Flowers are red, young man,
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen
(Harry Chapin song 1978)
Several years ago I went along to a children’s and family event that was attempting to synthesise Godly Play and Messy Church.
We began with breakfast (bacon rolls and pastries) followed by the story of the miraculous catch of fish in the style of Godly Play.
“I wonder what you liked best?” asked the storyteller. “I wonder what you think is the most important?”
Children and adults responded thoughtfully to the wondering questions before going off to do a variety of crafts and activities, some Messy Church style and some more like a Godly Play response time.
I was impressed and felt this would be a good model to follow in my own context.
But then came the worship. The storyteller, now the worship lead, reread the story from a children’s Bible and then proceeded to tell everyone exactly what it meant.
No wondering, no questions, no flexibility of any kind. Just accept that this is the answer, everyone.
What???
Why did the leader do this? Children and adults had engaged with the story and responded. Who knew what links and patterns and deeper thinking had spun off from the original storytelling? Who knew how the listeners had encountered God? Why the need to explain and limit these possibilities?
For many churches the purpose of children’s work is to make sure that the package of faith is passed on intact to the next generation. In these settings there is no room for playing with faith or seeing it in a different kind of way. Often these sessions involve the retelling of a Bible story, an explanation of what the story means and a recommendation of how we might apply this to our own lives: Jesus was kind to the blind man. We need to be kind like Jesus. It may include a few closed questions to check that story and meaning have been correctly passed on. (Where was Jesus going? Where was the man sitting?)
In the song quoted at the beginning of this blog post a little boy goes to school and is instructed by the teacher to stop colouring flowers and leaves in a variety of different colours because:
Flowers are red, young man,
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen
The child attempts to stand his ground:
“There are so many colours in the rainbow
So many colours in the morning sun
So many colours in the flower and I see every one”
But eventually the child has no choice but to accept the teacher’s way of seeing things. When he transfers to a new school this approach is firmly embedded. Given the choice to paint flowers any way he likes he paints only red flowers and green leaves. There is only one way to see things, he explains.
But even tiny children love to experiment with seeing the world differently.
My granddaughter, aged nearly two, delights in playing with words and ideas. Old Macdonald has everything on his farm from tigers to gruffalos.
My friend’s grandson, who is the same age, sings the hello song with a tin bowl on his head which he makes fall off. Both grandma and grandson find this hilarious.
In the interests of explanation and information I should tell my granddaughter that Old Macdonald only had farm animals on his farm. No tigers, and certainly no gruffalos, which don’t exist anyway. My friend should explain that tin bowls are not hats and that if it was a hat it would need to stay on his head and not fall off. There is no need to see the world any other way than the way it always has been seen…
But I suspect that my granddaughter already knows at some level that tigers and gruffalos belong in the jungle and the Deep Dark Wood respectively. My friend’s grandson is fully aware that the tin bowl is not a hat; this adds to the humour.
We do not feel the need to explain these things to little children because at some point they will realise it for themselves. If we interfere too soon, something precious will be lost… The song quoted is tragic because we can see how easily a small child can lose their desire to imagine and play with ideas.
So why is faith different? Why does faith need to be fenced off and explained?
Is it because faith is important in a way that gruffalos and tin bowls and painting flowers are not? We must get faith right when we are attempting to pass it on. Faith can only be passed on intact, with no room for imagination and creativity. Faith can only be seen in the way it always has been seen.
But how limiting this is. It limits both ourselves and God, who can only move within this tight package of how things have always been.
I wonder sometimes if it is fear that insists on explaining everything. If everything is within the package, the boundaries are secure. There is an answer for every question. We are safe. We can cope. And if not for ourselves, the boundaries are secure for little children. Difficult questions are not for little children. Let us keep them safe.
But I also wonder if this approach does not harm children’s faith.
We are presenting children with a rigid view of the world that bears little resemblance to the world we all live in. However hard we try to keep our children within this world that we (not God) have created, eventually they will experience reality. Stories that have been twisted to show morality (we need to listen to God as Samuel did) do not in reality have the happy ever after ending that can only be achieved if the stories are taken out of context and given the correct explanation.
If we tell the children the stories (including the difficult parts) and allow them to experiment, question and play with ideas, surely we are giving them a much stronger foundation for faith than a prepackaged faith that needs to be handed on intact?
In live concert Harry Chapin ended the song with the words:
There still must be a way, to have our children say
“There are so many colours in the rainbow
So many colours in the morning sun
So many colours in the flower and I see every one”
Meristem 