The Big Chill

AGE: Primary

IN THE NEWS, for weeks beginning DECEMBER 4^th/11^th

KEY STAGE        Primary

TITLE          The Big Chill

AIM               To help pupils reflect on the way a crisis situation can bring out the best (and worst) in people.
 
PREPARATION/RESOURCES

No special resources are needed – different sections can be read/presented by staff/pupils where appropriate.

DEVELOPMENT

Do you want the good news or the bad news first???

OK, we’ll have the bad news first:

• Britain has been hit by the coldest, snowiest weather it has seen for years.
• Many airports have been closed causing the disruption of thousands of people’s holiday plans.
• Thousands of people have found themselves trapped inside their cars on snowbound roads.
• Grit has run out in many places, electricity supplies have failed, ambulances have found it difficult to answer emergency calls.
• Scottish farmers fear that up to a million sheep face being starved or frozen to death after being caught out on exposed hillsides.
• Thousands of schools have been closed … Some exam candidates could have to wait five months to sit GCSE and A-level modules in England, Wales and Northern Ireland if weather prevents them taking them next week.

And now the good news:

• This school isn’t one of the schools that are closed! You will be able to do more work than those children in badly-affected areas – and do better in exams (maybe)!
• Snowmen are enjoying an extra-long winter-break.
• Penguins and polar bears in British zoos are having a great time.
• Sledge manufacturers and woolly-jumper knitters are reporting big profits.
• People who enjoy swimming in the sea on New Year’s Day enjoyed a particularly refreshing dip.
• Hopes are rising that Britain’s longest ever icicle will be discovered in the coming days.

There’s a good side and a bad side to most of the situations that we find ourselves in.   Cold weather, like the one we are experiencing at the moment, can create problems and distress, but it can also bring out the best in people. Communities that are cut off by the snow suddenly have to learn to help each other – elderly people, for example, who are normally looked after by professional carers, have to be looked after by their neighbours. Sometimes we are compelled to be kind!

Not that it always works like that. There’s a famous Russian folktale about Grandfather Frost (Ded Moroz, in Russian) that illustrates this. In brief, it goes like this:

A woman had a stepdaughter and a daughter of her own, and she hated her stepdaughter. One day, she ordered her husband to take her out into the winter fields and leave her there. He reluctantly obeyed. Grandfather Frost found her there, and she was polite and kind to him, and he gave her a chestfull of beautiful things and fine garments. When her stepmother sent her father to bring back her body to be buried the family’s pet dog said that she was coming back beautiful and happy and, despite the bribe of a pancake, went on saying it.

When the stepmother saw what her stepdaughter had brought back, she ordered her husband to bring her own daughter out to the fields. The girl was rude to Grandfather Frost and he froze her to death with his icy fingers. When her husband went out to bring her back, the dog said that she would be buried and, despite the bribe of a pancake, repeated it. When he brought back the frozen body, the old woman wept.

[A fuller version of this tale can be found at http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/017.htm ]

Like many folk tales, there’s a sense of grim justice to this one! The point, though, is that the cold brings out the best and worst in the two girls.

Jesus told many parables that, in some ways, are very like folk tales. For a start, they often have two characters/groups that represent the ‘Good’ and the ‘Bad’ – the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18. 9-14), Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16. 19-31), the Wise and Foolish Virgins (Matthew 25. 1-13).

Jesus can be harsh too – the ‘Bad’ often get their just deserts. But the ending of the story often seems to have depended on to whom he was speaking – did his audience need shocking, or did they need confidence? The famous parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15. 11-32) ends with the ‘Bad’ son being welcomed back home by his father.

For Jesus people can fail in a crisis – but thy can also change and he doesn’t hold their wrong choices against them: the parable ends with a call ‘to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

PRAYER

Lord Jesus – we pray for your loving presence in the lives of those who have been badly affected by the harsh weather: the elderly, the sick, travellers, factory workers, farmers.

Thank you for those who have responded to this crisis with generosity and hard work – council workers, ambulance drivers, those who look after animals, neighbours and friends.

Help us, when we are faced with difficult situations, to respond with love.

Amen.