Advent - the fifth candle

[I've travelled back in time, to tell about our first Godly Play sessions, last December, in my own house.]

During free time at the end of our third session (the fourth week of Advent), the second child started off  sitting on the couch with me, listening to Bible storybooks read aloud as we had done the previous week, but then chose to work with our Lent materials ("Jesus the King" from YCW). Since it had been months since we'd used them, I sat with the child to reiterate the basic plot - placing cloaks and leaves on the road to make it ready for Jesus going to Jerusalem. Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

There's a nice parallel between the Advent materials and Lent materials, in that both include an underlay which has to be rolled up when the story is put away. This child is the youngest of the three, and kept scrunching the material with tight fists - it was hard work for me to let the child do it!

Much later, I remembered that in my own training the teacher had looked mischievously at us while flicking the roll of underlay with a single finger. Aha! She was being playful, but I suspect also demonstrating that rolling and unrolling could be done with a delicate touch.

Meanwhile, the first child unrolled the Advent underlay, and placed all the plaques on it (including the fifth, white, Christmas plaque, which I had not introduced yet). This week, the child also got all the candles out, and carefully examined each candle to make sure that they were put out in the correct order. Then, just as Berryman predicts, The children will probably discover quickly that the white card needs a candle, too. The child called over to me that we needed another candle. I said, Hmmm. I wonder where in this room we could find a white candle? The child walked over to the Christ candle and, eyebrows raised, checked with me whether this could be the right answer. That's right. The Christ candle! and the child carried it across to place it on the Christmas space.