Sunday, February 24, 2013

That Ache for God

About a year ago, my wife and I took a hiatus from teaching Sunday School.  We had reservations going into that year, and the rest of the year seemed to be an arriving funeral.  We had taught much of the same group since fourth grade--about 8 kids, sometimes more, sometimes less.  By the time they grew into 6th graders, we had grown away.  Our kids were getting older, our eldest was becoming more active in school and church and we became victim to saying yes when we really wanted to say no.

I can see how church ministries fade and dissolve over time.  Organizations change hands, ideas get forgotten and leadership eventually falls under the weight of in-fighting and some unseen force you can't name.  In the few years we were Sunday school teachers, we never really felt part of the process of molding young Christian minds.  Teaching comes naturally to the both of us, and there were times it caused friction from the different styles my wife and I have, but the process of teaching on the particular topic of Jesus and the Bible was something entirely new.

Speaking for myself only, I was a baby Christian now in charge of filtering through curriculum in hopes that one of the students would never ask me something provocative.  We played silly board games and mazed through select verses from the Old Testament.  I learned quite a bit actually, and sometimes I even took the games and devised edited editions for my public school students.  We had more fun just talking to them, watching their fourth grade naivete graduate into fifth grade beginner's maturity and later, into sixth grade awkwardness.

The curriculum didn't always mesh, even more so that last year we taught.  Perhaps it my our attitude as well.  There were Sunday, I admit, I wanted to go home and sleep, or have lunch with another family who didn't serve at 11, or anything other than teach.  Sometimes the kids were loud, sometimes they were annoying, but overall we didn't gel in the way I wanted or perceived they should.  And that there is the great sin--my perception, my goals and my expectations.

So this weekend I stepped back into the fold in a major way.  And that sin was revealed and washed away. It was revealed to me as a helped a homeless man off the sidewalk, walking a block with him to a bench.  Here I was, with my second son Dalton (he's my best friend's son) walking with this man feeling totally helpless.  I had no money to give him (I was tapped out of cash; Dalton actually gave him a dollar), no blankets to comfort his cold and no bed for him to lie in.  I listened as he talked about his kids, that he had no place to go.  He said to me at one point, "God Bless, you." and all I could think about was, "Isn't that what I'm supposed to say to you?"  Driving away I kept thinking what I should have done, wrestled with what I could have done, lamenting my lack of funds and intelligence.

Then back to the conference, dare2share, where teenagers and youth leaders are given that validity to speak up for the gospel.  Sitting there among the children, the young adults, that old feeling of conviction and calling came back.  I had not felt it since I was on my Emmaus walk over 5 years ago.  It was that nag in my bones, deep into the ribs, that ache for God that my human heart craved.  At that moment it didn't matter if I had saved the street man, only that I was there.  I was there with Dalton, who is taking his young faith into new directions.  It was the lady waiting for the bus who heard our conversation.  It was also about the many drivers everyday who simply keep driving.  A man falls on the street everyday in America and no one sees it.

And faith is just that.  Grace is given with no price of our own.  We cannot pay for it or create a good deed list long enough to get it.  Once we do accept it, we are called to act.  And for some it's teaching, and for others it's mission work.  But all of us are called to be the church.  For five minutes in a homeless man's life, to taking an hour after church to sit among the teens--even if it means you'll miss a lunch date, or be witness to a kid being a show-off amongst his peers.

One of the kids this weekend said that adults seemed surprised that someone her age has such great faith.  Perhaps thats because as adults we remember our youth, or that we get bogged down in so many responsibilities that take us away from God.  Either way, our age has no determination to what God wants to do with us.

During lunch, I sat with Kevin and Jordan, 2 of my students--my friends.  We were given an assignment from the conference.  Sit and watch people, and think about their lives, see their sin, and think of their life story.  God wants us all.  He sees in some magnificent way, innocent creations.  Perfect.  We always see the wrong but we don't take that second look to wonder what they would look like in white.  Jesus paid it all, not just for me.  But that guy too.  Yes, HIM!

I told Kevin I was blessed to be there with him, watching his mature in his faith.  Kevin is awkward, innocent and on fire for God.  He's shy and naive of the social media savvyness that most kids his age have.  He reminds me of an older man trapped in the body of a kid.  I watched him hand info cards to a bus driver that weekend, and he stood with me as we chatted up a truck driver and talked about our faith.  There were times when Kevin's thoughts spilled from his lips that mimicked what I was thinking.  "What are we going to do now?"  The cool thing is--God is revealing to us what the answer is each and everyday.  The other question that nags me, nags many of us, "Did I do enough?"--that's the one that has no business in the conversation.

So tomorrow I'm beginning a new prayer.

God, help me understand that I cannot ever do enough, and it's okay.  Lord, my portfolio of good deeds will not suffice.  Help me serve you, in whatever capacity.  Allow me to sit next to a homeless man, allow his breath to fall onto my clothes.  I want him next to me in heaven, Lord.  I know you'd want that.  White robes and all.

Amen.




Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Cookies and Stress Sandwiches

I think I lost the original intro to this blog a week ago.  Such goes in the mind of a writer.  Back when I was devoting time to the job of writing (when I was a poet, wearing my hipster hat...haha, yeah right) I would cram out paragraphs and stanzas weekly.  I kept journals I have yet to find in some hidden crawl space tote. The ideas later changed.  As a fifth grader I wrote epic stories of armies and spies.  In college I wrote about life's observations, stories where the protagonist was an outsider.  It's how I've felt all my life in one way or another--a bystander.  Someone watching as someone led a more fulfilling life before me.

I used to work at a toll road in Houston.  During the night shift were born the best of my ideas.  I had plenty of time to think and night-dream, as anyone passing by in tinted windows and a smirk had a story to tell.  Again, I was the casual voyeur to the countless faces that passed by.  Maybe it's why I love movies and people watching.  Watching, for me, became a pastime.  

This past week, my wife and I witnessed a driver swerve through a busy back street on our way to the store yesterday.  It was an otherwise uneventful trip just before dinner, one that we didn't even need to make.  As the truck continued to swerve, our plans went from groceries to tailing the car until it reached some inevitable conclusion.  Soon enough, the truck turned right, swerved again, and ran into one of those green phone wire boxes on the side of the road, and barely missing a tree.  We pulled up alongside to find a woman in the midst of a blackout.  She had no idea of her surroundings or her movements, only that something was out of the ordinary.  She was on her way to pick up her son, and a story of disorders and medication soon followed.  So instead of grocery shopping, we drove her truck to her destination, waited for a boyfriend to arrive and said our good-byes with a hug and plenty of questions.

School has had its own side swipe moments.  I have one girl who cries constantly, either she's being picked on by someone or something unfortunate happens to her which causes undue attention to come her way.  I have multiple absent--at oen point one student returned on Friday, only to have her mom remember an appointment and thereby whisked her away not 15 minutes into the day.  I get threats of potential phone conferences from mothers who have been told I don't "like" their child.  All year I have met with parents on disciplinary hearings where excuses run tantamount to coherence.  I'm frequently called to the table about my domineering presence, my tone of voice, my sarcasm or my bluntness.  (In turn, our new PE teacher has been told by his supervisor that he is scaring the kids with his voice.)  Moms (and female students) have no idea of what passes for a man's voice, nor authority anymore.  I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which features Atticus Finch, a man among men.  He makes no excuses for his kids.  Today's parents?  Not so much.  Education has emasculated men in my profession and we have grown impotent.

Even our staff meetings have become overrun by petty grievances and micro management.  Just what is the difference between a silent hallway and a quiet hallway?  How many squirts of liquid hand soap should a child be allowed to have?  And this, somehow will raise test scores in our building?

This past week side swiped me with health too.  Besides the enduring need to fill my mouth with cookies and stress sandwiches, I was reminded of the frailty of our bodies.  In the end, what are our possessions but boxed mementos.  The life of a man are those who surround him to pray in a hospice center.  A seemingly random nurse who takes time during his off hours to visit a dying man and pray--that's the essence of a man. Right there, hand in hand with a blended family of believers.

I thought of a dying man's skin.  Bruised and raised, dry from wear.  On Sunday, I sit among the church youth at different ages.  Their youthful awkwardness, their lack of an indoor voice.  When some of them speak of God I wonder who is being taught.  We learned about the friendship of Barnabas (look up his name's meaning) and the Body of Christ.  The cute flirty eyes of a junior high student across the room.  The boy with his head down, eyes gazed upon his phone.  They're all mini adults, really, navigating the world that has been placed before them, sometimes just as confused and bewildered as we are.

Where is this blog going?  I still have no clue.  I'm in crisis of sorts.  I want to yank someone by the collar (perhaps I want someone to yank my collar!) and say, "Listen up!  There it is.  Your life.  What are you going to do with it?"  I want to hug my daughter when she cries, when she doesn't cry.  I want old men in hospice to walk free towards their next destination.  I want to hold the door open for them, pat them on the back along the way.  Sometimes I'm afraid I'll always be holding that door open.  Or that I wont have the right thing to say and hope that a smile or a downcast eye will appease them.  What would they care?  Run towards the light, dear friends, something better awaits.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Being Switzerland

Winter parent-teacher conferences are always indicative of the academic season, and true for the weather as well.  We're typically stuck indoors for at least our third week by the time conferences roll around because the playground is covered in layers of ice and snow.  The fifth-grade dreams of swishing three pointers, the long-legged girl who has been strategizing her tether ball dominance, and the shoes of kinder kids go clean from lack of wear.

The second quarter grade cards have been pinned to refrigerators by alphabet magnets, while the third quarter's grades begin to invade and peck away at month old standards.  Some kids, without the distraction of sweat and out-door chases, begin to witness a transformation in their effort.  Papers begin to be turned in and behaviors sometimes mellow.  They do get louder, so much that the drone of hip-hop music from computer speakers meld with the lack of indoor voices during recess.  I bat requests away for those long thirty minutes.  

The gloss of mid-year testing also begins to lose its luster.  Graphs are made and groups are organized.  Progress is defined in alphabetic letters, green dots and abbreviations.  In reading, a U score is great, the epitome of fifth-grade prowess and intelligence, but a U in behavior means you've had one too many outbursts to remain in class on a regular basis.  It's all in context.

So parents come hoping to hear--something new, something old with a twist?  I trot out worksheets and work samples.  Sometimes the kids sit among their parents.  I've had some tear and cry.  Others stand awkwardly as if the amount of time already spent on school has drained them of blood and voice.  Others roam around the room, comfortable in their surroundings.  There are typically three types of conferences--well, 4.

1--The no-show/no appointment conference.  These are the kids who you need to see urgently, but because of schedules, a lack of communication or lack of vigilance, never meet.  They are not always behavior problem kids, nor are they ever not high achieving.  But there's something in that student's progress, or lack thereof, that a teacher must get off their chest in a face-to-face meeting.  Perhaps the parent's have been numb to past conferences, so they don't look forward to hearing anything the teacher has to say.  These are the kids that take an extra week to return forms, the kids that wear the perpetual dirty coat--the clinger kid.  The kid who is either always tardy, always leaving early, or frequently missing that one day a week when you teach new material.  

2--The no need conferences.  These are the kids that "get it."  Teachers end up talking more about a student's personal endeavors rather than a test score, simply because the test is a given.  While they are not always a teacher's best kids, most likely they are.  These are the kids that lose out when a teacher begins ranting about a lack of concentration towards the kid who sits in the corner.  These are the kids that demand more gifted and talented funding.  These are the kids who also hold a school together.  We say things like, "I wish they would behave more," with other teachers in the halls.  The kid whose cheek you want to pinch.  They are the "buy-in" kids.  There are no gimmicks or incentives that they typically need to succeed.  In our district, their parents see the saggy pants and brooding faces of junior high and wonder where their kid fits.  They's rather home school them then to have them in the general population.  On-line schools and magnet charters now purge the best of our district, simply because the neighbor down the street cannot control their kids.  The parents have an impression that middle school kids are running the asylum.  Perhaps that is all in perception, from rumor or from their own experiences.  I used to think it was racial--the good white kid who didn't want to be around dark-skinned, deadbeats.  But it isn't.  It's class, it's a value system they feel is missing among their community.  Who am I to argue?

The other 2 conference types are the keep trying and the stall.  The keep trying kids are the ones who are not consistent enough to be great, but not struggling enough to be considered at-risk.  The stall conferences are the ones teachers have that are awkward because of the elephant in the room.  Typically it is from an academic lack of progress or they are having the type of behavior that not only impedes their learning but the others around them.  I almost wish the parents from the no-need club were sitting behind me with a disgusted look on their face, waving a shame-shame finger at them.  I know that's judgmental, confrontational and skirting the real issue of need.  These are the kids that walk by everyday in the neighborhood that you wish would transfer to another school.  Many times I have found that the results of a child is very much attributed to the struggles of the parents.  What is there to say to a parent who can barely help their own kid read because they can barely read?  

Blessings too, come from conferences.  From my own (we haven't been to a conference this year, but then again, we haven't needed to), to the work that gets accomplished in between appointments, the conversations you have with colleagues.  We each have our own strengths and personalities.  If they all meld into a cohesive unit, you have a great school.  Other times, the gifts and talents of many are squandered on the few because of a lack of direction, a lack of purpose.  

So this week, to combat the winter blah fever, we've been playing cooperative team building games, singing songs and chanting mantras with my fifth grade class.  

I am a new creation, deeply loved, fully pleasing and totally accepted.  There has never been another person like me, in the history of mankind, nor will there ever be.  I was made original, one of a kind, really somebody.  

None of them probably know the above is taken from a Christian book, and how God fits into the meaning.  We clap and sway to the tune of "Lean On Me."  I use my limited movie-built knowledge of WW2 to discuss why being Switzerland is not what we want to be in life.  Switzerland was a neutral country during the war.  How can you sit idly by when evil is at your doorstep?  Why laugh when someone is made fun of?  Take a stand.  Don't be a Switzerland.  You think I could get that on a shirt?