In its original context—the land of Judea, 2700 years ago—those who listened to Isaiah’s prophecy as recorded in Isaiah 9:2-7 would have known that it celebrated the coronation of a king, probably Hezekiah. While other biblical prophets are suspicious of kings, Isaiah speaks well of them. He sees them as exalted on earth just like God is exalted in heaven.

Seven hundred years after Isaiah’s time, followers of Jesus listened to this prophecy and understood it as referring to Jesus. In 1741, George Handel wrote a piece of music called “The Messiah” drawing on words from this prophecy for an oratorio, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” and a chorus, “For a child has been born for us…and he is named…Prince of Peace.”

We listened to Handel’s oratorio and the chorus while responding to the prophecy through drawing. When this music was over, a young woman began singing “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine” and the rest of us joined in. A most fitting response to Isaiah’s prophecy.

In Circle this week we encountered the prophecy from Isaiah 9:2-7. Nine women attended, but one had to leave early for a court appearance. So her friend requested an extra story paper to take for her. Then during our time of responding to the story with artwork she illustrated it so that her friend would have “some color in this place.”

Such expressions of thoughtfulness and care for one another are not uncommon in our Circle of the Word sessions. One of our Connections to the story reflected on sources of light in our darkness. Those of us from the outside can clearly see how some women in Circle function as sources of light for others there in the jail, and as bearers of God’s peace in the world.

Yesterday we began a new series for our Circle of the Word program at the Montgomery County Jail. The theme is “Journey to Bethlehem.”

Journey to Bethlehem is a six-week series for Advent-Epiphany inspired by a presentation I learned from Young Children and Worship by Sonja Stewart and Jerome Berryman. It uses materials from Worship Woodworks that include a model of Bethlehem, felt underlays, and wooden figures. I bring artificial votive candles as reminders of “who can show us the way to Bethlehem.”

During the first week of Advent we focus on the prophets, represented by Isaiah, because “prophets listen to God so they can show us the way.” We made “illustrated manuscripts” instead of storyboards. Some were drawn around the text and others on the backside of the story paper.

In addition to naming the king as “Prince of Peace” the prophet looks forward to a day when there will be “endless peace.” In these days when one mass killing follows another in the headlines we yearn for endless peace just as much now as in ancient times when Isaiah spoke the Word of God to his people.

We used peace symbol stickers to decorate our nametags. These showed up a lot in our drawings. Also, you can see how the prophets in the illustration below were inspired by the wooden figure of Isaiah. The imagery of boots of tramping warriors and garments rolled in blood was powerful in contrast to the imagery of rejoicing at the harvest and a child born who will be the Prince of Peace. The card saying, “rolled in blood” was from The Word I Heard activity.

Two women offered their completed surveys for presentation on this blog. The cards at the top are the words and phrases they recalled in the “Word I Heard” exercise. Women who came the first time filled out the top survey; women who had come before filled out the bottom one.

The positive feedback was encouraging. I think the reason the class was so good was because everybody participated. Simply engaging with the biblical story, with openness to the Holy Spirit, works wonders. They really cooperated with “listening for whatever word God has for us today.”

These storyboards have distinctive styles for portraying the three episodes of the story of Jesus cleansing a leper (Mark 1:40-45).

We ended our “Good News” series at the jail with the story of Jesus cleansing a leper (Mark 1:40-45). We used the drama bag: one person gesturing inside the bag and another telling the story. This technique was introduced to me a number of years ago when I was in Australia by our two Catholic hosts—Christian educators par excellence. I brought a yellow and a blue drama bag home with me and periodically get them out for use in a storytelling workshop.

This Fall is the first time I have used a drama bag for several years, and the first time ever using one in a detention setting. Most of the women do not want to get inside, but everyone enjoys watching. While one woman gestured inside the drama bag, the other told (or in one case read) the story as best she could remember. Below are three poses in the drama bag by two different women for the story of Jesus cleansing a leper.

With much regret, last Wednesday when we engaged Mark 1:35-39, I forgot to get pictures of the women’s wonderful storyboards. The one above was contributed by one of the Circlekeepers, for which I am most grateful! Note her creative way of dividing the paper into three sections for the three episodes of the story.

For this story I tried a storylearning activity I hadn’t done for some time: having people give titles to each episode and then of the whole story. They worked in pairs and managed the negotiations and decision-making to accomplish the task extremely well and in a timely manner. Everyone fully participated. When done, they reported back as pairs in a round.

My title for this story is “Prayer and Proclamation.” The titles each pair created are listed below. The top phrase of each set is the title for the whole story. The indented titles are for the three episodes.

1. Seeking Good Spirit
   1. Prayer Time
   2. Hide and Seek
   3. Glory
2. Proclamation of Jesus
   1. Solitude
   2. Seeking Jesus
   3. Jesus Seeks
3. Jesus Casts Out Demons
   1. Morning Prayer
   2. Jesus Tells His Purpose
   3. Driving Out Demons
4. Jesus Proclaiming the Town
   1. Private Prayer
   2. Praying for Thy Neighbor
   3. Running Away Demons
5. Jesus’ Route to His Ministry
   1. Jesus’ Route to Prayers
   2. Jesus on the Move
   3. Jesus Casting Out Demons

It’s amazing to me how each set of titles is different, and yet each captures the gist of the story. I’m thinking how this creative, analytical work of the Circle can contribute to other biblical storytelling Circles or workshops.

Mark 1:35-39 is a relatively unfamiliar story that few of the nine women who came to Circle from the jail last Wednesday had ever heard. There’s nothing terribly dramatic about this story, but the women connected with it in beautiful and inspiring ways. Through their connections they gave testimonies about the importance of “the little things” that can mean so much.

Since the story begins with Jesus getting up early while it is still very dark, and going off to the Galilean wilderness to pray by himself, our suggestion connections were about: (1) going someplace early in the morning, and, (2) finding a quiet place to pray alone. Everyone contributed to the round, but when the round was complete, the sharing went on.

Someone asked for the talking piece to share more. She told about an experience of feeling the warmth of the early morning sun on her cheek, there in the jail. Then a second and a third told about similar experiences. Each built on the positive energy of previous stories. As so often happens during these Circles, I experienced the reality of Jesus’ proclamation that the kingdom of God has drawn near.

So I wanted to pray and help us all hold onto this gift of the Spirit in our midst. When the sharing seemed more or less complete, I suggested we all close our eyes and place our hands on our cheeks, as the women had done in telling their stories. I encouraged everyone, myself included, to remember the warmth of the sun, and to let it remind us of God’s love for us. We can recall that love no matter what the current circumstances. We can place our hands on our cheeks any time to remind ourselves of the warm sun, and to be in touch with the love of God.

The story concludes with Jesus going throughout the region proclaiming his message about the kingdom of God and driving out demons. Last Wednesday in our Circle it truly felt that Jesus’ message was heard, and that at least some of our demons were driven away.

The story we engaged at the jail last week about Jesus in Capernaum, healing and casting out demons raised some thoughtful reflections on the feedback survey: I wonder…

• Are my battles against demons or myself
• Will it help me
• What would it be like to see all the people around Jesus being healed

As usual, storyboards were created to help learn and tell the story by heart. This time almost everyone offered to share her storyboard. I guess I need to figure a way to have a gallery, but for now they are all posted below. I’m hoping some of the women when they get out might find their way to this site and see their creative story-learning artwork posted for everyone’s benefit. When the women draw these, they have only heard the story a couple of times, and they are given a scant two minutes to draw each part. I love the variety of depictions they create and I am always amazed at the amount of detail they include.

When I looked at these photos, I realized that the storyboards had been drawn before the women saw a picture I later showed of a typical first-century Palestinian home with its flat roof.  So naturally their houses were depicted with the pitched roofs that are our common Western house stereotype. I remember last year when I taught this story I showed the picture first. As a result, when we did the storyboard exercise the houses were drawn with flat roofs. It doesn’t really matter how they are drawn for purposes of the storyboard exercise, but it impressed me again how attentive most of the women are to what we do in Circle.

In Sacred Stories this week we were a Circle of eleven, including myself and one other Circlekeeper. One of the women, new to the class this fall, told me that she had attended when I first started Sacred Stories. She recalled how we had a little perfume bottle for a talking piece, and how it had broken and the scent filled the room. I remembered with delight how that was so like the anointing story: “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3).   

Wednesday’s story was about Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law who was in bed with a fever in the house of Simon and Andrew, and then healing many who were brought to him, and also casting out many demons. There was lots of laughter at the drama bag telling, well done again this week. The woman who narrated told the story amazingly well for never having heard it before.

Many tears were shed during the Connections round when we reflected and shared stories about people we have cared for when they were in bed sick. A final telling to hold their memories in the context of this gospel story seemed to help, as did the compassion of the women for each other and the writing of prayer requests.

Though it was a brand new story for all the women, the theme of healing connected. Comments written on the feedback survey on what was meaningful about the story included:

• I can be healed
• The power of healing
• It touched my heart
• That Jesus heals!
• Always have faith in Jesus even when in doubt.
• Getting healed
• I really related to it