11/26 - Week 11

Pictures: “Think Tank - Banksy 2003” 

“The Annunciation - Henry Ossawa Tanner 1898”

Passage: 2 Samuel 11-12

We reached level two today, though I can take little credit. It turns out Conrad makes art with his dad and could recognize that we were looking at a Banksy painting. We had all guys today: Obi, Donnie, Charlie, Fern and Conrad. There was trouble focusing in general but this had more to do with comfort and familiarity than anything. 

Like last time he was here, Conrad gave. Consistent stream of non-serious answers. Unlike his peers, these answers often had literally nothing to do with what we were looking at. His first answer to what’s going on was “he pulls more girls than me” (this was one of his more relevant comments). I asked him a few different versions of “what makes you say that?” before he explained that it was a man and a woman on a date. Before I could get him to explain what made him think they were on a date, the topic had shifted to the “black juice” they were drinking. Conrad also googled the piece on his phone (something no one had yet attempted). He showed me that there was a sequel piece in which the two divers got married. There was a debate about the nature of the diving helmets, a question of if the man was wearing a full diving suit, and interest in the fact that the lady had a ponytail coming out of her helmet. Still, the most interesting part of the conversation occurred when I prompted Conrad to explain how he recognized that this was Banksi (something he had said when he first saw the painting but hadn’t brought up again. This was one of the few times he gave a serious response. Conrad explained that Banksy is a street artist, that he usually uses black and white pictures with a little bit of color, that they’re usually humorous. He referenced the “Girl with Balloon” and “Panda with Guns.” I mentioned the fact that we don’t know who he really is. 

Talking about the artist prompted a question from Charlie about his skill with spray paint. The image we were looking at contained prominent drips. Banksy, a master, could have been more careful and avoided drips like that, he must have chosen to have it look drippy. This was not articulated so well at first and Conrad was quickly defensive of Banksi and spray paint - “it naturally drips like that!” Charlie clarified and we saw a bit of a back and forth as the two boys discussed the nature of the paint. Could a careful artist avoid drips or not? Obi suggested that the drips gave it a sense of authenticity. 

I then asked a more direct question again. “Conrad, Banksy is usually trying to say something with his wok, right? What do you guys think he might be trying to say here?” I forget who said it, but someone suggested that “true beauty is on the inside.” These divers couldn’t see each other’s faces. I asked if anyone else had any other ideas? Nobody did.

Our second discussion began with Christopher telling us that the girl in the picture was alone because she was ugly. I decided to ignore this comment and let someone else start the conversation. Charlie identified the figure as a woman sitting in bed. Donnie as a joke said he shouldn’t assume she’s a woman. “Ok,” I said, “what makes you say that that’s a woman?” “Facial structure,” answered Charlie, “her clothes seem to fit in a way that seems like a woman.” It then occurred to him that she could be a girl, not a woman. He couldn’t see how tall she was beneath the covers of the bed. “Look, you can see how tall she is,” said Obi, “there are her toes.” Sure enough, there were toes sticking out from the covers. “I bet she’s single!” declared Conrad. “What makes you say that?” “Because,” he said, “She uses they/them pronouns.” “Makes you say that?” I asked. Nothing, he just said it.

Obi also noted that, between the woven afghan rug and the cobblestone floor, this picture probably was not a modern one. “Or it’s in the Middle East,” suggested Charlie. He cited the plaster walls, an earthenware pitcher, and the floor and rug again to justify this. The he stood up and gesturing to it said, “is anyone going to acknowledge this random beam of light here? - Wait a minute?!” He had made the connection to Mary. He seemed for a minute to be want to sit on this discovery (his old pattern of not revealing what was obvious to him in order to let others discover), but then explained what he had noticed. The girl alone at home was Mary and the angel appearing to her was represented by the vertical beam of light. This did not seem to shut down the conversation but the conversation did not move towards interpreting the story either. 

“California” said Conrad, “It could be California.” “What makes you say it could be California?” “Nothing.” “Something in the piece made you think California.” “It just made me think of California.” “Something about it made you think of California, what made you think of California.” “Nothing, I just thought of California.” “But something in the piece caused that, what in the piece feels like Florida.” “No, I was thinking about California so I said that about the painting.” I think that Conrad is deeply uncomfortable when he is not in control. Humor, and especially disruptive humor, is a means of regaining control of the conversation. 

“What’s that thing behind her?” asked Obi. “What does it look like?” I asked. “It looks like a flag.” “She’s French,” said Conrad, “There’s red, white, and blue. Or American.” “Or Chinese,” suggested Obi, “Red and yellow.” I think this is the first time any of the kids have tried to draw any non-literal meaning from color choice. “Ok,” I said, “You just pointed out red, blue, yellow. How are those colors related” “Primary colors?” suggested Obi. I had guided the conversation and now it could go nowhere unless one of the kids could draw some significance from the idea of primary colors. Apparently not. 

I decided to ask a more open question and try to guide us into underlying meaning wile leaving the ball in the kids’ court. “Assuming this is a picture of Mary, what is the artist trying to tell us about this story?” Nothing. Perhaps if I had said “Mary” and not “the story,” perhaps I should have let it unfold naturally and not meddled. Who knows?

Switching gears to talk about the Bible story went smoothly. There was no recording for 2 Samuel so I read it aloud. In the future, I think I might stick to reading it and not play recordings. It allows it to feel more connected to the thoughts and reactions they are having in real time. The words from the last three weeks were up on the board and as we read the story they watched for connections. Sure enough: wife, king, kill, die, stole, and s. relations all came up. Halfway through the story both Conrad and Donnie went to the bathroom. When they got back I asked Obi to summarize - he couldn’t. Lately I’ve been feeling a lack of retention when it comes to the stories and readings. I don’t know how to make it better (perhaps having the kids read?). The story was David and Bathsheba and when Conrad revealed that he hadn’t been listening, Charlie responded “Really, I thought you would really like this story.” “Why?” asked Conrad. “Are you kidding? It’s about an affair and a murder coverup?!” I summarized the story for everyone emphasizing the candle and drama of it all. This is the second week in a row I’ve summarized and it seems like a worthwhile part of the process. We discussed a few new words: looked out and war. We spent a good amount of time considering the fact that the spring was the time of year when the kings go to war. It was a yearly thing. Conrad kept asking questions about Vietnam and other American wars. 

In the end, the conversation seemed to lack direction and when Charlie discovered that Veggietales had adapted the story, we decided to watch that instead of playing a game. I’m feeling less confident in Biblical meditation as a means of teaching a student-led Sunday school class than ever. The words that seem to stand out are the scandalous ones. If my hope is that the kids will discern for themselves what the Bible’s all about, then these violent concepts may leave a false impression that these are the main thrust of the Bible.

11/19 - Week 10

Pictures: “The Door - Helene Schjerfbeck 1884” 

“The Green Christ - Paul Gauguin 1889”

Passage: Genesis 20

We had a relative crowd today and I was not prepared. Maggie finally came to Sunday school after months of encouragement. Kaitlyn was there again, and so was Nick. Charlie, Obi, and Donnie (the three most consistent attendees), were also present, giving us a grand total of six students. With a larger group I realized the usual mode of calling out to speak was less effective. Kailyn would say something, Donnie would comment on it, Obi would say something unrelated and I would be at a loss as to how best to summarize and give credit where credit was due. Donnie and Nick fed off of each other while Maggie said nothing the entire time (reminding me of Fern in that way). 

Our first discussion lingered in the descriptive realm. Kaitlyn noted “two doors.” Unsure how to justify that they were indeed doors, Donnie refined her claim to “doorways.” Charlie noted the brick floor, which he identified as such because of the one area where a pattern was visible on the floor and because of its reddish brown color. Donnie pointed out a date and signature on the piece: HS 1884. Someone else noted the white walls and another saw a greenish “growth” also on the walls. Obi drew attention to what he called a “pillar” which in turn led to a discussion of whether the scene is inside or outside. Obi noted that no ceiling was visible while there seemed to be light coming from “inside.” This comment changed how Charlie saw the scene as he now perceived a black cloth hanging in the doorway. He would have previously identified it as a darkened interior. Kaitlyn implied that this is how she saw it all along. Donny finally found his chance to say something he’d been waiting on from the beginning - that it was a truck. “A truck?!?” Charlie was not having it, “you were the one who said it’s from 1884!” “Then it’s a time-traveling truck!” I unhelpfully added, “it’s not a truck, at the very least it’s a painting of a truck.” “How come it’s on a TV screen if it’s from the 1800s?” asked Donnie facetiously. The light under the door was, to Donny, tail lights under the large rear end of a semi truck. “Oh, a semi-truck!” said Kaitlyn, finally understanding what he was talking about, “I thought you meant a real truck.” This then led to a discussion of trucks and if semis were more or less a truck than a pickup. 

I interrupted to refocus and broke from the script a little. I’ve been trying to think of how best to encourage the students to go beyond an accountive view of the work. “Is there anything the artist might have been thinking about when working on this painting?” This question was open ended with no correct answer in mind but Charlie jumped up as if he understood me perfectly and had solved my question. “There’s blood on the doorway!” He had connected the scene to Exodus, when the Hebrews put blood on their doorposts to protect against the angel of death. He excitedly expressed this but seemed unable, in his excitement, to explain cohesively. My summary helped, but I then clarified that I had not even noticed the red on the door but what a great detail if he was right. 

The second discussion featured the most abstract piece we’ve looked at so far and they did not seem to be ready for it. The work was one of Gaunguin’s more fauvist paintings in which a woman’s face is colored green (along with the statue she is hiding behind). Before we had even begun our discussion comments were being made about Shrek and She-hulk. Indeed, accounting for the green face seemed to be such a distraction that we barely got to connect the more traditional aspects of the scene. Admittedly, this was not the only distraction, there was a silly bent in general. The first comment that was not about Shrek and Fionna was Obi claiming she had poop on her head. Nick asked if she was holding a dog. I felt too overwhelmed by all these thoughts to summarize effectively. Donny called the statue the Statue of Liberty. Right about then, something clicked for Charlie again as he realized the sculpture in the scene was a statue of Jesus below a cross. Nick noted that the statue included a tree (what Charlie has called a cross), which he justified by the knots and bumps on the trunk. 

Obi claimed it all took place in Bikini Bottom, as he noted an island on the sea. Nick noted a boat. Donnie tried to claim the man in the distance was a zombie. I tried to not get frustrated with everyone. As usual, I made an effort to take joke answers seriously, but today they were coming too fast. In the end, I circled back around: “I heard someone ask, why is she green? What do you guys think?” Kaitlyn suggested camouflage. No one else had any alternative ideas. Of course, nobody thought to wonder about the painter who chose green.

The Bible discussion was also a mess but it came together nicely and gave me an important missing insight about my BMS idea. Specifically, that without context, connections are meaningless. I can point to matching words and themes, but unless the stories mean something on their own, it doesn’t change much. Today, it seemed that they were simply not listening to the reading. It didn’t help that the story included an accepted marriage between a brother and (half)sister. When I asked if anyone could summarize the story in one or two sentences, Obi answered: “A guy married his sister.” One detail, not the point. The story was about Abraham lying to a king, claiming his wife Sarah was merely his sister. The king takes Sarah to his palace but before he can sleep with her, God warns him in a dream not to commit such a horrible sin. The king returns Sarah to Abraham and rebukes Abraham for causing him to almost sin. 

In the end, I gave a quick summary. Too quick. Charlie noted the word “Die” as God threatened a Pagan king with death should he commit adultery. Obi noted the word “Silver” which the king gave as an offering to Abraham. For the most part, the conversation stalled. I asked one of my questions “what other connections can we make?” For the first time, we looked back at the words on the board from other weeks. “Wife!” noted Charlie. Both stories included wives. The connection was hard to make though, especially since most of the group was not there for our Cain and Abel discussion. Everyone was talking to each other about side topics and I found myself unable to get a word in and getting more and more frustrated. I gave up trying to get their input and settled for just saying something, some simple takeaway. Anything. Not a chance.

“Hey guys,” I asked, interrupting the conversation with more sternness than I usually show, “why do we study the Bible?” Finally, the right question. Nick: “Because it’s Sunday school after church on a Sunday.” Obi: “Because it’s important to understand… the origin of things… where these stories come from.” I liked this answer. “This is a short little story isn’t it,” I began, “and it doesn’t seem to matter very much. But it’s pretty significant.” I then went on to explain how Abraham had been given a promise from God that he and Sarah would have a son that would become a great nation. By giving Sarah to the king, Abraham was not trusting God to fulfill the promise and keep him safe. It was God who took steps to protect the promise by delivering Sarah. I mentioned that she is more of a chosen one than Abraham. Abe had other sons by other wives, but Sarah was the one God chose to be the mother of His chosen people. I then stood up and highlighted the words from previous weeks and how they connected. 

It’s hard to figure out the best path forward. I felt more aware of my methods deficiencies than I have in a while - especially when scaling it up. When Advent (the season leading up to Christmas starts I hope to try a new idea. What happens if every picture we look at is of the same scene? What if we look at Nativity scenes from various cultures and time periods. The what’s going on will have to focus on what is being communicated by artistic choices - right? Or will they just get bored because these details will go unappreciated?

For the Bible discussions, I think the summary needs to be included more prominently in the method. Understanding the story needs to be central to the lesson. That said, I’m wondering if collecting words should be the first step. I would have everyone list the word that stood out to them. I would write these down. Then, we would summarize the story and as we do try to connect as many “hyperlinks” as possible from previous weeks. The idea would be to let the kids direct the discussion through the words they note, but lead it myself as a guide through these stories and how these words and ideas actually connect. If this is modeled enough, we might see more and more of these connections be suggested by the kids themselves.

11/12 - Week 9

I worked long and hard this week on a website version of this project, explaining my system for Sunday school and reporting my experience. I began to think concretely about my great Sunday school program and how others could potentially use it.

How humbling, then, that nobody came to class this week. It was “mission muffins” and despite there being multiple teens, none wanted to stick around. I think this was good for me. It brought front and center the fact that as much as I plan, I can’t even control whether or not I even have students. God has the power to guide hearts and I can only be willing to try my best to accept the charges He gives me.

11/5 - Week 8

Pictures: “Ladder of Divine Ascent - Orthodox Icon 1150” 

“The Return of the Prodigal Son - Rembrandt 1669”

Passage: Genesis 27

The most interesting aspect of this week’s lesson was not what we talked about but who was there. Kaitlyn was in the service today but as usual she did not seem inclined to attend Sunday school. After the service I asked her directly if she would join us, reminding her that we had a new format which she might enjoy more than last year. This didn’t seem to be doing it for her. When I got down to the classroom however, Obi and Charlie asked about Kaitlyn and expressed a hope that she would come down. “Ok,” I said, “go get her. Go together so it won’t be awkward.” They sped off to find her while Fern and I waited. They returned and said that she had found work to do but would be down when she finished. With that we began our VTS discussion. After our first round, however, I asked if we should try again. I ended up going to find her while the boys looked at the second painting. I found her sitting at a table with her mother. She told me she would be coming in “a second” so I waited for her (it was not a literal second), and brought her to class where she was welcomed cheerfully. Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy the class and I think being desired and sought out by us was encouraging for her.

The first piece was analyzed by Obi and Charlie who quickly identified holy people climbing a ladder (they justified this by examining their postures and the movement implied by their feet stepping forwards). They also identified the other figures as demons. “What makes you say demons?” I asked. “Because they're black,” said Charlie instantly adding “just kidding” and then explaining the presence of horns, their stylized inhuman shape, their weapons, and the like. We did not discuss the joke but there was a lot of truth in the comment and it would have been worth discussing in more detail if there weren't so many other things to look at. The fact that these creatures were literally black and did not seem to be referencing Africans leaves depictions like these up for debate. Was this art racially motivated? Was Charlie’s comment? I’ve heard arguments about the devil as “the Black Man” go both ways - it was not a discussion we had today. Obi did, however, comment that the holy men in the corner had afros (we had to stop and figure out if he meant their hair or their halos by this).

Charlie noted the humans below the ladder and fell into his old habit of gestures and dialogue. “They’re going - bruh,” he said, while directing his hands outward while keeping his elbows tucked in. “They’re showing resentment? Disbelief? Frustration?” None of my summaries got to the heart of what he meant by “bruh” and I knew it. 

They noted the man at the top of the ladder who appeared to be welcoming the holy men and looked like Jesus “because he’s got the white clothes with the colored sash, and his face looks like how people think of him.” They also explored the fancy clothes of the first two men near the top of the ladder. Then Obi noted something really neat I had not noticed in my countless times seeing this painting. At the bottom of the picture was a bluish human face that seemed to be eating one of the humans whole. It was unmistakable, with an eye and nose (Charlie compared it to Bob from Monsters vs Aliens, a blue blob with one eye who swallows people whole). We then discussed the way the demons were pulling people off the ladder. This led to a story which the boys came up with that ended up being pretty spot on. The holy men were climbing the ladder and the demons were shooting arrows at them and pulling them off. The creature below would eat them and the men below (who said bruh), were within this creature, under the water. Again, it was interesting to note that they had pretty fully interpreted the literal events depicted in the piece. Never once did they ponder any metaphorical interpretation of the scene. What did the ladder represent, the face, the stomach. The discussion ended with a look at either a wizard’s hat or a bird that was above the people below. 

Kaitlyn jumped right in and made observations about the second picture along with Obi and Charlie. It felt, however, like something had changed in the style of observations that were being made. Charlie began with “I see… six people.” Six?! “Yeah, in the background there are two lurky people in the shadows. There’s a man with a shoe missing. There’s a man with a walking stick, maybe he’s old and decrepit and needs it…” These thoughts were all made in rapid fire succession and it made summarizing or asking about them hard. “Charlie’s noticing six figures, one has a walking stick and maybe needs it to walk. What makes them seem lurky?” “The way they’re both leaning.” Their observations occurred while I had gone to get Kaitlyn so I suppose he must have accumulated several observations to share. Obi suggested that they were “in a place” because the floor was not grassy or dirt. He also noted a pillar behind them. I find it interesting the way they have begun to anticipate my second question and include justification in their initial answer. 

Kaitlyn said that the man in the middle was wearing a pirate hat. I asked what made her think: pirate hat. “Because it’s a pirate hat!” answered Kaitlyn definitely. “What about it let’s you know it’s a pirate hat?” “Because it’s fancy and has three points.” 

They all participated in poolining observations about the figure in the foreground, that he was poor - missing shoes, bald, ragged clothes, etc. I summarized this and said he seemed poor to which Kaitlyn interjected “don’t judge a book by its cover.” The statement took me aback because her point, that we shouldn’t assume someone is poor just by looking at them, is not completely off base. Finally I asked, “Is there anything about this person that makes it seem like he might not be poor?” Kaitlyn shrugged, “No.” “Maybe he’s picking the old guy’s pocket?” quipped Obi. “Ok,” I said, “then at the very least, we can say that the artist wants us to think that this man is poor.” Charlie then noted that two of the men were wearing red cloaks that seemed to connect them somehow. Then the conversation seemed to lull. 

Then, for the first time in a long time I broke away from pure VTS to prod the conversation onwards. “What’s going on in the picture? Can you connect what you’re observing to explain what the story’s about?” Charlie took up the challenge and I wished I had kept my mouth shut - it was too much. His story: The poor man had stolen from the rich man but was caught. The rich men were gathered together to discuss how to punish the poor man but he confessed and the man on the left forgave him. But it was a trick, the pirate man and the lurky people were planning to kill him. This is a bad summary, but this was the gist and it hinged on a lot that Charlie had not gotten from observation - which he admitted. “What makes you think that they’re going to kill the poor man?” “Nothing, I just said that.” I decided to focus in on this idea of forgiveness, mostly because the Prodigal Son story which the painting depicts centers on this.

“What makes you say that he’s showing the poor guy forgiveness?” I asked. Charlie answered with a gesture imitating the man in the painting, “Because he’s going like this.” I tried to coax him into using more words before finally explaining, “I have to summarize this later, can you try to use your words?” His response was better but didn’t add much that the gesticulation hadn’t expressed, “He’s kinda hugging the guy and his face seems kind…” Here the conversation petered out after Obi and Kaitlyn took one final look at the man’s missing shoe and suggested that there might be a hidden Nike logo on the sandal. There were far fewer jokes today. 

Our BMS discussion did not go as well as I had hoped after getting so excited about it and explaining it to everyone on Tuesday. I think it still has potential but when the kids know they are looking for a single word it keeps us from looking at the big picture (the inverse of how looking at the big picture omits little details). After reading about Jacob and Esau the kids noted “trembled uncontrollably” “blessing” and “kill.” Each of these could have been discussed but everyone was eager to share their word and I chose to note each one and then go back to talk about them. I think this was a mistake. Obi stated that the blessing in the story seemed “unbelievable.” He seemed to be noting the authority with which Isaac, the patriarch, blessed his sons. Why should it matter what he says will happen? Can he really control their futures? Most of these questions were implied. Charlie wanted to focus on “uncontrollably,” but I struggled to see much significance to this apart from the trembling. Kaitlyn was shocked that Esau wanted to kill his brother. Other words that were noted were: into the wilderness, and stole. At this point I realized that I needed to explain my intentions rather than expecting them to reveal themselves. I explained that the Bible connects to itself and asked where each of these words connected to stories we had already looked at. The obvious one was last week’s story of Cain and Abel, in which another jealous brother murders the other. We also discussed the Fall in which Adam and Eve are sent “into the wilderness” because they “stole” a “blessing.”

My favorite connection was Charlie’s. I asked him to address Obi’s question. Why did Isaac have the authority to give a blessing? He recalled Abraham who was given a blessing by God and suggested that Abraham passed this blessing onto Isaac. Isaac was then able to give it to his son. I affirmed this and then pondered aloud the fact that God chose Abraham. Then, God chose Isaac in spite of Abraham desiring the blessing to go to Ishmael. Here, Jacob got the blessing that Isaac wanted to give to Esau. There seems to be a consistent pattern in the father’s not getting to choose where their blessing goes. 

Still, the conversation was not very vibrant. Everybody seemed unsure of what they were supposed to be saying. I think I was making it clear that I was looking for a specific type of answer and was not quite finding it. I decided to explain a little more about the “hyperlinked Bible” and prep them for where I wanted to take this in upcoming weeks. I realized that unlike VTS, kids doing BMS would need to be in on the practice to get the most out of it. I shared with them the rainbow hyperlink chart. We examined it and interpreted what the different pieces of it represented. The cooler part was when Kaitlyn mentioned Christians in Africa and I said “Did you know most Christians live in Africa?” This was great because it led to a bonus round of VTS and one of the most rewarding.

I pulled out the population of Christian’s chart (which I referenced for my research) and we just looked at it. Details I hadn’t noticed jumped out as everyone took turns making observations. The fact that almost every country in Oceania except Australia was in the darkest group (highest number of Christians). Mexico was also dark, along with most of South America. Even Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia were blue (and therefore had some Christians). Heck, even North Korea was light blue (with something like 1% of the population being Christian). We discussed the fact that Christianity is no longer a “white-man’s religion” but pondered the link between colonialism and Christianity. “Yeah, but it isn’t forced on anyone anymore, it’s there own,” noted Charlie. Poland was dark too, darker than most of the rest of Europe. We talked about the role persecution has on growing the church. I shared what I knew about Christianity in China. The fastest growing church in Christianity’s history, now slowing because the government has made their own sanctioned version and is no longer openly persecuting. More than anything, this conversation made me feel that the VTS has been worthwhile. They were empowered to look at an image and interpret it, sharing their observations and making inferences.

10/29 - Week 7

Pictures: “Cain - Lovis Corinth 1917” 

“Martyr on a circus ring - Fyodor Bronnikov 1869”

Passage: Genesis 4

Today we only had Charlie, Obi, and Fern. Fern remained silent but seemed closer to talking than I’ve ever seen him here. Throughout the discussion there were moments when he was physically acting along with various statements made by Charlie. Throughout the time I was sure to ask him specifically, “Fern, do you notice anything.” Each time he shrugged and said nothing. I had hoped today might be the day he spoke. He speaks at Boy-Scouts with Obi there and others who would overreact to sudden talking were absent today. His mother has suggested asking questions he can’t answer yes or no to. During the BTS section I asked him specifically what word stood out to him. Nothing. Finally, at the end we played an improv game in which we needed a suggestion for a single piece of food (Obi had left the room for the game). “Alright, Fern,” I said, “this is it. I need you to give me a kind of food.” Nothing. I watched him carefully and controlled my tone carefully. My goal was to force him to utter a single word but make it clear that I loved him and respected him either way. It occurred to me that I had to be willing to back down if he was persistent but I took him all the way up to the edge. After we spent the better half of a minute waiting for an answer, Charlie suggested “Kool Aid.” Fern had a Kool Aid shirt on. I told him, “No, I want to hear what Fern has to say.” Nothing. At last I said, “Alright, if you are choosing not to speak then you may point to a food in this room.” He quickly gestured to a bag of chips in our snack bin and that was the end of it. It is so strange to me that he doesn’t speak with us. I don’t understand it and I really don’t want to handle this incorrectly. Today, when he and his mom arrived I heard him talking to her. He didn’t know I was there but as soon as he saw me he stopped talking. He talks to teachers at school, friends at Boy-Scouts, why he does not feel comfortable speaking at church is unexplained and I will likely never know the answer.

Because of Fern’s silence, today’s conversation consisted of just the two highschool students and felt more direct than sometimes. Not always fully serious, but direct. Obi began with the claim: “velociraptors.” As usual, I humored the joke and asked what made him think of velociraptors. He indicated that the large flying creatures were ambiguous enough, they could very well be dinosaurs. I listened, hesitated, then said: “you keep saying velociraptors, I wonder if you might be thinking of pterodactyls?” I couldn’t resist; velociraptors don’t have wings. They all laughed. “I didn’t even notice when he said it,” chuckled Charlie. 

Charlie then explored the action of the scene. “There’s a person on the right who seems to be holding a stone, and the person on the left seems to be buried in stones, it’s almost like the man forcibly put the stones on him to end his life.” Charlie may have been imitating the way I talk when I summarize; he’s learning. I asked him why he thought it was a rock in the man’s hand. While he was explaining how it looked like a rock, Obi suddenly exclaimed “I think there’s a person under all those rocks! Look, those are arms and a leg.” Charlie seemed a tad indignant to be interrupted with this detail he had evidently seen from the start (presumably, Obi was too busy attending to the velociraptors). I summarized Charlie's idea about the rocks being “forcibly placed” on the man but said it clearly: “Maybe he piled the rocks on him.” At this, both Charlie and Obi seemed to realize that the man with the stone could conceivably be taking rocks off of someone who had perished in an accident or avalanche. They said so and we entertained this thought for a moment before the flying creatures were brought up again. Were they crows? “Their beaks are too long to be crows,” stated Obi. “No,” said Charlie firmly, “I reject that! Their beaks are fine. If you had said their wings were too big I would agree but especially because it’s so messy…” This led to our first discussion about the technique of a painting we’ve had so far (to be fair this is probably the most abstract painting we’ve looked at - I must begin to include more abstract work to see how their reactions change.). Their estimation seemed closer to “bad on purpose” than “abstract art.” But when I asked them what made it seem sloppy, Charlie was distracted by the fact that he suddenly noticed more birds in the background and we never got back to the question of technique. 

One other observation hinged on the impressionistic style. Obi said, “He doesn’t have a torso.” This was his way of addressing the feathered brushwork that left his back blurry with no clear form. They went on to suggest that maybe he was being sucked into a black hole or that the velociraptors had stolen it. By the end, the boys were interpreting every brushstroke. “That shape is either a messy splatter or a dead mouse hanging off his sleeve,” and “There’s a statue in the background!” To me, both seemed to obviously be the loose brushwork of a more impressionist style with no significance to the piece. Interestingly, this links back to the stages of aesthetic development - the early tendency to find shapes and meaning in abstract forms rather than consider the artist's intent or any emotional significance.    

The second discussion also began with a joke, as Obi called the animal in the picture a “tigger.” This one was a little harder to humor and we moved on without discussing it much. Charlie’s first comment was that there was blood on the ground, “or grape juice, I can’t tell which.” It makes me wonder, it seems they almost always begin with a joke. Is this means of breaking the ice a precaution to avoid giving a wrong answer? Whoever goes first, after all, could be expected to hone in on the most important thing. What if you highlight something you think is important and it isn’t? Highlighting your funniest thought first avoids this potential judgment. When I asked Charlie why he thought blood or grape juice the focus was on the red liquid staining the ground. Still, he maintained that it could be grape juice and following this dilemma led to a delightful imagining of two possible scenes. Either (a) a man has been mauled by the tiger, dragged about, and is now lying over there dead, or (b) a man fell into a vat of wine, passed out drunk, but was rescued and dragged over to where he now lies while they wait for him to revive. Either way a man is lying over there and either way he has left a trail of red liquid staining the ground on the way over.

The next focus was one of the most interesting VTS moments I’ve had so far. Thus far, none of the pieces I’ve shown have had any reason to affirm gender ambiguity. With paintings all made before the 1950s (all but one, another indication that I need more modern art), and as we are within a conservative church environment, I have not called into question assumptions of gender (though I have used the VTS language of “figure” as often as I can). If we see a male figure why ask the kids to explain why they think it’s a man? Here, however, we had a figure that was truly androgynous, it could go either way. When talking about it, Charlie addressed this “it could be a man or a woman.” I asked what about the figure seemed male and what seemed female. They noted the bare feet, the white “dress” and the long hair. “Female traits?” I probed. Indeed. “What makes it seem male?” This was harder. The angle of their face, the size of their nose. I clarified, “angle of the face” was evidently Charlie’s way of saying jawline. They also noted that their hands (and arms) were big compared to the feet. Most importantly, they noted the scale. If this was a woman it was a giant woman. If the tiger was a full sized tiger, they were simply giant in general. Assuming it was a small tiger,  the person was the size of a tall man, but too big to be a normal woman. In the end, Charlie seems to decide on male for the figure as he called it “he” later. 

Another interesting turn of this conversation was another comment that referred to the work of the artist. Again, for the first time that I can remember, they referred to something done by the artist from a fully painterly perspective and did not try to assimilate it into the story of the painting. Obi had pointed out the “Colosseum crowd” and drawn everyone’s attention to the background. During this exploration, Obi pointed out that there was a transparent piece of wall, a place where the lines of the wall continue over the gap of the gate. “It almost looks like they painted the wall and then painted the gate over it and you can still see the original.” I decided to highlight Obi’s unique observation. “So, you’re explaining this detail not in terms of the story but in terms of the artist. You think he painted the wall at first and then covered it up later?” 

After we had examined it, Charlie asked for the piece’s title so I told them.

Our Bible discussion consisted of my new and improved BTS method and it seemed to go well (though not without a hitch and not so well as it would have with a larger group). My new strategy is to ask “what word stood out to you?” followed by “what does that make you think of in this context?” and then “what other connections can we find?” Our passage was the story of Cain and Abel (the world’s first murder). As we listened, Charlie was engaged and already asking important questions. Cain is worried people will want to kill him because he’s a murderer - “who, your parents?” Cain seems to have a wife out of nowhere - “where did that wife come from? Maybe there were other people who were affected by the fall and…” I told him to wait until the reading was done, this seemed to let the oxygen out of his tank a bit. Indeed, these kinds of questions did not lend themselves to my BTS questions and I really wanted to try my new method. 

The word that stood out to Obi was “the word that came before relations,” - sexual. In true VTS fashion, I went with it. “What does it make you think of…” It was at this exact moment I decided to include the phrase “in this context” in the question. He had little to say beyond noting that Adam and Eve had sex but I pushed a little farther. “What do we know about how Adam and Eve were created?” They were made from dust by God. “So it’s pretty significant that God didn’t just keep making humans from the dust, they’re making them the way normal people do.” Charlie made a joke about velociraptors dropping the baby off on their doorstep.

Charlie noted Cain’s wife, who seems to come from nowhere, as well as the fact that Lamech had two wives. He did not quite stick to a single word, but I wish I had remembered to ask “what does wife make you think of in this context?” Instead, I charged ahead and pointed out that God had given Adam a wife as a helper because it wasn’t good for man to be alone. Now, Lamech was presuming to take two of what God had only given once. During the reading, Charlie had also commented on Lamech’s presumption that God would avenge him 77 times if he was murdered. I mentioned that this is another instance of Lamech being presumptuous. 

When Fern didn’t have an answer the conversation began to dwindle. Obi mentioned cultivated and again I jumped in. “What did God command Adam and Eve to do in the garden?” Not eat the fruit. “He made them to be fruitful and multiply (they did that) and to care for the animals. Abel was a shepherd, he did that. But why did the ground need cultivating?” Because they were kicked out of the garden. “Exactly, isn’t it interesting that the one who chose to sin was the one whose job was a result of sin?”

I asked Charlie to give us one more word. He seemed really tired, bored of the conversation, and done participating. He grumply noted the phrase “son of” which was repeated in the listed genealogies. This was a great word but I rebuked him for having such a bad attitude all of a sudden. Looking back, I wish I had encouraged his questions a little more. They were great points and we did talk about them, just not before he got so burnt out. In the end the conversation petered out and ended feeling very unsatisfactory. It was, however, an inspiring start to BTS because it seemed to fix a problem I’ve been facing - namely, a lack of specificity in the summaries given by the students.

If I could start again (and it isn’t too late since I plan to keep going even once this research project is done), I would work through Genesis in order. Each week, I would make a list of the words student’s noticed on the whiteboard and each subsequent week I would ask if they noticed any connections to the past week’s words. Today they noticed cultivate. Looking for that, how might they respond differently to Noah’s vineyard four chapters later? After Genesis, we could then pick one or two key themes and jump around to other texts related to them for subsequent lessons. The Bible is, after all, “the world’s first hyperlinked document.”

It’s worth noting that this week gave me the clearest recollection I’ve had in weeks and it occurred when I made a specific comment about choosing not to record the lesson.

10/22 - Week 6

Pictures: “Dissonance - Franz Stuck 1910” 

“Noah’s Ark - Andrei Ryabushkin 1882”

Passage: 1 Samuel 14

Today was different for two reasons. For one thing, I was finally able to record the session. Second, I felt that the kids showed a greater engagement with the VTS than I have yet seen. The observations seemed to be fueled by a desire to uncover everything in the work (it felt like the VTS session in art school where I learned the practice). The ironic result of having a recording is that my brain has released the conversation details and my summary will necessitate either generalizations about our time or intentional reference to the recording. I now have a bike and have promptly forgotten how to run. 

That said, I would like to do my best to recall the conversation unaided for the sake of uniformity with the rest of my notes and as a means of processing deeply what we talked about. I told the kids clearly that I would be recording the audio and using it when writing a paper about the effects of looking at art in Sunday School. It is likely that this knowledge affected their participation. Regardless, I was excited to see that for the first time, when I gave them time to look at the art, they really did. Other weeks I have cut the time short based on the fact that no one was looking any longer, today it was because we had truly spent enough time.

Charlie quickly identified the figure in the first piece as a satyr. Still, he did not articulate this well and it was Donny who first gave us a cohesive insight “he looks like he’s in pain and his legs are weird.” When asked why he thought he was in pain he had little more to say than “his expression.” Charlie elaborated by pointing out his clenched jaw. He also pointed out his muscular arms and I asked if this was connected to the idea of pain or a separate observation. In the end, the idea was that his arms on his head were connected to pain. I then asked Charlie to elaborate on what he said earlier, “You said it was a… what did you call it?” “A satyr” “What makes you think it’s a satyr?” “He has goat legs and horns. Like in Narnia….and other mythologies.” 

They next focused on the child. “There’s a baby playing the flute.” After spending time thinking about how his lips implied that he was blowing into the instrument, Charlie suggested that the satyr was covering his ears because he was playing badly.

Here, Obi brought up the surface they were sitting on. He explained that it looked like rock and this rock seemed to be sitting on an additional surface, either grass or maybe water. This explanation was thorough and anticipated the question “why do you say that?” answering it as he went. Donny interjected: “maybe they’re stranded in the ocean.”

About this time Charlie noticed that the child had horns, “He’s a demon child!” Why do you say that? “He has horns and he's a redhead.” Donny jumped on this and began making soulless ginger jokes. In a lighthearted tone I tried to ask them to be respectful but Charlie and Donny kept going, insisting that gingers do not, in fact, have souls. Here I paused the conversation and brought up the bullying redheads face in the UK and Ireland, and making it clear that it was not a harmless way to joke. Donny revealed that redheads are sometimes mean to him at school. I reminded him that this does not mean that it's ok to make generalizations about all redheads. I then summarized that Charlie, noting prejudice against redheads, is wondering if the artist included this detail to imply that he’s a demon. This was a satisfactory summary. The last details that we noted wer the fact that the child had no clothes, and that he had human toes. This was said almost as a joke but in my summary I reminded them that the satyr did not have toes, “he has human toes, unlike the satyr.” Giving the goofy point greater significance than intended.

I thanked them and we moved on. While they were looking at the second painting, Donny asked what the first piece actually was. I explained that the title of the piece was “Dissonance.” None of them knew what dissonance was so I explained that it was the opposite of harmony. 

Charlie connected the second painting to Noah’s ark immediately. He seemed torn between a desire to let others explore the piece and revealing this information. He let Obi begin by observing that there were a bunch of people in a room but interjected “A very boaty room.” I asked Obi why he thought it was a room. He cited the walls, the floor, and the windows. Then Charlie was ready to be more over about Noah’s ark and said so. He used informal language to point out the dove with a branch and the old man, Noah. He also joked that the child in the painting was going to be sacrificed. This distracted Donny who was looking to take the joke seriously. I asked him what made him think of child-sacrifice. He noted the way they seemed to be leading the child. I asked him if this was all. He also noticed that a man lingering in the shadows to the right seemed to be holding something and it may have been a knife.  

Obi stood up, “Oh my gosh, there’s a person and a bird hiding in the back.” We all had to get closer to see what he was talking about. Small, dark silhouettes which Charlie did a good job of not dismissing (all the characters of Noah were accounted for). Another good observation of Obi’s, “I notice the women are wearing a lot more clothing than the men.” I summarized how the men seemed to be wearing loincloths while the women had layers. 

I realized that we had gotten distracted from Charlie’s comment about Noah’s ark. “What made you say that this was Noah’s ark.” “Because of the bird carrying the thing and the old guy.” Here, Donny interrupted again, this time with a question. “Were lamps or candles invented back then? Or, not lamps, were candles?” I explained what I knew of candles, that they are more recent than oil lamps. He had been thinking about electric lamps. He clarified what he really wanted to know was what artificial lighting they had in Noah’s day. “Or… when did Noah take place?” “I explained that Noah was in Genesis. That Abraham’s story took place in about 2000 BC, that this was before that.” “So, like 4000 BC?” “It was in Mesopotamia. If you learned about Mesopotamia in Global history that was when this was.” This was evidently helpful but unleashed a tangent about their opinions on various history teachers. I cut this discussion short, “Donny, why were you asking about lamps?” “There are those beams of light, but the window outside is dark.” This was not how Charlie understood the picture at all, to him it was obviously sunlight, he hadn’t even noticed Donny’s window. They were gearing up to debate it but I paused them and summarized. “There is obviously light, shining from the right onto the people and again in the background. Donny has also noticed what appears to be a window in the back. So, either the window goes outside, it is dark out and these are artificial lights, or the light is sunlight and the window goes into somewhere else that is dark.” This satisfied both. It is interesting how feeling heard can dissipate the need to be seen as correct. Charlie did point out that there must be a window there for the dove to fly through. I asked what made him think the dove was flying in. “Yeah, maybe he’s releasing it,” suggested Donny. Charlie pointed out that the bird was facing towards the man, not away. With this, we seemed to be ready to switch to the story.

I find it interesting how Charlie is able to recognize the Bible stories but that seems to equate with having solved the piece. Working under the assumption that this is a painting of Noah’s ark there is so much story to find on the third and fourth levels of development. Instead, the discussion continues to look at what is there and Charlie specifically doesn’t seem to be diving in deeper. Part of me would love to try asking, “If this is Noah’s ark, what more can we find?” I will not be doing this, I think the open ended nature is more valuable. Still, it makes me wonder if they will ever get there?

Our Bible discussion was interesting because there was no recording of 1 Samuel. I ended up reading the story aloud. This in and of itself was fun and I think I liked it better than the recording. I might ask the kids what they think. For me, it gives me control of interpretation and in this sense it might be dangerous. Still, the NLT is notorious because, in order to put the Bible in modern English it has to do a fair amount of interpretation and a lot of nuance that has been shown me by people in other translations is lost. I read how Jonathan and his armor bearer took on the whole Philistine army and went as far as his father Saul joining the battle. 

When asked, the first mention was of Saul and the fact that he joined the battle. It is interesting how, whatever we read, it is almost always what we ended with that they choose to respond to. Someone also highlighted the fact that the Philistines killed each other. “That happens surprisingly often in the Bible,” I joked. Then elaborating, we discussed how, without uniforms and the direct charges of battle it would be really, really hard to know who to kill. Once the fighting broke out it could just keep going, a really efficient way for a few people to wipe out a large army. 

With few other observations it occurred to me that the whole story would be relevant. I decided to summarize it, instead of reading it. I explained that Saul led the troops to victory but swore an oath that no one was to eat until all the enemy was killed. Jonathan missed this order and ate some honey. The soldiers were tired and hungry by the end and… I realized I wasn’t certain how Jonathan survived. I looked it up to read and discovered what I had forgotten. Saul was prepared to execute his son but the people interceded and saved Jonathan. We had come full circle and were discussing child sacrifice. Charlie mentioned that these rash vows were another thing that happened surprisingly often. 

I explained how in Leviticus God provides an alternative, if you make a vow on a person’s life there are specific numbers of animals you can sacrifice in their place. God gave his people a way out of these vows but in these stories, people unfamiliar with God’s law see no way out but to kill their children. I then talked about the famous story in which God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. God gave him a ram to kill instead of his son. In an age when child sacrifice was common, having Abraham specifically not kill his son gave everyone an example in years to come. No one would assume that if God likes sheep and goats, he would like a child-sacrifice even more. I also mentioned Jesus and his role as a sacrifice (but conceded that this could be considered human sacrifice). Additionally, I mentioned that this story serves to show us how bad a king Saul was. “If you decide to read the rest of Samuel, you’ll see it’s the rise and fall of Saul and then of David. It’s like two Mcdonald's arches.”

As you can see, today’s conversation was less BTS than ever. That said, I felt good about it. More and more, I am feeling that open ended Bible discussions are good, but they require structure and guiding questions at the very least. I like having the kids direct the topics and direction by what they notice but building it in such a way that their observations lead to more information to learn and discuss.

10/15 - Week 5

Pictures: “Early Sunday Morning - Edward Hopper 1930” 

“A primeira missa no Brasil - Victor Meirelles 1861”

Passage: John 5

Today we had four students. Charlie, Fern, Donny and, visiting his grandparents, Jack. They were calm and engaged. I was not fully satisfied with our Bible discussion but I think the VTS discussions were some of the most satisfying so far. Unfortunately, immediately afterwards we had our church’s hunger walk. I did not have a chance to record what we discussed until late in the afternoon. I would have recorded, but Jack was there and I did not have permission for him. 

We began with the Hopper painting. Everyone seemed keen on actually looking at the piece during our time of observation. When I asked what was going on, Donny jumped right in “It looks like New York… It's New York during COVID.”  “Alright, Donny is noting it looks like New York City,” I paused realizing I had made an assumption, “Do you mean New York City or just New York in general?” I quickly realized I knew what he had meant and wondered if I was right to clarify. He explained, “It looks like any city, the buildings look like those fancy city buildings.” 

“Ok, Donny is comparing it to his own experience with cities and his personal experience in COVID when everything was shut down. What else can we find?” Charlie answered, “There’s a barber shop.” What makes you say that? “There’s the barber pole in front of it.” I summarized this point. The next observation was the fire hydrant. I didn’t ask them to justify this, I just said “they noticed a fire hydrant.” Charlie, however, expanded on this point, “That means it’s a recent painting.” “Ok, Charlie’s noting that if there’s a fire hydrant in this picture it must be pretty modern in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t made in the 1700s or anything.” “The buildings could be older and it was added later,” interjected Donny. “Yeah, but that all would have happened before the painting,” replied Charlie, “I’m talking about when the painting was made.” 

Next, Jack spoke up, “The buildings look run down.”  What makes you say that? “Um… well, the words on the windows are faded, and… it just looks run down.” I summarized, “Jack feels that the buildings are run down; he’s noticed the faded words on the signs and a general feel of the street, that it’s in worse condition than it once was.” 

Donny wondered aloud what the dark square in the top right corner was. Jack answered confidently that it might be a chimney. Donny, looking closer, suggested it may be a taller building farther away. “Donny’s wondering what the square is in the top right corner, we’ve got two ideas. Jack thinks maybe it’s a chimney, while one of you guys (I had forgotten who had mentioned the tall building idea), thinks it could be another, taller building.” Donny confirmed that he had suggested the second idea. 

This was the first week someone had asked the title of a piece. Around this time in our conversation, Donny asked “Do you know?” referring to an imagined correct answer to ‘what’s going on in this picture?’ I explained that I knew the title but I didn’t know anything more about the piece. “What’s the title?” I told him: Sunday Morning (which isn’t actually the whole title). Still, everyone together gave a sudden exclamation of understanding. “So everyone’s at church,” suggested Donny. “Or at home, or sleeping,” said Jack. “Ok,” I said, “So knowing the title changes how we understand the piece. Now that you know, you guys think the reason everything’s closed is because people are either at church or at home; either way, people are enjoying the day of rest.” Here you can hear my bias emerge. I have often felt a generational nostalgia looking at this piece because the idea of a cultural rest day feels so alien and yet so wonderful. Church or not, having a day off is something I’ve wished for in modern America. 

The last thing we observed were the yellow “shutters” which Charlie pointed out. After this, it felt natural to end the discussion but not like we had exhausted the possibility of conversation - a good feeling to have. I thanked everyone and got up to show the next one. Our second picture contained nudity and last night I had doubts as to whether it was wise to include it. I had prepared a surrealist piece by Magritte as an additional slide. With this group I saw that either would do. I asked if they wanted something fantastical or historical. Donny quickly said “historic.” So we went with that one. 

I will add that this picture was an interesting one to choose because it could easily be interpreted in different ways by different people. It shows a scene of hoards of Native Americans crowding around and watching a group of Europeans partake in mass. It feels to me almost satirical, highlighting the absurdity of the whole situation, these out of place colonizers and their unnatural worship. On the other hand, it could well be seen as a heroic scene of staking a claim and spreading God to the world. Are we meant to pity the Natives or see them as savages? I was curious to see what the kids thought. These questions, however, are part of the fourth level of artistic development, my students are still at the first, second, and third. Still, I don't think I’ve yet seen them uncover so fully the intended meaning of a piece (in the literal descriptive, narrative sense; as I said, they have not yet arrived at questions of the artist’s motive, thoughts, and emotions). 

Jack’s first assessment of the scene: “There are a lot of mostly naked people, and they’re really friendly.” I don’t recall the exact nature of my clarification, nor am I confident in this wording. I felt at the time confident that he was talking about their “friendly” invasion of each other’s personal space. It did not even occur to me that he might have been referring to the fact that they showed no hostility to the colonists. When I summarized, I said, “Jack’s noticing a lot of people with not very much clothes on, and he’s also seeing that they seem really close together and comfortable with each other.” 

Charlie tried to tackle the fact that they seemed to be American Indians but was struggling to express his thoughts in an acceptable way. He expressed that he knew he was commenting on stereotypes and not reality, but that there was some reality behind it. His wording led Donny to ask if it's still a stereotype if it's true. Charlie explained that it was. I wonder what other perspectives exist on this question. “This picture reminds Charlie of other depictions of Indigenous people.” 

Donny commented on the cross, the people in robes, and then suddenly exclaimed that this probably didn’t take place in Biblical times. Charlie used the word priest to describe the men and also noted they were white. It wasn’t until Donny Charlie noted the treasure chest that things began to click into place. When we looked at the treasure chest, Donny suddenly got very excited. “Ooh, ooh, I know what’s happening. The people just arrived there and everyone’s coming to see what they brought.” 

And my memory fails me. I know Charlie brought up the men in armor. He compared them to conquistadors. This led to the thought that perhaps they were in South America. I asked what made them think it was South America. They struggled to find the word “tropical” but everyone agreed it was mostly how the trees looked. Donny pointed out water in the background with boats and a beach. In the end, they had a good feel for the scene as a group of European colonists who, having just arrived in South America, were holding a Christian service of some kind in the presence of the Indigenous people. I ought to have attempted to log it all sooner. As I said, I felt that they were really using their background knowledge to decode the painting in a way I hadn’t seen them do before. I wonder how much of this had to do with the fact that I had called it historical, this may have given them a feeling that there was a right answer and they could figure it out. 

Today’s Bible discussion was a little less in depth. One interesting thing that happened while we were listening. I have previously noted that it often feels too long to discuss well if we listen to the whole chapter. I paused it halfway through today, but everyone wanted to keep listening (Donny particularly), so we did. When I asked what was going on in the passage, Jack answered that “Jesus healed him.” “Who?” I asked. “The paralyzed man.” About now, we were interrupted by Nancy who had to let Donny know about something that had happened last week with the muffins (they were left in the oven overnight). This was an acceptable interruption, but it derailed the conversation a tad. Charlie noted that the man did not answer Jesus’ question: “Do you want to be healed?” It’s a yes or no question but his answer was “I can’t.” It was in this context that Jesus healed the man. 

I asked what else we noticed. “They didn’t believe him.” observed Jack. “Who didn’t believe him?” He looked in his book, “The Jewish leaders.” “Why didn’t they believe him?” I asked. “They were jealous?” suggested Jack. “Yeah,” I expanded on his idea, “he walked in and healed this guy, right? And they’re all mad at him. But he was like: why do you care?”  I think here Charlie mentioned that it was the sabbath day.

Donny asked a question about if his name was Jesus or Jesús. I humored this question and explained that he would have gone by Yeshua, the Hebrew name of Joshua. Charlie commented that it’s ironic that the book of Joshua is so full of death when the name means “God saves.” This led to a tangential conversation about war in the Bible. I suggested that Christianity changed the nature of warfare. Today when there is a war it is shocking, I alluded to what’s happening in Israel and in the Ukraine. When people groups try to kill each other and take land, it goes against our global culture. Before Catholicism in Europe this was how everyone was, but when everyone was united under the church it made it harder to justify war against each other. Of course, war against other groups continued, but it laid the foundations for our modern notions of war. Having spoken on this, I tried to bring us back to the text. 

The final thing we discussed was Moses, whom Charlie noted was mentioned at the very end of the passage. Here, I failed to lead the discussion well. I asked what the modern equivalent of claiming Moses but ignoring how he pointed to Jesus. This proved to be a hard question to answer and we all felt at a loss for any good ideas. Trump? Policies? The other verse related to it in the passage claimed that the Pharisees read the Word but ignore Jesus in the word. Again, we failed to come up with any good modern equivalent that was specific enough. I alluded to people who cite the Bible in justifying their political views but ignore what it says about Jesus. This led to Charlie commenting on the fact that there are contextual Hebrew laws we now ignore because they were for a people in a specific place and time. His example was tattoos which were once directly connected to pagan idolatry. I wondered aloud how God feels about tattoos of superheroes and cartoon characters (are we worshiping them?), just because our culture ignores a law doesn’t mean God wants us to abandon it. This ended up feeling like way too much of a contradiction of Charlie’s words, like I was shutting him down. The fact that nobody else seemed interested in adding to the conversation didn’t help. The conversation petered out and we soon switched to improv games.

10/8 - Week 4

Pictures: “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee - Rembrandt 1633” 

“The Tortoise Trainer - Osman Hamdi 1906”

Passage: Jonah 1-4

Today was the messiest day so far this year with regard to behavior and focus. During the service was our monthly “mission muffin” Sunday in which kids of all ages help bake muffins to sell afterwards. All of our teens helped with muffins and were hanging about the kitchen after the service. Nick and Obi were here, along with Charlie. The boys went down ahead of us while I stayed and talked to the girls, encouraging them to come to class. Margaret came to church for the first time this year so I wanted to persuade her to stay for Sunday school. She didn’t, but Catrina did, which was good. 

When I finally got down to the classroom, the boys were in a goofy mood and getting everyone to focus was a challenge. Our first image saw a lot more joking and also served to confirm what has been my hypothesis informing my image choice since the beginning. The picture was Rembrandt's painting of Christ in the storm and this was all any of the kids were able to see. Not that this was in and of itself bad, but it meant that, having “solved” the problem of what’s going on in this picture, there was little reason to keep looking to discover more. As a result, we did not get very deep into painting at all, far less than we have with some of our more ambiguous paintings. 

Charlie’s first comment was fighting to be heard over the crowd of distracted voices still discussing off topic jokes, “Boat!” I quieted everyone down and tried to get a fuller answer. Nick mumbled something about a sea that was wholly unintelligible. I failed to summarize these poorly articulated thoughts while waiting for the group to quiet down. Finally, Nick said, “That guy is Jesús (pronounced Hay-soos)” still unwilling to be wholly serious but now making a clear observation which I could jump on. “Nick is, um, identifying the figure in the middle with Jesús (I used his pronunciation), what makes you say that?” “He has an aura around his head.” Charlie tried to argue that it was simply a lighter background and not a divine light, then shifting added, “he looks like a stereotypical Jesus, like an Italian, last supper, Jesus.” He gestured to the print of DaVinci’s last supper I have on display in the classroom. This in turn prompted a rush of chatter. “Nick has noticed an illumination of sorts around the figure, Charlie says that it reminds him of a stereotypical Jesus, what makes you say that?” Charlie began to describe long brown hair, a pointy beard, etc. but around this time Catrina finally arrived and this caused a bit of a distraction for the boys who had not expected anyone else. After settling everyone down to the best of my abilities I attempted to summarize Charlie’s words about stereotypical Jesus. “What else can we find?” 

“The boat is a fishing boat,” said Charlie. When asked to justify this he explained, “it’s full of fishing poles.” Standing up to point out the fishing poles he paused, “No wait, that’s just a rope on the mast.” In his standing up, however, Obi noticed a harpoon in the boat. With this, we were able to support Charlie’s comment about fishing. Nick also stood up and, noting the oars, said, it’s a rowboat. “A rowboat with sails?” It’s not a motor boat. When I summarized, “Nick is pointing out that it is not a motor boat,” I got a chuckle. Nick also noted the light and dark or the waves, that it was practically black and white. He pointed out that where Jesus was looking there was blue sky but everywhere else there were clouds and storm. In this sense, Nick’s comments were the most insightful. On the other hand, he repeatedly made off topic remarks, including insulting Catrina and asking her for gum. We spent much of our time recovering from these diversions so that by the time I thanked everyone for participating it felt more like giving up than wrapping up. 

Our second image immediately elicited a mirriad of comments which I attempted to silence until the time to discuss actually began. The idea of silently sitting and looking at any one image seems to remain one of the most alien concepts to this age group. They made all sorts of fun comments about the image, its content, and jokes to go with it. Catrina jabbed at Nick, "I can't focus on the picture with all your talking.” I told them to save their thoughts and that we would start once we had a moment of actual silence. Ironically, when silence was achieved, I looked over and saw Catrina looking at her phone, not the art. When we began, I was frustrated to find that all of the interesting comments seemed to have evaporated. What is it that makes kids willing to share their fun ideas with the group informally, but not as an answer to a teacher’s question? We went from “I see five turtles!” and “That guy’s got a cool turban.” to an awkward silence and Charlie speaking up “I see a Middle Eastern guy looking out a window.” I asked him what made him say that the guy was from the Middle East. “He’s got dark skin, his beard, his hat.” Here I feel I failed to summarize well as I said, “Ok, so Charlie’s made a generalization about people in the Middle East, they often have darker skin and beards like that.” This was poorly done for two reasons (both of which became easily apparent), one being that making a generalization is seen today as negative and I therefore seemed to be accusing him, the other being the way I effectively confirmed this generalization instead of merely summarizing. I would have done better if I had said, “Charlie is noticing this man’s darker skin and beard and is connecting this to people in the Middle East.” As it was, Charlie began to defend himself, viewing “generalization” as an accusation. This in turn prompted me to insist that generalizing is not inherently bad. Obi then reminded us that often is, which I also granted. Charlie’s response to this whole thing was a revaluation of his point and a new statement that more than his skin or beard, it was his clothing that seemed to be Middle Eastern. Charlie also noted what he called a flute in the man’s hand. When asked, he noted the holes along the long reed-like instrument. Noah identified the other object, hanging around his neck, as a bone. He cited the shape to justify this claim. Charlie again stood up and instead declared that it was a severed snake head. I was not clear on his justification as he seemed to be seeing details up close the rest of us were missing.

Someone then noted the turtles and Catrina finally repeated her prior observation that there were five turtles. Here I felt the limits of VTS. I wanted her to say more because I know she is capable of greater participation, “What makes you say that?” is a dumb question to ask about a quantitative observation of animals in a photorealistic painting. I wanted to ask “why do you think there are turtles?” but chose to stick with the program instead. 

It was Obi who took our discussion to a level I don’t think we’ve yet reached in any of our discussions yet so far. That is, a story that is objectively nonsense but explains the viewer's interpretation of the art. He created meaning of his own, which in the area of art is exciting. “The man is wearing a Survivor Buff.” was Obi’s initial observation. I was focussing on another comment, however, and by the time I circled back to him I got “This man’s a celebrity. They stole his style when designing the Survivor Buffs.” Instead of treating this like an off-base joke, I legitimized this kind of thinking.”Obi sees a story here, this man was the original inspiration for the buffs of the show Survivor.” This then made room for a whole new series of comments from Nick and Charlie. “It looks like he’s wearing his pajamas. He’s wearing slippers.” “The guy’s a turtle charmer.” 

The last focus came when Charlie highlighted the patterns on the wall along with the fact that the plaster was crumbling to reveal brickwork. He commented on the blue hexagon pattern. Somehow, at this point, we saw another diversion of jokes and unrelated discussion. As the conversation seemed to be over, I prepared to close the computer and thank everyone. Charlie, however, noticed lettuce on the ground in the image and this was the discussion’s final observation.

Today I had planned to share Jonah with the group but found it was not in the audio Bible. My solution was to read it aloud to the group myself which actually went great. I betrayed my intentions to leave them nothing but their own ideas, however, as I explained (in the spirit of the light hearted morning) that Jonah was written to be funny. After I said this strong statement I realized that they would not believe me if I didn’t give them the original context required to make the story funny. We discussed prophets and that it was a contradiction for one to run from God, Assyrians and the fact that the Hebrews would have absolutely hated them, that gentile sailors would not fear God, and that cows don’t pray and fast. This talk coloured their interpretation but it also led to a better conversation. I don’t think they found it laugh-out-loud funny, but when we discussed it, the humor made it easier to believe there was an author writing with a message for us to learn. What was it? That was where the conversation opened up a bit. Obi pointed out the fact that you can’t run from Jesus. Charlie the importance of repentance. Catrina Jonah’s unforgiveness. With each of these I expounded on context that could make each point more fully realized and again, the humor played a role in the conversation as a whole. 

Also different this week, however, was my attempt to apply what we discussed to the students’ lives. I brought up analogies for what the story would be like to a Hebrew. I mentioned a snarky student trash talking their teacher and this led to a discussion about which teachers were the worst. I then asked the students to imagine they were asked to preach to the teachers - would they do it or run away? Today’s discussion was not my idealized Biblical Thinking Techniques, but it was the kind of conversation that I feel is worth having and would like to see more of. I do not intend to abandon BTT just yet, but I believe that even our VTS opening affected the potency of this discussion despite my more heavy-handed involvement.

10/1 - Week 3

Pictures: “Sculptors in Ancient Rome - Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema 1877"

“Still Life with Grape Juice and Sandwiches (Xenia) - David Ligare 1994”

Passage: Exodus 32

Today, Conrad and Catrina finally came to Sunday school, along with Charlie and Fern. Both Donny and Obi were not here today which changed the dynamic. I moved all the chairs closer together and closer to the TV screen. This was a good choice as it focused the group and made the art more easily visible. I had Conrad and Catrina fill out the initial survey so that I could gather even more data for the start of the year.

Our first discussion went really well. Charlie gave me the feedback that the time spent looking at the artwork before discussing it was a waste of time because nobody pays that much attention and most of the details shared during the discussions are noticed in the moment. I explained that taking the time to really look at the piece was an important part of the process.

Conrad’s first comment when I asked what was going on in the picture was a goofy one. “They aren’t giving him nostrils.” This threw me for a loop as it was not a linear thought and was hard to summarize. I fell back on “What makes you say that,” and was able to draw from his answer the underlying assumption that we were looking at people carving a face. His observation that the face’s nose did not seem to have nostrils led to Charlie’s observation that the sculpture was not necessarily finished. Catrina noted that there were no pupils either. Charlie then pondered aloud if marble statues usually had pupils or not, “I feel like the really old ones didn’t but then things like David did.” I restated these reflections but also asked what made him say that it was a marble statue. While I was summarizing Charlie’s comment, Catrina googled some images of statues and noted that they didn’t seem to have pupils. Charlie’s answer to why it was marble: “White!” Then, elaborating, he also noted that the use of chisels implied it was hard stone and not sand. 

Conrad’s next comment was that there were more than one chisel. He stood up and pointed to a pouch of extra tools hanging from the scaffolding. I broke slightly from the standard response and asked why the chisels might be there. Conrad quickly answered that the sculptors “sucked” and might break their tools. Charlie objected, pointing out that there might be more than three sculptors and these tools might be for them. I summarized both ideas and posed them as two possibilities - extras for when these tools wear out, or extras for when more workers come. 

The focus then shifted to the background where Charlie noticed that they seemed to be in an enclosed space with a gap where the distant background could be seen. He also noted that light on the foreground implied the enclosure was not on every side. 

They commented on the sculpture’s apparent neck beard, which I struggled to summarize, unsure of the best words to use “hair, fuzz, fur.” As I was stumbling over my words, Chalire suggested it might just be uncarved stone. As we were considering this, Conrad stood up again and said “you can see a bit of grass behind this man’s buttocks,” pointing to another gap in the background enclosure which indeed seemed to depict a grassy shore. “Ok, Conrad’s noticing behind the figure on the left, another gap that seems to be grass…” “Yeah, behind the man’s buttocks.” “Behind the man…” “Say buttocks!” The struggle here was that the man’s rear was in no way visible. It was not a matter of Conrad noticing a detail so much as contriving one to get attention. Still, in the spirit of open ended analysis, I said, “Condrad is noticing that this man has a rear end and that behind it is grass.” This satisfied the boy and we continued. 

Other details that came up in our discussion was the fact that they were standing on scaffolding and therefore likely working up above the ground. Charlie pointed out that one of the men was not wearing a shirt. “That guy isn’t either,” said Conrad. Charlie argued that the other man couldn’t really be seen so we don’t know. “The third guy definitely does have a shirt though.”  

Finally, as I prepared to wrap up the conversation, Charlie interjected “There’s rope.” When prompted, he noted also that it was holding the scaffolding together. At this point, I thanked everyone for participating and moved on to the next picture.

I should note a surprising exchange that occurred halfway through this conversation. Conrad was often making unrelated comments throughout the whole time. Most of these I have not reported as they had literally nothing to do with our class. At one point, however, he said “I noticed that what’s-his-face has a neckbeard.” He didn’t know my name. I have been teaching this kid for over a year and known him even longer so this was a surprise that derailed the whole discussion. I was shocked and we took a moment to go through everyone’s names to be sure we all knew each other. I introduced myself specifically and gave him a few ways to remember me. Then we moved on.

This was a different sort of image because it was a still life. There seemed to be practically no ambiguity and students seemed more confident to speak up. As it was, ambiguity emerged and potential debate which challenged my abilities as a moderator. 

Conrad again began with a less serious comment, “The bread looks drunk.” Thankfully, I have learned to take even silly comments seriously and I asked him why he said that “The bread is leaning over.” Indeed, the stack of bread was stacked in a crooked way which I hadn’t even paid attention to. Charlie then said, “the bread and the wine is Jesus,” clearly referring to communion but with a vagueness that forced me to be more careful as I summarized. In this moment of pause, however, Conrad interrupted with, “that’s not wine, why on Earth would you put wine in a pitcher?” Charlie then shot back that you could put wine in a pitcher, which again Conrad denied. “In ancient times before they had bottles they had to put wine in something, and if they were going to serve it they might have used pitchers.” The conversation shifted into a bit of a debate. “They still wouldn’t have used pitchers.” “Bottles weren’t invented yet, what did they use?” “Wooden bottles.” At this point I stopped the debate and summarized both points again, “Conrad is pointing out that most of the time wine is kept in bottles and so we can’t be sure this is wine. Charlie has pointed out that there are some contexts in which wine might be kept in a pitcher so we can’t be sure it isn’t.” I had to make a conscious effort to not point out that the modern sliced bread meant this was not meant to be some ancient pitcher or scene. I think the debate was good, they remained friendly in their discussion. The only issue was the way it undermined my control as a moderator. Shooting points back and forth the goal of their discourse was to defend their view. I am glad that I never had to reveal the title and thus prove Conrad right. From a Sunday school perspective, it was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to explore the idea of the Eucarist a little more. 

As this exchange was dying down, Catrina said “Sunset.” The boys were content to keep talking so I had to intentionally stop everything to focus on her point. It felt a little forced but I’m glad I did. “Catrina, you say sunset, what makes you say that?” Cautiously, “The lighting.” Charlie: “side lighting.” “Ok, so Catrina is noticing the light seems to be coming from the side, and a sunset would cast light from this angle.”

This was, I think, the trickiest conversation we’ve done so far because the kids seemed so comfortable and impatient to be heard. It is also the first conversation we’ve had where I really feel I’ve lost information by not having the recording. I remember for certain that Charlie kept trying to get us to focus on the water in the background. Throughout some of the subsequent observations from others, he was simply saying “water” which was a little less of an observation then I would have liked. When I finally got to give him direct attention and asked what he meant he just said “Water.” As a result I found myself putting words in his mouth: “In the background there seems to be a body of water, yes?” 

He also noted the box but again, struggled to articulate much more than “box.” When I asked him why he said that he made motions to indicate the three visible walls. “Ok, Charlie is noticing the three solid surfaces and comparing them to a box.” “Maybe,” said Charlie, “We’re the third wall.” 

Conrad noted the towel beneath the objects. Charlie and Catarina both noted the strong shadow cast by the pitcher. In my summaries, I began calling the grape juice “the liquid” so as to not confirm either of their views. spent time looking at the color of the sky. “Sunset colors,” and Charlie noticed green in the sunset gradient. The last observation of this conversation was Conrad noting that the juice had bubbles in it. I thanked them for participating and we switched over to scripture.

My plan is to go through the ten commandments but not tell the kids this pattern. The story each week is connected to a commandment and today was “You shall not make for yourself an idol.” I knew I wanted to cover Aaron’s Golden Calf but listening to it last night I was struck by how violent and extreme the story is. Especially because I know Conrad (a) has a father who works against his mother and her attempts to raise him Christian and (b) has a personality that often fixates on things that are violent and inappropriate. Moses’ response is to execute everyone who bowed to the idol and orders the Levites to go through in a mass extermination. My plan had been to play only the first part in which Moses intercedes for the people and asks God not to wipe out everyone. 

As we were listening, however, it struck me that my goal with this experience is to engage the students with an open-ended examination of what the Bible actually says. To cut it short is to censor the parts we don’t like, instead of talking about them and understanding them. We listened to the whole chapter.

Of course, when I asked “what happened in this passage?” Conrad spoke up immediately. “They did what God told them.” “Who did what, what did God tell them to do?” “Genocide.” 

Here I wasted some time, “Well, at least a mass homicide, mass execution. Genocide is against a specific people group.” This led to a tangential discussion of the meaning of genocide and I regret it because it changes nothing about the facts (save our extreme unacceptance of genocide, which honestly should be no different than any other mass murdering). 

What else happened in the passage? Charlie was hesitant to answer because he has had so much church experience he felt he would spoil it. I finally had him just share - “They had to drink gold.” I had him explain Moses’ other punishment of the people: drinking the dust of the smashed statue. Then I asked a leading question: what other punishment did the people face?

Today I feel confirmed in last week’s feeling that the best growth is going to happen if I direct the conversation as it goes. Whereas pure VTS would leave them to observe only what they can find on their own, audial observation works a little differently. The most they can do is summarize and highlight details. My job is to show them how we can connect these observations, working as much as I can with only the information they highlight. Genocide is Conrad’s word for indiscriminate killing and I ought to have accepted this. Even so, I think it is a good choice to not leave him there but help him understand the context. 

Our discussion shifted to pondering God’s mercy and God’s severity. Moses interceded for the people and God changed his mind and didn’t kill them all. But then Moses chose to execute the idol worshipers - 3,000 people. This led to a proud moment as Charlie looked up the population of the camp: 600,000. He then did the math to determine that 3,000 is only 0.5% of the population. At my suggestion, he then looked up the global level of covid deaths and discovered that it can be estimated at about 1% of the global population (which is way higher than I would have thought). Compared to God’s initial threatening desire to wipe out the whole camp, this was much mercy. 

We discussed what it meant for Moses to intercede and wondered at the fact that God is said to have changed His mind. Would God have neglected His promises if Moses hadn’t reminded Him? In what ways is Jesus like Moses, interceding for us? 

My aspiration was to not just choose easy stories and today’s lesson certainly did the trick. It made me want to force it into a box of the Gospel. This is how seriously God takes sin, this is what we deserve, this is why we need a righteous intercessor. Today, however, with this model, I was forced to not just carelessly wield the story but see it as terrible through the eyes of an outsider. It is not inherently a fun story and we literally need Christ to redeem it for us.

It is my hope and my prayer that the relationships formed in these classes will prove the truth of this power in the lives of these students.

9/24 - Week 2

Pictures: “The Ancient of Days - William Blake 1794” 

 “The Torment of Saint Anthony - Michelangelo 1487"

Passage: Acts 17

Today’s class went better than last week. Our group was the same size but Donny wasn’t there. Instead we had Nick who had come once or twice last year and caused a bit of trouble. I was pleased to see he was more engaged than I expected him to be. Kaitlyn and Catrina both were in the service today but left immediately after and did not stay for Sunday School.

We began with a prayer over our snackfood and a brief introduction. I introduced Fern and Obi to Nick (he and Charlie knew each other from a mission trip last year). I then explained that we would be looking at art and then put the Blake piece on the screen. Today the group quietly looked at the piece though having “seen” they seemed to become far more interested in our snackfood. 

When I asked “What’s going on in this picture?” Obi was the first to speak up. He said that a man in the sun was making mountains. I summarized his statement and asked him what made him say “in the sun?” Charlie backed him up by noting the bright yellow. I then asked about the “mountains.” To him, the yellow represented outlines around mountain peaks which the figure was somehow creating. Charlie then noted the straight yellow lines connected to the man’s fingers. He recreated the figure’s hand gesture with his own hand. When summarizing this I accidentally put words in his mouth, however, as I said the yellow lines were “coming out” of his hands. Charlie corrected me however by saying “or at least connected to his hand.” This was good because it brought my attention to the fact that I had let my own interpretation influence how I understood his words. 

I asked what else they noticed. “It’s windy.” “What makes you say that?” “His hair’s blowing to the side.” “He looks like Charlie.”

“He’s in the clouds.” “What makes you say that?” “There are clouds all around him.” 

“He’s old” “Or he dyes his hair.” “Because his hair is white.” “Or is it blond? It’s hard to tell with all the yellow.”

“Is anyone going to talk about the fact that he’s not wearing any clothes?” “Oh yeah, he’s necked!” 

“And he’s in a very uncomfortable position.” again, Charlie recreated the man’s posture to demonstrate how uncomfortable he would be.

With each of these observations I felt my summarizing was done well. Mentioning each student by name and affirming their ideas. What I failed to do, I realize now, is ask things like “Is that correct?” at the end of my summaries. I took it for granted that I was understanding the students in each case (which I still think I did). It would be good to build the habit of having them confirm that I truly understand them. 

Our second picture garnered shock, as one of the pictured demons has a face on his rear. I had to remind the students to keep their comments to themselves until after we had all looked at the piece. I also suggested they all take a moment to walk up to the screen and get a closer look at all the details. 

Nick jumped in right away and described the scene as an angel being attacked by demons. After summarizing this, I asked what made him think it was an angel. As I was doing this, Charlie seemed bothered because in his mind it was obviously a saint. I was able to have Nick answer the question and explain that he noticed the figure has a hallo. Emphasizing this seemed to satisfy Charlie as to the validity of Nick’s view. He did, however, get a chance to explain his view after that. “It looks like Saint Francis or somebody like that.” I asked him to explain why he thought that. “Because he’s wearing sanity clothes and has a hallo.” I asked him to explain what made the clothes “sanity.” At this point everyone paid special attention to the figure’s outfit, even standing to get a closer look. Nick noted something around his waist, what looked to him like a modern bag of crackers. At nearly the same moment, Obi noted what he called “a pointy tower” in the background. It was hard to know who to focus on. Nick was following a preexisting exploration of the outfit which we hadn’t quite concluded, Obi had not yet contributed anything to the discussion. I decided to wrap up the outfit discussion before attending to the tower, which proved a good choice. As I was summarizing the question of the pouch Nick and Charlie took notice of the boat in the background. As a result I was able to highlight this and Obi’s tower and draw everyone’s attention to the background at once. A new group narrative began to form. The demons wanted what the man had in his bag (crackers?) and so they were abducting him from his boat. 

It was around this time that someone finally mentioned the fact that one of the demons had a face on his butt. It felt goofy but I decided to take the observation seriously and therefore allow this noticeable part of the painting to be seen as a serious detail. “The mouth is his butthole.” A little harder to affirm (though accurate). This in turn led several students to get up to see this detail closer (and take a picture or two for memory). Thankfully, far from devolving into chaos, this instead resulted in new attention being paid to the unique designs of each creature. “They're all unique.” Obi noted that several were fish people. Furthermore Nick noted that all but one had aquatic elements (webbed hands, etc.) “Except for this one little furry guy.” This led one more addition to the story, namely that these creatures had come out of the water that the boat was sailing on. 

At the end of both discussions I thanked everyone for participating in the discussion. That said, you’ll notice that Fern did not say anything. Today he remained silent again but seemed a lot more comfortable than last week. I am learning more and more the good of communicating directly to him as if he might speak back but not in a way that requires him to. That is, in the past I have let him stay silent with no expectation that he would ever speak. That was good at the time but now that he is more comfortable here I think this new approach is a good one.

Our Bible discussion took some time to get to again as Nick and Fern both needed time to find the book of Acts in a paper Bible (and Fern was having trouble finding the table of contents). Once everyone was set we listened to the full chapter. I was still left with the sense that even a full chapter was too long. The chapter contained three separate incidents in the life of St. Paul which, though connected, could easily have been split into two lessons. When I asked: “What’s going on in this passage?” Obi spoke up and said “They talked about Jesus.” “Who talked about Jesus?” He looked through the text again - “Paul.” 

Here I decided to break away from pure VTS. “What else do we know about Paul, either from this or from our outside knowledge?” Silence. Then Charlie spoke up and in a very loose, dare I say hip-hop, style he explained Paul’s story. “He was this guy who was all Jewish and stuff, and he was all like, no no no, and killing people and stuff but then he met Jesus who was like Ayo bro stop it, and he was all like I’m sorry.” Something like that. I affirmed this account and then summarized a little clearer for those who had never heard the story before. “What else can we find?” Silence. Then Charlie gave a more direct summary of the actual events of the story. “Those Athens folks…” “Athenians,” interjected Nick. “The Athen’s folks…” “Athenians!” “Ok, the people from Athens,” I said as a compromise. “The people from Athens had all these idols, and one for an unknown God and Paul said that one was God.” 

There was an immediate lull. What else was there to say? The story had been summarized. I posed a few more questions to consider. What does this story have to do with the pictures? What does this story tell us about Jesus? What does it tell us about God? How can we apply it to our lives?

Obi raised his hand, “His conversation ended.” I asked what ended it. He looked in the text again. “When he mentioned the resurrection of the dead.” I asked how they responded when he mentioned the resurrection of the dead. “Some of them followed him.” And? “Some of them didn’t.” Here I decided to guide the conversation more intentionally. “The resurrection is a crisis point. We have to decide, do we really believe that Christ rose from the dead?” 

“Yeeeaaa……” said Nick, trailing off as he realized the question was rhetorical. I asked him what he thought. “Yes.” He paused, “Unless he didn’t die.” Charlie balked at this but I tried to help Nick consider the implications of this claim. “If a victim of crucifixion survived, with holes through his feet…” Here I intended to highlight the absurdity of suppose Jesus had somehow survived the crucifixion and been mistaken for a resurrected Lord while walking around. Nick cut me off, however, and added “When you think about it, if Jesus rose from the dead then he never really died.” Again, Charlie balked but I decided to roll with the point this seemed to be bringing up. 

“It’s true isn’t it. If Jesus didn’t stay dead then what he gives us is not his death but his act of dying.” This point needed much clarification and thankfully Charlie was willing to push me until I explained my thought in a way that was understandable to him at least. “When we celebrate a soldier dying for a brother in war, the sacrifice is that he gave up his only chance at life for someone else. But if Jesus rose from the dead after three days, his being dead didn’t give us much. The gift has to be something deeper than that. That’s why the resurrection is important. Myths have existed where people die for others, the Greeks in the story would have liked this part of Paul’s speech. The resurrection, however, ruins that story for them. It isn’t nearly as poetic.” Admittedly I was riffing off of a C.S. Lewis article I had been reading the night before and though I felt like I was saying something substantial there was no clear way to see if I was understood (except that Charlie seemed content to leave it there).  

Again, I wonder how small a reading has to be before it’s the right size to be discussed thoroughly with the students. Or if I ought to stick to one chapter as it will give me a consistent variable to gauge the impact of VTS on these discussions.

9/17 - Week 1

Pictures: “The Giant Snake - Max Ernst 1935” 

“Bethlehem - Banksy 2005”

Passage: Genesis 2-3

Today’s first session went well but left me anxious for future lessons. It suddenly struck me just how optional these “classes” are and that if the kids do not like VTS I cannot well force it on them. I must trust that the relationships formed are strong enough to sustain a few weeks of disinterest. 

We began with “The Giant Snake.” We spent time looking at the piece and this in of itself proved challenging. Donny barely looked up from his phone, Obi seemed to look quickly then lose interest, Fernando looked long, and Charlie was engaged. None of the girls came today.

When I asked “what’s going on in this picture?” only Charlie was willing to answer. He summarized the main elements of the piece, a man wrestling a snake and a woman reacting, but did so quickly. Almost too quickly for me to summarize his observations. I did and asked him to justify some of his ideas. He did but struggled to express his ideas. For example, he said “the lady is going ‘boy oh boy’” attributing specific words to her emotion but I was not able to easily explore what emotion “boy oh boy” was meant to convey.” Charlie is the oldest in the group and has often served as my lone participator in class discussions. He would have gladly kept going but I asked others “what else can we find.” Obi put forth “the man is wearing slacks.” I summarized this but saw no way to easily expand on this thought. Charlie suggested that the woman may represent the virgin Mary. I asked what made him say that. He referenced her halo and the fact that artists “didn’t know what skin tone was back then.” I summarized “You’re wondering if it might represent Mary because of associations you have from other artwork depicting her as a white woman.” Donny participated throughout but was not especially engaged. He noted that they were standing on something - that is, they were on a surface. He was not interested in commenting on the nature of this surface. The group also noted the figures in the distant background. Charlie stood up and looked close to see that they were two figures, a big person holding a little person. Others were less inclined to get close. It made me wonder how I can draw people in. Today we were sitting a ways away from the TV. Fernando was unwilling to speak today. I got the feeling that he was uncomfortable with Donny, who stood up and in his face asked if he knew sign language or spoke Spanish. After that I felt pretty sure that Fernando would have nothing to say so long as Donny was around but I kept making eye contact to be sure. 

Our second try went smoother in many ways. Donny again barely looked, Obi began commenting immediately and I had to remind him just to look. This time Donny kicked off the conversation but he did so as one who had not looked at the picture at all. Or so it seemed. I shall seek out the clearest, largest photos I can find going forth. He saw the buckets as paint buckets but then lost the group by saying that the scene was a proposal. He would go on to mention this idea two more times and I would be able to draw out that he had taken the object in the kneeling figure’s hand to be a flower. Interestingly enough, no one mentioned the fact that the figures appear to be two children, though the proposal idea was rejected by everyone who was close enough to easily see the painting. When Charlie addressed the scene he took the fence and the wall to be part of the painting - that is, as if the whole scene was painted to include a photo-realistic wall with graffiti on it. About halfway through I would reveal the true nature of the piece to see how it affected their interpretation. It didn’t seem to very much. Picking this piece out I thought the meaning was obvious, I saw it as two boys playing in the dust, cut off from the beach by the wall through which we could see into an island paradise. The group, however, took the object in the figures hand for a paintbrush with the buckets full of paint. Donny introduced the idea of paint, Charlie flushed out the idea that they were painting a better world, painting an escape. Obi was reminded of the island in Survivor which, Charlie pointed out, does not mean it’s a paradise. He was reminded of Lord of the Flies (which he read last year). It was Donny who suggested that the kids might be taking apart the wall. He noted the cracks around the window. By this point, however, everyone was not quite focused. 

Indeed, the lack of focus seems to be my biggest challenge here. Especially with Donny who bounces around from thing to thing and may struggle with ADHD. I think in the future I really ought to stick to one image and one passage. Today we looked at two images and two passages and it seemed more than our group’s focus allowed for.

At the end of our art discussion, Donny asked “Can I ask a question? What’s the purpose for this?” It was a good question and I was unsure of how much of my goals to reveal. If I say “I think open ended conversation will help you read scripture better” I fear it will alter his approach.  I ended up saying, “you’ll see.” 

Shifting to the Bible discussion I was frustrated to find that the translation I had hoped to have available in book form was not. I had the kids follow along on their phones while I played an audio Bible. We listened to a chapter and a half. Charlie was ready to jump in with observations right away. He had recently studied Genesis 3 in a youth group at another church. He commented on the fact that Eve’s quote of God’s command does not match the command the LORD actually gives. I asked him to explain fully, which he did. I then asked: what more can we find? Obi mentioned the fact that they begin naked and happy but end up ashamed. I asked what happened to change this? Donny said (spinning around in an office chair) it was because they ate the apple. “What apple?” asked Charlie. He wanted to point out that it never says it’s an apple. I eventually made him say it plainly. I asked them to identify what the fruit was actually called. Charlie knew, of course, but I tried to encourage Obi to find the answer. “Why do you guys think that people telling the story in the past called the fruit an apple?” Charlie supposed it was because people knew what an apple was, it made it contextually relevant. I then asked why “knowledge of good and evil” caused shame. Donny answered that it was because God told them not to eat. An additional tangent occurred when Obi mentioned the shame and nakedness. Somewhere it was stated that God said “the day you eat from it you will die.” and yet they didn’t. “God lied,” exclaimed Donny. “No,” said Charlie, “He showed mercy.” We did not, however, explore this as much as I would have liked. 

On paper, this sounds like a pretty good discussion with a lot of good insight. I like to think maybe Fernando was able to soak it all in with me. Donny on the other hand was only engaged when he had something to say and seemed to be very distracted at all other times. We reached a point where all seemed done and abruptly shifted into our game time. I did explain this basic schedule - 15 minutes with art, 20 minutes with scripture, and ~30 with a game. “Yet,” I clarified, “the game depends on getting through the art and the Bible. The art I need to incorporate for my class, the Bible we need to do because it’s what this is all about. But I have a lot of fun with games and want there to be time for them. We just need to make sure we do the other stuff well.”