After welcoming them, and introducing briefly the class, we really begin, with what is maybe the most important work we will do in the class for the cycle. Taking yarn, and wrapping it twice around my wrist I introduce myself: my name and some thing I like. I toss the yarn across the circle and invite this first student to do the same. Sometimes as the students throw the yarn, the throw it too hard, or not hard enough, and doesn't make it to the student on the other side. We all laugh as it is retrieved, and this too is good. Finally, we are all connected.
"On the count of three" I say "Everyone stand up and put your hands HIGH in the air!"
We do.
"On the count of three, everyone, touch the floor"
"Now... if your name starts with a vowel reach into the air way high. If not, keep yours hands on the floor."
"Switch!"
"Ok, everyone touch the floor. And one person reach way high up.
When you feel tension, stand up with your hands way high too."
And we all stand.
"Ok, one person touch the floor, and when you feel the pull touch the floor, too."
Sitting back down, still connected, I ask, "What did you notice?" "We made a star with the yarn!" I usually hear. "Yes, I saw that too, what else? ... when was there the most tension?" We identify that there was more tension when we did different things and less tension when we worked together.
"And what about when only one person stood up?" ... "We all hand to stand up!"
And so we discover that we are all connected. That it's good to work together. And that what one person does affects everyone else, for good or for bad.
This is my favorite way to start every class -- be it an English class, Cuentame, or Peace Train construction. It expresses a deep truth in a tangible way -- a way that stays with me as at the end of the activity, as I cut the students free, I invite them to ask a friend to help them tie a knot in the yarn around their wrist, to wear as a bracelet reminder. I am wearing three of these bracelets now, reminders of my students, reminders that we don't walk alone. It makes me think of one of my favorite quotes:
"if you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together."
It is only when we allow ourselves to be bound to each other that we can be free.
It is a wise game I think, one that continues to remind me not to feel "irrevocable responsible for everything ..." (that's God's job, I've heard). To step back, see the bigger picture, and take the long view.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.-Monseñor Romero
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