church stuff

[edenfalling]

Flower Communion yesterday! I acquired this lovely magenta peony, and also signed up to do something as yet unspecified for the RE program next year.

(The lack of specification is both because the program as a whole is currently a little unspecified, and because I am thinking of stepping out of my comfort zone -- which is ages 6-8 -- and maybe teaching OWL to kids in middle school. That would be really weird and awkward in some ways, but I am also genuinely curious about that program, which is what replaced AYS, the "and now let's talk about all the stuff surrounding sex that they won't teach you in public school health classes" program I went through back around 1995. And you know, it's valuable for kids to see that adults can and do have wildly differing perspectives on sex and romance and the emotional and ethical issues surrounding them, so... *makes equivocating gesture*)

Comments

[mme_hardy]

Flower communion sounds *wonderful*. I'm envious. A friend of mine years back taught OWL and found it personally enlightening, and both scary and fulfilling. (Scary because of wanting to do it right for the kids.)

[edenfalling]

It's a very simple ceremony, but very moving when done properly. Same for Water Communion, which frames the other end of summer.

The more I think about teaching OWL, the more I think I probably should. But yeah, scary as all get out, both for the personal honesty thing and for the "holy shit please let me not screw up these kids" thing.

[rthstewart]

Flower communion is gorgeous. We have neighbors who are members of the local Unitarian Universalist and their teen programs are absolutely TERRIFIC. Really set the standard IMO. If you do that, if you are comfortable with it, it would be hard, and probably so beneficial for them. You would be great at it.

[edenfalling]

OWL ("Our Whole Lives") was, IIRC, developed in partnership with the United Church of Christ (which does a lot of partnership stuff with the UUA, since the UUA and the UCC are the two main groups that came out of the old New England Congregationalist tradition), to replace AYS ("About Your Sexuality") which was developed in the 70s and really showed that it was developed in the 70s. I mean, AYS was a good program -- I will fight anyone who says otherwise! -- but the materials were out of date and a lot of parents were uncomfortable with the... I guess the graphicness level of various things? Anyway, I know a lot of work and thought went into OWL, and it's a much more comprehensive program that includes segments for various age groups -- the one I'm most familiar with, actually, is the short "where do babies come from?" program that has interrupted normal first-grade RE courses a few times during the years I've been teaching in Ithaca.

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more I think I should volunteer to teach OWL. Stepping out of one's comfort zone is good for the soul, and I think I probably would provide a perspective that might otherwise not get heard.

[rosaxx50.livejournal.com]

Prettttty.

The entire program sounds really interesting. I don't remember the church group I used to go to providing any information like that.

[edenfalling]

The peony looked very attractive on my kitchen table until Thursday, whereupon it began to shrivel and drop petals and I sadly took it out to the compost bin.

I think AYS ("about your sexuality") was created partly because it used to be even harder to get any kind of useful sex ed via public schools, and even when you did get classes they were mostly just biology and birth control methods: nothing about ethics, emotions, erotica/porn, or even just the silly little everyday details that get skipped over when you're talking about meiosis and seminal vesicles or whatever. So AYS attempted to fill that gap. OWL ("our whole lives") presumably carries that aspect over while being a little more parent-friendly in some of its visual aids and also more up-to-date in its understanding of sexuality and gender and stuff.