It's almost Advent, so time to start thinking about
how to "keep the faith" in the midst of commercial chaos.
(Those of you who followed this blog last
year will recognize much of what's coming over the next month.)
When my kids were little, maintaining a Jesse Tree
during Advent helped counter the cultural pressure to see Christmas as nothing
but "What do I get? What will be under the tree for me?"
By making "ornaments" to symbolize
stories from Scripture and then hanging them on a small branch we cut ahead of
time, we found the Jesse Tree to be a family ritual which gave the gift of
Scripture to our children and allowed the old stories to etch themselves into
their memories. It's a fine companion to the traditional Advent Calendar, an
additional buffer to the commercial kidnapping of Christmas.
Incorporating the Jesse Tree into Advent simply
involves retelling a story from Scripture each day during Advent, and then making some sort of symbol to represent that
story (an "ornament") to hang on the branch. Our
"ornaments" were pretty basic -- we were not an artistic
bunch. Some families create much more elaborate (or at least attractive) Jesse
Tree ornaments. Note the photo of our Jesse Tree -- and be convinced that even
the artistically challenged can do this, or be inspired to do better.
Madeleine L'Engle used to talk about the ancient
magic of telling stories around tribal fires at night. Even within our
contemporary homes, we can recreate this sense of awe and wonder. The
Jesse Tree ritual of lighting a candle and telling a story unites those
participating. The more ritual and story we can incorporate into family
life, the deeper the sense of community we share with one another, and by
enlivening our children's imaginations with these ancient stories we can help
them see themselves as part of God's ongoing creation, as part of salvation
history.
If this is the first year you create a Jesse Tree,
you’ll need to make the symbolic ornaments to hang on the “tree”, either day by
day or in a marathon crafts session. I’ll offer potential symbols for
each story, but you might want to come up with your own; many families use a
rainbow for Noah's story, for example, but one of my sons loves animals so we
had giraffes. To make the symbols, we used colored construction paper and
felt tipped pens, or cut out and glued felt, or we used found materials.
For Isaac's sticks, for example, we bundled a small bunch of twigs together,
and for Rahab's cord, we used a piece of red ribbon. You can’t get it
wrong.
Go for a walk with your children to look for a
branch from a bush or tree that you can "plant" in a flower pot
filled with sand or place in a sturdy vase. On the first night of Advent, or on
whatever night you begin, instead of hanging a symbol on the Jesse Tree you
will "plant" it.
Then each night, light a candle or two near where
you put the Jesse Tree and tell one of the stories. (If you are
comfortable doing so, have one of the children light the candle, but keep it
far enough away from the tree to avoid a fire.)
By looking at our cat Zeke trying to steal
ornaments, you can get a sense of the size of the branch we use for our Jesse
Tree, and some of our rather primitive symbols. Years ago when our
children were young, one of their friends looked at the dead branch with its
paper ornaments and asked in horror, "Is that your Christmas tree?"
Micah explained that no, this was a Jesse Tree, not a Christmas tree, and
proceeded to share some of the stories that went with the symbols. Later, when
he was in an 8th grade Humanities class, he aced work on Judeo-Christian
Scriptures because he already knew all the stories.
Next week, I'll have a little more about the
Jesse Tree, and on December 1st and every day after, all the way through to Christmas Eve, I'll post
a brief retelling of a story from Scripture along with a suggested ornament to
make.
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