Prayer Language - Preschool Style

One of my greatest joys in the last few months has been participating in a contemplative worship experience with 4 year olds at my church each Sunday Morning called "Godly Play."

It is designed to be quiet and holy. Our worship begins by removing our shoes at the door as a physical reminder to our young congregants that this time together will be different than other times. They are then invited in with the simple question, "Are you ready to listen for God?"

After the age old greeting of "The Lord be with you" by the story teller, the kids respond with "And also with you" then we move the hand on our liturgical clock. The kids like the red Sunday most because it's for Pentecost, and well, that's just a really cool word to say over and over when you're four.

The Bible story is shared with 3-dimensional props and no personal philosophy, which is the hard part for me. We use a "desert box" which looks a whole lot like a sand box" to tell the story of the Great Family without our own thoughts as to the lessons to be learned or questions asked as to what was the whole deal with Abram and Sarah anyway.

After our story, the children work individually. Sometimes they choose to re-tell stories they have heard. Miller is drawn to the story of the "The Great Shepherd" for some reason while Silas tends to re-visit the Great Flood story, slowly walking each of the small animals up the plank and onto the ark. He takes a few liberties though, using the stones for the altar that Noah built as eggs for the dove, but seriously I get where he's coming from. Others choose to paint with watercolors or simply cut. Tabor often chooses paper and scissors and spends 20 minutes or so cutting the paper into small pieces. I like to think he's like one of the Buddhist monks that spends hours on the sand sculptures. Cutting bits of paper is his prayer. (Of course, from time to time, there's also a little "Godly wrestling and shouting.")

After work time comes our prayer time. Sometimes we choose to pray "inside" ourselves but many of our 4 year olds choose to pray "outside." There's a lot of thanking going on with the preschool set, which is a lesson to us all. They are thankful for moms, dads, brothers, sisters, leaves on the ground, kittens and dogs. Sometimes their prayers are songs they have learned at home or preschool. However, a few weeks ago, Emmeline caught me off guard. She wanted to pray, which is not unusual for her, but what came next, was a bit different.

She closed her eyes as she folded her hands and paused for a bit. (I have to admit here that I never close my eyes when we pray so I was watching her face as she began.) Softly and sweetly she began singing that age-old prayer that transcends not only denominations but religions in general - "A-B-C-D-E-F-G" she began, then paused again taking on a more serious tone as she continued "H - I - J-K-L-M-N-O-P" another pause - at this point her tone changed to pleading "Q-R-S" -pause - "T-U-V" pause - then her tempo picked up a little and she finished with "W-X-Y and Z." Or, at least I thought she had finished. She added, with her eyes still closed and hands still folded. "Now I've sung my ABC's. Next time won't you sing with me." And all of the other kids and adults softly said, "Amen."

I actually thought I might not be able to keep myself from laughing out loud when she started, but as she continued, I couldn't help but feel God drawing close to us all. The prayer in her heart was too much for any words in her vocabulary so she sang the familiar and offered it as a gift to God. Her sincerity caused us all to respond with the only appropriate thing to say - Amen.

A couple days later my own heart was a little heavy and I struggled with how or what to pray, but sweet Emmeline came to mind and  I sang the ABC song. And guess what, God drew near.