Lenten Journaling Workshop with Shells and Spools and Fibers

Last night at my church, I led our journaling group through several exercises.

When I first got to the fellowship hall, I took a jar of shells collected through the years and laid them on a table:

As people arrived, I invited them to choose a shell that spoke to them.  We sat for a few minutes while others gathered, and then we began.

We started with prayer, and then I read the first chapter of Genesis (I skipped some of the middle days of creation).  We ended with God declaring everything good--very good--and then taking a day of rest.

We journaled for 10 minutes.

I then invited the group to the second table where they would choose from the tin of buttons,

some rectangles of cloth,

pieces of yarn, 

and spools of thread:

I gave some writing prompts:  what do we learn about God from considering these items? 

If you had to explain God to someone who hadn't ever heard of God, how would you use these elements?  

I reminded people that they could do whatever appealed to them:  create a story about the button that wanders away or make something out of the elements:

We journaled for 10 minutes, and towards the end, I reminded people of the Genesis story of creation and asked if we learned anything about creation from our own creating.

We had a few minutes for sharing.  We prayed, and then we ended our second full night of journaling together.