Though it is her couch (long story involving six children, general destructiveness and fond memories). Flannelgraph played an incalculable roll in my spiritual development. The first time I heard the story of Christ's passion he was hanging from the cross on a deluxe flannel overlay background. I made my first profession of faith the same day. Given the choice of with Flannelgraph or without, even hardened teenagers opted for the charming cut out people in their inexplicable worlds and costumes. Sunday School was the most frequent place for Flannelgraph use. My grandmother was an excellent teacher investing hours of time in her weekly opportunity to change hearts and minds. She always used the church issued Flannelgraph that was actually flocked paper and sometimes she glued it down because she disliked the interruption to the story telling.
My mother had put off going through Grandmother's Sunday School materials because the items awakened such strong memories. I came down to go through it with her. It was inspiring.
My older girls had gone down with me, and on our way home we talked about our family's foray into Flannelgraph. I bought a complete set of Betty Luken's Bible stories. That is the crem de la crem of Flannelgraph. If a woman was heading to the mission field, her friends would go in together to get a set as a parting gift. The thing is die cut flocked paper is much easier to prep then cutting out hundreds of characters from felt. The project ate three pairs of scissors before I gave up and let my dramatic personality make up for the lack of figures.
Grandmother's example has me giving it another try, this time with Mea's unexpected help. We are having a great time trimming and conquering the sheets one herd of camels and many many Jesus' at a time. I think Grandmother is very proud.
