Celebrate!
For those in the Northern Hemisphere, March brings the start of spring. So it should come as no surprise that March brings holidays that celebrate re-birth, and that bring a certain degree of high spirits—and even silliness—along with them.
Click on the links below not only for information about these holidays and how you might celebrate them, but also for links to games, activities and more.
|
top^
|
We Honor… |
|
Since March is Women’s history month, we honor publisher and educator Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, a woman who certainly made her mark on history. Maybe Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was destined to be a remarkable person. She lived from 1804 to 1894, through a period of time that included the American Civil War and huge changes in the ways that people thought about everything from religion to civil rights for women and African-Americans. What’s more, her family and close friends were some of the most remarkable people of a remarkable time. Her sister Sophia married the great writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, and her sister Mary married the famous educator Horace Mann. Elizabeth, herself, was a good friend of all the great Transcendentalists who brought a whole new light to the Unitarian church, and to all of American philosophy. She, like the other Transcendentalists, believed that the way to religious understanding was not only through studying the Bible, but also through learning from other religions of the world, and through each person’s direct connection to God through their own soul.
Elizabeth’s father was a doctor and dentist, and her mother was a teacher. You can guess that there were plenty of books around their house, but their mother also felt that moral development couldn’t be separated out from intellectual learning. Elizabeth was remarkably smart, and learned quickly. By the age of 16 she’d learned everything her mother had to teach, and became a teacher in her mother’s school. She learned Greek from the great Unitarian minister and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, and soon learned so much that he had nothing more to teach her either.
Given how much Elizabeth Peabody loved learning, it isn’t surprising that she became a teacher, sometimes working with her sister Mary. She also worked with the great Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing, writing out his sermons and eventually publishing them. She opened schools in various towns, but had difficulty with making enough money to get by. For some years she taught with Bronson Alcott, another Transcendentalist, and someone who shared her views about bringing change to education. Unfortunately, Bronson was just a bit too far ahead of his time. In the book he and Elizabeth wrote together, Conversations with Children on the Gospels, he came a little bit too close to discussing the facts of life with the children, and parents rushed to pull their young ones out of their school for fear the children would find out how babies were made.
After that school closed Elizabeth went on to open a bookstore that not only sold books in various languages, but also was a gathering place for many of the great writers and thinkers of her time. She also published a magazine called The Dial that printed writings by these Transcendentalists. However, in 1859 she took on the most important educational work of her life. She went to Europe twice to study the ideas of the German educator Friedrich Froebel. Froebel believe that people are creative by nature, and the children learn best by having the chance to play and explore in an environment that gives them lots of opportunity to use their hands and sing and tell stories. Elizabeth Peabody brought back to the United States the idea of a kindergarten, a place where young children use their hands and their senses to discover the world, and where discipline is not based on force or fear. Her religious beliefs, that everyone can connect to God through their own soul, and that people naturally seek out freedom and justice and truth, were built into her ideas about how all children can learn. She started a kindergarten in 1861, and went all across the country promoting the idea of creating kindergartens where young children could learn by discovering in an atmosphere of freedom and love and creativity. Before long kindergartens had opened across the country, and I’m guessing that more than 100 years later, you probably went to kindergarten yourself. |
|
top^
|
Act!
The Jewish holiday of Purim celebrates the story of Esther, a Jewish woman who found a clever way to stand up for her people and save them from a cruel leader. Who do you consider to be “your people”? People of your ethnic background? People with your skin color? People your age? Unitarian Universalists? Do you feel like there are ways in which you and other people who share your age or gender or religion or color, etc. are not treated fairly? Esther planned a nice party, and got the King in a good mood before making her case about why the wicked advisor Haman should not be allowed to go forward with his plan to harm the Jews. Is there a way you could set up a situation where you could invite someone into a pleasant situation where you could talk about your concerns? Maybe if there’s a rule in your house that you feel is unfair to kids you might want to make your parents/guardians a snack and then sit down to talk about why you feel the rule is unfair. Maybe if you feel there’s a way your teacher or your coach treats boys differently than girls you could write a nice note to set up a time at recess or lunch to talk. Even your school principal, the superintendant of your school board, the minister of a local church, your town mayor or your state/provincial representative may be willing to sit down in person and hear what you have to say if you make the request in a polite and open manner.
|
|
top^
|
Nurturing Your Spirit
March 20th marks the equinox, the point in the year when the light and the dark are equal. In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the vernal equinox, the day that marks the beginning of spring. In some places flowers are in full bloom by the 20th of March and in some places signs of spring are barely beginning. (And, of course, in the Southern Hemisphere it’s autumn, not spring at all.) But one good way to welcome spring, and to bring a little springy growing energy into your soul, is to go on “sprout patrol.” Sprout patrol involves going for a walk in your neighborhood and looking for all the signs of spring. Even if there’s snow on the ground you may see the twigs of trees turning red or buds swelling on the branches. You may see or hear birds that have returned from their winter migration, or you may notice that there is more light than there was at this time a month or two ago. Take a good whiff of the air. You may smell flowers in bloom, or maybe just that damp, earthy smell that comes with a thaw. Welcome each sign of spring, and offer your blessing to each little sign of growth and new beginnings.
|
|
top^
|
Principles in Practice
Our third UU principle talks about “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.” Elizabeth Palmer Peabody thought that spiritual growth happened along with mental growth, and that it was important even for very young children to have a place—kindergarten—that encouraged their spiritual and intellectual growth. She believed that children grow through stories and singing, through exploring the world around them and creating things from their imaginations. How do you think you grow spiritually? What things help your soul to grow and what things make it feel like it’s shrinking? How can you tell if your soul is growing, anyway? What qualities in a person would make you feel like they had really grown their soul?
|
|
top^
|
| top^ |
|
