Hopes & Dreams

This was the title of the first "Experience Easter" station (the one for which Hugger Steward washed 500 pebbles).
`Jesus said "If the crowds were silent, the stones themselves would speak." What do you think he meant? '
A long pause...nobody is quite sure, then a small voice.
"Stones do speak. There's a stone out in the churchyard that says how much we miss my mum."
................
Having thought about the hopes and dreams of those who lined the road into Jerusalem, the children reflected on their own hopes before writing or drawing something on a stone to symbolise them. Responses ranged from the predictable "to play rugby for England" to the heart-rending "to have a good friend" "to see my mum smile".
By bedtime last night, the pile of stones was huge, - each one a child's dream, looking forward but memorialised as surely as those names carved in stone in the churchyard.
The idea of 500 children's dreams piled on our chancel steps all but undid me.
Holy ground.