The Daniel Song

Yes, I know.  The May Meme has fallen by the wayside, because of Life.  Who knows whether it may reappear before May is out.

In the meantime, I have been guest blogging about telling Bible stories to children, over at the Families First magazine blog, and have also been inviting questions and requests on Facebook and Twitter.  One question was about how to make children, most of whom barely know the Christmas story, aware of the whole scope of the Bible and the way it all links together.  

Some of my favourite Bible tells have been of entire lives - Joseph, Daniel and Moses - over church weekends when there are several days or sessions for episodes.  I wrote this song a couple of summers ago when telling Daniel for a holiday club, and thought I'd post it here as an example.  The refrain was part of the story, and the new verse was learnt by the children at the end of each episode.  As it's a cumulative song, the whole thing was sung every time and thus memorised.  It goes to a jazzed-up version of the tune of When I First Came To This Land - if anyone apart from me still knows that folk song!

1

We are in a foreign land

Trying to live by God's command

The king said “Praise my man of gold,

You must do as you're told!”

But God's no liar

He saved us from the fire

Though the world might think it's odd,

We will follow God!

2

We are in a foreign land

Trying to live by God's command

The kings were spooked by dreams and ghosts

But Daniel knew the most

He said: The writing on the wall

Says your kingdom's gonna fall

And God's no liar

He saved us from the fire

Though the world might think it's odd,

We will follow God!

3

We are in a foreign land

Trying to live by God's command

The king was tricked by jealous men

Threw Daniel in the lion's den

But he said: Now I've prayed

I know I'm not afraid

Because the writing on the wall

Says your kingdom's gonna fall

And God's no liar

He saved us from the fire

Though the world might think it's odd,

We will follow God!

May Meme 11 - Someone I Love

Ah, "Someone You Love!" Now there's a dangerous title: ignore it, and you look stingy; write on it, and you offend everyone you don't mention!
I very nearly missed it, anyway, because one of the people I love decided to cry for an hour before settling to sleep in his cot, and then because I love him, I decided to try egg-free baking experiments so that he can have a birthday cake in a couple of weeks.  And somebody else I love was using my computer to write a sermon research some fun early church conspiracy theories.

Nonetheless - is it cheating if my introduction far exceeds the 100 word limit? - continuing the completely unintentional exploration of form poetry (I'm hooked now), this is a Double Tetractys.  A tectractys is a 20-syllable poem with the syllable count 1,2,3,4,10.  A double one does the same thing again backwards.  I don't think it has to reflect the words themselves, I just thought it would be fun if it did.

Someone I Love

Songs

make me

remember

someone I love

I hum along, but here's the curious thing:

did I recall the music first, or did

someone I love,

remember,

make me

sing?

A Little Bit Traumatised Ever After

May Meme 10 - yes, I know I haven't been keeping up.  However, today's experience of storytelling in a school gave me the perfect fodder to write on today's theme, which was supposed to be "Something You Created". It's 28 words over my limit, but nobody's perfect...

The Lindworm


“And they all lived...?”


There's an amused silence. I have just told the gruesome story of the Lindworm to a group of 14-18 year olds, mainly boys. Twenty minutes ago they thought fairy tales were for little kids. Now they're mentally savouring the image of a naked girl scrubbing the last layer of skin off a giant maggot with a toilet brush.


“...A little bit traumatised ever after?” suggests one of the boys, finishing my proffered sentence.


As a storyteller, what do I create? Not the stories themselves. The tellings? Only in part. But stories create shared silences and opportunities so that something is new every time.


As for “A little bit traumatised ever after” - that's how I'll be finishing that story from now on!

May Meme 6 - Words

Although the weekend has made me miss a few (I may catch up later), today's topic of 'Words' was very inspiring.  I'm also enjoying my renewed love of form poetry.  This is a kind of Kyrielle; first I made it harder by adopting a difficult rhyme scheme, then I made it easier by making the refrain only half a line long rather than the whole line at the end of each stanza; then to even things out I made it harder again by repeating the refrain at the beginning and the end of each stanza.  I can't decide whether fiddling with the punctuation in the refrain counts as cunning or cheating.


Words

Words work for me, my employees
A quarter of a million strong
buzz round my head like swarming bees
as I direct: words, work for me!


Words work for me, I send them out
to fill each story, verse or song
Some I make whisper, others shout.
They wound, move, heal. Words work for me.


Words work for me: all except one,
the master to whom I belong:
and every word beneath the Sun
Cannot explain Word's work for me.

May Meme 3 - Black and White

For what the May Meme is all about, see this post.

True story -we have black and white china, including mugs on cuphooks.  Whenever I unload the dishwasher, I place my mugs in a certain order, alternating spots and stripes with their red companions in between.  Recently my husband was on kitchen duty and put every single one back in the right place.

Black and White: A Rondelet

It's black and white

I like my cups arranged this way,

It's black and white -

And when I came back home tonight

and saw the monochrome display,

I thought - I love you. We're OK.

It's black and white.

A post a day May: first two

This is a meme that has been going around Facebook.  The words are supposed to inspire a photo a day, but I'm going to try to use them for inspiration to do quick pieces of writing, under 100 words each.  I don't know whether I'll manage them all, but if I do at least the ones that fall on writing days, my hope is that it will help the creative juices to keep juicing during what is set to be a very challenging month.  Here are the first two entries (because of course, in true Amy fashion, I have started a day late!)

1. Self Portrait (in contrasting colours)

A girl who, whenever the sky is a certain shade of blue, brings an orange in her pocket, so that she can throw the orange upwards and be transfixed by two seconds of colours at opposite ends of the spectrum.

A girl who tumbled out of Narnia a queen, and on the wrong side of the wardrobe, had to learn how to pretend she was a girl.

Someone who only likes the beach in rainy weather, but loves a city park in the sun because it succeeds in being an oasis, home in the middle of a foreign land.

2. On The Wall

On my wall, haphazardly pinned: a leaflet about Early Years storytime, some information about things to do with toddlers around here, a collage of Peppa Pig in a hot air balloon, the number of someone I've probably forgotten to ring, the first flowers my daughter ever drew, and almost buried, a reminder: 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 which tells me not to claim anything as coming from me: “Our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit: for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”