Back into the groove of 2013. Already in two days of school, my class has a combined 8 absences and 5 tardies. Among some of the explanations have been from getting tonsils out to accidental head wounds that occur when leaped upon by a Great Dane when playing video games. I've had one kid move from school to further their education in front of a computer. Two new ones replaced her several days later. We made pendulums last week as a way to show potential and kinetic energy. Counting the back-n-forth swings over 100 times, I figured I would be hypnotized by the end of the school day.
My own kids are a reflection of my stress. Milly now wants nothing to do with school. She has cried about her stomach for weeks, and like dutiful, tough love parents, we blew her off. Anxiety from her sister going to college. Well, come to find out she had some bowel issues. Poor girl still doesn't want to go to school. We ask questions, she just shakes her head and wants to go home. We've been bribing her during lunch to go out and play, otherwise she hangs out in our rooms. Our family has work to do. Your job is to go to school, young lady. Her response through red-cheeked sighs is an emphatic "No." For the first ten minutes of recess she sat bundled up on a cold bench as her little friends tried to persuade her to play.
Cruz is a nervous wreck. He plays Minecraft like a kid whose life depends on completing missions, killing "creepers" and building houses of brick and mortar. He screams at the slightest provocation. He's grumpy. When he's doing a chore, it's as if he's being asked to make clay bricks for Pharoah's pyramid. In a bit of irony, he landed the part of an Israelite in the church play. If he's play-whipped into slavery by some 9-year old kid dressed like an Egyptian, he may pull a Moses.
I tell anyone who will listen that I'm "good." Where did the joy go? I have it when I pray. I have it when I read. I feel it when my wife hugs me. I read it when I open a devotion, or an email from a friend. I feel it in the connections God has chosen for my life. Then why don't I feel it the moment I get downstairs? Or the moment I arrive at school? Why doesn't it regain it's luster when work is over?
I tutor a 5th grader weekly, for about a few months now. Motivation is the primary key to unlocking his future. I always tell him that he won't be able to simply "turn it on" at a moment's notice. I even tell my own students that when they act like the Lakers, playing crappy basketball during the regular season so they can really play ball in the playoffs doesn't work. Where's the effort? I've beginning to ask myself the same questions.
Today was a day of notice. One man's life awaits the footsteps of a hospice nurse. His fleeting moments are a reminder to the walking. A student's apology letter, better than the diatribe I unloaded on her a week ago. Better than placing them on an arbitrary spot to stand at recess. A hearing with a group of teachers, arbitrators and administration. Tense forehead lines and the quivering cheeks of a colleague. A teacher who wouldn't feel comfortable sending their kid to our school. My school. The one Milly attends. That face of hers again, the anxiety of a child.
Forgiveness too. I think sometimes that forgiveness has to be "big things," like divorce for instance. I don't think my father will forgive his second wife, probably not my mother either, for divorcing him. Regardless of his role, he's felt wronged. Or perhaps forgiveness should be reserved for a bigger incident; a crime. Do you forgive only a murderer or a rapist? Or do you think forgiveness is about smaller issues. Like decisions made that affect you. Or perhaps there's forgiveness in simply not calling someone. Miscommunication, a disagreement.
The only person who knows the answers is me. Only I determine what enters my heart and resides there. God wants in, he surely does. My pastor tonight, on the topic of a drug abuser, said that he couldn't get off dope because a small part of the man wanted to get high, liked it. That's sin, right? We fight to keep something in our hearts instead of letting God in. Because we like it. That small part that tethers us to the world.
The tether that needs to be cut like an umbilical chord.
No comments:
Post a Comment