Our April Soul Matters theme of joy is a joy in and of itself. Right now, it is providing me with the opportunity to wallow in the joy that our UUCM children, their grownups, and my beloved Family Ministry Team mates bring to my life. I will use the rest of this article simply to itemize a few of the joys that I routinely experience as I serve the families of UUCM.

Joy #1: As you likely are already aware, we currently serve a group of children ranging in age from 18 months to 10 years old. We run a version of the one room school house upstairs. Multi-age grouping of children often brings out the very best in those children lucky enough to experience it. I am filled with joy when I witness a 5-year-old boy stop what he is doing to assist a toddler with her activity, and then openly states “she is a baby and we need to help her.” Similarly, joy arises for me when I watch a ten year old girl spending much of her time upstairs cuddling and entertaining a toddler. Our older children frequently become nurturers because the younger children are with us. And our very youngest children watch the older children, following and copying them, thereby reaching beyond their current developmental levels in an effort to keep up. I have watched with amazement as children not yet three years old learn how to build our alter by watching their older, more experienced peers do so. The benefits of having an 8-year range in our children’s ages are on full display upstairs on Sunday mornings. Watching our children’s interactions play out in the various settings we have upstairs is a constant source of wonder, and yes joy, for me.

Joy #2: Gradually, the average number of children attending Kids’ Connection on Sunday mornings is increasing. A year ago, we were averaging 2.5 kids per Sunday, with some Sundays having no children in attendance . We are now averaging around 6 children each Sunday, with several Sundays of late having 8, 9, or even 10 children in attendance. I am filled with joy not only because our numbers are on the rise, but also because of why they are on the rise. Several of our long-time, core families have been encouraging their neighbors, friends, work colleagues and extended family members to bring their children to our Kids’ Connection program. I am so pleased that these long-time, core families have found the program to be of enough value that they would recommend it to others. And I am especially tickled by the instantaneous connections between the grownups that come along with this version of growth. More and more I see the grownups socializing together when they come upstairs to pick up their children. I am filled with joy to know that the program is special enough that our families want to share it with others.

Joy # 3: I want everybody at UUCM to know about the many joys of working with Lindsay, Linda, Corrie, Jenny, and Shannon. These women, who are central not only to Kids’ Connection but to UUCM generally, are the sort of people who make other people’s lives better, easier, and happier. You can count on them to show up, and to do so with warmth, enthusiasm, creativity, and competence. In January and February, I was sidelined on two separate Sundays when I was scheduled to be upstairs with the children. All I had to do was throw my dilemma out there in an email, and these women came up with a plan to cover for me, twice! I am actually having a hard time finding the words to adequately express the depth of my confidence in, respect for, and love of these women; they are the foundation of my UUCM life. I can only wish for you and your UUCM life the kind of joy that I have found in my connection with the members of my Family Ministry Team.

Let me just end by saying—if you would like to get yourself some of this Family Ministry joy that I have been describing in this article, please connect with me (Cheryl Spaulding) or Lindsay Dunckel. You can do so at FamilyMinistry@uugrassvalley.org or in person, upstairs or downstairs, whenever you see one or the other of us.

Our Kids’ Connection program has an intentional design, one that is consistent with our goal of promoting feelings of TRUST in our young charges. One overarching design principle that permeates our program is best captured in the phrase CHOICE WITHIN STRUCTURE. Competing philosophies of education often are geared toward one or the other of those two constructs—choice or structure. In contrast, we believe that choice and structure are symbiotically significant in the ways that they help children develop trust in themselves, as well as in the people and practices that constitute our Kids’ Connection program.

Let’s start with STRUCTURE. Structure gives our program a recognizable and predictable form. When children can predict how each Sunday morning will unfold, they learn to trust the program and the people who run it. When new children join us, they are understandably unsure of themselves. They do not yet trust that this experience will be a positive one. But after they have visited with us a few times, we see them quickly getting involved by collaboratively building our altar, sharing a joy or sorrow, creating a pretend meal in our kids’ kitchen, or making a piece of art at our table full of art supplies. Routines and rituals, by their very nature, are repeating, allowing children to understand on their own what is expected of them and how to fit in. This ability to figure out on their own how to operate within the inherent structure promotes in our children a trust in their own abilities. Even when the routines and rituals are not ones a child particularly enjoys, the fact that they are predictable helps them cope with the challenge of getting through the activity successfully. Many, many decades ago, when I was teaching high school English, a particularly challenging student said to me with a defiant tone, “I really hate these vocabulary assignments you give us.” Then, a brief moment later, his defiance shifted to a tone of acceptance when he said, “but they only come on Wednesdays and I can live with that.” He trusted me, my instructional program, and himself because he knew the routines surrounding those undesirable vocab assignments. Imagine how much more threatening those assignments would have been if he had not known when they were likely to pop up.

Now for CHOICE, what is its contribution to fostering children’s trust in themselves, us, and our program? Structure is a foundational element in our program. Without it, or with an insufficient amount of it, the children’s experiences in the program would be some version of chaotic.

Chaos does not promote trust. But by itself, structure can also be limiting. We want our children to build on the trust that structure promotes by taking ownership of their experiences in Kids’ Connection, pursuing their own interests, expressing their own thoughts, creating their own pieces of art or scenarios for play. When children make choices about how to operate within a thoughtfully provided structure, they learn to trust their own agency.

One ritual activity in our Kids’ Connection program that provides many opportunities for the children to make meaningful choices within a well-articulated structure happens immediately when we enter Our Sanctuary upstairs. The first experience of the day is building our altar.

This activity is well structured. It must be the first activity of the day in order for the following activities to have a space to play out. There are a few basic rules to follow in that certain ritual pieces are always displayed on the altar, although where exactly they are placed is open for the children’s determination. Beyond those few ritual pieces that always go on the altar, however, the options for decorating the altar are wide ranging. Our altars are like snowflakes—no two are ever alike. Watching the children decorate the altar with their specific choices is like gaining a little window into their minds and hearts. Some of them are fascinated by the light of the candles and battery operated, mini-chalice flames. Some of them want the surface of the altar to be covered with stars and stones and beads and shells. Some of them like to place on the altar larger, more sculptural items from nature like pinecones and feathers. Some are fascinated by and want to play with the water we pour into the vessel for our joys and sorrows stones. Our children make their own choices for the altar, place those choices carefully and strategically on the altar, and then step back to appreciate how their contributions helped to create this important part of our UU ritual. This adds to their sense of trust. They trust that

they are important to us and that their ideas and creations are important to us. . We trust them to be our co-creators of the Kids’ Connection program. This is a bi-directional form of trust that is meaningful and genuine, for children and adults alike.

Examples of how CHOICE WITHIN STRUCTURE permeate our Kids’ Connection program are too numerous to begin to catalogue for you here. Suffice it to say that structure and choice are two defining features of our Kids’ Connection program and taken together they are greater than the sum of their parts. You can TRUST me on that!!

What is silence? And how is silence related to listening? While not exactly the same thing, silence and listening do overlap each other. Maybe one definition of silence could be eliminating the noises or sounds that we make so that we can take note of, or listen to, noises or sounds that we are not making. Sometimes those noises come from outside of ourselves— such as winds howling, dogs barking, or friends talking. But we can also listen to those ephemeral visitors in our consciousness that come, unbidden—the nearly constant flow of feelings, thoughts, memories that arise, stay awhile, and dissipate, all on their own.

So why all this focus on silence? Well, in Kids’ Connection on Sunday mornings, I am planning to include more opportunities for the children to learn about, experience, even play with the concept of silence. We have already incorporated a kid-friendly meditation experience that introduces the concept of silence. We all sit, with one hand raised in the air. Then, we play an extended sound—a chime—that lasts for about ten seconds before fading away. We keep our hands in the air until we cannot hear the sound anymore. Interestingly, the hands come down one at a time. Finally, we attempt to extend that moment of silence after the chime ends. The operative word there is “attempt.” I like this meditative sequence because it starts out with silence brought on by listening to sounds from our physical environment (the chime) and ends with an opportunity to shift our listening to noises from our psychological environment (our thoughts, feelings, memories).

A few weeks ago, after completing this meditative exercise, I read the children a book entitled The Silence Slips In by Alison Hughes and Ninon Pelletier. In this book, silence is somewhat anthropomorphized. It has a face and ears—although it looks more like a giant bunny than a human being. This larger, cloud-like being with a face and ears drifts into various situations that call for silence (e.g., bed time, moments of frustration, time for cuddling with a dog). When the silence slips in, the imposing, green being with a face, known as Noise, steps out of the picture to make room for Silence. This is a lovely book that makes a clear statement about how silence and noise move back and forth, taking turns, throughout our days, throughout our lives.

My hope is to build gradually the children’s understandings about what silence is and how it can be valuable for individuals and groups of people to know when and how to let silence slip in.