Music Pick

My friend Jake introduced me to Phil Wickham sometime this last spring. I remember we were chatting in my classroom and all of a sudden he got really excited and started talking about Phil Wickham and how I needed to download his free album, etc., etc.

He promptly plugged his iPod into my speakers and began to play Phil's music. Jake was totally engrossed... I was working on my computer, thinking, Yeah, yeah. Later.

I just started listening to Phil's music on my own a couple weeks ago, and I did download his FREE album, "singalong" off of his website, which anyone reading this right now should do also, immediately: Phil Wickham: Singalong.

Listening to Phil Wickham's music reminds me of when I first discovered David Crowder. I was about 15 or 16 years old, experiencing real challenge and growth in my faith. I loved David Crowder from the first minor chord progression of "Make a Joyful Noise/I Will Not Be Silent" on the Lime CD.

This music was totally different from Vinyard, Tomlin, Redman, Maranatha, DcTalk, Amy Grant, Smitty... anything "Christian" I'd ever heard before. The music and lyrics contained genuine artistic depth, with a destination: Jesus. I find the same depth and destination in Phil Wickham's music and lyrics. Sweet revival.

Octopi

Today, we bused all of the students out to a church in Shelton for a kick off camp.

Yes, school started on Wednesday, which begs the question... didn't we already "kick off"?

Despite my first reaction of confusion and frustration over a required (for all faculty and students), off-campus kick off camp day in between two full days of school and a three-day weekend, the final result was a blast.

I saw some more of my students from last year. I had the awesome opportunity to lead the school in worship, and I got to meet some new students and give a few smiles out here and there.

The best part of the day was watching a dead octopus spinning through the air, tentacles splayed, and landing on a student's head. Ultimate Octopus: switch out a frisbee for an octopus and you've got at least 8 tentacles worth of entertainment.

Sometimes I wish we could skip all the work and just hang out. It can be difficult to make the switch between sharing my gifts and having fun with students outside the classroom to being serious and working hard in the classroom.

I love having fun with my students... bonding with them, creating inside jokes with each class. I'm often reminded that I have to be the same person in both situations... inside and outside the classroom. I may not even know when students might be watching me and paying close attention to what I say and do... I want to be consistently showing them an example that they want to and should follow. I want to show them Jesus.

The Blood-Path Covenant

My American Lit classes and I have been enjoying some sweet nostalgia with an episode of Reading Rainbow, hosted by Lavar Burton (aka Jordie from "Star Trek: The Next Generation").

It turns out that Lavar is just a little bit creepy. The way he casually pulls children's books from his leather jacket is disconcerting. And his hands are so well-manicured. And he cares so much about Little Gopher and how he wants to paint the sunset so badly. Someone give Lavar a visor, and I'll feel more comfortable.

We started reading The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini today in Honors American Lit. I'm interested to see how the students respond to this novel. I'm sure it's vastly removed from anything they've ever read before. There's some pretty serious and graphic content that will spark some interesting discussion, I'm sure. If you've never read this novel, you should. It's a great introduction to Afghanistan's recent history and culture.

The boon of my year will be British Lit. I've revamped the course this time around, only including units on literature that I enjoy. My philosophy is this: if I don't like it, how can I inspire them to like it? My goal isn't to manipulate my students to like everything I like, but I do think I will get their attention more if I am excited about what we are doing.

So, in Brit Lit, we're working on a Greek mythology unit, learning about the pantheon right now and starting Homer's Odyssey. We will have so, so many opportunities for fun in this class. I can't wait for Toga Day... we'll eat Greek food (lambbbbbb!), play Greek games (Olympics), and wear Greek clothes (Togas... no naked Olympians here!). I considered slaughtering a lamb for a sacrifice... too much?

Ah, this is life.

First day, excellent day.

I have so much to remember about today... but I can't because it was so good, and I'm so tired now.

All day, I kept singing in my head, "I love, I love, I love my job!"

I'm saving this day for another day in January, when I turn a movie on just to shut them up, and put my head down on my desk because I'm suffering from a germy head cold. That will be one of my worst days, and I could do worse at another job.

Thank God I don't work in retail anymore!

Who wouldn't want to be a teacher?

God is so good to me.

Iron-fisted falcon

Most of the time, I'm a rational person, so I can believe that school begins tomorrow. I just don't want to believe it.

My walls are quite naked. I need some plants and art deco lamps to give my room an old, creepy feel. I still have much to print and post on my other blog for each class. One syllabus still to write... it's after nine, and I have to wake up by 5:30.

Now, if only I had a falcon...

Lunch

I have a handful of amazing students. One of them came in to school today, ready to do whatever he could to help me get my classroom ready. And he did a lot.

"I need you to take those posters down, move this filing cabinet over to that corner, go through this box of crap and decide what's useful and what's not, organize all these books and somehow get them all into this undersized cabinet, find all my dictionaries and put them on an empty shelf together somewhere, take these fake weapons to the props closet, gather up all the Christmas decorations and shove them somewhere out of sight, dust the tops of the bookshelves, take out the recycling, and what do you want for lunch?"

Of course I bought him lunch... he did all those things and probably a few more. I feel so blessed.

And yet, I still have a million things to do that take SO MUCH TIME.

And then I think about people who have no jobs, who are losing their jobs, who hate their jobs.

I love my job. Thanks, Jesus.

Worry is easy; trust is difficult.

donne i-iv

from Holy Sonnet

XIV by JOHN DONNE

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

Here is the contained violence of a relationship with the Trinity. Can you feel the tension?

He pursues me in three persons. He breaks me, so He can put me back together... so He can mend me. That verb, mend, implies gentle care over something delicate. Picture white fingers pulling a needle and thread through skin and skin.

He mends.

I rise, and stand.

He o'erthrows me, breaks me again, to blow and burn and make me new. In my mind, I see Him knocking me down, gathering me up, knocking me down, gathering me up. He is at once violence and peace, renderer and restorer.

I just keep thinking, every morning and every night--especially tonight, when I sit alone on a swing by the water and watch the satellites stir in the sky--

batter my heart

batter my heart

batter my heart.

Because it's better to be broken.

Two Slaps

Yester:

Thanks to my brother and the Press Coffeehouse & Lounge for the opportunity to play and sing some music for a small group of friends and a few strangers at the coolest café in Olympia. Performing always gives me further inspiration and challenges me to perform more and perform even better.

The Moral Of:

Sometimes I really don't want to give grace to other people because I don't feel like they deserve it. I feel like they ought to earn it somehow, like they need to work for it because they've done some kind of damage that requires repair.

I don't want to be kind to the person who cuts me down in front of my peers, or invest in someone who always flakes out, or go out of my way to include the person who overlooks me.

When I was a teenager, I used to lay in my mom's bed at night and talk her to sleep. I would tell her about boys that I liked, probe her mind about things that I didn't understand, and ask her advice about how to deal with people I didn't get along with.

She would always listen... she would listen so well that often, I would think she had fallen asleep while I was talking.

"Mom," I would say, "are you still awake?"

"Yes."

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think you still need to be gracious, Amanda. When you see that person, smile and say hello. No one's asking you to be her best friend, but you do need to be kind and give grace, no matter what."

Sometimes she would use the phrase "be the better person," or, "don't stoop to their level." My mother's advice may seem simple and trite, but her instruction is like gold to me.

It's not that giving grace makes me better than anyone else, or puts me on a higher level than other people; rather, giving grace makes me better than I was. Giving grace grows me in such a way that I reach a higher level than I was at before. I compare myself with no one but myself.

So, I'm trying to be gracious to you. I know I have enough grace for you because He gives it to me... more and more and more and more and more, etc.

Gigs

Today officially ended twelve minutes ago, but I'm counting this for August 27... it's still dark outside, people.

First round of FAC meetings= Entertaining (Eye patch stories) + Confusing (Why was he talking about how much golf he plays per year?) + Informative (I didn't know Rychelle had a key to the paint supplies... I will utilize this information... soon....)

It all makes me very excited for the school year, and very overwhelmed at how much I still have to do! But I LOVE my job, and I'm so blessed to be teaching.

Also, Captain Ketchum (Principale Pirate) hails from the Caribbean. So you know he's legit.

AND I'm playing at a swanky coffee/wine house, The Press, in downtown Olympia tomorrow night. Do come!

I guess "Jones" is slang for Heroin?

Starting tonight, I'm going to try actual blogging here, instead of confusing people with my indulgence in abstract creativity.

I figure I have the guts to post at least one interesting anecdote a day from my weekdays as a teacher and my weekends as a struggling adventurer. That's right, if Indiana Jones were a woman, she would be me.

Tomorrow, I embark on my second year of teaching high school literature. Classes start in a week, but tomorrow we begin faculty/staff meetings, etc. "Etc." is all you need to know about that for now. We have some madcap meetings, but they serve for great entertainment (unless you're really tired and have a stackload of grading).

You never know what will happen at a faculty meeting: people cry, cell phones ring the melody of The Lord of the Rings (actually, you can ALWAYS count on that one), someone asks if the office is spying on the teachers through speaker phones, we discuss how best to avoid gunshots from inside and outside intruders, we are called on to recite obscure "mottos," etc., etc., etc.

I so look forward to more of that. I'm rather fond of it, really.

Also, my principal is a pirate. But, he's a good pirate. You can tell because he wears his eye patch over the right eye. Principale Pirate. He's got magnificent sense, and I think I would maraud any class under his command.

This One Time

It's 1993. A Monday night, a café in Paris. Jeff Buckley croons. Jeff's guitar croons.

I sit in a metal chair. I wear black shoes, a black hat, a black dress. I drink black tea.

The wind outside moans in harmony with Jeff's haunting Corpus Christi.

It doesn't even matter that I'm alone. I'll be leaving soon,

Before it becomes the same, before you

Lose that something that was worth living through tragedy.

It's 1993.

And Maybe the Globe, Itself, Is a Myth

I said, this reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode when global temps get so hot for so long that the remaining survivors all go mad. And I still retain the image of paint melting off of a canvas and a woman screaming with her hands on her face.

This also reminds me of days and days of snow. A heat trap. If I escape, I again find my refuge in the supermarket, in front of rows of white milk cartons. Let me fall to my knees and press my cheek to the tile.

My entire body weeps: I watch sweat form in tiny beads at every pore. I didn't know I could melt away, like snow.

"nothing under my skin by light. If you cut me I could shine"

I half expect a lead ball with a lighted fuse to crash through my windshield as I drive home on the 4th of July.

Somewhere close, a boy could be shouldering an AK-47, or a gangster is writing his name on the wall of Hollywood Video with his Tommy.

Colors flash across the sky, and I wonder how I would feel if I went to sleep every night listening to these jarring beats.  People do.

And how would it feel to go to sleep knowing that the lighted fuse may direct mortality to my bed; this may be my last sleep.

Of course, this may be my last sleep.  But I still feel immortal.

I can't smell smoke.  I've never seen a body ripped open by bullets and shards.  Children don't carry guns here.

I can hear the stillness between explosions: sharp cracks and distant booms.

I remember being younger, sitting near water at night, watching the moon, feeling the same stillness... waiting for the beats.

Who doesn't know the expression of the moon on a summer night?  I wonder what will threaten my finity.

Grandpa Twain

This year in American Literature, we read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) sometime around March or April.

We had some intense debates about whether not Jim, the runaway slave, is a liar.  I mean, what kind of honest person cons a homeless boy out of his last coin for a conversation with a hairball from an Ox's stomach?  You're missing out if you have no idea what I'm talking about.  Read the book.  Now.

I had read Huck Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (who's adventures precede Huck's) as a teenager.  In college, I discovered some of Twain's short stories, his autobiographical Life on the Mississippi, and his caustic Letters to the Earth.  I fell in love with the old gentleman's satire, and he became an American literary icon, etched in white, in my bookish heart.

Now I'm reading The Prince and the Pauper.  I don't like it.  Granted, it's some kind of "specially abridged for Puffin Classics" version, so I might be missing out on something.  Or am I?  Has anyone read this novel?  Does anyone else find yourself bored and weighted by the Middle English dialogue?  The characters' motives don't compel me to care about their story.  They don't seem to have any dimensions to them.  Don't get me wrong, Twain's a literary genius, and he obviously did his research and background checks for this novel.

Ah, I guess I'll trudge through it.

In Other News: Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux, another recent read, is quite good, but a little too simple.  I just felt like there was something missing... still thinking about what it could be.

24 April 2009, just after dawn

This morning I watched a bird
in a red hood and speckled cape
eat a cherry blossom.

I wandered to his tree and stood
and watched him tap the bark of the bicep
with his beak.

What was he doing with such a red crest?
I wanted to ask him more, when the light
filled my ears with the sound of church bells and school bells.

Sophistication

To borrow from Janean...

Ravi Zacharias said:

"Science today has given us improved means to attain some of our damnable ends. That's not true of all science, that's not true of all  of the means so do not take that as an extreme; but it is true that some of our technologies have made us more sophisticated in our evil."

Oh, Ravi!  You write words with my heart.  I feel Vendetta II brewing.

Vendetta I

I don't text, I talk.

Let's hash this out:

The Benefits of Texting

1. Convenient (ie--when your roommate's at the store, and you need another egg for the flan, you can text said roommate to pick you up another egg for the flan.)
2. Non-Disruptive (ie--when you want to find out where your friend is sitting in church so you can sit with her, she'll get your text in a quiet way and text you back directions to the pew... sorry... SEAT in the AUDITORIUM--so PC)
3. Oh, sorry, there is no third benefit.  There are just the two.

The Evils of Texting

     1.  Disruptive (on so many levels)

• You text during face to face conversations and you should be shot.  This behavior is rude and discourteous.  It shows you are not interested in what I have to say, that you are bored with the conversation, and you are looking for a distraction.
• If you habitually text during meetings, classes, or organized group events, you obviously depend on keeping yourself in a constant state of stimulus.  You lack focus and the attention span to concentrate on whatever is physically in front of you.  Your intelligence is degenerating as you text.  You have no respect for the people who are trying to engage your attention, who have spent energy and time preparing for this event.

     2.  Inconvenient (on so, so many levels)

• Misinterpretation: You begin and maintain a conversation through short blurbs of writing.  You must wait for the recipient to receive your text, and wait again for his response.  In the short amount of lines and words, and the long amounts of waiting, you easily misinterpret tone, attitude, and intention.  This creates negative drama.
• Limited Responsibility: You can write almost anything in a text message, and later claim, "Oh, that's not what I meant, you read it wrong," when THAT is, in fact, what you really meant.  Text messaging allows you to cuss someone out, threaten his life, or tell him he's the biggest poophead in the world, and you are not obliged to hear his response.  Texting is the biggest cop out technology offers.
• Spineless and Shallow: You depend on this indirect way of communicating with people to the point at which you'd rather initiate a relationship with someone through texting than actually talking to her on the phone or face to face.  You don't have the courage to look her in the eye, you don't trust her not to mock you if you make a fool of yourself, you don't have the confidence to make yourself vulnerable.  You are lazy and you show insecurity and a lack of motivation.
• Unintelligent & Insufficient Communication: You abbreviate words and phrases in order to fit everything you want to say into your limited amount of text.  If you don't fit it all in, you create an ellipsis (...) and continue abbreviating in the next text.  You write "LOL" and "awsm" and "u r grt" and "TTYL."  Are you REALLY laughing out loud?  You never punctuate, and you misspell words and use words incorrectly, like "their" and "your."  Of course, most of your friends don't care because they are idiots, too.  The kicker is, when you write an email, a Facebook post, or even a paper, your texting habits spill into your general writing habits.  You look ridiculous and uneducated.

Nine out of ten times that you text message, you are losing the ability to communicate with other people in a healthy way.  You are losing the intelligence and knowledge you (perhaps) worked so hard to gain in the first half of your life.  You are degenerating the human race.  You must do one, or all of the following:

1. Give up text messaging.  Adopt an Amish lifestyle.
2. Give up text messaging.  Talk to people on the phone, or in person.  This worked out well in the 80's.
3. Be a responsible adult, and use texting in a mature way.  Don't have conversations through text messages, don't text someone just to say "Hey, what's up?", don't depend on texting for communication.  Foster real relationships with real people in real life.

I will tell you something else.  The line between texting and all virtual communication is blurry.  I'm a hypocrite, really.  Sometimes I decide to respond to a voicemail on my phone through a Facebook message or an email, usually because I just don't feel like calling the person back.  I probably don't feel like it because talking to people takes energy, communication demands your whole attention and focus.  I get lazy.  I get unintelligent.

I just realized today that I encourage other "texters" when I respond to messages they post from their phones via texting!  Ouch.  How can I live this double standard?  Do I need to give up Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, email... the INTERNET?!  What will become of us?

feeding, at night, in the barn

What if someone is hiding in the barn, and he jumps out to scare me, just after I switch on the light? Or he jumps out to get me just before I switch on the light?



I look over my shoulder as I swing open the top half of the old wooden barn door, lift up the bottom half with my left arm, and pull the rusty latch with my right hand. I begin to sing as I reach into the barn with my left hand, searching the wall for the light switch before putting my whole body into darkness.



Jesus, Jesus, how I love Thee. How I've proved Thee o'er and o'er.



My finger flips the switch and a lone light bulb flickers on, swinging from the cobwebbed boards above. A cat jumps from a stack of old beehives through a hole in the ceiling to the loft above. Another cat jumps down from somewhere and rubs my ankle with her whiskered face. I reach down to pet her, continuing my song.



Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus...



I take large steps, one over the hay-filled gap between the cement slabs, and another over the empty wooden door frame. I have to make it to the next switch to illuminate the vast, gloomy barn. I reach around the wooden support pillar, and the cat attacks my heels. I jump. I gasp. The cat hisses and the rest of the barn comes alive as two other light bulbs spark and flicker.



Oh, for grace to trust Him more.



A rush of sparrows shake the rafters as they fly out into the night through the great open window in the main middle lodge of the barn, where the hay towers to the ceiling. I hear the stamp of a hoof against the cement in the stall beyond the hay stack. I grab a pair of gleaming hay hooks hanging on the post and wade through the loose hay on the barn floor. I thrust one hook into one side of a bale, and I thrust the other hook into the bale's other side. Supporting the hay bale with my thigh, I carry it to the trough lining the horses' stall.



"Hhhuuhhhppppf," Sugar sighs and pricks her ears forward. Spice switches her tail and swings her head to her left, her yellow teeth working at an itch on her flank. They shake their blonde Belgian manes and clip clop, clip clop to the trough as I drop in their dinner. The sweet hay dust clouds up into my face and I sneeze twice. Outside, the metal fences clink and clang above the low moans of the cows.



This time I buck two bales into a wheelbarrow. I wheel the hay outside, in between the rows of anxious black & white Whiteface cattle. With a pocketknife, I cut the orange string binding the hay, and I spread the hay in flakes along the two troughs. The wet, pink noses thrust through the fences and chomp, the golden straws falling from their masticating mouths.



I shut and latch the door behind me, only to open it again, looking out into the dark to make sure I locked the fence. I'm sure, and I walk across the barn, a troop of meowing cats following from a safe distance. I hear something near the door. I sing.



'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus...



Chewy, our happy mutt, barrels through the doorway. Panting, a smile on his face, he jumps up with his paws in the air. I catch his paws and we dance.



and to take Him at His word. Just to rest upon His promise.



We collapse into the hay, my laughter echoing and gathering in the high, dark rafters of the great barn. I walk outside to the milk house, take the lock off the latch and dig around the bottom of the garbage can with an empty plastic butter tub for the last of the cat food. The cats knock over boxes and leap over walls and pull down tarps as I enter the barn with the food. I have to gently kick Chewy aside as I unlatch the cat door and try to keep him out. I listen as the dry little cross-shaped pieces pile into a small mountain in the cat dish. A dozen cats fight, hiss, and "RAERE!" their way into the bowl. I shut the door behind me, give Chewy a pet, switch off the main lights, and skip quickly over the wooden door frame and the gap between the cement slabs.



Just to know, "Thus saith the Lord."



I quickly look back over my shoulder, switch off the light bulb, and slam both halves of the old wooden door shut with my body. I lean against the door and stare up into the clear night sky. A bat swoops into the cherry tree. Chewy pants and smiles at my knees. I latch and lock the door. Chewy gives a low woof, and I leap into the dark, racing him back to the house, under the cherry tree, under the bats, under the stars, following the lights in the windows.

Today's Menu: Football with a Side of Sex

A Superbowl commercial for Doritos:

A young male walks down the street with an orange triangle of MSG in his fingers. He spots a beautiful woman in a green dress, looks at his chip and takes a bite. The woman's dress flies off and she gives a little exclamation of surprise as the cheesy-fingered male checks out her black lingerie.
Cheesy fingers walks past an ATM, looks at his chip and takes a bite. The ATM blows out money all over the street and a crowd of people rush forward to take what they can grab.
Discovering a police officer nearby, cheesy fingers takes one more bite from his transfatty triangle. The officer beneath the uniform disappears, the uniform collpases to the pavement, and a monkey peeks out of the shirt.
The skinny young male smiles at the work he has accomplished by eating Doritos.

Americans: gluttons, lechers, misers, anarchists. What a great message.

Light Love

After the bell rang, he lingered in front of my desk. I looked up from my papers and, looking me in the eye, he said, "I just want you to know that it's been a privilege to have you as a teacher this semester."

"Are you dropping my class?"

"No, no, of course not, I just wanted you to know that you're really cool and I have so much fun in your class and you have so many great characteristics... I want my wife to be just like you, you have so many great qualities..."

And the rest of his words ran together as I shut my mind off at "wife," whisking all of those sweet words into a blurry omelet in my head. I'm not sure, but I probably blushed. I know I smiled a lot and said thank you a few times. And then,

"Well, see you later!" he said.

"See ya."

An hour later, a friend told me I'd be a great wife someday. He may have been exercising his sarcastic wit, but the truth is I really do know that I will be a great wife. I know I will be a great mom. I know I'm amazing.

I'm also insecure and uncomfortable, like a moth struggling, half-way out of the cocoon. I know who I am and who I want to be, but my skin's just not right yet.

I hope when I fall, I won't become an eggy mess, but I'll have the clarity to flutter to the light.