius, Prophet, Oxford Don

C. S. Lewis would be surprised at all the attention that continues to follow him. The newest book is perhaps C. S. Lewis, A Life by Alister McGrath, published by Tyndale. Find it at www.tyndale.com. Now 50 years since Lewis was at the height of his popularity, information continues to be found and shared among those who appreciate Lewis and his writings. McGrath has gathered and analyzed a huge amount of research to help us understand Lewis and his ideas.  “How are these new facts to be woven together to make a pattern?” McGrath wonders, as he adds details now known about Lewis’s life, while he helps us understand the way it was.
   
Lewis was born in Ireland in 1898 though he spent much of his life in England. His mother died when he was young and that loss had a big impact on his life. His father insisted on sending him to school in England, which may not have been the best plan for such a shy, lonely boy. He had one brother, Warnie, and they were close and helpful to each other throughout their lives.

McGrath chose to divide his reporting on events in Lewis’s life into five parts. They are Prelude, Oxford, Narnia, Cambridge, and Afterlife, the latter meaning what happened after Lewis’s death in November 1963 and his continuing popularity, especially because of his Narnia books.

Yes, Narnia, a group of books about four children, a wardrobe (a door), an enchanted forest and a  mysterious land. That’s what keeps Lewis popular! He is like many an Irishman in that he tells wonderful stories. He taught English literature, first at Oxford, then at Cambridge, and he wrote many religious books, such as Mere Christianity. It’s like he had two writing lives and in each he was at the top of his profession. In one writing life he was an academic and sometimes a theologian, even an apologist at times; and in another he was a successful children’s book author. During World War II, he gave religious talks on the BBC,....there is much intriguing stuff in here. Go to the library and borrow this book, and give a hint as you put it on your gift list.

—Lois Sibley

Practicing a Devout Life

Here is the story of St. Francis de Sales, with his advice on how to improve one’s personal spiritual life. He became the Roman Catholic Bishop of Geneva in 1602, and he began writing  this book in 1609, continuing to revise through five editions, with its final publication in 1619.

Paraclete Press includes it in its series called Giants. The title is The Complete Introduction to the Devout Life and its more than 400 pages were translated by and with commentary from Fr. John Julian, OJN (Order of Julian of Norwich). Now available from Paraclete Press at www.paracletepress.com, it is a hefty book and a fascinating read. Fr. Julian says that from its first publication it was one of the five most popular books at that time on “serious Christian spiritual development.” Fr. Julian’s translation and commentary gracefully helped us to take it all in and think about using it for our own spiritual growth.

Francis’s father wanted him to study law and he did eventually receive doctoral degrees in both law and theology, but his personal goal was to be a priest and in December 1593 he was ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Annecy in France. In December 1602, Francis became bishop and was “very hands-on” as a bishop, “highly valuing personal contact with his people.” He was much sought after for answers to their spiritual questions. He often sent them a written reply and these collections of answers later became part of his several books. Many are included in the Introduction, which is made up of five parts.

Part One discusses one’s first longing for the devout life and a final firm resolution to embrace it. Part Two contains suggestions for raising the soul to God by prayer and sacraments. Part Three has much advice on the practice of the virtues, such as patience, humility, gentleness, obedience, chastity and others. Part Four includes advice on dealing with temptations, and Part Five suggests practices to renew the soul and strengthen it in devotion.

—Lois Sibley