Second Church Steps

Butterfly Days The Children's Circle Preschool year end rituals are among the things that I have missed the most in these difficult days of sheltering at home.   One of my favorites involves butterflies and waiting.   Classrooms of children watch for butterflies to open –in their classroom!   It is a momentous occasion.   We pray with the teachers that the butterflies will emerge.   We watch and wait with the impatient children.   The children learn words of waiting, hope, and anticipation to go with those feelings. The butterfly is also a metaphor for the impending end of the school year, when the children will go forth to new places, new people, and new experiences…taking their early learning and stories of becoming with them. Then, it struck me that these are butterfly days , and how we talk about them with and NEAR our children matters. Words matter, and stories are memory forming. Parents, we are all aware, acutely aware, of the diff...

I really like orange safety cones. The color is awesome; they provide a safe zone for workers on streets and highways; they mean that Children’s Circle Preschool is BACK.  The quiet halls of planning and projects become vibrant with teacher greetings and children’s voices. Parents fill the building with prayers, hopes, worries and a few tears. The children sleep, play, sing, and sometimes cry. Earlier this summer I was told, “We can get kind of loud.”   Also, I was warned “You might want to shut your door.”  Finally, I was cautioned “Do not play heavy metal loud music during nap time!” However, I could not know the void the children would fill. I am reminded of the adage “You don’t know what you don’t know.” How could I know that the church was missing all of this exuberance? After day one of preschool, I pulled into the parking lot. I walked up to the majestic building that is a testament to the glorious worship and service we do in the name o...