A Blank Page All Our Own
Monday @ Montpelier: September 9
For My Own Good
Next Sunday, we will be kicking off a new year in the atrium, and I feel myself awaiting the first day with a weighty, reverent kind of fear. Fear that is more like awe than terror. But because awe can sometimes carry with it this kind of teetering balance like walking a tightrope—there’s something semi-solid under your feet but any number of elements make the outcome of the journey unclear—fear remains a good word for it.
I could fill page after page with all the wants I ruminated over this summer that I felt would lead to my preparedness for a new year in the atrium. What I experienced was more of an unraveling than a shoring up. I wanted to approach the new year like a solid wall ready for the challenges sure to come like unpredictable waves. Instead, I’ve been asked to dismantle myself brick by brick and move nearer to exposure and vulnerability.
It’s not my preference.
I am seeking to understand the necessity and seeing flashes of clarity along the way.
It’s all my fault really, for re-reading Gianna and Sofia’s writings this summer in a book club, thus being reminded of and re-captivated by the beating heart of CGS. I have been encouraged to stay committed to the work, reminded that the atrium is a feast nourishing the children in ways seen and (mostly) unseen; and that the food, table, even the invitation are not ultimately mine to create or give.
I have been gently convicted by the ways I have let anxious fears and uncertainty about my worth affect what the children receive in the atrium.
I have been newly challenged to course-correct and trust the path trod before me, asked to keep faith through whatever uncertainty and unpredictability lies ahead. A great cloud of witnesses have gone before, testifying that the Good Shepherd has and will continue to make good on his promises to his sheep.
The Blank Page
In the atrium, we have a work called “The History of the Kingdom of God.” Pictured along the section of the timeline between the “Moment of Redemption” (God’s gift of Jesus and resurrection life), and the “Moment of Parousia” (when God will be “all in all” and the new creation comes) is a blank page. This section of the timeline represents the time that is happening now, and the blank page symbolizes our individual lives as active participants in the writing of this history.
God gives us our life—this “blank page”—on which to co-write with him in the created world. We ask the kids to ponder what they will choose to write on their blank page, using the gifts God has uniquely given them. These last couple of weeks, I’ve shifted from planning for the atrium to pondering what I want to add to my blank page this year through my work in the atrium.
When “Helping” Harms
It’s easy for me to co-opt the kids’ work as my own. This is a dangerous trap that isn’t exclusive to the environment of the atrium. I would strongly argue that adults don’t guard themselves from it enough. How often do we focus on others’ deficits and shortcomings? How often do we ideate ways others could improve? How frequently do we expend focus and energy on others’ self-improvement to the neglect of our own? When it comes to these things in relationship with other adults, we can more easily see the need for discretion and balance. But it’s often “no holds barred” when it comes to adults with children. A question worth pondering is why? Could it be a reflection of our (conscious or subconscious) beliefs about the value of the child?
Within the responsibility of parenting and necessity of management and habit-training, it’s challenging to recognize the difference between coming alongside a child to show them the way vs. picking them up and walking the way for them. (Is it any wonder that their “unexercised legs” can’t walk the path when we desperately need or want them to?)
A Place to Practice Letting Go
The atrium is literally an environment prepared for ultimate child accessibility with the intention that they will forge their own path, their own connection to and authentic relationship with God (with minimum to no adult intervention). I know this, and yet I can still find myself stepping in front of them, getting in their way, causing them to stumble when they are just trying to follow the path.
This happens when I am afraid I will lose their attention (or afraid that I already have) and they will miss the wealth available to them. So I micromanage materials. I misinterpret their silence or their work and intervene or redirect. I talk too much. Way too much. I introduce more and more materials before they’ve had ample time to explore what they already have. It’s more than likely that any disruptive behaviors or disinterested attitudes are due to my interference, but I interpret it as losing them and then double down on the excessive “help”.
As is evident: I have plenty of my own work to do in and through the atrium while the kids are doing theirs.
In Cavalletti’s book The Religious Potential of the Child, she quotes this from a catechist’s journal “I have given the presentation to the children; I have not yet received it with them” (pg 78).
It is not with shame or self-hatred or self-flagellation that I borrow this wise observation for myself. I have experienced the joy of “receiving” presentations with the children, learning alongside them, and even more often from them (for “to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven”—Matthew 19:14—and they know what they are talking about). So I can recognize the times in which I haven’t.
This is the work I choose for myself in the atrium this year: receive the presentations for myself. If the children end up learning anything from me, I do not want it to be from words of explanation or suggestion out of my mouth, but from their observation of my own pursuit of more nearness to the Good Shepherd.
Maybe as the children and I write on our blank pages separately-but-together, moving about the atrium with intention and intuition and connection to the Spirit’s Voice, we will find that we do influence one another and that our worship creates something new and beautiful together. But I don’t want that to be my starting place. I want my work to be as a joyful learner, for myself, on equal ground with the children as we wonder together about the greatest Wonder of all.
“The Magi came to the crib [of Christ] after a long journey. They knelt down before Him, they worshipped Him and brought Him gifts. But now we too are around the crib. I am here too. What shall we do? What shall we say?”
