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Children and Youth
Nancy Van Fleet, Director of Children and Youth nancyv@fpcnaples.org
Our confirmands and their mentors have been meeting weekly as a group learning about new spiritual practices. Each week, one of our confirmands shares a new practice and then we join in on that practice as a group. After that, we have time for reflection. I wanted to share a practice given and created by Maryn Coine (a freshman at Gulf Coast High School). She calls the practice “Illuminated Lectio Divina.”
Donna Nolan, Maryn’s mentor, added, “Maryn takes her place in a long line of Bible illuminators. In reading sacred text, Maryn ‘sees God and waits for certain words to call out’ to her. Then she sets about bringing those words forward with color and decoration. This is what the early illuminators did by bringing light to initial letter, decorative margins and small illustrations, all to highlight and bring forth the sacred message.” Please continue to keep our confirmands (and all our children and youth) in your prayers as we navigate through this new time in our lives.
Blessings, peace and every good, Nancy Van Fleet Director of Children and Youth
As Maryn described her practice to me she said “In preparation to sharing our psalms at the confirmation retreat , I was looking through the different psalms and annotating them and highlighting words that really spoke to me. I really wanted to highlight every word because they were all so meaningful to me. I ended up getting another paper and writing each word out and then I could highlight the words that were really meaningful. That allowed me to see the importance of the entire line and each individual word inside of it. I choose how to mark my texts based on how I was feeling at that time and I realize that if I decide to write the same verse at a different time in my life, I might have a totally different looking paper because different words will call out to me and help me where I am.” Maryn used this practice as a way of letting her emotions out – like a diary of sorts – not with the intention of sharing it with anyone. It was not until we began this weekly practice in our confirmation class, that this possibility of sharing with her class came to her mind.
