At Children’s Time, during worship on Sunday, September 6, 2020, Pastor Jenny read aloud the children’s picture book, “God’s Dream.” Author Archbishop Desmond Tutu lives in South Africa. Coauthor Douglas Carlton Abrams lives in California. Illustrator LeUyen Pham, born in Vietnam, now lives in California.
“God’s Dream,” a beautifully written story with delightful illustrations, featuring an international cast of children, speaks to the heart. The children play together, hold each other’s hands, but sometimes get angry with each other. Then, they reach out and say they are sorry and forgive each other. Desmond Tutu, Douglas Abrams, and LeUyen Pham, different in many ways, remind everyone that human beings have many differences: we are different races, speak other languages, have different natures and behaviors, diverse religious practices, and various thoughts. Yet, we are all God’s children.
God dreams that we will all learn to love each other, care for each other, and live in peace together, like any family, even though we look different and talk differently. Children don’t have to be friends with everyone; they don’t even have to like them, but they HAVE to be kind to everyone. They must also have hope and dreams, even in their most difficult times. It is a book for children of all faiths.
So, what now?
Says Pastor Jenny: “God is always trying to invite us, to tell us how to love the other person when they hurt us, even when we wrong them. How do we fix it? How does God fix it? Jesus and Paul in the Book of Romans tell us we have to keep learning to love, which is not always easy. But we keep trying and never quit. I wonder if you can dream with God, a little bit about how you can love that other person, even if they are the ones who hurt you, and you feel like you couldn’t love them back. Let’s pray about that together. I hope you’ll keep praying about it beyond today as well.”
To follow the worship service and listen to Pastor Jenny read, click here.
Click here to watch a reading of the entire book on YouTube video by Summer Book Club.
Written by Isabella Dougan
It is no secret that some of the pastoral staff have a passion for Disney (sneak a peek at Jana’s phone case or her computer sometime, or ask Scott how many days until his next family trip to Disney World [388 days as of writing]). So it is exciting when we can take an important topic and wrap it in a Disney package. In the recent Disney movie