Ah Friday... my day off.
Unless of course there is a memorial service, which leads to a meeting, which leads to an emergency phone message. I put in a full day today, I had hoped to take some time earlier in the week but the nature of things was that I wasn't able to, the week before vacation adds tons of work. It has been a long, emotional, busy week. So much so that as the kiddo and I had our weekly Skype date with Grandma I nearly forgot I had a haircut appointment. Had I not opened up my computer and saw the reminder, "haircut in 8 minutes" it would have been all over. I was so exhausted I didn't want to go but I needed to. So I made it there two minutes late because I missed all the lights. I resisted all the upselling that was offered to me and stuck with a haircut. Finally I was in the chair getting my hair washed... seriously one of my favorite things. It was a quick cut and style and I was on my way home. As I was driving I saw a guy who looked terribly out of place looking with a sort of sideways glance a kid he was not with. It made me take note of the whole scene. As I came home to my family who is darn tired of me constantly having one more fire to put out I noticed said guy was walking down our block now, no child near by, phew! Until he started walking straight across the church lawn toward the church. I know there is an elderly lady working on bulletins in the office by herself. I also know she locks her self in... but today that building saw a lot of coming and going with a memorial service, what if a door got left open? My husband was in the garage and as he came back in I asked him to go check on the church and make sure my hard working bulletin making friend was OK. He went over and the guy was gone hadn't bothered her at all. Back to making dinner as planned.
Until.... Ding Dong Ding... our front doorbell rings (there is one on the back door too). I didn't even have to look I knew this guy was at the door. Before I could say anything and much to my horror, my hubs ANSWERS the door. I stay out of sight with my back to the wall listening carefully because one push and this guy could be in our house. Let me also say my kid is totally oblivious playing a game and being all loud.
Guy: "Are you with that church over there?"
Hubs: "Yeah what's going on?" (Dude Hubs sometimes you can tell a little lie just say no and bail.)
Guy: "I need to talk to the pastor." (My name is on the dam sign.)
Hubs: "She's actually finishing a funeral what do you need?" (Thank GOD he's thinking on his feet. The guy probably saw me in my attempt to get out of eye shot. The kid is getting really loud so I leave my post and quietly ask her to quiet down. This guy is not leaving!)
Guy: tells sob story (I know insensitive but there is always a sob story.)
Hubs: "Sorry man I have no cash."
We race around the house making sure everything is locked.
Here's the thing, this guy gave me the creeps long before he showed up at my door. I know I should not judge him by his appearance or his story. I know that if I lived a perfect life of faith I would have at the very least offered him something, even the dignity of speaking to him personally. I was pastored out today, totally out of anything to give, it happens. It is not uncommon for me to run into these sorts of people who are passing through and on hard times. Sometimes they give you the creeps and I believe I have those instincts for a reason.
I am sure that this man was and is a beloved child of God. I am also sure he fell somewhere between desperate and manipulative. You just rang the bell of my house, dude! My place where I live, where my child is playing, my personal space. That is on the very best day unsettling! It is also scary!
This is life though as a smallish town pastor, we are big enough to get all the people passing through via hitch hiking and such. We are in a place geographically where people know that often the pastor lives next door, even though having a manse is becoming less and less common. This church and manse have been here long enough that people know the house belongs to the church. The church that has my name on three signs.
I did not like this at all. Awhile back a guy that works on a Ministry Association with me said oh people will ring your bell, just wait for summer. He wasn't kidding!
There is a violation of boundaries here that I am just plain uncomfortable with. It led us to have some good conversations about when we may not open the door. I feel like all these feelings and the uneasiness hours later is normal. However there is just this one nagging feeling, what if this was Jesus at my door? I don't think Jesus and God our the testing kind because of that whole GRACE thing. BUT... God/Jesus if it was you, I am going to need to ask for an extension to complete the assignment?
Today I am so grateful the hubs saw I couldn't put out another fire and that even though he opened the door he thought on his feet. I pray this man with his huge duffel bag found what he needed.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
How Long?
When I was a child I dutifully read my history books in my well equipped school, in my 98% white community. I naively thought, "How could we as people allowed these atrocities, these horrible acts of violence and oppression to happen?" Then I breathed a naive white privileged sigh of relief because our culture, our society had the come to Jesus moment and now people of color had equality.
Then I grew up and I made friends and I listened and I got out of my comfort zone. As I grew, it began to hurt as I realized a few things in sheer HORROR:
1. I looked at my white arm and saw for the first time all the white privilege I was born with, that I couldn't just sweep under the rug, I couldn't wish away, that I have undoubtedly benefited from. Why wouldn't I want my privilege? Because I might be an idealist but I dream of a world with true equality and as long as my privilege exists equality does not! Alas I have it, I try to be aware of it, can I use it to bring equality? God I hope so and I pray I have the courage to do so.
2. The Bible which holds so much truth (different from fact) for me, was (and is) used to oppress and manipulate people. It is used to justify absolutely horrendous behavior and unspeakable violence. This book with a message of love one another, be the voice of the voiceless, and a radical lover of people named Jesus...
3. The one that took me the longest to realize and the one I find most horrific: For the most part it is no longer legal to segregate, to lynch, to discriminate, to keep slaves. So there we have it right? Equality. To my horror I began to realize that society had only changed a little, there were legalities that guaranteed equal opportunity, the right to vote and so forth. Yet injustice still lives and breathes in our culture. Only now, legalized racism, is a more covert operation of quiet systematic oppression and injustice that was until recently swept under the rug by those in power.
When I didn't think my heart could break anymore, it of course did. Do you know why? Because I started to see all the places in our country where systematic oppression exists. I worked in a food pantry, where I found that most people had no boot straps to pull on, and that the cycle of poverty is real and there isn't much help to break it. It is wrapped up in access to education, jobs with fair pay, health care, food, shelter, child care.
Then there is the oppression of my sisters and brothers who are LGBTQ who are denied the privilege of marriage, who face work place, and housing discrimination. Then there is the oppression of immigrants who are also my brothers and sisters, HUMAN BEINGS! Then there is the oppression of.... I could go on all day long.
So I ask today, how long? How long are we going to sit on our comfortable couches shaking our heads, hearts breaking, praying, as we watch the evening news like zombies? How many transgendered children have to kill themselves? How many gay men have to be beaten? How many riots does it take? When will we let our breaking hearts lead us? When we will stop saying "those people" and "they"? When will we recognize all people as human? When will we say there really is an unbalance of power? When are we going to stop waiting for Jesus to to turn the tables of our modern day temples? When will we heed the call, the call to LOVE, the call to be the voice for the voiceless?
Lest you think this is some political rant where I let my liberal flag fly, it is not. Lest you think this is me saying I am "anti-police", it is not. Lest you think this is me condoning violence, it is not. This is about faith for me and the life I am called to because I follow a radical lover called Jesus. Who taught a way of life that was not about righteousness or rules but about radical world changing love and justice. A message about power and powerlessness that was meant a revolution of the heart not the politics of the Roman empire (or any current empires).
The news isn't good this week as we watch yet another city burn, could the smoke be the cries we refuse to hear? Nepal has seen massive destruction. It is hard to find hope. I see it though in watching first hand the folks going before the supreme court today to fight for equality in marriage. I see it in my fellow clergy as they march for justice and peace.
HOW LONG BEFORE I HEAD MY OWN CALL TO OTHERS?
Then I grew up and I made friends and I listened and I got out of my comfort zone. As I grew, it began to hurt as I realized a few things in sheer HORROR:
1. I looked at my white arm and saw for the first time all the white privilege I was born with, that I couldn't just sweep under the rug, I couldn't wish away, that I have undoubtedly benefited from. Why wouldn't I want my privilege? Because I might be an idealist but I dream of a world with true equality and as long as my privilege exists equality does not! Alas I have it, I try to be aware of it, can I use it to bring equality? God I hope so and I pray I have the courage to do so.
2. The Bible which holds so much truth (different from fact) for me, was (and is) used to oppress and manipulate people. It is used to justify absolutely horrendous behavior and unspeakable violence. This book with a message of love one another, be the voice of the voiceless, and a radical lover of people named Jesus...
3. The one that took me the longest to realize and the one I find most horrific: For the most part it is no longer legal to segregate, to lynch, to discriminate, to keep slaves. So there we have it right? Equality. To my horror I began to realize that society had only changed a little, there were legalities that guaranteed equal opportunity, the right to vote and so forth. Yet injustice still lives and breathes in our culture. Only now, legalized racism, is a more covert operation of quiet systematic oppression and injustice that was until recently swept under the rug by those in power.
When I didn't think my heart could break anymore, it of course did. Do you know why? Because I started to see all the places in our country where systematic oppression exists. I worked in a food pantry, where I found that most people had no boot straps to pull on, and that the cycle of poverty is real and there isn't much help to break it. It is wrapped up in access to education, jobs with fair pay, health care, food, shelter, child care.
Then there is the oppression of my sisters and brothers who are LGBTQ who are denied the privilege of marriage, who face work place, and housing discrimination. Then there is the oppression of immigrants who are also my brothers and sisters, HUMAN BEINGS! Then there is the oppression of.... I could go on all day long.
So I ask today, how long? How long are we going to sit on our comfortable couches shaking our heads, hearts breaking, praying, as we watch the evening news like zombies? How many transgendered children have to kill themselves? How many gay men have to be beaten? How many riots does it take? When will we let our breaking hearts lead us? When we will stop saying "those people" and "they"? When will we recognize all people as human? When will we say there really is an unbalance of power? When are we going to stop waiting for Jesus to to turn the tables of our modern day temples? When will we heed the call, the call to LOVE, the call to be the voice for the voiceless?
Lest you think this is some political rant where I let my liberal flag fly, it is not. Lest you think this is me saying I am "anti-police", it is not. Lest you think this is me condoning violence, it is not. This is about faith for me and the life I am called to because I follow a radical lover called Jesus. Who taught a way of life that was not about righteousness or rules but about radical world changing love and justice. A message about power and powerlessness that was meant a revolution of the heart not the politics of the Roman empire (or any current empires).
The news isn't good this week as we watch yet another city burn, could the smoke be the cries we refuse to hear? Nepal has seen massive destruction. It is hard to find hope. I see it though in watching first hand the folks going before the supreme court today to fight for equality in marriage. I see it in my fellow clergy as they march for justice and peace.
HOW LONG BEFORE I HEAD MY OWN CALL TO OTHERS?
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Crawling Around in the Dark
It was my first semester of seminary, I had moved my family almost 800 miles away from our closest friends and family, our daughter was just barely two, life was complex. It was toward the end of the semester, I was in my Intro to Worship class which had quickly become a favorite because it made sense to my non traditional brain. The professor pushed edgy to the edge. He was passionate and lively and unconventional. I had just recently figured out that he was a large part of why we ended up here. We didn't realize it at the time that he was a professor. When we visited with our one year old she started making noise in chapel and we got tense, he wrapped his arms around all three of us and said, "Her sounds are welcome here." Never have I heard warmer words of welcome in my life, my child was welcome to be a child.
I respected this professor, so one afternoon late in the semester when he had us draw our prayers on colorful paper, I didn't think much of it. Being confronted with pouring my heart out before God was more emotional than I anticipated. You see my life was messy, the move, the stress of seminary, the financial strain of one less than needed income, even our marriage was a mess. Oh did I pray! Then the professor collected our prayers, threw them into the middle of the room, turned out the lights and had us crawl around on the floor looking for our prayers. He started out talking and then yelling.
The whole thing became very emotional for me. I was glad it was dark as I felt the familiar sting in my throat and welling in my eyes, I don't like showing that kind of emotion in a room full of people I barely know. Eventually the lights came back on, we sat on the floor, grabbed a near by prayer and read it out to the group. Mine was never read but it didn't matter to me because I may have bawled. The whole point of this exercise, at least as I remember it, was that ministry is like this sometimes; crawling around in the dark, grasping at prayers you can't see, bumping into people, feeling awkward, and vulnerable. It was confusing but ok because there was a level of trust established in our relationships at that point.
This week in my fourth official week as a pastor I keep coming back to this moment in my education. There are two things I can take away from this lesson: the first being I reacted emotionally to it which was odd for me and may be why I remember it. The second, my professor was absolutely right. I spend my days feeling confused and like I am crawling around in the dark looking for what I don't know I need. Trying to ask the right questions and get to know people some of whom have no desire to be known.
The only difference is my personal life, while having just gone through another huge transition, is in a much better place. At the end of that semester I had to write a project which ended up leading me to ask really difficult questions about all that was going on in my life. I didn't have to courage to write the questions into my paper, I wasn't ready to be that vulnerable. At this point I can write about the question, would our marriage survive the year let alone three years? It was tense. I couldn't name it I wasn't ready. In case that is a cliff hanger for you, the marriage survived. I made peace with my call, my self doubt, and my guilt.
These days I ask questions about living into my call, about what ministry with these people who I walk with looks like, and if the church (the wider church) can survive. The beauty of crawling around in the dark, confused, maybe lonely, is that somewhere eventually we find the light. Even if there is only a little light eventually we find it and usually it's with the community of fellow believers we are crawling around with. We are not alone in the dark.
Today I am grateful for such a powerful lesson that has carried me into this ministry.
I respected this professor, so one afternoon late in the semester when he had us draw our prayers on colorful paper, I didn't think much of it. Being confronted with pouring my heart out before God was more emotional than I anticipated. You see my life was messy, the move, the stress of seminary, the financial strain of one less than needed income, even our marriage was a mess. Oh did I pray! Then the professor collected our prayers, threw them into the middle of the room, turned out the lights and had us crawl around on the floor looking for our prayers. He started out talking and then yelling.
The whole thing became very emotional for me. I was glad it was dark as I felt the familiar sting in my throat and welling in my eyes, I don't like showing that kind of emotion in a room full of people I barely know. Eventually the lights came back on, we sat on the floor, grabbed a near by prayer and read it out to the group. Mine was never read but it didn't matter to me because I may have bawled. The whole point of this exercise, at least as I remember it, was that ministry is like this sometimes; crawling around in the dark, grasping at prayers you can't see, bumping into people, feeling awkward, and vulnerable. It was confusing but ok because there was a level of trust established in our relationships at that point.
This week in my fourth official week as a pastor I keep coming back to this moment in my education. There are two things I can take away from this lesson: the first being I reacted emotionally to it which was odd for me and may be why I remember it. The second, my professor was absolutely right. I spend my days feeling confused and like I am crawling around in the dark looking for what I don't know I need. Trying to ask the right questions and get to know people some of whom have no desire to be known.
The only difference is my personal life, while having just gone through another huge transition, is in a much better place. At the end of that semester I had to write a project which ended up leading me to ask really difficult questions about all that was going on in my life. I didn't have to courage to write the questions into my paper, I wasn't ready to be that vulnerable. At this point I can write about the question, would our marriage survive the year let alone three years? It was tense. I couldn't name it I wasn't ready. In case that is a cliff hanger for you, the marriage survived. I made peace with my call, my self doubt, and my guilt.
These days I ask questions about living into my call, about what ministry with these people who I walk with looks like, and if the church (the wider church) can survive. The beauty of crawling around in the dark, confused, maybe lonely, is that somewhere eventually we find the light. Even if there is only a little light eventually we find it and usually it's with the community of fellow believers we are crawling around with. We are not alone in the dark.
Today I am grateful for such a powerful lesson that has carried me into this ministry.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
My Child is NOT Me
Parenting is hard once you get past the pull your hair out because you are covered in baby barf and haven't slept in what you are positive is four years or months but what is the difference anymore? You don't think it could possibly be any harder but it is, actually I have resigned myself to just accepting that it will be nothing but harder all along the way. Add to that when the kiddo was born I had one perspective on the world and parenting, now I have one that is a bit different and a bit more researched or alternative or something, I don't like labels so you pick one that works for you, I would say, "Not quite granola but pretty close."
Really right now I am just trying to make a healthy choice, writing about my feelings instead of eating them. An entire tray of brownies with fudge like frosting and milk is what they might taste like. Since I only have milk and I want to live to see said kid make something of her life, you are getting my rant, my emotional explosion, the what ever the heck this is coming out of me right now. I a having the feelings and I don't like it, at all!
Can I tell you how amazing my child is? I know everyone thinks this of their own kid but really she is awesome. She is thoughtful, compassionate, learning to be a leader, I could go on and on and on. She is also stubborn and head strong and might have a penchant for perfectionism that has manifested itself in ways mine never did. I would say let's cut to the chase but that would just be a pleasantry, this blog post is going to be long and meandering and leave you wondering if you should stage an intervention.
First, she isn't me. No really she isn't, she is her own person. I want her to be her own person yet I rejoice when I see our similarities. She is five and knows how to plan and throw a party, she can walk you through step by step... yep that's me. She has "my" eyes and nose. She has sass that outshines mine on the best day and I can be pretty darn sassy. She is strong willed... certainly from me... I just keep telling myself she will persevere when she is older... while I pray I survive her childhood. Don't you worry I see my siblings, parents, and of course her dad in her too. All of that and she still isn't me (or anyone else in the fam), she is her own person and I want her to be.
She is way more free spirited than I was. She is extremely extroverted; thriving in social situations that terrified mestill until I was 25. She is not focused on being an over achiever, some might say that is where I have thrived, maybe. Do you know what this does to her highly introverted, over achieving, order loving mother? It drives her crazy because I can't understand it. I can understand that we have different needs and really that is a start right? I just have a hard time trying to meet her needs especially at the end of a loooooong day when she needs to process using no less 150 billion words and I need some quiet time so my head doesn't actually explode from over exposure to people and ideas.
She started Kindergarten for the 2 or 3 time last week depending on how you count and after today there is going to be a 4th time. She spent six weeks at her Montessori school back in the Fall before I started homeschooling her and now public school. She is doing socially fantastic but academically in just four short days she is doomed, I don't agree with this assessment, I believe she is very capable of catching up, she just doesn't want to. I cannot understand this because in my world when some one said I was behind, even in Kindergarten and I can remember it thank you very much, I didn't like feeling behind or not the best etc. I also started Kindergarten on the young side, academically I was able to stay afloat of course that is before we expected five year olds to read Shakespeare and do research projects online, and word problems. I was golden if I cold tie my shoes and pick up the right milk carton from the milk tray. One day I didn't, I picked up the blue one which was skim milk that my teacher wanted and she yelled at us. I didn't admit to doing it per say but I did pee my pants on the way out the carnival, which was probably a confession enough for a Kindergarten teacher. Emotionally and socially I wasn't there, I cried every single day before school until third grade. I think I only stopped then because my world fell apart with a sick dad and a brother we all thought for a solid time was dying (he didn't). Then school got me out of my own version of kid hell, having to deal with all those grown up feelings wasn't fun and at school I could be 8.
My kid though she's a Montessori kid, you know what that means, it means she hasn't been taught competition because competition isn't used as a means to get students to learn in a Montessori school. You know what else? I kind of like that. It took me until Grad school when I had a two year old to figure that one out because I wanted quality time with her and that was way more important than getting an "A" on a paper or in a class. You know what for the first time in my life I lowered my expectations of my self from beyond perfect to slightly less than perfect. This was healthy and good and I wish I figured it out sooner. Do you know what happened? I graduated with a GPA just above the goal I set for myself which was not a 4.0! I can remember my daughter's toddler and preschool years to boot.
So there are a few things at play here, as you can tell I need to remind myself that she is not me, and that the me I wish I saw in her today was not a healthy child, she was a child coping with trauma because of family circumstance, something my girl doesn't know yet. She understands school in the context of Montessori, she is frustrated that she doesn't get to help teach, and that the work is all "academic". I didn't know much about Montessori at first but I learned and she was on to something, educating the whole child and embracing the child's curiosity! There is something about that, it feels right. Or the Waldorf method or Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. When you put these all together they can work in harmony that educates a whole person not just literacy and math for crying out loud!
Today we had another impromptu meeting with her teacher of four days. She again said that L was not on par with her class and needed to be in the Pre K program instead. Honestly I don't think four days is a fair assessment period for a five year old who has been living in transitional hell for the past six months! The work she is down right refusing to do I know she can do but doesn't like to. So rather than fighting with her everyday to catch up after school and sending her into a classroom where her teacher is essentially stressed out by her under achieving presence, today we opted to try the PreK program for the rest of this year. In the long run I think it could be for the best. Perhaps next year she will be more mature and want to do the work. Or get over her perfectionism shut down. She won't do something she can't do perfect the first time around... oh how that makes me cringe! Let's review, I know she can do the work, she doesn't want to do the work, we have lived in a confusing time for six months, she is not me. Maybe it's all been too much for her? It is like I have a new kid since moving, she goes to bed, she listens, she's happy, and the fits have been minimal. She was stressed out!
Can I also tell you for six long torturous months I home schooled that head strong girl? We were both ready for her to go back to school. Also let's be honest, it is really hard to be an effective teacher when your whole entire life is up in the air, your kid is a hot mess because life is hard, and you are looking for a full time job that requires you to travel at the drop of a hat. There were lots of parts of our little home school that just didn't work. But there were parts that were like victories. I had no one to answer to but my self, she wasn't too into reading just yet but I wasn't worried because I was a late reader and here I am two Master's Degrees later. We spent days being creative, something she thrives on. She planned an entire new year's eve party with a little guidance. She learned how to rest when tired. She learned how to tell time, break geodes, mine for minerals, wrap gifts, count pennies, read short "bob books", make kittens out of pumpkins, viscosity, density, mass, about community, baking, cooking, budgeting, 30 days of giving, she learned to take people in when they fall on hard times. And you know what? It means jack squat when you put it next to the common core standards for Kindergarten. Can I tell you I don't care about those standards, I don't care that she can't read on level, I don't care that she isn't interested in explaining how she sorted buttons, I celebrate that she isn't like the rest of thezombies kids.
Her whole person needs to be educated and the common core and standardized testing factories public education has become isn't going to do that. I long for a Montessori program but there aren't any. So it looks like I will be having to teach her all that stuff slyly after school until forever.
But all that being said... all that talk of accepting I can't be perfect, all the talk of child directed learning, of education being about the whole person... it means nothing when that still small voice in my head says to me loud and clear you failed as her teacher. I know I only failed at teaching her common core standards but there is that part of me, the perfectionist, the over achiever, that is heart broken and disappointed because my kid can't do stuff I don't care about anyway.
I feel defeated and scared of what her education is going to look like in the future, our options for alternatives are slim in our new city.
Somewhere in the mess there is some good, there has to be.
Until I find it, I am grateful for our two and a half years of Montessori and the ability to read and learn and explore educational theories.
Really right now I am just trying to make a healthy choice, writing about my feelings instead of eating them. An entire tray of brownies with fudge like frosting and milk is what they might taste like. Since I only have milk and I want to live to see said kid make something of her life, you are getting my rant, my emotional explosion, the what ever the heck this is coming out of me right now. I a having the feelings and I don't like it, at all!
Can I tell you how amazing my child is? I know everyone thinks this of their own kid but really she is awesome. She is thoughtful, compassionate, learning to be a leader, I could go on and on and on. She is also stubborn and head strong and might have a penchant for perfectionism that has manifested itself in ways mine never did. I would say let's cut to the chase but that would just be a pleasantry, this blog post is going to be long and meandering and leave you wondering if you should stage an intervention.
First, she isn't me. No really she isn't, she is her own person. I want her to be her own person yet I rejoice when I see our similarities. She is five and knows how to plan and throw a party, she can walk you through step by step... yep that's me. She has "my" eyes and nose. She has sass that outshines mine on the best day and I can be pretty darn sassy. She is strong willed... certainly from me... I just keep telling myself she will persevere when she is older... while I pray I survive her childhood. Don't you worry I see my siblings, parents, and of course her dad in her too. All of that and she still isn't me (or anyone else in the fam), she is her own person and I want her to be.
She is way more free spirited than I was. She is extremely extroverted; thriving in social situations that terrified me
She started Kindergarten for the 2 or 3 time last week depending on how you count and after today there is going to be a 4th time. She spent six weeks at her Montessori school back in the Fall before I started homeschooling her and now public school. She is doing socially fantastic but academically in just four short days she is doomed, I don't agree with this assessment, I believe she is very capable of catching up, she just doesn't want to. I cannot understand this because in my world when some one said I was behind, even in Kindergarten and I can remember it thank you very much, I didn't like feeling behind or not the best etc. I also started Kindergarten on the young side, academically I was able to stay afloat of course that is before we expected five year olds to read Shakespeare and do research projects online, and word problems. I was golden if I cold tie my shoes and pick up the right milk carton from the milk tray. One day I didn't, I picked up the blue one which was skim milk that my teacher wanted and she yelled at us. I didn't admit to doing it per say but I did pee my pants on the way out the carnival, which was probably a confession enough for a Kindergarten teacher. Emotionally and socially I wasn't there, I cried every single day before school until third grade. I think I only stopped then because my world fell apart with a sick dad and a brother we all thought for a solid time was dying (he didn't). Then school got me out of my own version of kid hell, having to deal with all those grown up feelings wasn't fun and at school I could be 8.
My kid though she's a Montessori kid, you know what that means, it means she hasn't been taught competition because competition isn't used as a means to get students to learn in a Montessori school. You know what else? I kind of like that. It took me until Grad school when I had a two year old to figure that one out because I wanted quality time with her and that was way more important than getting an "A" on a paper or in a class. You know what for the first time in my life I lowered my expectations of my self from beyond perfect to slightly less than perfect. This was healthy and good and I wish I figured it out sooner. Do you know what happened? I graduated with a GPA just above the goal I set for myself which was not a 4.0! I can remember my daughter's toddler and preschool years to boot.
So there are a few things at play here, as you can tell I need to remind myself that she is not me, and that the me I wish I saw in her today was not a healthy child, she was a child coping with trauma because of family circumstance, something my girl doesn't know yet. She understands school in the context of Montessori, she is frustrated that she doesn't get to help teach, and that the work is all "academic". I didn't know much about Montessori at first but I learned and she was on to something, educating the whole child and embracing the child's curiosity! There is something about that, it feels right. Or the Waldorf method or Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. When you put these all together they can work in harmony that educates a whole person not just literacy and math for crying out loud!
Today we had another impromptu meeting with her teacher of four days. She again said that L was not on par with her class and needed to be in the Pre K program instead. Honestly I don't think four days is a fair assessment period for a five year old who has been living in transitional hell for the past six months! The work she is down right refusing to do I know she can do but doesn't like to. So rather than fighting with her everyday to catch up after school and sending her into a classroom where her teacher is essentially stressed out by her under achieving presence, today we opted to try the PreK program for the rest of this year. In the long run I think it could be for the best. Perhaps next year she will be more mature and want to do the work. Or get over her perfectionism shut down. She won't do something she can't do perfect the first time around... oh how that makes me cringe! Let's review, I know she can do the work, she doesn't want to do the work, we have lived in a confusing time for six months, she is not me. Maybe it's all been too much for her? It is like I have a new kid since moving, she goes to bed, she listens, she's happy, and the fits have been minimal. She was stressed out!
Can I also tell you for six long torturous months I home schooled that head strong girl? We were both ready for her to go back to school. Also let's be honest, it is really hard to be an effective teacher when your whole entire life is up in the air, your kid is a hot mess because life is hard, and you are looking for a full time job that requires you to travel at the drop of a hat. There were lots of parts of our little home school that just didn't work. But there were parts that were like victories. I had no one to answer to but my self, she wasn't too into reading just yet but I wasn't worried because I was a late reader and here I am two Master's Degrees later. We spent days being creative, something she thrives on. She planned an entire new year's eve party with a little guidance. She learned how to rest when tired. She learned how to tell time, break geodes, mine for minerals, wrap gifts, count pennies, read short "bob books", make kittens out of pumpkins, viscosity, density, mass, about community, baking, cooking, budgeting, 30 days of giving, she learned to take people in when they fall on hard times. And you know what? It means jack squat when you put it next to the common core standards for Kindergarten. Can I tell you I don't care about those standards, I don't care that she can't read on level, I don't care that she isn't interested in explaining how she sorted buttons, I celebrate that she isn't like the rest of the
Her whole person needs to be educated and the common core and standardized testing factories public education has become isn't going to do that. I long for a Montessori program but there aren't any. So it looks like I will be having to teach her all that stuff slyly after school until forever.
But all that being said... all that talk of accepting I can't be perfect, all the talk of child directed learning, of education being about the whole person... it means nothing when that still small voice in my head says to me loud and clear you failed as her teacher. I know I only failed at teaching her common core standards but there is that part of me, the perfectionist, the over achiever, that is heart broken and disappointed because my kid can't do stuff I don't care about anyway.
I feel defeated and scared of what her education is going to look like in the future, our options for alternatives are slim in our new city.
Somewhere in the mess there is some good, there has to be.
Until I find it, I am grateful for our two and a half years of Montessori and the ability to read and learn and explore educational theories.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Ordination Reflections
We are in the middle of packing for our move this weekend but Ordination Day is lingering in my mind and is begging for more words than I have time for this evening. I do want to share just a few thoughts from the day.
The first, I began my adult life working in the film and video industry, I often think in movies with scene changes and sound tracks. Ordination day was no different it was full of montages of my life in my home church. Moments from my confirmation, ordination as a Ruling Elder, a million youth events, our wedding, L's baptism. Those walls hold a lot of memories for me. I just wish I could get the montages out of my head to be shared!
Second, my mentor preached a beautiful sermon, that was honest, emotional, and challenging. He closed with "I love you!" I started to get up to give him a big hug and hesitated, I missed my chance. It isn't often I have wanted to get up and hug the preacher, then again it isn't often a sermon ends with such a personal sentiment on such a big occasion. It is a moment I will remember for a very long time, or perhaps forever. We also served communion together which was awesome and grace filled as I was confused and missed a part.
Last, at least for now, a really awesome moment I had all by myself. I had walked over to the reception to greet people and when I finished I made my way back to the office where we had all gathered before the service. The other clergy had already taken off their robes and stoles and laid them on chairs around the room. I walked in and laid mine down with all the rest of them. It was this quiet and surreal moment, I was now one of them. They are my people and they understand the challenges of the role and all that comes with it.
Today I am grateful for the day, the memories, the JOY.
The first, I began my adult life working in the film and video industry, I often think in movies with scene changes and sound tracks. Ordination day was no different it was full of montages of my life in my home church. Moments from my confirmation, ordination as a Ruling Elder, a million youth events, our wedding, L's baptism. Those walls hold a lot of memories for me. I just wish I could get the montages out of my head to be shared!
Second, my mentor preached a beautiful sermon, that was honest, emotional, and challenging. He closed with "I love you!" I started to get up to give him a big hug and hesitated, I missed my chance. It isn't often I have wanted to get up and hug the preacher, then again it isn't often a sermon ends with such a personal sentiment on such a big occasion. It is a moment I will remember for a very long time, or perhaps forever. We also served communion together which was awesome and grace filled as I was confused and missed a part.
Last, at least for now, a really awesome moment I had all by myself. I had walked over to the reception to greet people and when I finished I made my way back to the office where we had all gathered before the service. The other clergy had already taken off their robes and stoles and laid them on chairs around the room. I walked in and laid mine down with all the rest of them. It was this quiet and surreal moment, I was now one of them. They are my people and they understand the challenges of the role and all that comes with it.
Today I am grateful for the day, the memories, the JOY.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
The Mole
Let me say from the start while this story is funny; skin cancer not so much.
A little over a week ago I took a solo trip for the purpose of job hunting. This trip involved me squeezing my "more to love" size backside into tiny plane seats on four different commuter size planes, most of which were less than comfortable. Look I used to be to embarrassed to say stuff like this but I am just going to own the fact that I am a bigger than average person and as such air travel can be a bit uncomfortable particularly arm rests that poke you in the oddest of places.
So I am back from my trip a day or two recovering from a whirl wind trip that was absolutely exciting and exhausting. I get out of the shower and I think I have a pimple on my back, you know that kind of sore feeling you get when a blemish is growing? I don't often get acne places other than my face so I asked my hubby to take a look because it was just out of my line of sight. I was surprised that it was above where any of my clothing rubbed while traveling, I thought oh maybe the arm rest irritated it or a one of my cross body bags. He takes a look and makes a little sound like, "oooohhh". We've been married for ten years, had a baby... that "ooohh" was an oh this is gross kind of "ooohh". Which didn't make me self conscious but rather gave me a moment of panic. What felt like ten minutes of silence passes as he turns on more lights and looks closer. I say, "um?" It looks like a mole, but it's crusty and a little irritated around the edges.
I have a crusty mole on my back, again I think I irritated it while traveling. I give it a few days and it starts itching like crazy. I have him take a picture of it. I google. Nothing too alarming but I figure a "crusty" mole that itches is worth getting checked out. My grandfather had skin cancer and was never in the sun, so being careful seems like a good idea. But... it's Friday night so it has to wait until Monday. I call my Doctor's office Monday morning and they have an appointment the next morning I take it.
Tuesday morning comes and I tell L we have to go to Mommy's doctor because I have a weird mole on my back. "You are growing us a pet mole! On your back!!!!!!!!!!" Eventually, she wants to preform her own exam which takes 30 seconds. She is completely crushed I am not growing a pet from my back. Which, I mean, we tell her she grew in my belly so it doesn't seem that absurd that I could just grow a critter on my back. Seriously though I wouldn't grow a mole kid, maybe a lab puppy. I digress.
I get to the Doctor early, things are gong well. I tell her it feels scabby, husband looked when it was irritated said it looked like a mole. Have you picked it or injured it? No, not that I remember on the injuring, and I made it a point to not pick at it and I am a picker by nature. She looks at it and say oh hold on, gets gloves on, and proceeds to pull a SCAB off my back. My crusty mole, was crusty because it was a SCAB! I think I turned so red I bordered on purple. I am not a rush to the doctor kind of girl, I will weather an illness for weeks before I break down and go in. I actually just recently started even seeing the doctor regularly for physicals and such. She explains, it very likely was a skin tag or a mole that got injured and freezes off the rest of it. While she is out of the room I say to my five year old who is sitting there watching all this unfold, "Can you believe it's just a scab?" She face palms her self, twice, really hard. The doctor walks in as I am telling her to face palm more gently and demonstrating on myself. I give up!
We did have a good conversation about respecting people's education and expertise and experience n specific fields.
Today I am grateful for my scab and being able to laugh really hard the whole way home.
A little over a week ago I took a solo trip for the purpose of job hunting. This trip involved me squeezing my "more to love" size backside into tiny plane seats on four different commuter size planes, most of which were less than comfortable. Look I used to be to embarrassed to say stuff like this but I am just going to own the fact that I am a bigger than average person and as such air travel can be a bit uncomfortable particularly arm rests that poke you in the oddest of places.
So I am back from my trip a day or two recovering from a whirl wind trip that was absolutely exciting and exhausting. I get out of the shower and I think I have a pimple on my back, you know that kind of sore feeling you get when a blemish is growing? I don't often get acne places other than my face so I asked my hubby to take a look because it was just out of my line of sight. I was surprised that it was above where any of my clothing rubbed while traveling, I thought oh maybe the arm rest irritated it or a one of my cross body bags. He takes a look and makes a little sound like, "oooohhh". We've been married for ten years, had a baby... that "ooohh" was an oh this is gross kind of "ooohh". Which didn't make me self conscious but rather gave me a moment of panic. What felt like ten minutes of silence passes as he turns on more lights and looks closer. I say, "um?" It looks like a mole, but it's crusty and a little irritated around the edges.
I have a crusty mole on my back, again I think I irritated it while traveling. I give it a few days and it starts itching like crazy. I have him take a picture of it. I google. Nothing too alarming but I figure a "crusty" mole that itches is worth getting checked out. My grandfather had skin cancer and was never in the sun, so being careful seems like a good idea. But... it's Friday night so it has to wait until Monday. I call my Doctor's office Monday morning and they have an appointment the next morning I take it.
Tuesday morning comes and I tell L we have to go to Mommy's doctor because I have a weird mole on my back. "You are growing us a pet mole! On your back!!!!!!!!!!" Eventually, she wants to preform her own exam which takes 30 seconds. She is completely crushed I am not growing a pet from my back. Which, I mean, we tell her she grew in my belly so it doesn't seem that absurd that I could just grow a critter on my back. Seriously though I wouldn't grow a mole kid, maybe a lab puppy. I digress.
I get to the Doctor early, things are gong well. I tell her it feels scabby, husband looked when it was irritated said it looked like a mole. Have you picked it or injured it? No, not that I remember on the injuring, and I made it a point to not pick at it and I am a picker by nature. She looks at it and say oh hold on, gets gloves on, and proceeds to pull a SCAB off my back. My crusty mole, was crusty because it was a SCAB! I think I turned so red I bordered on purple. I am not a rush to the doctor kind of girl, I will weather an illness for weeks before I break down and go in. I actually just recently started even seeing the doctor regularly for physicals and such. She explains, it very likely was a skin tag or a mole that got injured and freezes off the rest of it. While she is out of the room I say to my five year old who is sitting there watching all this unfold, "Can you believe it's just a scab?" She face palms her self, twice, really hard. The doctor walks in as I am telling her to face palm more gently and demonstrating on myself. I give up!
We did have a good conversation about respecting people's education and expertise and experience n specific fields.
Today I am grateful for my scab and being able to laugh really hard the whole way home.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Dear Dad
January 19, 2015
Dear Dad,
I thought for awhile about starting with dear Daddy, because I lost you twice, the first time I was still calling you daddy. The second time I was old enough to have evolved to "dad". You died 16 years ago today and I find myself very reflective about my own life and yours. I wrote today on facebook (yeah computers, internet, social media... I bet you would have loved this) reflecting about my journey and how in the end your death empowered me to live my life. I won't go so far as to call loosing you a gift but the lessons it taught me surely were.
I didn't realize until I was much older that I grieved for you three times, first when you became ill, then a few years later when I realized what brain damage meant, and finally when your body died. Sadly, you missed out on a lot of the good things that happen in a child's life. You didn't get to scare away my first date but after I knew we were a couple, I brought Paul to meet you in the nursing home. You did get to be there for my graduation from high school, you had told me once about how you just wanted to live to see one of us graduate from high school. You died a few months after my graduation, you knew I started college. I have graduated five times since then dad... it seems excessive I know but it turns out all that growing up fast caught up with me and I had to find who I really was. Today your baby girl has two Associates, one Bachelors, and two Masters degrees. Then there was our wedding day, I suspect if one can be there in spirit you were, the weather was perfect, it was your birthday, a little nod we gave to you. Dennis and Mom walked me down the aisle, Uncle Doc stood in for you at the father daughter dance. These "big" days often have made me miss you and think of you and wonder. There was always a sadness.
I don't think you ever imagined you would have a preacher girl for a daughter. These days I am not sad as much as I wonder. Since L was born, I have wondered about what you would think of being a grandpa. I wonder about how the two of you would get along. Oh how I know you would love her and she you. How I dream that she could know you and you could beam with pride at her dance recitals. I wonder what our relationship would be like, what we would spar over, and what you would think as I told you of my job prospects all over the country. I wonder what kind of jokes you would make. Or what your face might look like on ordination day when I served you communion. I am left to do a lot of wondering.
I hate that you suffered how you did in those ten years, as I get older I can imagine how torturous those days in the nursing home must have been, how abandoned you must have felt. You know when I started coming to see you senior year and bringing food, I was hatching a plan to get you out of there, I was going to finish school, get a job, and an accessible apartment. I guess it wasn't in the cards for either of us.
I wish you didn't have to die. I wish some person some where didn't sign off on using agent orange. I wish you didn't get sprayed with it, I wish I didn't have to worry about DNA mutation. I wish you didn't suffer. I wish you didn't get robbed of your life when you were hitting your stride. I wish it all mattered to the people who signed off on those papers. It doesn't seem to. Your death and your life mattered. In life you gave me life, a love that was deep and in death you empowered me to savor every moment I have, especially those with L.
Dad, the other day I was looking at my dry and cracked hands, I saw yours. I thought of the movie Beaches, when the little girl says, "Look mommy, our hands are the same." The mother sobs because she realizes her daughter has the disease too. I just had a check up today, so far it hasn't been passed on. I watch L closely and so far she is healthy too, no signs of your disease or Dale's or any of the others. I have some hormone regulation problems but for now they don't change much other than my ability to make babies. I try not to take any of it for granted, to embrace the now, and to let your love sing in my heart.
All my love,
Becca Bean
Today I am grateful for the life of Everett Dale Gresham Junior who was taken like so many before and so many after, far too soon. I am in a very reflective space today, not particularly sad, just filled with wonder, love, and gratitude.
Dear Dad,
I thought for awhile about starting with dear Daddy, because I lost you twice, the first time I was still calling you daddy. The second time I was old enough to have evolved to "dad". You died 16 years ago today and I find myself very reflective about my own life and yours. I wrote today on facebook (yeah computers, internet, social media... I bet you would have loved this) reflecting about my journey and how in the end your death empowered me to live my life. I won't go so far as to call loosing you a gift but the lessons it taught me surely were.
I didn't realize until I was much older that I grieved for you three times, first when you became ill, then a few years later when I realized what brain damage meant, and finally when your body died. Sadly, you missed out on a lot of the good things that happen in a child's life. You didn't get to scare away my first date but after I knew we were a couple, I brought Paul to meet you in the nursing home. You did get to be there for my graduation from high school, you had told me once about how you just wanted to live to see one of us graduate from high school. You died a few months after my graduation, you knew I started college. I have graduated five times since then dad... it seems excessive I know but it turns out all that growing up fast caught up with me and I had to find who I really was. Today your baby girl has two Associates, one Bachelors, and two Masters degrees. Then there was our wedding day, I suspect if one can be there in spirit you were, the weather was perfect, it was your birthday, a little nod we gave to you. Dennis and Mom walked me down the aisle, Uncle Doc stood in for you at the father daughter dance. These "big" days often have made me miss you and think of you and wonder. There was always a sadness.
I don't think you ever imagined you would have a preacher girl for a daughter. These days I am not sad as much as I wonder. Since L was born, I have wondered about what you would think of being a grandpa. I wonder about how the two of you would get along. Oh how I know you would love her and she you. How I dream that she could know you and you could beam with pride at her dance recitals. I wonder what our relationship would be like, what we would spar over, and what you would think as I told you of my job prospects all over the country. I wonder what kind of jokes you would make. Or what your face might look like on ordination day when I served you communion. I am left to do a lot of wondering.
I hate that you suffered how you did in those ten years, as I get older I can imagine how torturous those days in the nursing home must have been, how abandoned you must have felt. You know when I started coming to see you senior year and bringing food, I was hatching a plan to get you out of there, I was going to finish school, get a job, and an accessible apartment. I guess it wasn't in the cards for either of us.
I wish you didn't have to die. I wish some person some where didn't sign off on using agent orange. I wish you didn't get sprayed with it, I wish I didn't have to worry about DNA mutation. I wish you didn't suffer. I wish you didn't get robbed of your life when you were hitting your stride. I wish it all mattered to the people who signed off on those papers. It doesn't seem to. Your death and your life mattered. In life you gave me life, a love that was deep and in death you empowered me to savor every moment I have, especially those with L.
Dad, the other day I was looking at my dry and cracked hands, I saw yours. I thought of the movie Beaches, when the little girl says, "Look mommy, our hands are the same." The mother sobs because she realizes her daughter has the disease too. I just had a check up today, so far it hasn't been passed on. I watch L closely and so far she is healthy too, no signs of your disease or Dale's or any of the others. I have some hormone regulation problems but for now they don't change much other than my ability to make babies. I try not to take any of it for granted, to embrace the now, and to let your love sing in my heart.
All my love,
Becca Bean
Today I am grateful for the life of Everett Dale Gresham Junior who was taken like so many before and so many after, far too soon. I am in a very reflective space today, not particularly sad, just filled with wonder, love, and gratitude.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)