AGE: Infants and Juniors |
THEME: Harvest: St Kevin |
PREPARATION: |
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For a graphic illustration of St Kevin and the blackbird, you may wish to ask another member of staff to help. When it comes to the part of the presentation about the blackbird, the volunteer should stand with his or her arms stretched out stiffly and a kilogram weight on one hand. The Seamus Heaney poem about St Kevin comes from The Spirit Level, Faber, 1996, p.20. The story of Ur, as told below, could also be developed as an additional, complementary collective worship resource. |
DEVELOPMENT: |
| Once upon a time there was young monk called Kevin. A monk's job, generally speaking, is to spend all day reading the Bible and praying. What do you think - would you like a job like that? No TV, simple food, no fashionable clothes, no holidays! Kevin enjoyed it. He used to go to a tiny stone chapel to pray. It was so small that it was difficult to pray in it. That's because in those days, in Ireland, when a monk prayed he didn't clasp his hands together, but held them stretched out at his side, to make the shape of the cross. [You could use the 'volunteer' at this point.] In fact the chapel was so small that he couldn't even stretch out his arms - so he knocked two holes in the wall and, whenever he prayed, he stuck his arms out through the holes. One day Kevin was praying away, his arms poking out through the holes in the wall, when a blackbird came and landed on his hand. But Kevin didn't mind and he continued praying. Six hours later, when he stopped praying, he realized that not only was the blackbird still there but it had started to build a nest. What was he going to do? Should he pull his arm in and scatter the twigs of the nest? Or should he leave his arms sticking out? What would you do? Kevin decided to leave his arms where they were. [Seamus Heaney has written a poem in which he imagines the scene.] Imagine what Kevin must have felt like as the hours passed... and the days. It takes 13-14 days for the greenish-blue eggs of the blackbird to hatch - and then another 13-14 days for the chicks to grow, develop wings and leave the nest. So he would have had to stay like that for about a month [ask your volunteer if they could stay in that position for such a long time]. But Kevin didn't flinch. What must it have felt like? His whole body must have been in agony. He must have tried to pray, but it must have hurt a lot. There are lots of stories about Saint Kevin in which he is kind to the natural world around him. He even refuses God's offer to flatten some mountains so that a monastery could be built because, as he said, 'all the wild creatures on these mountains are my house mates, gentle and familiar with me, and they would be sad' at the loss of their home. Why tell the story of Saint Kevin at harvest time - a time when we say thank you to God for the food that the earth provides? The clue lies in another story - a true story: Once upon a time there was a country called Ur. This is the land where Abraham, in the Bible, came from. It had rich soil and the people had lots of food. Every year the people harvested tons and tons and tons of corn. Everyone was happy because everyone had lots of food. But gradually the corn stopped growing. Gradually the white, salty crystals started to sparkle in the black soil. Corn doesn't like salt. Soon corn wouldn't grow at all. If you go there today the land is a baking hot desert and it's almost impossible to imagine that once it was green with crops. What do you think happened? The answer is that the crops that the people grew needed water. They took more and more water out of the soil. As they took more and more fresh water, the salty seawater started to be sucked into the good soil. The salt in the seawater destroyed the good soil - and even today you can't grow crops on the land. It's a wilderness. Everything was taken and nothing was given back to the earth. The earth was not respected. Saint Kevin is an example of someone who doesn't just take from God's earth - he (literally!) helps to support it, even when it hurts. Maybe we ought to follow his example? Maybe we ought not to eat brussel sprouts grown in Kenya, where they are an entirely inappropriate crop, and which are brought to our country by the most polluting form of transport that exists - aeroplanes? Maybe we oughtn't to eat so much meat, as meat production involves growing tons and tons of crops to produce a small amount of protein? Maybe we oughtn't to eat so much fish and chips as the seas around our country are being turned into an empty, watery wasteland? Maybe... |
READING / REFLECTION: |
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But Harvest is a time to celebrate. This psalm, written by Jewish people long ago, is a song of praise to God for all the beautiful things that he has given us on this good earth. It's a long psalm, because there is lots to thank God about - but I'm only going to read a bit of it! Close your eyes and listen. Try and picture all of the things that it describes - and say a thank you in your heart for all of these gifts. Read Psalm 104.10-23. |
MUSIC: |
| Either at the beginning or the end play the opening of Carl Nielsen's 4th Symphony, The Inextinguishable available on the Naxos CD label. It's powerful music which, in the composer's words, 'tries to give expression to the basic will to live'. Although Nielsen was not a pious man, his music does celebrate the glory of Creation. |
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