Weekends

Sometimes I get a bad case of wanderlust. Last summer it resulted in a rather impulsive purchase on orbitz.com of round trip tickets from Seattle to Cairo. I don't always make such a drastic move when the itch in my feet to go experience something outside the ordinary strikes; this past weekend I simply decided to take a drive to the coast.

I'm beginning to realize that not everyone does this sort of thing. Not everyone just wakes up on a Saturday morning and decides, "I'm going to drive to the western boarder of our continent." I think a lot of people don't do it because they can't. Family obligations, financial limitations, or the lack of realization that the opportunity exists impose limitations.

But the opportunity does exist! And in my recent efforts to live my life enjoying the here and now fully, I'm trying to be purposeful about taking advantage of those opportunities. I am very blessed - I have a hard-working, economical car, I have a job that leaves me with flexibility on the weekends, and I live in a gorgeous region of the country with vast diversity that practically caters to my every geographical desire.

So when I started feeling the inner craving for the sight, sound, and smell of the ocean on Saturday morning, I knew I could grab a waterbottle, fill up Poppy, crank the tunes, and make the drive out to the beach with the breeze from the open window in my hair.

And I knew I could do it alone. This is something else I greatly value - the ability to comfortably do things with myself as company. I may not always have the freedom to pick up and be gone for 8 hours on a whim. Most people don't. Since I do, I intend to use it.

In the meantime, I get the privilege of strolling down various memory lanes, dreaming of distant possibilities, and whispering words to the wind that no one but me and my God hear. What blessings fill my life!

The Intersection

There are certain things I didn't learn in school. Somehow, I managed to completely avoid all the practicalities of Excel. Fortunately, thanks to my long-enduring and tech-savvy friend, Kevin, I am being introduced to the wonders of this technological delight! I also didn't fully grasp the art of factoring X's confidently. I always hated algebra! Today I was faced with another realization: I never learned how to intersect my overzealous desire for justice, and my innate propensity for mercy. I realize that's a weird combination, but they've been existing quite happily (for the most part) for much of the past two decades without me needing to reconcile them.

My friend Laura calls this my "binary" perspective on life. I have - perhaps erroneously - always seen myself as being rather "conditional" toward life - meaning, nothing is every really "set and fast" with me. Due dates? Well - isn't that more of an estimation? Length of essays? That's just a guideline, right?

But there are some things I'm adamant about - and I think I'm becoming more black and white. I have pretty well defined and structured moral standings in certain areas. I think people are always more important than stuff. I refuse to be impressed by people based on flashy cars or designer clothes. I think the growth of character is more important than the accumulation of numbers in a bank account. Travel and experiences in the world are at least as educational as a degree. Giving to others is always more satisfying than taking.

Somehow, though, these defined things have never caused my grief. Oh, certainly, I've experienced disappointment from when other people don't see things the same way I do, but I've never had a severe conflict of interests, despite these good/bad, right/wrong beliefs.

Enter people. Enter students. Enter complicated backgrounds. Enter sin.

Frankly, my head is spinning tonight. I have a student that was sharing his autobiographical story plot, and analyzing where the point of conflict happened to cause him to be in my classroom. In short, he grew up in foster homes from age 5 to 16, ran away, started pimping as a profession, got caught, went to jail, and the week he came out of jail his parole officer made him start attending my class so he could finish up his GED.

My justice wants to hate him. I want him to pay for all the massive sexual sin he's been a part of - conscripting women to be prostitutes, arranging hook ups, cheating women, cheating men, being a part of breaking up marriages, families, and generally completely devaluing God's creation of individual, priceless, fragile human beings and the gift of sex.

But mercy is breaking my heart. At the age of 20, my student has screwed up his life in a monstrous proportion. He has a twisted, inaccurate, and totally depraved view of woman, men, relationships, and life in general, because he's a fallen human. He had a poor childhood, which certainly didn't start as his fault - who can blame a 5 year old for not having parents? - and I don't think he's ever had someone come along side him and offer him what he truly needs: a father figure to model integrity, masculinity, humility, servant-heartedness, and unconditional love. He's 20 years old! His brain hasn't even fully developed! And he's fathered a child that is, by all accounts, going to just be repeating the cycle.

My student is a selfish, ego-centric, depraved piece of humanity.

As I've struggled today to deal with my feelings - feelings of hate, disappointment, disillusionment, pity, sympathy, regret, sadness - I found myself wondering, "What do I do about this? What is significant about this?"

Paul said, "Christ died to save sinners - of which I am the worst."

And I realized - what am I going to do about the gospel? This kid has issues, of course, but what am I going to DO about the GOSPEL? How am I going to live in light of that one, world-changing, significant event? Am I going to let it fill the lenses that I use to see the world? Will I just talk about my faith, or am I going to let the rubber hit the road and allow it to actually get me somewhere?

This is the intersection of justice and mercy! THIS makes no sense, except if you look at it from a divine perspective! God was disgusted by my sin - His justice cannot STAND it - but His mercy longed for restoration, redemption, regeneration. So: Jesus. Intersect Justice and Mercy. Intersect Heaven and Earth. Intersect vertical and horizontally positioned pieces of wood. Intersect Sin and Forgiveness.

The act that forgave my student has been accomplished. He just needs to accept it. And as much as I want to kick him out of my class or strangle him when he brings his entitlement-driven attitude and designer-jeans swagger into my classroom, he's never going to know about his self-imposed prison and the key to get out of it if people don't show him that freedom and exhibit the love God expressed to us through Jesus. And that's my job.

Jesus, help me love him like You do. Seeing the sin, and not ignoring it, but seeing the priceless person buried under that crushing load.

In the End

Matt Hires sings a song I'm really enjoying, titled "You in the End."

"We'll aim for a place we've never been, it's all what we make it.
All I am is just a traveler with dirt on my hands.
All I have is dust in my pocket, and you in the end."

As a person who sees myself being something of a perpetual wanderer, I resonate with this sentiment. I believe my generation often suffers from an identity crisis problem - we've learned to define ourselves by what we own or what we want to own. If we're lucky, we might define ourselves by what we've done and accomplished. But we don't, intrinsically, know who we are.

Ironically, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am nobody. I'm nothing special. I really am just a traveler with dirt on my hands and dust in my pockets, wandering through this life. Granted, I meet people, love them, and move on - sometimes with others, but more often by myself. However, that doesn't make me. That just describes me.

What is a definitive characteristic, though, is that I have a finish in mind. I might wander for a very long time, or perhaps just for a short time, but regardless, when I arrive at my destination, my journey will be done. And I'm defined by that destination.

In another song, Hires sings, "I am not alone, I'm with the lover of my soul. Where else could I go?"

Nowhere. I don't want to be anywhere else. I'll wander as long as it takes, with my dust filled pockets, as long as I'm with that lover.

Mr. Custodian

I'm sitting at my office, not accomplishing much (I don't really know why I bother after about 2PM. My productivity level is pathetically low between the hours of 2PM and 5AM), looking across the plaza outside my window to the glass-encased room that comprises the foyer of the Arts building. There is a custodian cleaning the floors inside the foyer. It made me stop eating my baked potato cup-of-soup from Safeway ($2.15 for a hot, tasty, convenient dinner!) so I could watch him.

His is a lonely job. Most of the offices shut down and people leave by 5PM, so mopping floors at 8PM means that he won't have much company. There's a young man that cleans my office building, and he always wears his iPod. Isn't it interesting that my generation and our world at large seems to be incapable of being alone well? As I type my iPod shuffle is charging in the USB port of my computer so I have tunes to listen to on my drive home. Even when we're alone, we have to fill the our heads with the sound of someone else's ideas in the form of music and lyrics.

Due to the nature of his lonely job, Mr. Custodian has to be a self-motivated worker. Nobody is going to be watching his every move to tell him to improve. He has to know what needs to be done and do it. I admire people like that. I know that I need to grade papers, but I don't want to do it, so I'm procrastinating by writing this blog. Since it isn't urgent to get it finished, I'm not. I'll probably regret that the rest of this week, since it'll be crazy busy and I'll find myself cramming in my work... Maybe I'll grade at least SOME papers here in a moment!

I think what's most striking about the job of a custodian, though, is that it is an overlooked, underappreciated job. Many jobs are, I realize that, but I think custodians are especially so. Without them, this office would look like a junk heap, but as it is, they keep it as spick and span as they can, and we enjoy the fruits of their labor without so much as a regular "thank you."

The custodian across the plaza has finished mopping the floors by the windows and moved on to another part of the building, I presume. My custodian friend who lets me into the office building on a regular basis until my key comes in has also bid me to have a good night and left.

Sometimes I envy custodians their job because I think it would be high in self-satisfaction. Even if nobody else recognizes it, they get to see their work doing something and bringing about change before their eyes. In my abstract world of teaching sentences and paragraphs and essays and fractions and decimals, I wish I could track my work as easily and not through the accomplishments of someone else, but I also recognize that part of what makes my job so rewarding and challenging is that intangible element.

Lord, thank you for the custodians here at our school. Thank you that they work hard and keep our facilities beautiful. Bless their work. Bless them for doing their work. And help me remember that we each have our own parts to play and our own duties to fulfill. I choose to be joyful as I'm doing mine.

Thoughts over Strawberry Shortcake

It's almost 10PM Sunday evening, which means I really should be heading to bed. Instead, I'm still staring at all the work I haven't finished this weekend. It seems life is just like this: unfinished work, unmet responsibilities, and in the midst of it, I want to - and try to - eke out time to do things I love, finish things I don't have to finish but really want to finish. Time is our greatest resource, our most valuable treasure that we've had entrusted to us, and perhaps the best gift to others that we can give.

I have been convicted of the importance of resting for several months (can you BELIEVE it's already May?! I'm having such a hard time wrapping my head around that! It seems just yesterday it was January and the start of Winter Quarter, and my birthday, and summer seemed so far away - like it would never come. Here it is feeling like summer is kissing my face!). I want to be better about putting this into practice. Consciously. This week I made the decision to not work on Saturday. That meant I worked longer on Friday, and I'll be working longer tonight than I would at first prefer - but I did take yesterday off from my world of teaching.

I think that maybe this decision makes me more aware of my time in general. It's like finances - when you commit to giving a certain portion to something, and you're convinced it is absolutely the right thing to do, then you restructure your life around that, so it remains a priority. Maybe when we commit to resting, it makes us restructure our life so that our work can be more efficient and we can be effective, because we know we will take a day off.

Maybe God had a good idea when it came to the Sabbath! Actually, there's no maybe about it. It was a for-sure good thing.

Another good thing He created was music, and He blessed us abundantly by giving us the capacity to enjoy and create music on our own.

Last night was the second songwriter's guild meeting. My friend, Nate, is an excellent musician, and he's generous with his knowledge. I've been wanting to learn more about music writing and also to be able to share what little I do know with others. My friend Stephen also joined us for the meeting, and Stephen is a music recording freak. It was fun and helpful to get his feedback and hear his analysis of our music. He made the comment that my music-writing style is very "literary." I certainly agree - my music is more of the type that ends up being poetry put to music. Nate has a very different music-writing style; he is much more focused on the musical instrument element of it. He plays a freakish number of instruments, so he puts all of this musical knowledge into his creations.

Isn't it interesting that we are doing the same thing but in different ways? I've been trained and educated in the area of words and meanings and poetry and poetics. Nate has learned fine elements of music and music theory. We both put our expertise into what we try to make - and my hope is that our areas of expertise can help each other and other guild participates become more well-rounded music writers.

Regardless, I think both the element of time and the process of songwriting are part of something bigger. Something like strawberry shortcake. They are contributing pieces of a delicious thing: life. And right now, I feel like life is a delicious dessert to enjoy.

Teacher Appreciation Week

I have been a "real" teacher for almost a year now. It has flown by.

In some ways, it seems unreal to think about how, at this time last year, I was cramming to finish my spring semester's 18 credit load and prepping to go through the graduation ceremony. It seems so recent, and yet almost another life away.

The past year has brought so many people into and out of my life. I've had to refine and revise my teaching strategies, and develop skills and disciplines necessary for surviving in the classroom. No longer does the idea of a confrontation with a student scare me. I don't worry about not being able to justify what I'm doing - I know that I am teaching what is required of me, and I am doing it to the best of my ability.

It has been a delight to transition into this role. It still catches me a little off guard how my students sometimes seem to revere me; there is an innate sense of teacher-authority in most students that I'm not sure is justified. When my students bring their kids into class for me to meet and hold and admire, I find myself feeling as if I'm having a surreal experience. Who am I that they seek my approval? What right do I have to influence them to such degrees?

I am also inspired by my students - one of them is 83 years old, has never received her GED, and she's come back to the classroom to get it. I'm impressed! Another two are single Moms, about my age, raising their kids on their own, attending school, and living responsible lives.

My students make me laugh on a regular basis, mostly from being embarrassed by them. I've learned a lot about myself from my students: my Goodwill class has figured out that my ears turn bright red when I'm angry, and I can blush at the drop of a hat if anyone makes a comment that COULD be suggestive. I find myself willing to embarrass myself for the sake of my students also - this week I wrote a rap about Bloom's Taxonomy of thinking to help my students learn it. I also am more than willing to tell on myself about my stupid, air-head actions sometimes.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do this, but I find myself allowing my students to become a part of my heart. I know they aren't supposed to be my friends, but I want to see in them what I want to see in all my friends, namely, having the ability, the encouragement, and the discipline to become all they are capable of becoming. And if I can help them along that path in any way, I feel honored and humbled by that responsibility.

I was just reading the portrait of the ENFJ personality profile, and I find myself relating to much of it. I do think that, for this season on my life at least, I was MEANT to be a teacher. I love it. Even when I hate it, I still love it.

Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity and the blessing of my job. Help me do my best, as unto you, in the classroom. I want to see my community transformed by your love, and if I can be a conduit of that into the lives of my students, I want to do it without reserves.