In Another's Shoes

This month's lessons in the Explorers class focus on the question "Who decides what is right and true in life?"  People's lives are in part determined by the things they experience; but we each have a choice in how we will respond to the negative experiences, whether they will break our spirits or build our character. Today's goal in the Explorer's class was to better understand the culture Jesus was born into, and to notice the similarities and differences with our world today.  

The children watched an excerpt from the Reader's Digest film "Jesus Among the People" to show some images of what life may have looked like in Palestine during the time of Jesus.  The children made sandals similar in style to those worn at that time (although ours were made from cardboard and ribbon, rather than leather).  We tried to "put ourselves in the shoes" of people in another place and time.

Throughout the year, we will be asking our young people to "put themselves in another's shoes" by seeing things from other people's perspectives.  As we study stories from the Bible this year, we will talk about what they may have meant to the people telling and writing them many years ago, what they might have meant to our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors, and what they mean to us today.