What is Sean Penn doing in my afterlife?

Whirlwind.

2011 has come and gone.  Our house is once again a gift earthquake.  Unopened boxes, Barbie clothes strung across the floor like a doll one-night-stand, the menacing look of a soldier aiming at no one.  We'll soon discard the old for the new, as many families do this season.  2012 is just about here.

December evokes lots of reflection.  Thoughts of home.  This year we stayed in Ohio, and I barely get a glimpse of what Christmas is like back in Houston.  Tamales, my loud uncles, my cousins with kids of their own, my sister.  My grandfather's birthday passed on the 21st.  I joke with my wife that if he was still alive I would have never left his side.  I vaguely remember driving in his truck, sitting on his lap as a toddler, able to honk the horn at passerbys.  I remember making my uncle Gilbert (who at the time was in high school) change the channel to what I wanted to watch on tv.  Foghorn Leghorn was the king of Saturday morning cartoons.  When he grew sick from the pneumonia that eventually took his life, I reportedly was so mad I stormed out of his hospital room.  It would be the last time I would ever see him, apart from the pictures I still own, the ones my grandma has in large photo albums she keeps.  One memory is sitting by the window awaiting his return, wondering if his truck would simply pull into the driveway.

Growing up in Houston has its own stories, too many for a mere blog.  Many of them are with my uncles.  Richard the handsome one, whose life was struck short in a tragic accident.  Gilbert the young one, whose girlfriends were the frequent targets of my seemingly endless questions.  Jesse, the black sheep, the one I outwardly root for.  In a movie he'd somehow be redeemed by the actor Jimmy Smits in one of those Oscar-winning speeches.  David, the family man turned tragic cautionary tale.  My uncles were the men in my life when  my father sat speechless in front of a television screen living his life through the actors and actresses he logged in various 3-ring binders.  They weren't the ones quoting from the Book of Responsibility my step father used often (In hindsight, I was as much as an issue for him growing up.  Whether that was from rebellion, our differences or some Freudian attempt to keep men away from my mother is beyond my intelligence to comprehend).  I envisioned making a movie about a kid being raised by the four of them, and indeed if I took parts of each one they would make for a great narrative.

Memories of them come up often.  I watched "The Tree of Life" this past week.  Brad Pitt plays the reverential and tough father of 3 boys in Waco, Texas in the 50's.  The movie is part poetry and existential ruminations on the meaning of life, from creation to the afterlife (not sure if I totally agree with the movie, but it proves for some great conversation, first and foremost--what the hell was Sean Penn doing in this movie?).  I thought so much of my uncle Gilbert's job as a father to four boys. As a brother myself I related to so much of the story (Cruz did too, I think, because it's the only way to explain how a 7 year old can sit next to his father and watch an art house movie, a Terrance Malik movie by golly, is beyond explanation.  But it all has to do with boys being boys, and probably some of his desires to have a brother run around the neighborhood with, someone to push and push back, someone to wrestle with, someone to understand his point of view).  I'm not here to say it was a perfect model, but I do know that my 4 cousins are special in the way that God only can do, from the way they act, their personalities, their looks and the memories they all invoke.

The other night when wrapping last minute gifts, my DVR slighted my emotions by clipping the last cathartic minutes of "It's a Wonderful Life."  I know how it ends but I was ready for my deep Holiday cry.  Not that I have anything to be sad about.  Crying for George Bailey finally understanding where God placed him, thankful for the gifts around him.  When I see the tears in my uncle Gilbert's eyes whenever I say goodbye I see the dame thankfulness.  I see it in the vivid memories of my grandfather under the sheen of worn photo album covers.  The black and white photo of him wearing a suit and Al Capone hat will probably stay etched in my mind.  I can't imagine seeing him once again in color.  By then it probably wont matter.  Perhaps he'll be a floating celestial being.  Perhaps not.  But I know that my Sean Penn-walk-in-the-afterlife walk will look like.

Whirlwinds.

No mustard, no ketchup

There are days that I am reminded that my students are kids.  They may exhibit adult-like behavior at times.  They may write fantastic letters in the character's voice from a recent novel, or they may speak sophisticated about others who bother them.  In the end, they are kids.  Scared at times, troubled, confused, carrying a yoke too burdensome for their age.  Kids.

And other days their parents remind me that they too can be influenced by wanting the very best for their kids. We all want this, to a point.  Many parents desire for their kids to outlast them, outsmart them, outdistance them in their educations, their dreams.  And then every once in a while, we step over the line and try to force the issue.  We, as parents, simply cannot let things be.  We lack trust in their choices.  We lack faith in the people around them, the friends they choose and the teachers that are undoubtedly a large part of their lives.

So today a parent witnesses kids being kids.  Teasing occurs.  Feelings become hurt.  Emotions spike.  The decisions as parents that we make at that moment serve as both a precursor to how we envision our own kids handling that same situation.  If we are calm and handle it without strife, do we make our kids into would-be punching bags?  Or when we lose our tempers in front of them, do we hope that we too will fight for what we believe in?

I saw my mom angry on several occasions.  Frequently it was from wrong orders at the fast food drive in.  "No mustard, no ketchup!"  At times there were curse words.  Other times I probably never knew that she arrived home without the fries, or 4 biscuits short.  Once, after coming home with a friend of mine from a local election party, we were stopped by Houston's finest.  My friend was made ordered to step out of the vehicle.  My mom sat in the back seat, immediately began confronting the young officer.  There was this impassioned speech about civic duty and harassment.  I don't think we got the ticket.  And I have never argued with a police officer.  Once, I remember her claiming an officer entrapped her into a speed zone as he hid behind a dumpster (I think).  My mom still got the ticket.

Once in high school, a car load of friends were pulled over.  We were in a bind.  All underage drinkers, 5 total people in the car that reeked of cheap Boone's that was tossed from the window before we even stopped (by me).  We had a drunk girl in the back seat, perhaps suggestively wishing she's pass out, even accidental removing articles of clothing.

We all had to step from the vehicle.  I admitted to throwing the Boone's, my friend Barry admitted to the car not being his (no, it wasn't stolen, just borrowed from the back seat groper among us).  My friend Juan went into this mexican-man tirade, tempting the cop to arrest us, beat us, whatever.  It was only when we interceded to get him back in the car did the cop release us.  It was the wrong decision to let us go.  I would involve myself with a near DUI months later with different friends, then other mischief.  Perhaps it would have been a sign for my parents to have kept me home.  Choices.

There was always something reserved in me to avoid those types of confrontation.  Perhaps it was the power position.  They had the badge and I didn't.  I once felt superior enough to complain a Wal-Mart when my grill was not assembled.  I even cursed like I'd seen many a white man!  Of course I was wearing my shirt that advertised my school.  That's my luck.

Last year a mom berated me outside my room.  I let her have some back.  I took up for myself.  It was still an embarrassing low light.  My son has never seen me argue with any other adult.  Why should he?  I can't imagine what message he would learn from me if I handled a situation like my parent did this morning.  Confronting a kid.  Eyes burning with vengeance.  After seeing me hug my friends and smile all day, what would he think about me raising my voice to a Wendy's drive-thru worker, his teacher, or one of his friends?

Times do change.  Whenever a crisis happens, I immediately blame my kids first.  I don't take their sides until all the facts have been placed on the table.  I'm old school.  If I would have even been hit by a car as a kid, my grandmother would have said, "Why were you in the road?"  Nowadays, parents over fight.  They pull their students from school when they don't the desired grades.  They move if their son is retained.  They get on the news and demand justice be served when their bratty kid is duct taped in class by a substitute teacher.  And my room 160 students get me.  Teaching them about self-sacrifice and humility.  Don't boast, don't call attention to yourself.

Many of my students have facebooks.  One in particular curses, posts spammed porn, uses extra z's and dollar signs in his posts.  Think he's listening?

Falling through Canyons

This entire school year has been a game of catch-up.  My moments of clarity are so last-minute they are like the fresh papers I print, warm to the touch, but by the time the pencil lead is begins to dull, it's cold, distant.  This past week I copied the wrong side of a daily language exercise on the back.  Week 13 on top of week 12.  Some of the kids noticed, the ones who look forward to turning in their work a head of time for that lure of the computer time incentive.  I'm like the 2 or 3 that barely figured it out the day the assignment is due.  "Dude, you did the wrong one," I say, pointing out the left-over stash of papers they were supposed to complete instead.  They look at me with their expression, thinking,  "Again,  I messed up?"

I have 29 students this year (my new one enrolled Monday). 2 less than my highest total of 31 and about 4 or 5 more than what is typical for me.  I also teach a 4th and 5th grade class.  I call them "young" and "old."  I try to make them feel as if they are a true multi-age classroom.  If you can handle the work, here, try it.  You should see my writing lessons.  They are a macabre dance of packets and prophetic Smart board truths from years past--how to milk the reader into reading the next paragraph, using questions to draw readers into their intros, using quotes to drive the narrative, ending with a memorable line.  Some are working on commas and capitals.  My son knows there should be a capital "I" in sentences.  Why don't my fourth graders?  We furiously erase commas and introduce semi-colons.  My high kids, both the fifth and fourth grade alike, yawn, roll their eyes and trudge ahead with essays and typing their final drafts.  They hunt down those that aren't achieving not so much to help but to perhaps boos their own ego, to tell on them, shame them in front of their peers.  "Mr. Cordova, he's not even using periods!"

Reading is when I see their struggles and successes magnified.  They work in teams of 2 or 3, and they are singled out with their grades only.   Two different novels I'm teaching, while sprinkling in a dose of the district basal reader, non-fiction supplements, computer-based assessments and vocabulary exercises driven towards exploring synonyms and multiple meanings.  They have 30 minutes to master a concept.  Sometimes it's just enough time to finish, and other times not enough.  Anytime my grandmother ever made dinner, she always had enough.  And this called for having seconds, enough for someone who just arrived and packing enough for the ones who weren't there.  I never learned her mastery of portions.  It's a lesson that would serve me well when conducting my lessons.

Even within their grade levels there is great disparity.  I have one fourth grader that might as well skip and move to fifth.  I have at least 3 that have no business in fourth grade.  The rest weave through the narrative of the day when their effort affords them to.  They sometimes don't maintain the effort it takes to succeed, and other times no matter how hard they work they will find my way of instruction or the material daunting.

My fifth graders are a wonderful challenge as well.  Some I've had for two years now.  They know my routine and I know their moods.  We were conversational the first day of school, which is sometimes a curse in itself.  They talk to me like I am their friend.  Most of the time they don't even raise their hand.  Some of this is learned behavior as well.  My son Cruz hugs everyone he sees.  I do this too.  so it's no wonder during silent hallway time they try to walk beside me to chat about their day.  Most of the time I oblige them.  I'm the same way with my staff.  During fire drills, I talk to fellow teachers when the students are supposed to be quiet.  I joke with the custodians, hi-five kindergartners.  When I get after a kid for not lining up or fighting at the bus stop, I have to scold someone else for making it a joke.  I'm less and less sarcastic when I talk with them.  When I don't give you a hard time, then you should be worried.

The year is almost done.  I stress less about the test that drives my instruction, my employment, and more about their lives beyond the walls of room 160.  I've been eating lunch with my kids this past week.  It gives me a time for them to update me on their lives, how their siblings are doing.  Some are shy and sit far from the group, while others won't even start eating until I begin.  For the first time ever, I had two kids on separate occasions deny the chance to come back.  I don't know if I should take the snub as a slight or that they are just too insecure to grab their lunch and walk down the hallway without some driven fear that they are somehow in trouble.  Are these the two boys that will fall through the cracks we whisper about in the teacher's lounge?  I think along the way to becoming a teacher I fell through canyons.

This past Monday we added a new mantra to our daily pledge.  We say the pledge of allegiance, then the room 160 saying, "Shady Lane Students will LEARN, LEAD, and ACHIEVE," and now "My Identity."

I am a new creation

I am deeply loved

fully pleasing

and totally accepted.

I am absolutely complete.

There has never been another person like me

in the history of mankind,

nor will there ever be.

I am original,

one of a kind, really somebody.

I lifted this from a bible study of "The Search for Significance."  If you search for the book, you'll come across the identity mantra they share aloud with each meeting.  There's some fanciful editing of mine that took place.  Law requires me to excise the use of God or Jesus in my daily teaching, but they cannot take what's in the heart.  

So I type my lessons, clear my desk for the next upheaval, and jot down a series of dots, lines and codes for absences and behaviors.  During recess, I take down score and call fouls for the fifth grade basketball game.  In a way, it's like my day.  I catch most infractions--the talking, the constant rummaging through a desk, unauthorized dragon drawings--and other times I'm caught napping because my head is down recording a rebound.  The kids turn the ball over, they steal it back, sometimes even a game-winning shot.  That's all they need.  A pick on their defender, that look at the basket.  Swish.

Clown-Lipped Strangers

There are truths in every cliché.  People have been passing on quips and one-liners for decades.  Each culture has their own idioms that have become staples of their lives, even jumped the hurdles into stereotypes and superstitions.  My grandmother always says, "How about them apples."  My mother-in-law and others promise that death comes in 3's.  And for me, mine is "Truth is stranger than fiction."

Walking has become a cliché, too  Roads and highways, the walks of life.  I once wrote a poem about a road in a senior creative writing class and was politely given a C.  Road movies have been around for decades and they all represent a segment of the population, from "Easy Rider" to "Thelma and Louise."  So when I found myself taking a 2 mile hike Saturday night, the pop culture that infests my mind like some Cameron Crowe movie began playing its soundtrack.

After enjoying a college football game with a friend and his son(even if it was a loss, but I will not turn my peaceful blog into a sports diatribe), we returned to find my friend's car had been towed.  He had questioned the legitimacy of his parking choice early on, as it was close to the dumpster on the corner of a paved parking lot for an apartment complex.  We called and GPS-ed the name of the lot and began a 2 mile journey through campus downtown.

Now, had this happened in a movie, many of the following would have occurred.  Scenario 1--we end up being chased by thugs and some sadistic master criminal.  Two of us die and eventually we throw the criminal down a building alleyway (which stands for some metaphor of corporations v the death of industry or some other philosophically heady conceit).  Scenario 2--We whimsically travel from station to station meeting an odd assortment of characters.  One of us make a huge life decision (leaves his wife for a heart-of-gold hooker), one ends up "staying" in this version of Wonderland, and one finds his way out only to realize that the fantasy land was always around him to begin with.  Or Scenario 3--the men turn on one another in some survival of the fittest testimony about man's brutality towards one another.  A friend, a father and his son?  Oh, such a rich idea!

But my story was none of these.  Out of the three, I was the one panting, legs stricken with rigor, eyes affixed to the sights around me.   I didn't have the energy of confrontation that awaited at the impound lot (more on that later), or the will-power of a power walker reaching a finish line.  I was consumed at first with my body's denial.  Ironically, I had been thinking of my food intake all day.  How much beer should I drink? Is that one too many pulled-pork sandwiches?  So the first few blocks were a blessing in disguise.  Wait until I add this activity to the weight watchers database tonight!

Eventually, the crowd and lights of the city eased the tenseness in my feet.  Every establishment a dorm room of food and conversation.  The music of the bars echoed into the streets.  Not a taxi or pedestrian honked at us even when the analog hand of caution warned us to heed.  Couples shared rides, buses were full, their plexiglass a gauzy, grease-smeared transparency.  Neon signs, a-blinking advertisements and specials adorned each window.  We walked past a veterinarian shop, where it's medicinal tubs and clinical tables reminded me of some Eli Roth torture epic.  Several hookah shops dotted the landscape where it's colorful "blue milk" concoctions were something from Mos Eisley Cantina.

People too.  Couples, dancing girls who said hi to passerbys.  A student being heckled for being mistaken for a Pennsylvania native (it was his hockey jersey that outed him), bike riders, a girl clutching a pillow.  Girls crying on steps (I'm convinced that steps are better used for smoke breaks, girl-watching and crying than any other architectural structure ever made).  I fell behind numerous times along the trek, squeezing through groups of young men and women.  I craved pizza slices so I could walk like John Travolta down the streets of Manhattan.

By the time we reached Fifth, the area changed.  The lights grew dimmer.  Chain link fences that bowed from the implosion of its neighborhood wavered in the breeze.  The casual shorts-n-bike law enforcement turned more formal.  Industrial sized wood staples jutted from its foundations.  Will future generations look back upon the graffiti of its youth and study them like hieroglyphics?  Somewhere, there's an Incan ghost running around with an ancient spray can, laughing his ass off.   

Then my walk became arduous.  I clung to my bookbag tighter, then lamented whether or not I should have had my wallet handy in case I ran into someone who needed it.  I looked over my shoulder a few times.  I fell victim to the stereotype of the dark alley.  I began to think of the people in my life who couldn't make this same walk.  The ill, the forgotten.  Kris Sims, my wife's share partner whose thymoma has stricken her energy.  My walk was for them as much as it was for me.  Praise the good and bad.  A sign bore down on our last street.  Just what part of "thou shall not" did you not understand?

It was then I noticed a girl with Rolling Stone-painted lips.  She must have noticed I saw them, simply walked up to me, grabbed my face and kissed me on the lips. My friends and I shared a laugh.  A kiss from a clown-lipped stranger.

I don't know what lesson I was supposed to learn in that walk.  I talked to my step-dad earlier in the week about being thankful for each day isn't guaranteed.  Perhaps that was it.  Or to be grateful for the experiences of life.  The vice, the pleasure of girls in yoga pants, a kiss, the knowledge that our walk had an end.  What of others?  Theirs has just begun.  My friend's car end up being damaged too, and perhaps it was a lesson in patience.  A lesson in frugality--our sense of payment for "free" parking. (On a side note, another friend was towed that night too, from the same exact spot where we had once been towed.  Imagine that movie, the Tow Trucker who transports the lives of its victims.  Morgan Freeman!)

What I do know is that he was with me.  I had an old high school friend tell me that he was told, "Never trust anyone who is always smiling."  One cliché is another man's value.  I think mine was the biggest of the night.


 

Guarded Addictions

Last night I watched "Unguarded" an ESPN 30 on 30 special about Chris Herren, a basketball phenom from Massachusetts whose career was undermined by an addiction to heroin.  Brutal story.  It reminded me of watching the movie, "The Fighter" in which Christian Bale played the real-life brother addicted to smack.  He had those sunken eyes, that drugged-out look.  There are times in watching "Unguarded" that Chris looked much the same.  It's any wonder how he lived to survive.

And then I began to bury my mind with questions.  Why drugs?  Why did his wife stay with him though all the ups and downs, the travelling and over doses?  Why didn't anyone care enough to see the warning signs?  And better yet, where's God in all of this.  Many times during the program,  Chris is telling his story to several different audiences--the obligatory stay-off-drugs in a high school, a military audience, one that looks like a room full of ex-cons, ex-addicts.  We see clips and pictures of his past, all swagger and boastful.  We love these types of stories.  The cocky kid rises, falls, and lives to tell about it.  The entire story is a testament to the power of the human spirit.  And then again I get to wondering, are shows like this just a glorification of how humans can do mighty things without God?  I know I am being presumptuous and judgmental.  Bear with me.  

I've seen these stories before.  It's always the druggie, or the gangster, or the money launderer, the gambler.  They learn their lesson through a series of pratfalls and down-n-outs, but in the end of the movie, they survive with a smirk to the camera.  We're supposed to learn something from them, I guess.  The entire movie is filled with parties, naked women, drugs, crime but when their life changes it's dull (remember the ending of "Goodfellas"?) and uneventful.  We never see the movie about the after-life.  Those days where they struggled to stay clean, struggled to gain a foothold of being a father, being "normal."  For wise-guys and show boaters, it's always been about them.  And for Chris too, I presume.  He tells his story with a bluntness.  Some may call it courage.  Some may feel talking in front of an audience is much like resurrecting his basketball career.  Adoring fans, tears, hugs afterward.  You can hear the quotes right?  "You're such an inspiration."  "Your story made me reflect on my addictions."  Etc, etc.  

Addictions are powerful.  I didn't always understand the lure of drugs.  I smoked as a kid, and in my highest moment I realized I didn't need a bong hit to make me laugh cause I laughed pretty much anywhere.  Beer was this way too.  I was a happy drunk, a social drinker.  Perhaps it was through observing my own family that led me clear of needing that drug or alcohol fix.  My dad never drank and he rarely ever had a beer in his fridge.  We shared a few during a Monday Night Football game when I was in town years back.  It was the most awkward beer I've ever had.  My step-dad was a non-drinker too.  He played fastpitch softball on the weekends when the coolers were filled with more Budweiser than Gatorade.  These guys would smoke and drink between games, 9 am games.  But for him, he just never dabbled.  And then there were my uncles.

Two of them never met a shot of tequila they didn't like.  I mean, when one has "Tequila" as part of a nickname, you know what kind of person you're dealing with.  I know there was a lot of unseen drug use, the rumors of.  I didn't know all of their friends, only that they never really stayed around.  I guess that says something too.  

And then there was my own fear and crossed-messages.  I grew up with that Catholic fright.  I would sneak a look at my step-dad's stash-plate he slid under the sofa when I entered the room and wonder what the little green seeds were, that pungent smell.  He raised me too, and held his jobs, worked up to management.  If this was a drug addiction, how was it able to manage a family?  How was it able to hold a job?  And fear again.  I once saw cocaine left aside after an uncle's party.  Rolled-up dollar bills, lots of scary-looking white guys.  I always presumed that with my stupid luck and that Catholic fear based mentality, that the minute I took anything stronger than a Tylenol, that I'd foam at the mouth and die (with a pair of skid-marked underwear on no less, that was grandma-induced fear in itself).  I remember once going on a drug run.  I was just out of high school.  Being inside that guys house, all that fear just boiling.  I kept thinking we were going to get killed.  That this guy would get pissed and shoot us all.  His wife or girlfriend were watching tv at the time, watching us buy.  His kid was there too.  Here I am, just out of high school, with my friends in a kitchen trying to smoke something from a manipulated coca-cola can, the room illuminated by the blue light of the television and the eyes of a child burying a hole in me.  No wonder I didn't get a buzz.  

And going back to the film, he confessed to spending thousands just for a fix.  And I thought to my own addictions.  Pornography and food.  One hidden, one in plain view.  On mornings like this when I would have the free time (I took the day off of work to be a prayer partner for my wife), I would awaken to the thoughts of what I would visit on the computer screen.  Then some heavy lunch of fried chicken, hiding the evidence in the outside trashcans.  Then back to the computer.  Then food thoughts again.  Repeat.  

When I was younger and struggling to live on my own, it was much the same.  I would leave work in the early morning, buy some breakfast tacos, gorge, sleep, then awaken and venture out to rent video tapes from any place I could get them.  I think there were about 20 mom and pop video stores along Aldine Westfield and I had a membership to all of them.  They each had their curtained adult video room.  Those were my days.  Porn and pizza.  

And when Chris Herren talks about living one day at a time, I understand.  Each day I don't view that is a blessing.  I notice food habits now as well.  Why do I always have my necklace or shirt collar in my mouth when I watch tv?  Probably because I would be mindlessly eating.  Part of going to Weight Watchers is to change those habits.  Right now, I'm home awaiting the afternoon prayer vigil for my wife who is speaking in the Emmaus walk.  My mind drifts to lunch time  because that's the safe place my mind remembers.  I spoke of fear in an earlier blog.  

But I have one thing different lately.  It's not my power or a program.  All God.  I hope Chris has that for his family, instead of the humanistic approach to battling what ails us.  We can only do so much.  Chris says he thanked God a few times in the film.  I hope it wasn't just a flippant remark of a man in front of a camera.  No camera is on me or the men I look up to.  I wonder how their stories will play out.

  

The Yoke of Hope

I'm not sure when was the last time I worried.  Now, mind you, I have worries.  Typically the ones of late have been minute.  What will I try to accomplish at work in Reading?  What can I delete from the DVR to create space for the next 5 shows that are going to record on Monday?  Did I leave the garage door open?

Trivial matters.  Inconsequential wastes of time, one might say.  I think the last time I actually worried about something that gave me that upset stomach feeling was last year with a parent.  There had been some lingering communication issues and there was a meeting to be held later in the week to discuss what would be the next course of action.  It made me walk on egg shells in my own classroom.  How dare some parent dictate what I say, how I say it, or why I say anything.  Accuse me of what?  How dare they!  And I tried something I hadn't quite learned how to do after becoming a Christian about five years ago--I prayed.  And after I prayed, I gave it to God.  And he took care of me.  Since then, there hasn't been worry.

Not that my life is peaches and cream.  There are peripheral happenings that are beyond my control.  Cancer seems to be ravaging through the body of a close friend.  Terminal.  Ironic that a terminal in an airport signifies the destination point or loading station to board a plane, but if a doctor tells you that the unfair sickness invading your body is terminal, your next destination is most likely death.  Two of my colleagues are fighting new battles with breast cancer as well.

There is a student at my school who walks as if his ankles have been stricken with polio.  They turn in , and his walk is a bastardization of what God created.  Sinews twisted and rigored.  Bones crumbling under the weight of a seven year old's desire to run and play.  He was equipped with a wheelchair today.  All smiles this kid, being carted by his brother in the hallway.  "I'm popping a wheelie with you next week," I told him.  Do I worry about that kid?  Yes.  But hope runs deep in my mind.  One day him, the kids across the hallways that have been dealt some terrible deck (autism, brain disorders) will one day run in the full splendor of God's kingdom.  Whether or not we greet one another is probably a humanistic question our minds drift to.  Of course we want to see loved ones, we have trained our minds to expect such a sight.  But my mind drifts to the kids taken early, the disabled ones, the enabled, the kids who know all about love because that's the only emotion they can probably fathom, all healed, all brokenness, unified.  Am I distant with the situation?  By no means.  But hope wins over worry.

 Many of my students have their own lives to contend with.  A colleague of mine sarcastically declares to a moody fifth grader, "What you mad at?  You don't even pay bills."  If monetary stress was anything close to what they are trying to do themselves.  Dad in jail, the caring for of younger siblings, the lack of a decent meal that urges them to take extra food from the lunch room, moving to new schools on a whim, drug abuse.  This past week, a teacher finds a note in a kid's book bag talking about adult things reserved for Comedy Central of F/X.  After some questions, she finds out his dad has them watch movies with "nude people" at night over a bowl of popcorn.  Cruz's age?  Possibly watching pornography with their kid--with a snack?  So do I worry, oh yes, but God has us in the right place.  To listen, to inquire, to step in and hear those warning cries.  That case of the one girl, locked up in some shed for over ten years.  God sent people to that house.  God gave plenty of warning signs.  We just didn't catch them.

Tonight during Life Group a new couple shared some of their grief and hesitance with "giving it to God."  It sounds blasé if it were coming from my heart years ago.  Disturbing grief.  Painful memories.  Forgiveness that is a 4-letter word.  The world wants us to dismiss God, blame him for "letting" things happen.  The hurts and actions of evil hearts are somehow attributed to the same creator who made something as complex and amazing as a the human body.  That's free will.  Would it be better to make us all puppets so that no grief would befall anyone, keep everyone safe.  Man hurts one another.  Man's free will.  Man's choices.  Do we know why?  Do we understand the choices people make?  I don't think we are made to know all those answers.  I don't have that hurt in my life.  I'm blessed.


But I know one day my comfort will be rocked to its core.  It could be cancer, it could be a sudden highway death that took my uncle Richard.  It could be a stunning act of evil.  Do I worry these things will happen?  No.  Worrying will not give me an extra day.  Worrying won't give me more money or opportunity to spend more family time with loved ones.  But "Giving it to God" is replacing a heavy burden, that yoke on my shoulders in exchange for His.  Hope.  

Team Temptation

The topic in Sunday school with our sixth graders was temptation.  When asked about their own temptations, they discussed to curse or not to curse, to lie, to follow the misguidance of a friend.  I told them the topic was soon going to get awkward and we led them into a discussion about boyfriends and girlfriends.  Knowing that almost all the parents of our kids have expectations of dating and relationships for their kids (and they don't really "date" anyway.  Kids just say they are "going out" which means they take an occasional picture together and allow themselves to be teased by their peers), I knew none of them would have any.  They all raised their hands when I asked them if any of their friends did.

If they only knew their teacher had a pretty interesting sixth grade year.  My budding relationship with adult magazines was thriving thanks to a cable box and little supervision (and a kid who waited for opportunities).  I hung out in the neighborhood with two kids that reveled in mischievousness.  We cursed often, spit wherever we walked and dared anyone to tell us otherwise.  I don't know if I was bad because I wanted to or because I wanted the attention.  I know I clung to my sin like a badge of honor.  And that's sin, too, because we only choose sin that makes us feel good.

I also remember my sixth grade year as the last one with my parents.  Perhaps my attention seeking endeavors derived from their arguments, the time away.  My mom and step-dad were polar opposites.  One wanted to party, one wanted dinner immediately upon his return from work.  One was sarcastic, the other serious.  One said everything on their mind and the other reserved. Perhaps it was the lack of supervision of all my street friends.  We all had lax curfews and were given whatever we needed.  I wasn't spoiled, per se, but I did not lack of anything.  I know it was different for my parents growing up.  Perhaps that was a generational curse.

Today's kids have plenty of temptations.  I could wax poetic and old-man myself about today's technology and the freedom of access that kids have.  I remember sending my own daughter off to bed and being instant messaged by one of her friends.  Instead of not replying or just saying she had went to bed, my initial response was, "Why would you think my daughter would be up this late to talk to you?"  It was the beginning of any eye opening experience with boys.  Our little argument ensued and I don't know if I can say that kids today have more courage or lack of respect than before.  If I would have called a girl late in the evening and a parent answered, a dad, I would have been lucky to not hang up.  Having that keyboard and screen in front of you either makes us insensitive or braver.

Media too.  Twilight movies have our girls brainwashed to follow a brooding guy no matter the circumstances.  It's almost sickingly suicidal, all the talk about "not living without you" and scenes of despair when they aren't together.  Team Edward.  Team Jacob.  No Team God.  Popular shows have absent parents (I'm looking at you, iCarly), cartoon characters seek dates (Phineas and Ferb) and every teenager is sarcastic, a know-it-all or pregnant (thanks, MTV).  Temptation is everywhere.  But it isn't a sin.  It's the choice we make after that means everything.

So our sixth graders beg for phones, a facebook, sleepovers.  All I wanted as a sixth-grader was 100 friends, a pretty girl to talk to and to be left alone (unless it was with my mom).  I had the video games, the movie nights, the clothes. I had plenty of freedom too.  I wrote, I was constantly living my life in my mind.  Free to ponder, free to choose.  It was the best gift I was given as a child.  I know that my parents didn't know any other way.  Family time was dinner, going to see my dad play softball, a car ride to San Antonio.  They probably received less time that that growing up.  I tend to think my grandparents' lives were even tougher.  How many people my grandma's age didn't even finish school because they were working the fields?  Now my family time is spent doing all sorts of events.  Games, life groups, church functions.  My kids are growing up so much different than I was.  Same love, different method.  In the end, they'll face the same temptations we had growing up.  They'll have choice too.  A choice to love.

The Ministry of Failure

I'm officially a member of the Ministry of Failure.  Please follow along as I tell you why.

I feel my story speaks for itself.  Not anyone can join the Ministry of Failure.  Surely not perfectionist.  Surely not self-help gurus who know every concoction to ail thyroids and throbbing muscles, the TV doctors who can bend and twist their way into our lives, like some yoga pick-pocket.  Snooty know-it-alls are also not invited.  The Ministry of Failure only takes the best.

I began my application process early.  Among the several elementary schools I attended, several incidents come to mind.  I remember Magrill Elementary, fourth grade.  My first week of recess I threw a pine cone at some girls' head.  Nice first impression.  No one picked me for kickball games.  Third grade was brutal.  Kids actually picked each others' teams based on height, popularity and size.  I was short, unpopular and fat.  Just wearing skin-tight parachute pants should be reason enough to grant admission into the Ministry.  Perhaps I could sing my x-rated rendition of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" I developed while my classwork was being avoided?  Or perhaps I could sign something using my mom's signature like I tried on my report card?

 If my early years do not convince you that I belong in the Ministry, perhaps my intermediate years will do.  My seventh grade year was perhaps my biggest predictor of failure to come.  After joining football to help me gain friends, I ended up walking to and from school as my bus passed with everyone yelling at me through the window and giving me the finger.  The highlight of my day was walking down by the creek to see turtles scurrying away from the scent of failure I was emitting.

 Junior high years was one failure after another.  My sixth grade year consisted of various comedic episodes that were simply re-aired like some bad tv show.  Find dad's porn stash, hide porn in vacant "safe house", smoke cigarettes with seventh grade neighbors, hide cigarettes, tease my sister, repeat.  My parents separated that year which is a prerequisite for the Ministry application, and I made matters worse by shooting a kid in the leg with a bb gun at the bus stop.  The principal of my junior high had enough of me.  Earlier in the year I bought myself a week's worth of in-school detention for passing notes in AFTER school detention with disparaging words about his toupee.  So, sending me for expulsion for the remaining school year was like giving out candy.

High school was four years of blurry ineptitude.  Failed algebra as a freshman, transferred schools because I was terrified of anyone brown (it's scary to be around too much machismo and latina-girl hairspray).  My biggest moment of failure occurred during my senior year of high school, homecoming dance.  I knew my date since junior high and all her friends had me convinced I should ask her out.  She said yes and we had a date.  Showed up at her house and noticed her friend was there.  So were two guys.  So we went to dinner, the dance, and this other guy, perhaps a boyfriend she didn't want to tell me about, tagged along.  After dinner, she parked in a car with him while I chilled in the backseat of her friend's car.  It was the longest night of my life.  Maybe two people know about that night.

My dormant years before graduating and marrying were slow and confusing.  Did you know my ex girlfriend was pregnant before I met her?  No?  What about dropping out of community college?  Perhaps it was coming home from working the night shift at the toll road (where I spent my time reading dragon-fantasy novels, cranked loudly to classic rock and sports radio and ate constantly) to an empty house, calling 1-888 numbers for "friendship", eating again and sleeping until the next shift began.  I pitted family members against one another.  I cursed my grandmother for enabling me to live like I wanted by cursed her for cleaning my room and throwing my mistakes at my mother.  I shuttled between getting kicked out of my dad's house, my uncle's house, was made fun of by my mom and step-dad when I told them I was moving out into an apartment with three girls from work.

The rest of my blogs can catch you up from there.  And so it's been, working towards the Ministry of Failure.  But one thing I have been learning the hard way lately, is that we weren't made for perfection.  We were made human.  Granted, we had the ability to be perfect.  One apple.  One bite.  Welcome, sin.  We've all been herding ourselves into the Ministry of Failure ever since.  It's only the contestant-reality shows that award talent which reminds us that people can be perfect by having one gift.  Dr. Phil reminds us we are perfect through tears, audience applause and commercial breaks.  Food makes us feel perfect too.

We all fail.  I have and will fail better than some.  But all these stories are mine.  I own them.  I have a unique copyright with my past that will not let go.  God loves our pasts.  He loves our future more because he loves us too much to let us stay the same.  These past few weeks have been a start.  2 bread sticks with lunch instead of 6.  Salad dinners.  No stops for donut holes.  Fruit snacking at night.  Did I mention the Ministry of Failure has a great buffet?  No guilt, no worry.  It's the best food I've had in years.

Melted Mushroom Tops

I didn't realize just how much fear I keep bottled.  I figured it was guilt that I was trying to suppress; the guilt that I keep fishing for.  Fear, however, seems to be one of Satan's allies.  And he's a punk and fights dirty.

Del and I have been taking a new class on Wednesdays based on the book "The Search for Significance." Our great friend who leads the class told us before signing up, you're going to fight, you're going to cry, and sure enough all have happened.  This book, and mind you, it's only the workbook for the actual book, opened up this gaping wound that I thought I had defeated.  Fear.  

I didn't see fear coming around the corner.  Week 1 was God stories, singing, laughing about seating arrangements with friends.  Week 2 sliced my guts open.  I realized I had plenty of fears.  Fears of parenting, fears of being a great teacher, fears of old sins and habits, fears of being an adequate Sunday school leader, fear of being a good enough husband.  Fear is so prevalent in my life that it made guilt jealous.  

The drive that fuels me at work--fear of perfection peppered with a fear of failure.  That cringe I feel when I open my son's behavior log?  Fear of failure.  Everyone's going to know that's your son.  They'll be whispering behind your back before you know it, Ray.  I read a Facebook post recently about how jokes have some truth in them.  When people joke with me, "The apple doesn't fall far," is it a veiled attempt to remind me of that fear?  Apple.  Sin.  Fear.  

I used to have a distinct and deep fear of dying.  I would lie awake and chills would run through my bones with the guilt of my life, that shame.  I don't necessarily have a surefire guarantee that when I die that I'll be lying in grains of honey, but I have hope now.  No more chills on Houston summer days (and a wicked chill it was, the old fear that would freeze a man walking in the stifling humidity of a Houston afternoon).   

I used to have a great fear of being alone.  I see my dad, alone in the home he was raised in, surrounded by his memories and stacks of albums.  I don't know if the music he collects soothes him on solitary evenings, but meeting Delcina dispelled that fear of being alone.  

I once had a fear of not being popular, wanted.  It's the feeling I still get when we host parties, that five minutes before the first doorbell ring.  What if no one arrives?  What if everyone leaves early?  God has blessed me with so many friends, I could have a party every weekend and still not meet them all.  Who can say that?

But let's go to the root of the biggest fear I've always had--my weight.  Most who know me, have ever known me, knows I haven't necessarily battled weight as embraced it.  I was an overweight kid who used humor and sarcasm to gain friends so that my one glaring flaw would not sag underneath my too-tight shirt like some melted mushroom top.  I played football because guys my size played football.  All others were schizo nutjobs who wore leather jackets and sweated though gym class.  I was a fat high school kid who was too shy to ask girls out but not shy enough to flirt with all of them.  I became wordly.  Someone would make a passing comment, pinch my man boob, I defeated the laughter with viscous put downs or and occasional Tony Montana, crazy-mexican eye stare.  

I worked out some from those days, sometimes I lost weight and sometimes I didn't.  I took phentermine pills at some local free clinic that services minorities, welfare families and immigrants.  I took so many that I used my best friends' name on the form just to get a monthly supply.  I drank Slim-Fast and soup diets, I once even went without a burger for one month.  And by the end of all the work, the lemon-twist flavored salads, the running and half-walking laps with my mom at Aldine High School, the portion battles and calorie counter apps, I still gained it all back.  And more.  

So there's that fear again.  Our class leader asked us to respond aloud what fears we were holding back, the fears we jotted in the margins of this cruel book.  Jobs, motherhood, parental.  I said if i didn't have fear, I would probably be thinner.  Recently I kept telling myself that God is keeping me this way because he knows my sinful heart.  A thin me would be unreachable, too egotistical.  Suddenly I'd be that douche bag at the bar who screws the divorcees, drinks all night and still has a decent waist size.  Screw the Christianity and love and service for muscle shirts and rockin the guns!  But I know that is Satan again.  Trying to talk my way out of things.  Making me feel like less of a person.  

Both my wife and I have this same fear.  Our kids have digested our lives well enough that they don't say much to us.  They don't notice the late night fast food runs, the extra butter, the donut breakfast.  But my eldest has.  That fear regurgitated in that form of judgmental love only provided by mother-in-laws and that mean friend who has no filter.  The fear of the awkward inner eye that watches me when "Biggest Loser" is on.  That's all I need, some yelling celebrity to punish my way into losing weight.  And then I head to the kitchen for something sweet.

I'm joining Weight Watchers soon.  Loving promptings are leading me there.  Satan is already packing the bags to my return.  Every bite he's going to mock me.  Fear.  There aren't enough lines in the margin of my book to write the pounds of fear that weigh on my heart.  

The Reservoir

Nothing fires me up more than complaining.  I know because I'm the king of complaining.  This blog of mine sometimes is one bug rant.  Usually I ponder over something way past my pay grade, end up reminiscing about my life (especially my life before Christ) and then I bring hope into the passage with something spiritual.  It's my pattern.  Every blogger probably has one.  Maybe mine is more evident, but it's there.

So back to complaining.  My wife would say I still complain.  Lately it's been about spending quality time with my wife.  She's busy cutting and slicing in the kitchen while I (sometimes) end up doing random chores when I feel like I've been provided with enough energy.  My wife has plenty.  Either that or she knows that when she sits, her body is going to hibernate.  There was a movie lately with the ever-hateable Sarah Jessica Parker called, "I don't know how she does it."  The trailer shows some professional office worker married to Greg Kinnear and looks to impress women by understanding what they go through as they juggle careers, marriage and kids.  And all the while looking like a shrunken head of her former self.  My wife does that and more.  No movie could represent that.

My other complaints have been about my older daughter.  She's pretty much perfect.  I love her to death and all I want to do is hug her.  She's going on a college visit/practice/stay over tomorrow on her own.  She has her Google directions printed and all her forms signed.  She's worried about missing exits and getting there late.  I know I should have probably taken the day off and driven her up there.  Her dad in shining armor.  I also know it's probably best I send her on her own.  Slowly letting go.  Cutting the chord one by using a dull butter knife.

Other complaints.  Small digs here and there without sometimes knowing it.  We probably all do this in some form or capacity.  Living in Houston I felt it was my right to complain.  Traffic, bad sports teams, Mexican people who weren't born here, Hispanics who held it against me that I didn't speak Spanish, rednecks, etc, etc etc.  Once deep in my own filthy life and spewing it for all who would listen, my Mom's husband told me basically to shut up.  He was probably the first person in a long line of people who probably who had enough of me.

Then I became a teacher.  I didn't know complaints until I became a teacher.  I had fun and new things to complain about.  Not enough planning time, loud kids, principals, district policy, bad parents, good parents, hip hop, fellow teachers, broken copiers and not having a substitute when it's your day to have Art class.  Teaching was not just an outlet for bouts of creativity, but it was a reservoir of negativity if you were willing to find it.

But that's another blog.  The demons of my first five years, my last five years before Christ are a strange trip indeed.  Those stories are push their way through whenever I face a challenging kid, a bad afternoon or when I speak to an old colleague.  Sometimes I feel that my last five years teaching, my first five years after making a decision to follow Christ, was somehow going to wipe away my past teaching sins.  I know this is a futile attempt at perfection (and a big fear of failure that's always been there with me, hand in hand like a demented demon just ready to pounce when my confidence gets too high).  I know I cannot exempt the screaming I've done, the overtly aggressive hand-gestures and the days I phoned in a lesson.

And work isn't the only thing I've tried to fix (instead of letting Him in more, like I had anything to do with my own salvation other than to make a choice).  My bad parenting of Cruz has me sighing each time I come home.  His daily behavior log is becoming something I dread opening.  When I was a kid, my Dad collected Time-Life books on everything from wars to nature.  The pictures were always life-like, and the ones with sharks or insects always creeped me out.  I would peek before opening the page so I wouldn't be scared.  That's how I feel when I go to open his behavior log.  He has good days and I don't believe him.  I check for the good stamps and wonder if he somehow stole the teacher's stamp pad.

So it was without a sense of irony when Wednesday we had a district-wide professional development day. All morning I was between creativity, joking (not sarcastic ribs at the presenters like I've done countless times before) and loving the day that God had given me.  By the time the day was over, I was almost in tears, wondering what the hell happened to such a great day.  I don't know when it became to change.  Was it the men who were callously reading the sports page during a keynote address (like I have done in the past,?  I used to do this in high school!), or the people leaving early?  Perhaps it was my own fatigue, or the stress of our own carpool driver?  Once we arrived home, about an hour away from going to church for Bible study, I think I had uttered profanities at my wife, almost refused to go and wanted to sell my kids on e-bay.  It happens just that fast.

Maybe my former life wants to have another go-round with me.  One more bachelor party for old times sake.  Maybe it never leaves us.  I hear stories about radical transformations from sin to salvation.  That is surely not my story.  Mine is going a different path.  Slow.  God doesn't want me moping about my 33 or so years when I wanted to do things my way, but he's not going to just whisk it away either.  What fun would that be?  In the meantime, I'm going to keep praying, keep stepping and avoid the complainers.  I feel embarrassed for them.  I was once them and I just want to hug them.  Their God-man in shining armor.

Mary Moments

I've got Mary on my mind.  

In Sunday School class we spoke of the "Mary moment', when realizing that she was chosen to carry the birth of God's son in her virgin womb.  The lesson focused on her reaction to God and how humble, awed and blessed she was.  The kids spoke of moving with their parents to Ohio, meeting new friends and inviting them out to church.  I think sometimes on the surface that their hang-ups and fears were nothing compared to what I was dealing with as a sixth grader, but peer pressure and the nomadic lifestyle of my parents actually has much in common with them.  Life stories mesh like that, and every incident of my life is attributed to something I am still learning about--life as a father, being a teacher, being a Christ follower.

Sixth grade was a ride.  I guess my biggest fear was acceptance, so I over compensated with lots of humor, sarcasm and silly antics to grab everyone's attention.  I was overweight too,  and my confidence in myself stemmed from the relationships I had with people.  Not deep, personal poetic relationships, but making sure I was hanging with the cool crowd, the good looking girls and preppy white boys.  Academics came fairly easy, too easy at times.  I made just enough to get a high B, but not too much effort for A's.  I could goof off all through class and still pass the test.  I'm sure my teachers wanted to wring my neck.

I moved frequently as well, so anytime I enrolled in a new school I had to traverse the waters of the lunch room, hoping not to sit at the wrong table.  I avoided the eyes of the aggressive kids who looked like they wanted to fight.  Playing football made my social life easier in junior high during these moves.  I played football just to get friends.  Effort really didn't factor in the decision.  There really wasn't much of a sense of pride.  Eventually it became a chore once I got into high school.

So my sixth graders speak of their "Mary moments."  Many of them have been Christ followers since they can remember.  I can't say that I didn't know Jesus.  I knew him from the oil painting of him that my grandmother hung above the kitchen table (right next to the plaque that read, "Golf is like sex, you just have to be good at it to enjoy it.") and the countless other depictions of a suffering Jesus in every salon, relatives house or viejita I ever knew.  I knew him from the cross he hung on at church where I would snicker at the priest's Cuban accent and hair piece.  I loved the choir when they said "hallelujer" and seeing the pretty mexicana girls. Then it was back to home, the Oilers and the guilt of grandma's tortillas.  

These sixth graders of mine have resilience and confidence.  I believe that's the best thing about having God in your life.  You smile, you laugh like it's your business to laugh, and you don't succumb to the world around you.  One of our girls has been with us since fourth grade.  A wallflower, a performer, a singer, awkward too.  One of my "Mary moments" was wondering if Del and I, me specifically, had what it took to "lead" a Sunday school class.  We had this group of loud kids so much different than the ones we teach at our schools.  Our school kids come in moody, medicated, worried and with no confidence in their ability.  We had people who wanted to eat lunch after church.  We had football games to watch.  We had, we had.  

But that's the "Mary moment" right there.  Even though we talked about how Mary was blessed to serve, the angel who appeared before her had to explain to her the will of God and her place in the scheme of things.  Mary was troubled at first, visibly shaken.  I can see our sixth graders being told that they are going to move to a new city, or a new school.  Perhaps even having to group with a kid who has made fun of the fact that they were a wallflower, a performer, an awkward girl in a sea of nick-tween models.  But, there's less talk now of bullying, and mean teachers, and more talk of success.  And when she or her classmates want to break out into song to answer a question from the Bible, we let them just because.  

I have nothing compared to Mary.  My path has been wickedly twisted lately.  Lots of indecision and loss of confidence.  Lots of sighs and second guesses.  Luckily I don't have too much time to over think my bad decisions because Monday calls, my kids need a bath and my cat needs to be petted.  

Death by Funk

There was a moment this weekend amid the food, cooking, preparing and stressing that I slowed down to appreciate the smallest events.  It was the pause on the phone with a family member, the in-character stories you tell one another with the proper voice inflection and mannerisms of the person that never will learn they are being characterized.  It was the look of a best friend just after disciplining your kid, the spilling of a beer on a table, spray butter and dogs that steal cookies out of a little girls' hand.

Then there is school, where I found myself saying the phrase, "I will shut this down," with the insistence of a man who may have bit off more than he can chew.  I have a "split" class this year, which is a combination of fourth and fifth graders.  While I am able to teach them some of their subjects one on one, the afternoons are a failed attempt at classroom management and independent education.  

One part of my weekend was to properly spread icing on cupcakes.  I realized chocolate icing spreads much better than vanilla, but I also realized that no matter how careful you are with something, you're libel to make some mess.  

Family.

It was the look of my exhausted wife, the enthusiasm of my younger daughter who had just turned four (and then asks if she was turning five on the next day), the tantrum of a son who cannot share the spotlight.  It's the shy kid who doesn't participate and the oldest kid whose eagerness drowns those around him.  

It was the look of a man who is fighting the demons inside him.  What makes a man want the comfort of drugs?  Romans chapter 8 talks a lot about the grumblings and yearnings of the spirit.  I could see such yearnings in that face this past weekend.  It stunned me.  

At church I sometimes see the remnants of pain.  A bandage where a limb once writhed.  A sigh of a past miscarriage (I could handle the joy of a small heartbeat alongside you, beating with your every step.  How could I go on once that heartbeat stopped?  Only a mother truly knows.)  The soulful rendition of "Amazing Grace."  Do we cry in the comfort of our pews because it was us once?  Or do we cry knowing it could easily happen again?  

Mowing the grass on a chilly night.  Those little clumps of grass that wont mulch enough, mocking your steps with little hills of stubbornness.  The grass that blows on the concrete that wont blow away no matter how close the nozzle gets to it.  

And I even left that mower sitting outside.  Such is my mind.  I think I drove past three destinations in just four days.  Sometimes I am driving to work when I'm supposed to get ice.  Other times the music transports myself into a back road that turns into a short cut of confusion.  My uncle died behind the wheel.  Theories are he fell asleep, and there is plenty of evidence and family stories of just that fact.  I'd like to think he was peacefully singing along with the Isley Brothers into the wrong lane.  Perhaps if they find me in such a manner, the coroner will announce, "Death by Funk."

Where is this blog going?  Perhaps I should shut this thing down with the insistence of a man who has bitten off more than he can chew.  The questions will always come.  God loves them, so I keep asking.  Maybe I can write them down long enough to perhaps find an answer.

Into the Colors

Today one of the three kindergarten teachers was walking her students through the hallways, showing them around the building. I'm on the total opposite side, so we rarely see the little ones on our end. I love them. For weeks they wear these felt apple-shaped nametags that seem to curl like a wilted peel as the days wither on. They struggle to line up after recess. They push each other quite frequently and someone is always crying.

So here comes these four adorable little girls. Hair perfect. Shoes without any scuffs on them, jeans with a crease. The teacher walks them over to the double doored exit, explains to them what it beyond the door and to never open it. And here I jump in and say, "Cause there's a huge dragon waiting to get you!"

No one screamed, thank goodness.

That's been my first few days of school. It's that slow walk through a new, well-lit hallway. I know why teachers always freak out over kids keeping their hands off the walls, cause that's all I want to do. I want to spread my arms wide and run down one, jump into the colors of the construction papered cork boards. They are seas of fruit-of-the-loom colors, reds, oranges, yellows.

There's a newness to every year, and it's not like I never had a certain expectation or a rote feeling of teacher-ness. Many years ago, I would stand outside of my old school, crying on the steps that led down the front like some regal courthouse scene in a movie, crying as if I'd lost a friend. In the middle of the ghetto, crying.

Over the last few years I haven't cried as much. I used to tell myself that when I stop, then I'll stop teaching. That's my sign. But I also feel more accomplished as the years grow. (Lately, a veteran teacher is being misrepresented as a burden on a broke retirement system. I don't quite get that and perhaps that's for a future blog) Maybe I cried because work was what I lived for, what I thought defined me. What would I do all summer when I had nothing to prove, no ability to show off? At home I had to be a husband, and later, a new father. That terrified me more than a roomful of unruly kids.

My first year, a kid ran out of the building and home to his uncle's house. I thought for sure I was fired. Later that year before November, I screamed at a tandem of boys who were taking advantage of a kid from Africa who knew no English (I ran into this kid a few years back. He was playing soccer for a high school down the road and spoke very good English.) When we all came back from the weekend, those bully kids both moved and I lied that I had "kicked them out." This teacher means business!

But I loved my first year. So much drama, screaming, laughing, bombing horridly and helping. I remember holding a kids' hands and telling him they weren't for fighting. God knew I was the man for the job, I just didn't trust him to know.

Many of my students have grown and my first year group just graduated and entered college. They too are walking through the academic halls of their respective colleges like new kindergarten kids. Some of them didn't make it there, maybe they've faced their dragon too early. Others haven't reached beyond their comfort zones. The background of their facebook pictures show a maturity their desk drawings never showed. I hope they jump into the colors that await them. I'm crying just thinking about them.

Seemingly Gyrating

Not everyone loves their jobs. Undoubtedly over the last several years, and especially lately, I've begun to notice this fact. You can tell the ones that do. It's the cashier at Wal-Mart who is striking up a conversation during Black Friday with a line of impatient people awaiting her. It's the salesman that knows how to direct a conversation to where your answer will never be "no". It's also in the dance of a sign-flipper on a street corner, seemingly gyrating to no song in particular, offering no more than a free month's rent or 10 dollars of an oil change.

For a teacher, loving your job means a lot of things. Keeping yourself educated, willing to change, cooperation, calling parents when you really don't want to and grading papers until midnight. It's all of those things, and none of them in particular. I love my job.

Recently I attended a Leadership Conference of principals and teaching teams derived from each school building in my district. It was an opportunity to create a vision statement to drive the year's educators towards a common goal.

I sometimes think we are fighting a losing battle on so many fronts. One of the speakers was Bill Daggett, the guru of why every teacher in America either dreads or cheers when they hear the phrase "Rigor and Relevance". At one portion of his speech, he concluded we were the crazy ones. We sign up for committees, we dive in with new instructional strategies and we create our own environment by how we live. He explained the "rest" of the teaching field is comprised of the cynical and the defiant. The cynical teacher has heard it all before but won't buy in unless someone else tries it first. They are the reluctant kid on the diving board ladder, only hoisting himself upwards because everyone else was doing it. Diving in, they know water will get in their nose. The defiant teacher is the person, who for whatever reason, wont buy into any proposal. They will do anything to sabotage the system, and sometimes they even take the reluctant kid down with them.

The more and more I spoke to my friends about this, it became evident to me that everyone is like this to a certain extent when it comes to our jobs. There are the small percentage that love their career and profession. They provoke change in their environments, don't have to be told to be there early or to stay late. Sometimes, even, they allow the job to define them! There's the rank and file person just punching a clock as well. They will complain if others around them do or will praise of that's the vibe of the office. Most of the time they do just enough. The last percentage is growing. They are the ones who call in sick, they roll their eyes in meetings, show up late, complain. They are the cancers.

A series in church recently hit home on the topic of living the American Dream. We've gone from the Protestant work ethic to entitlements and TGIF. We tie in job status with life status. We work for the weekend and the vacation, nothing in between. Do I work for God or the school district? Who do you work for?

This past year I've taken this approach a bit too gung ho. I spoke up too much in the lounge and not enough in staff meetings. I judged others first and closed doors to those I felt weren't up to my standard. I debate with my colleagues about the changes I see coming to disrupt our teachers' union and end up alienating the very people I need to collaborate with. The lawmakers want us privatized. They want 100 percent results with a never-ending amount of variables. Diane Ravitch, a blogger for Education Week, recently brought her twitter followers into our world of No Child Left Behind standards. Would a mayor demand their police force to enact a 100% crime free city and fire the police when it doesn't happen? What if the military were supposed to enforce a world where we lived 100% free from terrorist? If not, anyone could become a NAVY Seal with little or no training. I see the bad teacher down the hall passing out packets and never using her technology and wonder if we should burn the whole system down just to fire one teacher per building. What's it worth to a company to scrape the cancer from its midst?

For the ones that love their jobs, no union would probably not be that much different to what they are already doing. We already are teaching 30 kids in a cramped classroom. We already are creating learning communities within their buildings to benefit the needs of the children first. No politician can take that away. Somehow, just maybe, God can give me the better words to say to bring others along with me.

No Floaties

My daughter just returned from her Puerto Rico mission trip. This is her second trip in the span of about four months. This past week we sensed her not being around a bit more than her past trip to Alabama. My son cried when we sent her off at the airport, and more than once one of the little ones slept in her vacant bed. I tried not to notice too much but my best intentions sometimes have the opposite effect.

My little one reached a milestone of her own. A few weeks ago, she began swimming on her own without the help of her body float. Nothing in the paragon of a life-changing mission trip, but one small step into a more independent world. In her world, it's the "no floatie" era. Instead of clinging to me in the pool and directing me to stand in certain areas to catch her as she belly flops her way to me, she pretty much uses me now as a temporary buoy towards her next destination. I'm no longer needed as her life line, except for the few times water fills her nose.

When we took our eldest to the airport, we watched as the teenagers and college age kids prepared to embark. One set of kids, two sisters and a brother, were without their parents. Not unusual but of course I pointed it out to my wife. (The eldest is 24, the middle one a sophomore in college). Look at them, I wondered, they're so independent they don't even need their parents to help them. Here we are with mine, we're right beside her, telling her when the check-in lady asks, "Have you been in possession of your bags?" make sure to say yes! The middle daughter of the three we were watching works at a local coffee shop. I caught her on her very first day, wide-eyed and frustrated enough to find that placing a lid on a large coffee was a daunting task. After briefly talking about having first job jitters, she replied, "My dad cut me off now that I'm in college." Who even uses the phrase "cuts me off"? It sounds like she stepped out of a Great Gatsby-esque novel.

I grew somewhat envious. Who are these brave parents? Who "cuts off" their kids to find jobs on their own? Who sends off their kids to the airport without a wave or goodbye (now, I'm being biased here, maybe they were dropped off)? Were these parents of envy or parents of scorn?

From the beginning it's been a tug and pull relationship with my eldest daughter. I know God is preparing me for what lies ahead, when she is fully entrenched in college and living on her own, married, with a family to take care of. There have been preparations for this moment before. As a fifth and sixth grader, we began to share much of her time with her many several friends, and we haven't really looked back. We just ate dinner with one of her softball teammates. It's a minute gripe, sharing time, but over the course of years you wonder where all the time has gone. School functions, softball, church, we've watched our daughter transform into this amazing young woman. Her trip to Puerto Rico pretty much summed up her life with us. She found herself in some minor scrapes, fell into a bed of sea urchins, was stung by a jellyfish and probably almost drowned. She also cliff dived, read devotions on the beach, and fell in love. She had the life of a movie. She also had her life, without my intervention. She's swimming without her floatie.

My little one still needs me. She clings to me in bed and warrants a but wiping every trip to the bathroom. She sometimes gets her arms tangled in the straps of her blouse and she always needs me to pour her a cup of chocolate milk. But this is where I have it all wrong. My eldest needs me too, just in a different way. She doesn't need me for study help or coaching. She does value me as an observer, someone who will challenge her decisions and to help her when her back tire gets flat. I'm in the realization that Lisa has never been mine to begin with--she's God's. I've just been put here to nurture her growth. The same is with my little one. I should be happy she's jumping into her pool of life, never once looking back at the dad who just wants to swim with her.

The Complaint Coach

I've always been an avid people watcher. From as long as I can remember, I've always marveled at the complexities of the human face. Not one person looks alike (well, it is said we all have one twin) and the millions of shades and shapes of a face can create so many distinct looks. That said, people's personalities and actions in public have always been intriguing as well.

My very first job I worked as a bagger and runner for a inner city grocery store. With me never really learning Spanish, I really worked on learning body cues, eyes and body language. Moms frustrated with kids, the various staff that ranged from retired grandmas who returned to the working field and young kids in college who were already living on their own. I was used to catching people's glances, the eyes of a man watching a woman walk down an aisle, a flirtatious look between co-workers, the late-night redness of eyes after a few too many. The hardest face ever for me to read was that of Mr. Lao, one of my supervisors. The Vietnamese man never showed any type of emotion. He would have won the lottery and you would have thought he dropped a kidney stone.

After a few other service jobs that had more to deal with behind the scenes work, I began a long "career" of sorts with the county Toll Road. All I did was see faces! Morning faces, business faces, drunks, the police behind large aviator sunglass faces (too many viewings of "Cool Hand Luke"!), the looks of confused people driving the wrong way, the astonished look of people after an accident.

Being able to read faces (or at least the luxury of trying) has served me well as a teacher. I know the look of a kid who is confused and the kid too cocky to have even looked for his answer within the text. I know the looks of kids who probably were getting the business from their moms before they rode the bus, only to hear it from the bully or the one kid in class who can't read but is always talking trash about how smart they are.

Of course, reading kids is only half the fun. Working with fellow teachers is another sub category of people watching. As a cut-up myself, I had to know which teachers were prime for ridicule, sarcasm or nothing whatsoever. Now being on the other side, teachers are so fun to watch. I love the looks across the room when a principal spouts a philosophy they're not buying into. Or the look down onto a phone when looking for a volunteer. I especially love the looks of teachers in the summer.

My wife and I signed up for a development day, but were moved along to the side as everyone storms in at 9 (we want kids to be there on time, but we are allowed to show up whenever we want). One lady was not "registered" and was having a hard time being told to wait and wasn't convinced she was going to get her stipend. This was the moment when she decided to look around the hall at the many of us waiting alongside. She needed some support for her frustration and surely her teacher brethren would stand by her side and ease her frustration by agreeing with her. All she saw from my wife and I were shrugs and smiles. It's like the guy in line at a fast food restaurant who just had cheese on his hamburger and didn't ask for it and has to look around the entire place for someone else who was wronged. Dude, if I wanted someone to spit in my food, I'd ask, otherwise take your grievance elsewhere!

Once we entered the room, I was struck more with the decor of the building. Old pictures adorned the walls (one frame showcased scholars that suspiciously ceased in 2006) and the library windows were postered with reading campaigns from the early 90's. The heat was no better. Since the building had AC in only some of the rooms, it seemed fitting we were pitted in room without. The sound of box fans whirled around the room. Everyone had sweat on their foreheads. One large man sat in the high school sized chair and sweated profusely. His arms seems almost too small for his body. We never saw him after lunch.

One group of teachers were from the same building. I loved their camaraderie and conversations, he sharing of a pack of gum, the same destination for lunch and hair tied back in a pony. I loved the look of the guy in the Darth Vader rolling chair, his Charlie Sheen shirt sweating along with him. Even the lady with the perpetual smirk drew my attention. She too was like the registration lady in that she wanted some confirmation from the room on the day's dynamics--the heat, the computer problems, the stalling of the professional staff. I never once smiled at her as I didn't want her to somehow influence me into her worldview. People in complaint mode, teachers or otherwise, always someone in their camp. They are like prize boxers who cannot walk into a ring without an entourage. They are surrounded by back-patters and towel wavers. Even when their faces are being pummeled, they can sit next to their complaint coach and fight another round.

How did I stay cool? I teased my wife with "I hate yous" and drawing in her book. I wiped sweat on her arm and judged her choice of lecture snacks. I dozed off. Tomorrow we go back. I'm wondering how many will return (knowing that we are getting a stipend will mean they will come back, if anything, they will complain more because they feel entitled to being paid). My wife and I will be there. Nothing to complain about that.

Finding the King

There's something to be said about a proper ending. Movies used to get them right before the age of the sequel. The killer keeps being resurrected by the dollar, the monster leaves a nest somewhere hidden by the screenwriter and the hero's 50 foot fall was only an illusion. TV shows are more problematic. Sometimes they get cancelled halfway through a season. Some you invest your time in only to realize you'll never know how their stories end. The only season of "Freaks and Geeks" is a prime example. I'll never know what happened to those kids after their summer.

In life, you hardly ever get to have the right ending. People move, people die. Most of are lucky to have that "Shane" movie ending where the kid calls out our name as we lay slumped over a horse riding into the sunset. Better yet, we don't even die a anti-hero's death like in "The Wild Bunch," in slow motion glory while we take 50 mexicans to hell along the way. Ask Steve McQueen how he felt about his ending, as he traveled to Ohio for treatment of cancer that wouldn't quit. Cancer loves matinee idols, heroes, cowboys, moms and even kids.

Today my daughter played her final game of the summer. For about 15 minutes or so, the girls stood in a circle and simply stared at one another. Some of the girls will never play with their high schools again, or travel softball. They are moving on to college where the game will be more like a job. Their tears are not tears of fear. Perhaps it was a simple innocence. They know the next time they will see each other it will be under different circumstances.

Amid their ending, parents too stood in a wavy line around them, shaking hands, hugging, and crying too. To many of us, it was an ideal ending. Another chapter in the volume of parenting. My book has yet to be written, so to speak, or has found its ending.

Characters have come and gone, resurfaced and changed. Some remain static. I don't remember the literary term for them in my mind, but my writing teacher warned they were only needed to further to make the main character grow. Too many and your novel was doomed. A friend told me this weekend that the static players in my life are there simply because, as a teacher, I'm used to seeing results. I expect change, I demand it, perhaps.

So I find myself in the middle chapters. There's so many characters in my book. I'm not privy to who will remain or who will change. One thing I do know, it is not my responsibility to "make" them grow along with me. Leading a bible study, praying or inviting them over for wings or barbecue will not suddenly transform anyone and my epiphany is simply this: It's okay. I have to release the teacher in me.

I've been reading about the cheating scandal in Atlanta. Teachers changing answers, erasing furiously in locked rooms. Placing poor performing students next to the smart ones so reading their answers would be easier (hell, we already do that in non-testing situations!). I don't want to be that person. I cannot move people along a chess board with hopes they will find their King. I cannot erase anyone's mistakes, simply to bubble in their next step with a #2 pencil.

I do want that perfect ending. It's the human part of all of us. We want to fly around the earth like Christopher Reeves after he saves the planet from leather-clad villains. I want to stand on the podium as Princess Leia places the medal around my neck, barking like Chewbacca. I want to stand in the circle like my daughter and her teammates, shedding a tear with the ones I love, our uniforms dirty from life, but alive and willing to see what is next.

Chuck

His name was Chuck. I will tell you upon seeing him that I judged him. He opened the door for my family as we walked into Waffle House this morning. He was kind enough, and I didn't think about him because of his kindness. I judged him only in the sense that I was a coward for not going up to him and introducing myself. Why? It was his look from the counter on my family and the one next to me. It was his smile. It was more because of his eyes.

I've always been an observer. I spent more time in school sitting in the back because I wanted to see everyone in front of me. I wanted to see the glances across the room when the teacher turned around. I wanted to see the yawns and leans over the desk when pencils fell. Still to this day, I normally sit facing the door in restaurants. I love to see couples come in, the dads struggling with rambunctious boys, single women who look like more concerned with their phones than their meal. Delcina and I, waiting to catch a flight to Houston sat in the airport once and just watched people. We made stories about them. We chuckled at the reunions of couples that didn't match and kids who didn't seem appreciative of the person walking down the runway.

In one of my writing courses, probably my freshman or sophomore year in college, our professor gave us these well-glossed photographs of people. A woman sitting on a bench, a homeless man, kids running through a sprinkler. We were to write compositions about those pictures, an essay about these people's lives. I'm sure then the professor, upon reading our papers, found this a futile exercise in just how naive and immature we were as people and especially as writers. I don't remember what I wrote or the photograph I used, but when I used to write fiction I frequently tried to place myself in other people's shoes. I wanted to wear their lines on my face. I wanted to feel their pain and love and depression.

On my first night of my Emmaus walk, I brought this imagery and the deconstruction of people's faces into that church. I sat among the 30 or so men, most of them white and silently judged them. I pegged them as country boys, white trash, biker trash and hillbillies. I saw them as stuffy button-shirts and academia snobs. I firmly felt I had nothing in common with these men and they surely saw me as that minority guy they don't want moving in their neighborhoods.

And I've always felt this way. When I moved to Ohio, I moved into a small town where just about every business was located on, where else, main street. I would pull beside people on the road and they'd wave. I wasn't used to that. You pull up next to someone in Houston, they give you the finger. I would routinely go along with the misconception that I was from the Middle East (typically Libya for whatever reason) or that I somehow actually celebrated Cinco de Mayo by doing something other than drinking a Dos Equis.

And so I'm back to Chuck. The couple next to us brought in three boys. I too was amused by the high-chaired lad whose cheeks were covered in pudding, and the one son who was eyeing the kitchen. While I looked on at them, at my own kids, so was Chuck. Now I knew his name form the work uniform he was wearing. And it's here that I started my inner story, that judgement.

I took the work clothes and grimy hands that he was a hands-on, mans man. I don't know if it's a deep down resentment of these blue jean clad men who can erect houses in hours or the guy who can repair a motor with a wrench. I am not the working mans man.

I took the expression on his face as something wholeheartedly more. Was this a man who raised his own children? Did Chuck ever have these sit-down moments with his own kids? So here I am answering these questions and painting the picture of a lonely grandpa without anyone share breakfast with. By the end of the meal, all I wanted to do, was shake the guys hand and talk about his life. I wanted to know if his son ever talked to him, or how many wives he had (there goes my judgement again). But I didn't.

I'm thankful I get to share my meals with my loved ones, worship with friends and my nights with my loving wife. One thing my dad and step dad both possess is that willingness to be secluded. My dad is perpetually alone in the house he was raised in. I wonder if the walls ever seem smaller to him. Do the sounds of the past ever keep him awake? My step-dad has remarried. We talk infrequently but when we do I hear the voice of the man who raised me. I know both men's efforts have resulted in me. Their like the Chucks who follow me around even when I don't know it, holding the doors for me, smiling down on my kids.

Fishing

Summer is two weeks gone, and it's feeling like an entirely new year. Delcina nor I received summer school opportunities, so we pretty much thought we'd be twiddling our thumbs and wondering what to do. For me, this meant I would get the chance, perhaps, to serve more at church, to actually attend church consistently and to live within our means.

Living within our means will be the toughest hurdle to leap. We have active/busy lives that lead to poor eating choices, late nights and an entertainment bill that sometimes soars. We like our movies, our favorite restaurants and taking the kids somewhere to play.

The serving part has been easier. This was supposed to be the week we started school. Instead, I volunteered for Vacation Bible School. And I went in full force by becoming a large group leader, which means I rotate with two others and teach the lesson of the day. I get to dress up like a cowboy (well, one who wears funny looking chaps made out of bathroom rugs), and be silly. It's pretty much me doing a monologue, reading lines and playing games. Aside from Emmaus, it has to be one of the most fun experiences I've been a part of.

Being a teacher, I guess it's not a stretch to teach the same lesson to 4 different groups, ranging from pre-K to fifth grade. However I have been blessed by their intelligence, patience and willingness to allow a grown man to be silly in front of them. This past week has led a lots of reflection of where I am and where I am going.

Recently, it seems as if God has been pin pointing me for something I am not too sure I can handle. You know, it is said that he will give you only what you can handle, but sometimes the earthly, worldly living wants to take over. It wasn't too many years ago that I was doing things my way. Avoiding church, seeking out selfish endeavors and basically trying to be the biggest ass in the room. Now, this is not saying I don't still do these things! I'd like to think I do them with less frequency, with more forethought and reflection afterwards and with a feeling of becoming everyone's best friend.

Recently too I've been receiving challenges to do even more. Friends that are dealing with pornography issues, marriage issues, running bible studies and coordinating life groups. This is from the same guy who would seek out the foulest video store just to view their curtained back room where the XXX tapes awaited. The person who has thrown countless hundreds, perhaps thousands down the drain on websites and videos. The same person who used to think shows like "Two and a Half Men" didn't quite get foul enough.

So this is me, the guy who isn't being asked to hang out at bars during the week. The guy that my wife says the kids "love" at VBS. The guy running life groups and being asked to speak. Lately, I've shrugged off the pressure, but when I sit alone with the computer in front of me at night, that computer that would offer me anything within one click of a mouse, I get to fishing. Fishing my brain for that past self to resurface. Was that one tantrum I had with my wife earlier the start of something? Was my lack of patience with the kids going to continue? I literally have to close the laptop, and it's not that those thoughts and desires wont follow me to bed, but it's a point in my favor when I can resist.

And the next day, I greet the day, do some reading and head to church (this week, with a slight congestion!). I clap and smile and sigh at getting as close to winning as I can possibly do. The smiles of those around me tell me more about where I am than what I think. Jesus is proud, I see it in the smiles of my friends, and those kids. What else is there to do but accept those looks and smile back, right?