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.