This week in seminary we’ve been discussing the Ten Commandments. That includes the story of Moses coming down off the mountain with the stone tablets, only to find the Israelites partying and worshipping a golden calf. As a class, we talked about what our “golden calves” are today: what gods do we make for ourselves and then worship? Celebrities? Money? Our smartphones?
The Israelites had recently left Egypt, where their taskmasters worshipped a vast pantheon of gods. Like many ancient religions, the Egyptians had a multitude of gods who were each responsible for certain things: the sun, moon, river, harvest, good fortune, and so on. We thought it would be fun to have the kids sculpt their own gods and tell us the “power” their god had.
So, before class we went to work making some dough. It’s pretty simple: flour, salt, water, and a bit of tartar sauce.
I don’t know why we need tartar sauce, but whatever. Then we added some color by kneading food coloring into the blobs of dough. We made enough for everyone in class to get a blob, and bagged them.
The kids had a blast sculpting gods for a while during class. Their creations ranged from Worm (pronounced “wuhm”, Lexi told us) who was– shockingly– the god of worms, to Gerald, the god of naps and laziness. There was an elephant god, a strong man (the god of workouts), and a rather intricate creation which turned out to be the god of dreadlocks. My creation was Nasob, the god of unhealthy foods:
In case it’s not obvious, his staff is a gigantic Cheeto.
Honestly I’m pretty sure the kids enjoyed the activity mostly because it meant they weren’t sitting at tables talking about the Bible, which can be tough at 6:30 in the morning. But regardless of their reasons, they had a good time and we were able to chat about the “graven images” in today’s world. I’ve always thought if I can get just a single high schooler to really think about the stuff we’re discussing each morning, it’s a win. Maybe in a small way, we’re helping these good youth become just a little bit better.