The Space between the Words

Martyn Payne

I'm in between holiday clubs as I write this. As you can imagine, there is plenty happening in these days; action songs, fast-moving games, group challenges and craft workshops—but there is also something else. It is a profound silence as Bible stories are shared, followed by a planned opportunity to allow God's Spirit to work through those very stories. In other words, there is space between the words—some space for reflection.

Maybe that is already a balance you aim for in your work with children; however, I suspect that for many this could be something new. We're all too familiar with the typical high-energy packed programme that we tend to serve up for our children. We put in plenty of movement and lively singing; we usually plan our sessions to keep them busy and, just in case some finish too soon, we have some extra worksheets available. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting these aren't good things and often appropriate. Indeed, in many respects this is the way to reach out to the world of children today, who are surrounded, for better or worse, by a culture that is stuck in top gear and at maximum volume. And anyway, children are naturally full of energy to burn and we need to recognize this in our planning. In our own Team's Barnabas RE Days in schools, for example, we always include games and lively drama in the workshops as we explore Bible stories.

However, this is not the whole picture. Children don't need this sort of hyped-up approach all the time. Just as we grown-ups vary in our appreciation of sometimes loud and sometimes quiet activities and approaches to worship, many children also benefit from a less frenetic style to learning. In fact, some vote with their feet and perhaps you've seen them, sitting it out on the side while the rest are engaged in an exhausting and very noisy parachute game—I know I have. Most children can do 'quiet', contrary to popular opinion, and arguably all children need to. As a teacher in training many years ago I learned that a good lesson needs both 'light' and 'shade' and the shade is often that ‘space between the words’. This is a vital but too easily neglected jewel, which needs to be there whenever we work with our children's groups.

Building this kind of 'opportunity for reflection' into our Sunday or mid-week sessions might seem like a tall order. It's OK for some adults to go in for meditative prayer or to seek the quiet of a retreat, I hear you say, but how can that work for our children? Well, all I can say is that this definitely worked on the holiday club I referred to earlier and indeed it has been my experience in many other contexts where I have worked with children. We know for example that young children in particular learn most, not through what is said but through the unspoken 'word', namely through gesture, tone of voice, symbol and indeed through the silences between these very things. If we don't give some attention to this in our work, we may well lose all the good we think we have been passing on as we struggle to find 'the right words' to tell them the good news about Jesus. St Francis' injunction to his fellow workers about evangelism comes to mind: 'Preach the gospel to all,' he said, 'and use words, if you have to.'

Deep learning about profound things—and what can be more profound than the truths, which we long to share about the love of God?—are often learned without any words at all. Reflection that allows this is part of true worship. Worship is our human spirit responding to God's Spirit. It can happen anywhere and involves all of who we are and what we do. Worship is about drawing close to God and God drawing close to us. And because it's about some sort of encounter or experience of the Creator, it's very hard to put into words. In fact perhaps a real understanding of worship that facilitates reflection is best expressed without words. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Take the following wordless responses that lie behind true worship, namely:
Wow! Ah! Oh! Eh! Ah-ha! Ha-ha!,
in other words: wonder, appreciation, surprise, indignation, discovery and laughter.
These are the sounds of true worship. They are there for example in the Psalms, which is the Bible book that really helps us know the full expression of ‘worship in the Spirit’. They are responses to God and to the world and to how we are made. It's a cry for help, a groan of distress, a shout of discovery, a gasp of amazement, a scream of delight, and a cascade of laughter. These are the wordless sounds needed for good refection, too. This springs from our innate spirituality and it can be seen most beautifully in children if we give it space to appear. Just as we learn from the words of Jesus that children know how to worship (see Psalm 8:2 linked with Matthew 21:16), they can also be natural ‘reflectors’.

How do we help children to reflect like this? How do we give appropriate ‘space between words’ for God to come close? Well, the very word ‘reflection’ gives us some clues. Think of the images it conjures up:

• To catch a reflection in water, it needs to be still. So first of all we need to create a moment of stillness.
• To catch a reflection in water, we also need light. So next a focus such as a candle or something to look at that is lit up/highlighted in some way can be very helpful.
• To catch a reflection in water, we need to wait for the surface to settle—in other words, we need to make space, a space not filled with more talking, but one that allows a spark of new insight to happen—a space for God's Spirit to work.

So what works? Here are some ideas to help children to reflect:

• If you have just told a Bible story creatively, your next step should be to make space for your group to connect with that story and let it speak above and beyond anything you have said. To enable this, think of three questions about that story to which you do not know the answer—some intriguing questions. Now ask these questions and follow them with some space for reflection, perhaps supported with some music or a focus candle to allow that inspired story to do its work.
• If you've been using a visual aid, then think of the most open-ended questions that you can ask with which to draw the children into reflection. For example:
• I wonder what this colour makes you think of?
  I wonder where you would like to be in this picture?
  
• If you've been telling an anecdote or a story of some sort, it is vital to end on something about that story that genuinely puzzles you, too and makes you go on thinking. If the story isn't shown this way to be important to you, why should it be important to the children and worth reflecting on?
• If you've been involved in some more physical activity with the children, then draw them into reflection by asking some classic wondering questions such as:
• I wonder what you liked best about this activity?
  I wonder what you think was the most important part of what we did?
  I wonder which aspect of what we were just doing was especially for you at the moment?
  
• If your story time has stimulated their imaginations, then any reflection needs to help them sit with that story for a while. So say, for example:
• Imagine meeting someone in that story. What question would you ask them?
  I wonder what questions they might ask you?
  I wonder what God thinks about this story?
  
• If you have been focusing on one particular issue or bit of teaching that has come through the programme, then invite the children to think carefully which part of today’s session they would like to hold on to and to remember. Then help them in their imagination to put that part in a safe place, say in a secret treasure box in a pocket, so it will always be there to help them throughout the day and beyond. With younger ones literally open and lock up an imaginary treasure box.
• If you've been singing a particular song, then give space for reflection as you play that song again (just listening to the music this time) and leave them with questions such as:
• What things come to mind when you hear this music?
  What feelings does the music bring out in you?
  I wonder what this music is saying to you today?
  

Now, it may be that your prayer time with your group is the place where you think that all this reflection could or does already happen, but beware! In my work with children in the past I know that too often such times of prayer can easily turn into a rushed moment at the end a session, with yet more words from me and certainly no silence in between them! In this area it is schools that have once again led the way. Guidelines for collective worship, for example, include the encouragement that there should be time for reflection on whatever has just been shared. As has already been suggested, such reflection can be facilitated by a picture or some music or just some open-ended questions to frame a moment to think. Of course in many ways it is to their advantage that schools can thereby neatly substitute the word reflection for prayer, which many find contentious; however, the principle of 'reflection' as being a place where we might discover something for ourselves stands good. As Christian workers with children we would want to go further, though, and also say that such reflection can allow God to speak. Our task then is to make this space between words for such Spirit-filled, Bible story-inspired reflection to happen.

Of course, all this is not to say that God can speak to us only in the empty places and quiet times of our lives. God’s words can reach us anywhere and anytime, not just through the still small voice, as he happened for Elijah (1 Kings 19:12) or in the night-time hours before the ark, as it did for young Samuel (1 Samuel 3:10-14). The praise, worship and experience of God as envisioned in Revelation, for example, is not in the place of remote retreat but in the very streets of the New Jerusalem. It is in the city that God's light shines. But even here the high praises of our God, as recorded in those awesome songs around the throne described by John, are balanced by a profound silence. John records that 'there was silence in heaven for half an hour' (Revelation 8:1). Many of us struggle to be silent before God for half a minute! However, children can be quiet for longer than you might imagine, so let us give them this precious space to hear God for themselves.

At my next holiday club there is going to be a specific room set aside for such prayer and refection. It will contain all sorts of items linked to the theme that might help the children make their own discoveries about God’s love and hear what God might be speaking into their lives. This will be quite literally ‘the space between the words’ during those busy mornings, and who knows what God might say? May this inspire you to find a similar balance of reflection and action in your work with the children you care about.

Are you looking to build quiet time and creative reflection into your life? Why not subscribe to Quiet Spaces ? Published three times a year, an annual subscription to this prayer and spirituality journal is a convenient and easy way to build Quiet Spaces into your year.

We also hold regular quiet days to help you recharge your spiritual batteries. Look on www.quietspaces.org.uk for information.

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