The Profound Theology of Lilo and Stitch

At first I didn't like Lilo and Stitch. After watching with Charlie for a year or so, yesterday I was suddenly and profoundly moved by the story. Let's see if I can capture the revelation I had.


Lilo lives with her older sister as her legal guardian in Hawaii. They don't have a lot of money, and they have big noses. Lilo gets teased a lot, and her sister is stressed about keeping her job and having enough money to get by.

Aliens Stitch, Juma, and Pleakly move in with Lilo and her sister. Stich becomes Lilo's best friend.



Jumba is an "Evil Genius Scientist" and had for years created more and more evil experiment creatures to wreak havoc on the universe. Stitch is the last of his 626 experiments. Each experiment is catalogued by number and by it's evil ability. Jumba is now working for good with Lilo's team.



Pleakly is a 3-legged gender-bending neat freak. I think Pleakly is a boy, but he likes to wear Lilo's sister's clothes. He often also takes the role of mother hen of the extended earth/alien family.


Here comes the theology:
Lilo and Stitch are on a mission to track down all of the 625 Evil Experiments before the evil Dr. Hamsterweil does. Lilo has figured out that every experiment has "One True Home" where it's gifts are used for good.
There is a shredding experiment thats one true home is mowing the grass. And a too-much electricity experiment whose one true home is an abandon lighthouse that will always now have electricity. And on and on and on.

"God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." (Gen 1:31a)


I'm taking a Qi Gong course and two weeks ago the instructor told us to release the bad energy on our exhale and take in the good energy when we inhaled. It concerned me all week. I didn't want to be a litter-bug, sending out all sorts of bad energy into the world. So I asked him about it, and he told me the idea was that the energy was "bad" because it was in the wrong place, but when you release it into the universe, the universe gets it into the correct place where it is good and helpful energy.

So whether it's the bible, or a children's show, or a system of Chinese energy work: everything, in its proper place, is good. Amen!

Great Video: Ancient Mesopotamia

With 36 hours until showtime, I've found a great video for our Movie rotation for our All About The Bible rotation. It's called Ancient Mesopotamia. It's geared specifically for 3rd-6th graders, runs 23 minutes, and although a little hokey in places, it kept my husband and I interested and even taught us a thing or two. You can see a clip from it here.

Now, the only issue is we've got it on VCR and we only have setup for DVD. So much for a day off with Absolutely Nothing To Do. Jesus turned water to wine--surely a priest can turn VCR into DVD!

St Francis Day Pet Blessing

Every year I've been a priest, I've lead a St Francis' Day service with a blessing of the animals. This year's event was the most well-attended. We had a total of 46 humans, a couple dozen dogs, and a few cats.

Everyone was well-behaved during the service. It is fun to watch pets and their owners find their spot for the liturgy. They seem to have an innate sense about how close they can be to others.



Although humans are physically far from one another, these pet blessings seem to me to be one of the more intimate services we have. There is something so precious about the bond between pet and human. I know my dog has often been a physical reminder for me of God--comforting me when I'm sorrowful, dancing for joy when I return home, convincing me to play and exercise when I get too wrapped up in work...

Thank you, God for all the animals in our lives.

Sunday School Carpenters

The Art workshop for the "Jesus as a Child" workshop in WorkshopCycles is a carpentry project. The project as it was originally conceived didn't have much carpentry involved. However, I had A Great Idea. I decided our children should make wooden prayer benches, and found free directions (that seem to no longer exist). Here is another site with directions on how to make the prayer benches.

As the time drew near, adults were beginning to get nervous about combining children and power tools, and about the ability of the children to get this project done in the alotted time. However, since Charlie has helped Shawn with carpentry projects since he was 2, and since Shawn was leading the workshop, I was confident things would be fine.

We pre-cut and routed the wood, so the first things the children did were to put the legs in the grooves and sand the pieces:


Next, Sly helped the children used a drill press to drill pilot holes for the 4 screws that hold the legs on:


Some children also tried using hand tools to make the pilot holes:


They then screwed in the 4 screws and their benches were complete:


The workshop went wonderfully!! I was able to be around for it, and the students were very engaged in the project. It was a delight to see.

I had intended for the children to leave the benches here at the church, as a donation of their time and talent to the worship in this place. However, I forgot to make that clear to my husband. So the children took their benches home. Today, I heard that one student is now having her dolls pray.

What could be better!?!

Rally Day

This is the first year we've done a Rally Day at church. After the service, we invited everyone downstairs to see our classrooms and interact with our curriculum. I didn't get any good photos of people visiting our Godly Play room, although they did. But here are some shots from our new Workshop Rotation room.

We're a small church and only have one multi-purpose room that we use for Workshop Rotation, so different areas have different feels.

This is the area which is also used for other groups during the week. It's a good "lounge" area and we have displayed our printed WorkshopCycles curriculum here for folks to examine:

(I have no idea why this is underlined...)
Next, we have the entrance to our Tent. Today, it is set up for a Computer Rotation. However, we use this space for many different things. It is a great place to read the story at the beginning of each Workshop. It is also a good place for drama, movement, and games.


As you can see, the students were very excited about showing us the Computer games they have been using.


All in all, a good day.

Multiple Intelligence Self-Test

Sunday is Rally Day at our parish. It's the first time we've done a Rally Day in who knows how long. We're doing it specifically to introduce the congregation to Workshop Rotation Model Sunday School, which we began 3 weeks ago. Workshop Rotation Model is based on the idea that people learn in a number of different way, called Multiple Intelligences.
I took this quick self-test and found out that my learning styles are as follows:
1) Intrapersonal
2) Interpersonal
3) Kinesthetic
4) Naturalistic
5) Musical
6) Linguistic
7) Logical
8) Visual/Spacial

Maybe one of the reason I am so excited about Workshop Rotation is because there are 5 modes I learn better in than Linguistic (the one traditional Sunday Schools use most).

What are your top learning styles? How about your children's?

Any Regrets?

When my husband and I had been married a few years, we took a group of youth on a mission trip. Near the end of the trip we went white water rafting and there was an accident. Half of our raft got thrown out in a Class IV rapids. The guide and I were able to get back in almost immediately. But a teen and Shawn were out longer. I watched Shawn tumbling and tumbling down the rapids in front of us, clearly not getting all the breath he needed. And the girl was stuck under the raft. All of us in the raft were holding on, feeling under the water for the girl. After what seemed like an eternity, the guide felt her paddle, pulled on it and got her back in the raft. About 100 yards down river, we caught up to my well-battered husband. I was the one that took hold of his life vest. I wasn't strong enough to pull him in alone. With the help of 2 others, we hoisted him in and he fell on me: bluish-white, bloody, and breathing ragged. But breathing! And no bones sticking out. Everyone was safe, thank God.

During the time that Shawn was tumbling in the river and I was watching helplessly, I had an amazing realization: There was nothing I regretted about our life together. There was nothing unsaid that needed to be said. There were no choices I would have made differently. If he were to die, I wouldn't grieve any choices I made.

Since that day, I have striven to keep this up. Regularly I will review my life and consider those I love and imagine one of us has died. Is there anything I would regret? If so, I try to shift my life so that I can always say at any moment, "there is nothing I regret."