Spirit Play Taking It Home for Oct 28

Dear Spirit Play families,

This Sunday, your children learned about our Flaming Chalice and why we light the chalice each week. If you are new, this might be the first time you are hearing this story, too. See if your child can tell you this story. Ask a couple of the wondering questions and see what your child has been thinking about since Sunday.

Yours in faith,
Robin

This story takes place in a country where there was a war being fought.

Nicolette and her brother, Jean-Pierre, were cold and hungry.  When their mother heard that the soldiers were coming, she and Grandmother Lucie bundled up food, clothing and blankets and the four of them set off with other people who were escaping the town.

They were refugees, people with no home, looking for a place to live until the war was over. Now, after a week, the food was gone. It had started to rain, and the road was turning to mud.

Everyone felt miserable and scared.  As it grew dark, they moved into the woods to find a place to sleep near a big rock.

Suddenly, they heard a truck rumbling down the road.  Nicolette, Jean-Pierre, Mama and Grandmere peeked out between the branches, afraid that the truck might be full of soldiers.

But when the truck stopped,  and Mama saw the flame and the circle painted on the sides, she said, “Come quickly, I have heard of these people.  They will help us.”

The people in the trucks were members of the Unitarian Service Committee. They distributed bread and cheese and hot soup to everyone.

Then they drove the refugees to a town faraway, to a building whose door had the same sign of the flame and a circle on it.

Inside the building it was warm.  There was food, cots to sleep on, and good blankets.  It was crowded with refugees, but no one seemed to mind. The Unitarian Service Committee people were friendly and kind.

Nicolette, Jean-Pierre, Mama and Grandmere Lucie stayed for four weeks.  Then they went to live with Grandmere’s brother in a safer place.

When the war was over, Nicollette and Jean-Pierre’s father came home from the army.  Reunited, the family returned to their village and rebuilt their house.  Long afterward, they often thought about the truck and the building wit the sign of the flame and the circle.

Wondering Questions

• I wonder if you have heard or seen any of this before?
• I wonder which part of this story is the most important?
• I wonder which part you like the best?
• I wonder where you are in this story?
• I wonder what the chalice flame could really be?
• I wonder how it feels to have to leave your home behind?
• I wonder how it feels to be welcomed somewhere else?
• I wonder how Jean-Pierre and his family felt when they first saw the truck?
• I wonder how they felt when they saw the flaming chalice symbol?
• I wonder how the UU”s in the rescue truck felt when they saw Mama and her family behind the rock?
• I wonder if you have ever felt any of these feelings when you light the chalice in church?
• I wonder where this story happened?
• I wonder if you have ever helped someone?
• I wonder why there is war?
• I wonder what it feels like to be safe?