Purple Play-Doh and Spiritual Truths

Principals from church schools across the Northwest U.S. meet in Bend, OR
On Saturday, I got to play with purple Play-Doh to better comprehend spiritual truth.

I didn't grow up with Play-Doh, actually. In Malaysia we had Plasticine, which is better than Pay-Doh because it doesn't dry out. But it's more bothersome than Play-Doh because it is oily and takes a lot more work to warm it up so that you can really make stuff out of it. It's the more "artsy" substance; claymation people use Plasticine to do their work precisely because it doesn't dry out.

I got acquainted with Play-Doh as an adult after coming to the U.S. so I missed that childhood imprinting regarding Play-Doh play. I've never figured out where the stink of it comes from, but I learned as a teacher that after a while you actually like it, because the smell signifies Fun. The excitement of opening that brand new container of Pay-Doh and seeing the fresh cylindrical blob of pure color and possibility inside is such a stimulating feeling! And the colors just get better and better.

This weekend Principal Mark (I was tagging along with Husband at a Christian principals' retreat) put us in groups of ten and gave us tubs of neon-colored Play-Doh. Then he gave us parts of a body to make. You make the eyes, I make the lungs, he makes the brain, she makes the ears, and so on. Our table of ten worked together, and Voilà! Out of fresh, neon Play-Doh colors there emerged our new friend, Sam. (Principal Mark had told us to give it a unisex name.) Although the final combination of our efforts was rather disconcerting considering my high expectations, I would like to proudly point out that I was the sculptor of those gorgeous purple lungs.

Principal Mark had us listen to a reading from that "body of Christ" passage from 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. Then he listed a bunch of people who interact with Christian schools: teachers, students, pastors, superintendents, senior members of the church, et cetera. We were supposed to say which of those individuals are represented by which parts of the body. Here are some of the sample comments:

"The senior members of the church are like the nose, because they can sniff which way things are going, and analyze it with the wisdom of their years."

"The students are like the heart, because they are at the heart of what we do."

"The principals are like the intestines, because they process the happenings of the schools and get rid of the junk."

"The teachers are like the hands and feet, because they get the work done."

And so it went. There was something about the whole exercise that made me think differently about us all as the body of Christ. I thought about the fact that even the parts that I see as more negative, have an important job to do. And we considered how they all work together, and how important it is that they do so.

I think this is something that becomes clearer to us as we get older.

And by the way, isn't Sam attractive in a Picasso-ish sort of way?