Murray Schafer and Eleanor James Working With Our Youth

It is such a unique opportunity to have this eminent Canadian composer working with our members of Many Gifts One Spirit. Beginning in January, 2011, Murray and his partner Eleanor James will join us once a month to create a new music-drama based on the biblical story of Job. We will all be challenged to be artists as Murray and Eleanor guide us to create the storyline, script and blocking for the story. Murray will write original music for the production.

Our children will have an integral part in this drama, with opportunities to sing, act, and most significantly, to help shape the narrative of this story. In discussing the relevance of the Job story to our lives today, Elizabeth MacDonald, minister of SSUC observed the following:

• The story of Job explores the depth of human faith and the presence or lack of divine grace and providence in the midst of suffering
• Like many people who find themselves coping with unjust, unexplainable hardship, Job never gets an answer.
• Many people today are hooked on prosperity theology in which God’s grace and individual’s faithfulness are supposedly reflected in material wealth
• Job’s friends are well-meaning, but they are out of touch and don’t begin to comprehend what he is going through. Their advice is neither insightful nor helpful.
• Job’s suffering becomes God’s suffering as God embraces and embodies human story in and through Jesus

By engaging in this story at an appropriate emotional and cognitive level, our children have an opportunity to engage with one of the greatest epic stories of history. All children, ages five and up are welcome to participate.