First Night of PREP: a Pins to Projects Post

Tonight will be the first night of this year's Parish Religious Education Program classroom schedule. I can't wait  to meet the third graders in my class. To celebrate, I brought a couple of my Pinterest pins to life.

Traditionally, PREP was called CCD, so I created a CCD Idea board to store some ideas for the year. When I received my teaching materials, I began sorting through them to find some fun ones that fit the first week's theme: God loves us. What better way to celebrate God's love for my students than to express how excited I am to meet them? I found a pin for a blog post called Love Those Kinders. I decided to use her first idea: I've been bubbling with excitement to meet you! Here is my interpretation using Mr & Mrs Celebration Bubbles from Hobby Lobby:

Greeting gift for first night

Next, I wanted special name tags. The site www.teachcreatemotivate.com had a great set of templates for a V.I.P. themed table. This will be a terrific way to move through the lesson. First, in their journals, I will ask them to write or draw what made them VIP's. Then in the lesson, I will have them look in a hand mirror and tell how they are VIP's in God's eyes.  Finally, I will ask who are the VIP's in their lives that they communicate with, leading to the idea of prayer as communication with God. I wanted a VIP name tag specifically for each student, so I made my own with Office Depot supplies. The Avery 5151 Flexible Name Badges allowed me to print and peel some for their journals and just print others for their badges. The ones inside the badges do not have the backing peeled off:

The third pinned project I will use tonight will be a template using a shamrock to review the Glory Be prayer. As part of our discussion of God, we will talk about the Trinity. We won't have time to do the whole poster, but each will fill in the template. I'll add it to their journals after class:

These are my Pins to Projects for tonight, more to come later.
Will you share any of yours?

I love sewing...

I love sewing, crocheting, embroidering, anything with a needle or hook. 

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I follow the instructions, pay attention to details and correct mistakes by starting over when necessary.

What if life were like that? It certainly hasn't been lately.

Scripture, Church teachings, and spiritual writings--these are my instructions. I pray over them and follow them as well as I can.

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The details around me have my almost undivided attention: 

my husband and family, my friends and even strangers who cross my path. They receive from me the care and dignity that is their birthright as children made in the image of God.

When I make mistakes, and I do, my priority is to repair any harm I cause.

I unravel sometimes, rip out bad stitching. Then I go back to the instructions and start again. 

Sewing produces a product, more or less as the pattern promises. 

Life doesn’t always do this. Winds whip away designs as I begin to admire their shape. Thieves of time or tragedy transform beauty to dust in a thunderclap or an excruciating slow-motion rumble. No amount of desire can undo or repair the damage.

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I know how to sew, to crochet and to embroider. 

I don't know how to live a precarious life, not even after over fifty years of practice. However, with help of the ultimate designer, I will continue to study and learn. 

What Will You Be for Halloween?

Halloween candy and costumes fill the stores, and my multimedia world is full of email and snail mail notices of vitally important decorating tips for the seasonal romp coming up. Two days ago my older daughter even sent me a picture of her two boxers in their "costumes," poor things.

Then today in my Morning Prayer, I came to a small passage from Romans that put the whole season into perspective: "...put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 13:14). This is in the midst of Paul's teaching to the young Christian Church: "Wake up!" He tells them, "Live properly as becomes children of the light." 

And what would it mean to "put on Jesus"? To be in his costume, in his likeness? We see this throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke and John--but Jesus boiled it down for us in the Great Commandment of loving God and our neighbor then spelled out our love for neighbor in Matthew 25: Feed the hungry; Give drink to the thirsty; Welcome the stranger; Clothe the naked; Care for the sick; Visit the imprisoned. If we walk around as Jesus, we will convince others (and ourselves) that we are sincere by walking in these footsteps.

But wait, isn't Halloween supposed to be about being scary and frightened? Sure it is. That's what Wal-Mart and Target tell us. But life is about living in the light. That what Jesus and Paul tell us. They probably should carry more weigh with us year round. 

So maybe after the department store costumes are thrown away, we can remember to keep Jesus on permanently. I know I'm certainly going to continue to do my best.

A Hero and Saint in Our Own Time

I'll try my hand at a little book review. I just discovered the story of a Catholic priest who is a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and whose cause for sainthood is under consideration by the Vatican. That in itself was enough to catch my attention on the book jacket at Crossroads. Now, keep in mind, I don't have to work to find books of interest at Crossroads. Just a quick glance can net me at least two must-reads.

This time I saw a book jacket with a photo of a military chaplain in Mass vestments praying with a kneeling soldier. Behind the priest is a Jeep serving as an altar. The book is The Miracle of Father Kapaun: Priest, Soldier, and Korean War Hero. Inside the jacket was a publisher's note comparing the book to works about Fr. Walter Ciszek and St. Maximilian Kolbe. Intrigued, I bought the book and devoured it in just a few days. 

I will say honestly for the sake of my more literary friends, this is not great stylistic writing. It is written by two journalists with more passion for their subject than desire for polished prose. I admit to being a snob about this sort of thing usually. However, the story of this priest is too powerful to make even me quibble about style. Substance certainly wins!

Fr. Kapaun (Ka- PAHN) was as heroic as he was humble. He was a Kansas farm boy called to the priesthood and then called as a chaplain. The soldiers he served tell his story through these journalists with the gritty honesty of combat soldiers. Fr. Kapaun was a POW with these men, and it was in this brutal camp that his Christ-like behavior revealed hope to the men around him. 

I highly recommend the book because we should all get to know flesh and blood heroes before history pins heavy halos on them and we wonder what is really true. Some of the men that told these stories still live on and still remember this modern hero and, just maybe, this saint.