Revisiting Genesis Creation Stories

This month in our intergenerational, interactive service, we're looking at the Genesis creation stories.  Yes, I said stories. I think it's important to talk about the fact that there are 2 stories that explain how we all came to be here.  It's important to talk about how the later story, the Adam and Eve story, has been used to oppress us all.  I'm not dwelling on that aspect, but I'm mentioning it.

Yes, I'm the one in charge of the Adam and Eve story--and thus, my first session was more me talking and leading a class than some of the activities that we usually do, like Reader's Theatre or puppets. 

In some ways, it was more interactive.  After all, when we have a puppet show, it's only a few people participating and the rest of us watching.

As we talked, I thought about how lucky I am to be part of this group.  We can do textual analysis.  We are not bound by a religious tradition that tells us of the inerrancy of the Bible.  We do not see the Genesis creation stories as telling us what factually happened.  I'm not sure we'd even tell you that they're true, in the way that we see the Gospels as true, even if not historical.

This Sunday we will be more interactive.  We are doing a variation of the arts project that we did in Create in Me years ago:  the broken but beautiful cross.  We brought our broken objects and dumped them into an empty plexiglass and wood cross:

And in the end, we had a beautiful work of art:

This Sunday, at our church, instead of creating a frame into which we'll dump our broken objects, we'll have a cross drawn on posterboard.  We'll take colored pieces of paper and write down the ugliness that we'd like God to transform.  We'll paste those pieces of paper to the cross to make a mosaic of sorts.

I shall post pictures!