I picked up Beangirl from a craft morning hosted by a local café. It’s a great spot – in the corner of the local park in the old cricket pavilion. The food is an eclectic mix – pizza and falafel, sandwiches and curries. Very earthy and organic. And awfully yummy. Inside the pavilion, there are tables with a good view of the open kitchen, but most people sit outside where you can watch the kids play on the grass. Or lately, in the vast, muddy puddles. You can even borrow rubber boots from the café. Perfect.
The craft morning was for the over-5 set, so Blue and I had to find other sorts of entertainment. Beangirl was the first one there. She was fine with waiting, quite happy to find a novel on the bookshelf and squeeze herself into the corner of the closest couch. Blue mucked about with the tricycles in the puddles, and I worried that he’d get too ensconced to pull out when the craft morning got rolling. But no worries. Maybe he’s just used to dropping her off at school. Maybe he was pleased to get me all to himself. When the craft lady arrived, we said our goodbyes and promised to be back in an hour. She bargained for two.
When we reappeared, she was full of chatter about her masterpieces. A painted library bag – she’d made a stencil and used spray paint. A poster in pastels featuring her and her brother, and a school friend and her brother, too. And a string of prayer beads. The instructor said that the beads were Beangirl’s idea. Her school friend, the offspring of a staunchly humanist home, made a set, too, to match.
I asked Beangirl about them when we got home. She said that it would help with talking to God. Which sounded a lot like something I would say. But then, I suppose she must have got the idea about prayer beads from me.
I made a set in the summer of 2005. I was working in Kingston, Ontario, with a theological summer camp run through Queen’s University. The staff was diverse to say the least, and I got the prayer bead idea from a retired Anglican nun. (Retired as a nun, I should say. Last I heard, she was a hard working mama, and I don’t think that they get to retire.) I’d always assumed that prayer beads weren’t very Presbyterian, but she introduced me to Anglican prayer beads which had a more Protestant slant, and I really liked the idea. I was just about to head off to Spain on pilgrimage, and I liked the idea of tangible prayers. Something to put in your pocket. So I fell into the habit of using them. And when Beangirl came along, I’d let her play with them, too, gumming them soggily, then teething on them as necessary.
Last summer, I brought my beads into church for a children’s story. I was talking to the kids about prayer, and trying to move us beyond the usual please and thank-you prayers. I showed them how the beads were divided into four sections, and said that you could think of these as east, west, north and south. We wondered together about what east prayers might be. Rising. Spring time, maybe. Growth. Reaching. West might be the setting sun, the end of things. Or wide peaceful feelings, wide as the pacific. North might be winter and rest and waiting. Or joy and holiday. Or suffering through cold feelings. South might be summer. Or thirst. Or Sabbath. We might think about our week in the framework of this kind of imagining. It might be a new way to spend time with God.
I liked this as a children’s story – it opened up the kind of imagining, wondering space I want to enjoy with children in church. But I can’t say I thought much about it as a teaching moment for my own kids. Still, Beangirl must have tucked it away somewhere because, left to her own devices with a box of beads and a length of string, she didn’t make a necklace but prayer beads.
Hers are more colourful than mine. Less regular, too. She chose a bunch of different shapes. She keeps them in her pillowcase. And, after stories and then five more minutes with the light on, after Daddy says good night and tucks them both in definitively, she calls me back through to help her with her beads. Sometimes Blue is still awake and joins in, too. Sometimes he isn’t, and we whisper.
Each bead reminds her of something – raspberries in Granny and Grandpa’s garden, stacks of books in the library, my engagement ring – and she tells God about it. There is some overlap evening to evening, but there’s newness, too. Some nights, it’s amazing. Sometimes, I’m tired and it’s work to be patient. I guess things are like that, aren’t they? But this new habit of hers is a good gift. I’m glad that she’s sharing it with me.
