John Turns 6

Thanks for the cards and calls.  It was a great day.

Saints

Last Sunday I did something I haven’t done in a very long time.  I taught Sunday School.

Now I love Children’s Ministry and Sunday School has a  special place in my heart.  But Sunday School at Shepherd of the Hills was scheduled during the worship service physically precluding me from teaching.  While I occasionally switched out the sermon for an extended children’s lesson in worship, mostly I relied on others to teach.

So when Grace, Evanston, was looking for a teacher for Sunday I volunteered. 

I decided to write a new lesson about Martin Luther King, or Saint Martin Luther King, as I called him. Thinking over Kings story I included elements about race, Christian faith, lunch counter sit ins and bus boycots, the march on Washington, and the fact that King went to jail.

I taught the lesson to preschoolers and kindergarteners on Sunday.  And while they had heard a lot about King  (one child seemed concerned that I didn’t talk about ALL The marches), the part about him going to prison seemed pretty foreign

One child insisted, “Only bad people go to jail.”  I said that lots of Christians have gone to prison, including most of the disciples.  But the kids didn’t seem to by it.

The car is always a primary place for theological discussion.  “Mama,” John said, “You must be wrong.  Only bad people go to jail.”

Having not succeeded with examples like Peter and Paul I mentioned a pastor back in California who John adores.  “Pr. Jeff was arrested,” I said, “when he was protesting laws he thought were wrong, just like Dr. King.”

John thought silently.  Everything seemed to sink in.  “Then I guess Pr. Jeff must be a saint like Dr. King , because saints fight for justice and peace.”

Its good to be back teaching Sunday School.  I learn so much.

Sledding

John has been pretty excited about snow. 

Growing up in Berkeley and having made only a few short trips to the mountains, Jay and I figured out that while John had seen snow, he had never actually seen it snow.  For all he knew snow grew out of the ground, was imported by fairies, or appeared only for a few short hours before disappearing again.  So when it November as we walked to school the first flakes of the season started to fall John turned to me excitedly and said, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this!”

There is something to be said about the joys of a real winter.  Skiing and skating, snowman making, and snowball throwing are all joys John is about to know.  And of course, there is sledding. 

It seems to be the trend nowadays for communities, in the name of safety, to outlaw sledding, or to, at least, require helmets and post warning placards.  I must admit, I can remember a few harrowing incidents from my own sledding youth – I won’t even mention the things Jay’s older brothers used to do in the hills of Pennsylvania.   But John really wanted to go sledding and I was eager to take him.

The few flakes of November multiplied to a few inches by December.  And over Christmas week a major storm blanketed the hills.  John and I went out in search of a sled during the post-Christmas sales.

Sledding, it seems, has changed a bit.  While radio-flyer runner sleds are still available – they seem to be more of a nostalgia item.  Kids seem to be sledding more on hard plastic covered foam boards – much like short surfboards.  Which isn’t to say I could find any.  Everywhere we went the shops were sold out.

Thank goodness for LLBean!  Our local shopping mall has an LLBean outlet that had just gotten in a new shipment of 50 saucer-style sleds – a staple of my childhood.  The new and improved design includes rope handles and a non-skid padded interior.  John daunted his mittens, hat, snow pants, boots, coat, and we were on our way to Mt. Trashmore.

Mt. Trashmore was once the town dump of Evanston and has, in recent years, been converted to a park sporting a small sled run, a medium sled run, and a GREAT BIG SLED RUN.

When I checked out the Evanston web site for St. James Park (as Mt. Trashmore is formally known) I was warned in no uncertain terms that the hills were “Not maintained for sledding” and that sledders do so “at their own risk” and that anyone found sledding down the big hill will be “ticketed and fined.”  Duly noted.

When John and I arrived at Mt. Trashmore there were at least 150 kids and their family already there.  We started at the small run where kids of all ages and all descriptions were headed down the icy sloped on every kind of sled imaginable.  An Indian family with three daughters in helmets took turns on a foam sled, an Italian father in high heeled pointy toed leather boots urged his son on his intertube, a pair of Asian men filmed as a two year old made her first solo run.

John and I first went down together, but quickly he built up the confidence to go it alone, first sitting, and lying on the saucer.

And then the question came.

“Mama, can we try the big hill?”

We walked over the base of the big run, the illegal, forbidden, the run where park rangers, “Will issue tickets” where 50+ were actively, uninhibitedly sledding.  We watched while sledders came down, shattering sleds, wiping out, and rolling into fences.  “I don’t think we want to do this, John – how about the medium-sized hill?”

The walk up even the medium run was treacherous.  A thousand trips up had left the path almost as icy as the run itself.  John only reached the top by clinging to the fence.  At the top we surveyed the view, climbed on our sled (me first, then John on my lap), took a deep breath, and went for it.

Things were going well, if fast and sometimes backwards, until we hit a bump.  John, apparently wasn’t holding on to anything, so as I continued down the hill, he stayed put, hitting his head hard on the decent.

I climbed up the hill to retrieve John.  There were tears in his eyes and snow on the back of his hat.  “Do you want to do home?” I asked tentatively.

“No,” John sniffled, “I want to go down the big hill.  Can we please try?”

John is normally so cautious, so reticent to try anything, that I figured we’d better go for it.  I thought I saw one little portion of the giant hill, far to the right, relatively free of bumps.  If we could hit it right, we might be okay.

We climbed.  As we climbed we passed the signs.  “Warning, no sledding!”  “Warning, sledding may be hazardous!”  “Warning, sledding at your own risk!!”  As we got to the top of the run we noticed that while sledders occasionally made their way down, most were huddled at the top, working up the courage to sled, or finding the wisdom to make their way back down.

Right in front of my chosen path a father counseled his eight-year-old daughter on the finer points of making the run.  “Now this is the only safe path.  Don’t let go.  Keep your head down.  Good luck.” 

Seeing us, he asked, “First time down the big run?”

“Yes,” I said, “Any advice?”

“Going to use a saucer?” he asked incredulously.

“Uh, I guess so,” I replied.

“You’d better ditch before you get to the bottom.” He offered.

Gulp.

But really, there was no going back.  The walk down would be at least as dangerous as sledding.  So John and I boarded the sled, and, this time holding on to each other, we took flight.

I dragged my feet at first, hoping to slow us down, but mostly succeeded in kicking up a great deal of snow.  Soon enough we were going backwards, and I focused more on staying in our track than attempting to defy gravity.  We were very fast, and very bumpy, but, in the end, we did not need to ditch, and, I think we traveled farther than anyone else.  We were pretty proud.

So proud that we didn’t have to do it again.  Back to the baby hill for us.

Next week – ice-skating!