The Return of the Blog

Working in Youth and Family ministry is a constant source of new experiences and learning opportunities - one of the many things I love about it. Recently, in my work with the Diocesan Performing Arts Ministry, otherwise known as Sheep and Goats, I produced and directed my first musical with my much more experienced and theatrically trained partner in crime Claire Rice. One of the many things that I learned from this process was that producing a musical gobbles up your time like teenagers eat pizza. For this reason, I have fallen woefully behind on my weekly blogging duties over the past month. I will make the appropriate confessions to the internet gods and hopefully be quickly absolved of my transgressions. In the meantime, I thought it would be appropriate to share a bit about The Selfish Giant story and what we were trying to say in the show. As usual, it all comes back to the relationship between children and adults in the Church.

The Selfish Giant, is a relatively unknown short story for children by the well known Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. The story is set in the giant’s beautiful garden. Upon his return from a prolonged absence, the giant finds a group of children happily playing in his garden. He promptly ejects them and puts up a high wall to keep such trespassers out. Because of his selfishness, his garden becomes the sole domain of the North Wind, Snow, Frost and Hail.

The Selfish Giant with Lady North Wind walled into his cold, lonely garden

But at this point, our musical adds to the original short story; the Giant, cold and alone sings about how he prefers his cold, lonely garden. Away from other people, he is safe from the pain caused by broken relationships and lost love. The children, having overheard his song, begin to understand that what appears to be anger and selfishness is really a product of his own fear and pain. So they decide that the giant and the garden both need them – need their love and their laughter – and they sneak back in. With the return of the children, the Giant too is transformed and his frozen heart melts. He welcomes the children back into his garden and knocks down the walls that kept them out. 

'We are one, flowers of one garden, we're one, leaves of one tree, let the walls come down, stand here together we are one family.'

This is our story. It is about the divisions and walls between generations in the Church: children and young people who feel excluded and alienated; adults and seniors who feel abandoned and irrelevant. This story is about transformation. The kind that God accomplishes in our hearts when we care for each other; when we listen and understand the feelings behind one another’s actions and words even when they are hurtful. It is about how God is present when people of all ages come together in the Church as the body of the Risen Christ. In this Church, love will come again like wheat that springs up green from the cold, dark earth in a giant’s garden.

The cast of The Selfish Giant in the memorial garden at St Philip's.