A Blessed Beginning

So about a week ago, Matushka asked me if I would mind leading the intermediate (pre-teen, basically) group in Church School this year. Since I knew that those three kids were bright, attentive, and well-behaved in general, I figured it'd be good discussion, insights on their part, and lots of cooperation.

I was not disappointed in the least. Would that our parenting skills produce children so good-natured.

But, I gotta tell y'all...sigh...y'all, I'm a teacher. I have been college-educated and state-certified in order to be a professional educator of children with regards to the Spanish language. So you can imagine that dispersing information to pupils would be nothing new to me. No big deal, right?

Sigh...again...

Lyrics from Rich Mullins are commonplace on this blog, as longtime readers will attest to, but one in particular stood out as I walked them through Adam and Eve/New Adam and New Eve for the Nativity of the Theotokos:

Two full-grown men in a huddle of kids
And they're tryin' to help them to believe
What is too good to be real
Yet is more real than the air they breathe

To see the "light bulb moment" on their faces when they saw that the woman who was taken from the man would offer him death, and he took it, then when they saw that the Man who was taken from the woman would offer her life, and she would take it--they saw how the original (as in very first) sin of our race began to be reversed in this mirror image, and that image ending in the image of the Resurrection, the ultimate defeat of death that began...well, with the first Adam, but, as one of the kids noted, "the beginning of the end of the beginning" being the miraculous arrival in this world of she who is the New Ark of the Covenant, for she holds the Word of God -- she who is the second Eve -- she whose womb was more spacious than the heavens, for it held what the universe cannot -- she whose "yes" was pure enough to untie the knot that Eve's "no" fastened around our race -- she who is the East Gate in which the Prince ate bread for nine months, then passed through, sealing it against any others' passing through -- she who is the New Red Sea, through whom the deliverance of Israel passed and then remained closed as it was before -- she who is the New Ladder of Jacob, on which the Lord descended to Earth -- she who is blessed among all women -- she whom all generations, under the declaration of the Holy Spirit of God, will call blessed....

Such a blessed beginning is a much weightier endeavor than any ol' Spanish lesson. Fear and trembling is appropriate here. Prayers for our Church School year would be appreciated.

Happy New Year (or as Father likes to say, Holy New Year) to all of y'all, and happy belated feast day!