Since living with small people, I’ve learned that books make very good place-holders. Some hold a feeling, a mood or a thought, keeping it safe for when you need it. But the best ones can hold a whole season, hold back the rush and hurry of everything else, and create a place where we might find focus.
And, at our house, we’ve just found a new one.
Laura Alary’s new book Make Room: a child’s guide to Lent and Easter is an invitation to make this season a time for holy spaciousness. Alary describes Lent as a time of waiting in which we can make time, make space and make room for room for God in our lives together. She walks us slowly through what she calls “the grey time between winter and spring,” towards Easter’s colour and light.
Reading Make Room with my two-year old Plum, I delighted to see how Alary makes room for our own conversation within her text, sprinkling pages with I wonder and maybe.
I wonder why Jesus went into the desert?
I wonder who they thought Jesus was?
Although they weren’t on the page, Plum and I found ourselves wondering together about shepherds and baby birds and Johnnie Appleseed, too. Alary’s gentle text creates a space for our own rich wondering which never felt like a derailment, only an addition to the story.
Alary’s questions remind me of Godly Play, a Montessori-based tradition of religious education developed by Dr Jerome Berryman. Like Berryman, Alary encourages children to find and make meaning for themselves through imaginative exploration. Stories are shared with an openness that encourages connections among all who gather and listen. And isn’t that church at its very essence?
Make Room is also filled with suggestions of simple activities which might help children reflect on what it can mean to live faithfully. Some of these are regular family activities like tidying a room or sharing meals with neighbours. Others might be new or unusual like making pretzels and talking about symbols of prayer. Throughout this Lent, I’ll be reading this book with my own kids, and I hope to be able to share with you some of my own kids’ reflections and perhaps even artwork because I have a hunch that my kids will want try their hands at heart bunting a little later this week.
Ann Boyajian’s illustrations are thought-filled and beautiful, making the book feel like a window into an active congregation where the Biblical stories are vividly live.
My favourite passage in the book describes the Maundy Thursday story:
Before the meal, Jesus took a cloth, a bowl and a pitcher of water. He got down on his knees and washed his friends’ feet, which were dirty and sore from walking. That is who Jesus is. He pours himself out like water from a pitcher. He touches what is dirty and hurting and makes it clean and whole.
I liked how Alary balances wondering questions with more straightforward teaching. She writes simply and clearly so that small children will be able to understand, but older ones will also be able to find rich material for their own wondering. Intriguingly, Alary makes a point of creating a wide sense of space around both the crucifixion and the resurrection. She does not supply the theological meaning behind either aspect of the story, but rather describes the lived history and experience of Easter and again makes room for us all, whatever our theological understanding, within the story.
Laura Alary works as Christian Education Coordinator at Guildwood Community Presbyterian Church in Scarborough, Ontario.
