Building a Cairn Together
Materials: A stone for each participant.
CD player
Cairn by Fran McKendree (CD) or other song about journey.
Place a candle on a large dish with sand and light the candle. Read Joshua 4:1-9. Stones are heavy and therefore unlikely to be moved. They are strong and therefore take years to weather. People throughout the ages have used stones, therefore, to mark the location of important events that they want to be remembered—memorials such as the one the 12 tribes crossing the Jordan River built. Pilgrims mark sacred places with cairns, a pile of stones, each placed with a special prayer, or inent. As each stone is added, it grows higher and higher. A cairn is a tower of hopes and dreams, of burdens unleaded and left behind, of celebrations for great awakenings. Cairns sometimes appear to be in fragile balance, with spaces for the wind to enter and exit as if God were breathing in the prayers held within the rocks. Each stone must be placed carefully to maintain the stability of the column. Today, hikers build cairns to indicate turns in the path or to mark the beauty of a natural formation. Cairns are particularly helpful when the way is along a large rocky outcropping without soil or foliage. Along these desolate parts, the footsteps of those who before leave no mark. Cairns are sentinels that keep watch over history and the future, signposts of journeys taken and yet to come. Invite the youth to create a cairn by adding their stone along with a prayer of hope or the unloading of a burden. Notice how the cairn changes as each stone is added. “Turn, Turn, Turn” Track 10 of Cairn by Fran McKendree. As the music ends, invite the youth to share their hope or burden with the group.
[Excerpted from to , Morehouse Publishing, forthcoming August 2006]
|
