Lesson 5 / Obey God’s Commandments for the love of His Beauty

Out of His infinite love, God has given us laws and teachings to live by. These laws and teachings are like lamps that illumine our path. Through their light, we are able to see how it is that God wants us to live. This was the inspiration to today’s craft in our class – colourful lamps! (made of simple glass jars, with bits of tissue paper glued all around them…)

I’m sure these beautiful creations will help the children remember our quote for today:

‘Observe My commandments, for the love of My beauty.’ – Bahá’u’llah

After finishing our lovely lamps – we read the story about Haji Muhammad who was a great example of joyful obedience, following Bahá’u’lláh’s instructions immediately. He was sent on a voyage by ship from Akka to Jeddah, but in his hurry to obey Bahá’u’lláh’s instructions, he forgot to ask, what he was supposed to do when he got there. He wasn’t perturbed at all, even when it got unusually stormy and many passengers were worried for their lives. Haji Muhammad trusted he would get to where he was sent and upon arriving in Jeddah heard two people speaking Persian (Haji Muhammad’s language too) and after approaching them, found out they were trying to find their way to Bahá’u’lláh’s presence. They had been imprisoned for being Baha’is for 10 years, and had just been released. This was their first journey to the Holy Land and needed assistance. Haji Muhammad now knew what his mission on this trip was – to help these two souls find their way to Akka and the presence of Bahá’u’lláh.

We then used some of the drama warm-up excercises – walking along our imaginary squares, stretching tall and melting into a little puddle of wax, like a candle. We also played another round of ‘FREEZE’ (see last weeks post) as it seems to be a favourite with the children. And to learn some more cooperative skills, we used another exercise, where children together have to create a shape the teacher calls out – circle, straight line, triangle, square, etc.without talking to each other.

We finished today’s class with further practicing of the unity prayer, that we have put to music now. We didn’t get a chance to record it today, hope to do so next time 🙂 It’s sounding really good!

This was the last class for this school term – the holidays start next weekend. We’ll take a break too and see you all back on Sunday 29 April, 10am to noon, as usual! Ka kite ano!

Mercy and forgiveness…

In today’s childrens-class we learned about the virtues of mercy and forgiveness. To set the tone, we read a beautiful story about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in ‘Akká and the mercy and forgiveness He showed the governor of that city, even though he tried time and time again to harm the Bahá’ís (It’s on page 63 of the new Grade 1 Ruhi Book ).

We discussed that showing mercy and forgiveness even to people that might not be kind or nice to us, is probably tricky at times. But the children found great examples on how they could practice these virtues in their homes and every day lives.

To practice showing mercy, the children had already decided last week, that we would all bake some cookies together, which we could then share with the younger children (3-5yrs) who have their class in the other room. The shared baking was great – everyone helped, from reading the recipe, measuring the ingredients, mixing the dough, rolling the cookie-balls and squashing them flat … and they were delicious too – yum!

Lesson 4 : Love, love, love

What a fabulous class we had today! We learnt about love – and how it is always better to show love towards other people, even if they are not treating us kindly. To memorise the quote for the lesson we used a series of pictures. Amazing how quickly all the children picked it up and new it off by heart within a few minutes!

Picture 1 : “In the garden”   Picture 2: “of thy heart”   Picture 3: “plant naught”  Picture 4: “but the rose”    Picture 5: “of love”

We then made some ‘roses of love’ out of crepe, tissue paper and pipecleaners, and scented them with essence (it was frangipani, I was fresh out of rose :)…)

We finished the class with a story about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Akka and some colouring in.

Todays class went so quickly. We can’t wait for next week! See you all then 🙂

Lesson of today in pdf format – 4_Love

Oh and of course, the song we learnt today – Love Love Love – Lyrics and Have a listen to the song