60 kids

I helped out with first communion practice last night for a large group of very active kids. It was complete chaos. There is nothing that compares to trying to get 60 kids to do something like bow in unison.

I usually don't have much to do with the kid side of church stuff. Back when I was single and a new Catholic, I got talked into teaching vacation bible school to a class of third-graders. By the end of the first day they had complete control of the class; by the end of the week I was babbling incoherently. I have avoided anything even remotely associated with youth ministry ever since.

I went last night to help out pretty much because my wife was going, and I figured I could take some pictures. But when I got there, the sister who was running the show had other plans for me. She needed me to act in the place of the priest, which is what I did. It was actually pretty cool, and I found a gift that I didn't know I had.

At one point, I had to read the gospel. The teachers were all trying to maintain order and trying to get everyone to shut up, but without much success. The noise really wasn't a problem for me, though. I'm used to that kind of chaos with my wife's family, so I just started reading. I read in a way that I hoped would be accessible to a kid--using a different voice and emphasis than I would for adults. When I made eye contact with them, and found that I actually had their attention. As I finished the reading, the church was silent, and I had the attention of every kid in the room. It was pretty incredible. It only held for another second or two, and then went back to chaos.

After that I helped teach them how to receive communion. I joked with them a little and kind of tried to make it interesting, explaining why we do certain things in certain ways, and comparing the taste of the communion wafer to other things they had eaten. They really responded--it was like we connected or something. I made a point to give them positive reinforcement whenever they came close to getting it right and they just ate it up.

I have no idea how it is going to actually turn out on saturday when we do the real thing, but it will be ok with me if it is chaotic--maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

It could never happen here

There was a story on NPR yesterday afternoon about Margaret Atwood's book The Handmaid's Tale being made into an opera and performed in St. Paul, Minnesota. I read the book when it first came out, and had pretty much forgotten the details of it.

It takes place in the near future, in an America that has become a male-dominated theocracy, where civil liberties no longer exist. Pollution levels have gotten so bad that most women have become infertile. The fertile ones are "handmaids", existing only to bear children to the ruling class.

Atwood said at the time she wrote it that she doubted it could ever actually happen, because the events that brought about the change in government in the story were so unlikely--the destruction of the White House, the Capitol, and the Statue of Liberty by some sort of a terrorist attack.

Did I mention it is a work of fiction?

addendum: the book is much better than the movie.