Writing

BloPoMo Day 7, Post 2: “Cloud Swept Mornings”

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My husband’s admonition brought my head up from where I was scrolling quickly through Facebook on our morning drive to work.

“You have to see this.”

I looked up and he was right: I did need to see it. As we crested a hill, I could see the mist hanging over the fields in the barely-there sunlight. But it wasn’t mist like I normally expect it.

Misty clouds hung  over frosted, harvested fields like great birds hovering at their nests. The frost still hung crystal-white over the stumps of shorn cornstalks, the clouds refusing to leave their charges to the burn of sunlight just yet.

They were ceilings of misty gray, high enough to drive under but low enough for you to stick your hand up and out the window and touch.

Further on back across the fields from the road, the hazy clouds blanket and veil copses of leafless trees. It is as though they are endeavoring to make up for the glory that the trees have recently shed, covering their naked branches with silken silver.

Yes, he was entirely right: I had to see it.

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BloPoMo Day 7: “Giving Wings to Grace”

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Did you know that grace can be sent?

It is as simple as a stamp on an envelope,

A name on a package, or an address in the To: field.

Grace is given in the remembering.

Grace is given in letting someone know that you remember.

Grace is given in the “Hello, how are you?”

Grace is spoken in the “I’ve been thinking about you”.

When we assure another that they are not forgotten in the crush and swell of this world,

That is grace.

We can twine our words round with kindness, compassion, and love, like wrapping paper and ribbon.

We can give grace in a “hello”,

Extend it in an “I love you”,

Gift it with a “you matter”.

We give grace a face when we listen in silence.

We give it wings when we acknowledge another’s pain.

We give it hands when we reach out.

Sometimes, our grace is small, childish, as simple as a shared cookie or bag of caramels.

Sometimes our grace is broken as we work through our own pain, but we make the attempt.

Sometimes our grace is beautiful, opalescent, forgiving, and extravagant.

Sometimes our grace is just blue ink on lined paper and starts out, “I just wanted to say hello”.

BloPoMo Day 6: “Grace in Extravagance”

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When I was in high school, I had a conversation with a classmate that I still remember almost 20 years later. We were discussing a popular female musician. My classmate insisted that the young woman had a big nose, far too big to be pretty. I replied that, even if that were so, her voice was still very lovely.

My classmate looked at me and stated, “You always find something good to say about someone. I need to learn to do that.”

I didn’t think much about it at the time because I was merely stating the truth: her voice was (and is) lovely. It didn’t think that I was doing anything extravagant, despite my classmate’s implication. But it has stuck with me all these years, always floating in the back of my mind somewhere. I have come to believe that it has influenced the way I think about and speak of others, whether I notice it or not. There is a grace in being willing to find what is good in someone, in choosing to build them up rather than tear them down. I also believe that there is grace in being willing to see what is real in someone.

What is real will not always be pretty, it will not always be easy. It may be messy, it may be difficult to fathom or handle, but grace involves seeing people as they are, where they are, and extending compassion and loving-kindness to them in that moment. I will admit that I have not always stuck it out through the real in people. There have been times when I have backed up or slipped away, when I have chosen silence over the difficult and homeostasis over the challenging, or let relationships fall silent, wither, and die because I just didn’t know what to do and was too scared or hurt or weary to try, to reach out, or to forgive. I admit this with regret and repent of it now, though, in some cases, I know the deep truth of Dickens’ words:

“[There is] no space of regret [that] can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused.” (A Christmas Carol, Stave 1, brackets mine)

 I know that letting go is a thing that sometimes needs to happen, that it is sometimes necessary for emotional and mental health on both sides. But I like to think that I might be intelligent enough (even if just) to tell the difference between needing to let go after having tried and moving away from the real. I have been shown the gentlest and strongest grace by those in my life, in those times when I know I was difficult, frustrating, and confusing in my realness. I want to emulate their example and sit with them and others in their real, to understand when they are speaking out of pain, and reach out in love.

“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” Ephesians 4:2 (NLT)

Extravagant grace is not an easy thing, but those who have internalized it, practice it, live it, make it look easy. They make grace look natural, even though it isn’t. Grace is a choice and sometimes a hard one, but the good it can do is immeasurable. Be brave, dear ones. Let’s stick through the hard; let’s sit with people through the real. Let’s shut down our propensity to take things personally and reach out softly in love that might be unexpected but so deeply and desperately needed.

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BloPoMo Day 5: “Momentary Grace”

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What was your worst moment?

When were those few seconds that you so desperately wish you could snatch back?

What were the words that you just wish you had swallowed?

What were those emotions that you wish you had kept in check?

What if your worst moment actually wasn’t the worst? What if, to someone else, that moment ended up being good, great, transformative? What if your worst, wrapped up in grace, became a best for someone else? Now, it’s true: we may never ever know if this is the case. We rarely get to see just how far the ripples go. But what if it were true? What might that possibility do for your soul?

I’m not saying that every worst moment is a best but we never know what our humanity, our vulnerability, and, yes, even our fallibility can do for others. It may remind them that perfection is not necessary to be good, that emotions are not four-letter words, that we all have breakdown moments, and that we all need someone to extend a little grace every now and again.

Not every worst moment is a best moment but every worst moment has the potential to be, even if all we or someone else learns is to just keep moving forward.

BloPoMo Day 4: “Choosing Grace in the Hard Places”

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Grace is not some beatific blessing borne down to us on angel’s wings. No. Grace is and will always be a choice, just as love is a choice. Every. Single. Day. We have to choose grace over bitterness, and sometimes that is hard. Very hard. Some days, grace, forgiveness, love…these are all hard. Sometimes they really are choices: grit-your-teeth, determination-over-motivation, lace-up-your-gloves-and-punch-above-your-weight choices.

When we are hurting, when something has bumped into our happy (or outright shattered it), that choice can be the hardest to make. We want to feel angry, we want to sit and stew in our hurt and bitterness, but choosing to give grace requires us to act outside of our feelings. As Lysa TerKeurst so wisely put it, “Our feelings are indicators not dictators, child.” We can definitely feel a particular way and do no wrong in the feeling of it but that in no way means that we have to act out of those feelings.

I was once in a situation where it would have been ridiculously easy for me to allow myself to be cold, unkind, and resentful towards some people who (had I allowed my view to skew this far) I could have looked at as “furtherers” of my misery. However, I stopped and thought about them, about the reality of those feelings and ideas. Those poor people would have had no idea as to the cause behind my attitude change towards them. They would have been confused and most likely hurt. The truth was that they had not wronged me in any way; they just happened to stumble into a difficult situation that I was experiencing at the time. These people had never been anything but kind to me and I knew, in my heart’s core, that treating them in any other way would have been wrong. They had not wronged me and so I would not treat them though they had. I would not come unglued and let irrational emotions boss me out of grace. I made a choice. In thinking through and choosing my actions, I then found it a little easier to extend grace to the actual people with whom I was in conflict.

Grace can be hard. Grace can go against every tenet of self-preservation that is built into our cells. That’s why it is a choice. And choices are not made for the easy moments. Choices are made for the challenging times. For the times when we ground ourselves in what we believe and act out of that belief, whatever it may be. Choices are made for those times when situations are difficult, people are stubborn or just downright nasty, and when our hearts are breaking and anger swells. That is when choices are the most important. When we determine to look past what we feel and decide how we will act. When we choose to consider the probability of another’s pain out of which they may have acted. So often, pain is inflicted by those who are in the midst of it rather than it really having anything to do with the person on the receiving end. This is where grace comes in. Grace for the hard times. Grace for the hard people. Grace is ever the better choice than bitterness. We can choose loving grace, even when anger makes us want to lash out in cruelty or when fear makes us want to cower. But it will not be done for us. We must make the choice.

Take it from a courageous woman who ran off with a crotchety Scotsman in a blazing blue police box:

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BloPoMo 2016 Day 1: “A Study in Grace”

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Today marks the beginning of BloPoMo (blog posting month) and, last night, I found myself at somewhat of a loss. This year, I decided that I wanted a structure to write to, lean into, and learn from in the act. I have other individual ideas for other BloPoMo writings that I will do as secondary pieces but I wanted to tie the bulk of them together somehow. But I was having no lightning strikes, no ideas, and today was fast approaching. However, as I mused over it, one word kept floating to the front of my mind, almost like a passing thought, but it kept coming back. That particular word just happens to be my watchword for this year.

Grace.

I began 2016 with determining to look for, notice, acknowledge, and extend grace this year. To extend it to those around, to my precocious daughter, to my hard-working husband, to my imperfect self. To see grace in the actions of those around me and with whom I interact every day. To acknowledge the grace that is extended to me each day amidst my multitude of faults and imperfections. Last year I wrote about longing for grace, longing for the sort of grace that I want to cultivate so deeply in my life that my daughter will see it written on my skin like fingerprints and extended from me as naturally as breathing. I don’t want to teach her to be a doormat, no. But I do want to teach her to have a heart for others. That through the grace I show, she will come to know God’s grace and love for her, a love so much deeper and broader and higher and wider than even mine and her father’s for her.

Right now, my students and I are reading through A Christmas Carol before their field trip to see the play at a local theatre right before Thanksgiving. Today, as we read through Scrooge’s visit from Marley, I took great pains to explain to the students the points that Marley was making about his condemnation and how it came about. At Scrooge’s attempt at compliment in mentioning Marley’s adroitness in business matter, Marley laments:

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.  “Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” 

It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

“At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said “I suffer most.  Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!” [1]

Marley is tortured with the regret that he spent his life with his eyes turned inward, with no kind words for anyone, committing no actions to benefit anyone but himself. That he offered no comfort, no help, no grace, no love to anyone else. I reminded the students that we, as a species, are interdependent. We are built for fellowship, for friendship, relationship, community. We are built to go through and do life together. We do not do well on our own as a species; we need each other and, therefore, we need to support each other. None of us are getting out of this alive, as the quote says, so we need to be in this together, doing for each other, loving and supporting each other, and doing life together.

I don’t just want to be a Noticer of grace. I want to be a Giver. So part of this project will be not to only record where I find grace and where I think it is important, necessary, and loving. It is also to get me thinking about perhaps the different ways we can show grace that don’t fall under the obvious answers. That is my hope anyway, and I am glad that you are on this journey with me.

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[1] A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, http://www.stormfax.com/1dickens.htm

Faking It Too Well

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Fake it ’til you make it. That’s what they tell you, and, sometimes, it’s very true. Sometimes, you have to act like you know what you are doing while learning exactly what you are supposed to be doing. That is rather how I feel about teaching. I feel like I am constantly acting like I know exactly what I am doing or supposed to be doing when, all along, I am barely staying afloat.

Studies call this “impostor syndrome” but the truth is that who I am as a teacher often feels very different from who I feel I am “in real life”. Teachers need to have a polish to them, a presence. It leaves my poor introverted soul tired and, maybe, even joyless at times. However, there is no denying that I am good at what I do. I am a good teacher, though maybe not as involved with as many shiny tricks as others who have been doing this longer or have it as more of a passionate calling. Nevertheless, I am organized and knowledgeable, even enthusiastic when I am teaching literature. I’m good at what I do. I have never gotten a bad evaluation from an administrator. I don’t pull punches with my students and push them to do their best and improve on it. I admit when I don’t know or I am wrong. I know how to hold my corner-classroom kingdom. But that me often feels very different from me.

One of my students asked me last week if I am bipolar. My answer was, “No.”

“Are you sure?” he pressed.

“I’m sure,” I replied.

He was a dog with a bone. “Because you’re usually really nice and then you can get all mean.”

“That’s not me being bipolar. That’s me being tired of people’s crap. I’m an introvert. I don’t deal with other people’s crap well.”

Who I am in the classroom takes a force of presence and authority that takes a lot out of me, leaves me weary and wanting to crawl back into a safe little hobbit hole to recover. But recovery time for teachers, as you know, is slim to none. Ditto and double for moms, which honestly makes it a double-whammy. So going back to work is not just a change in how I do life but, once again, a change in how I feel about who I am. It’s an extra twist in my self-vision that I sometimes wish I could untwist and smooth out at the end of the day. Some days are more successful than others, but there are successful ones.

Going back to teaching is the best thing for my family right now, and that is what is important. That is the driving force. It is allowing my daughter to go to preschool and daycare every day to gain social and academic skills that she will so desperately need in the coming years. It is also allowing us to put money aside and save up so that we can start dreaming new dreams again.

I will find a way to reconcile all this change. Right now, though, it’s difficult at times, I will admit. But there is always a way.

Love Is a Superpower

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Check out that title again. Go on. Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here for you.

See that? Did you know that? Think about it! Love is a superpower.

Love is versatile. Love is strong. Love is life-saving. Love is world-changing.

Love is a superpower.

See that girl standing against the wall over there, her head bowed? That head covered in luminescent teal and aqua hair, hair that perfectly matches her outfit? Imagine how proud she must have been of that radiant ensemble after meticulously planning and putting it together. Then no one complimented it. No one noticed the bravery and care it took to live her unique beauty and truth. Now imagine her face after you step over and tell her, “I love your mermaid hair!” Imagine the smile that might brighten that beautiful young face. That’s the power of love. That’s the supernal magic of expressed kindness and compassion.

Love is a quiet word. Love is a genuine compliment. Love is an acknowledgement of trying.

Love is a superpower.

When we extend even a little love outward, it ripples, reverberates, snowballs, and multiplies exponentially. It may not always come back to us but we can absolutely count on it surging forward like a wave swell, building and increasing in power as it courses onward until it finally hits and explodes, sending uncountable, shining, shimmering pieces of itself out into the air and the world.

Love is what compels children to pick up their plate, walk out of a restaurant, and hand it to a hungry soul huddled outside.

Love is what compels neighborhoods to rally around their sick, elderly, and downtrodden to lift them up to hope.

Love is why children who are left to grieve the death of a parent are gathered close and taken in by family friends. People who have always treated children like their own are taking them into their families as their own, ensuring that they know they are loved, protected, and wanted.

Is love always easy? No. I love always accepted, lauded, or thanked? No. Like courage, love does not derive its definition from simply doing it when it is easy. Courage is doing what’s right or what’s needed in the face of being scared. Love is doing good when we could do otherwise.

Love is we choose to step into an isolated corner or a lonely cafeteria table and speak to the soul that’s hidden there.

Love is when we choose to wait for someone rather than rushing ahead.

Love is when we choose kind words and a soft voice rather than the explosion our feelings tell us is warranted.

Love is when we choose to see the child needing help coping rather than the little tyrant throwing a fit.

Love is when we choose to accept as is. When we choose to sit with, hold close, listen intently, speak encouragingly, handle gently, defend boldly, and act mercifully. Watch what happens. Watch the changes, the improvements; watch the vibration, reverberation, and snowballing of that love as it is passed on to others. Love never remains stagnant, unchanged, or even in one place.

Love is supernatural. Love is supernal. Love is superb. Love is absolutely a superpower!

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When the Ground is Unsteady

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The best-laid plans…

My plans for this year went to pot two weeks ago when I did a scary thing and accepted a last-minute teaching position at the same corporation where my husband teaches.

This was not what I had planned on! I had spent the latter part of the summer framing my mind to being home with my daughter for one last year. I enrolled her in part-time preschool, accepted an invitation to be a contributing writer with My Trending Stories, was planning my time and our budget to save more, cook at home more often, and maintain my workout routine. I was dreaming of enjoying walks and park time with my daughter, intentional time with dear ones, and time to dedicate solely to writing while my girl was preschool. And now, in a perfect hurricane of change, all of those plans have been shattered and my life feels as though it has shrunk immensely. I get up, I go to work, I pick Elizabeth up from daycare, I pick up or make dinner, I care for/play with Elizabeth, I put/wrestle her into bed, and finally collapse myself. There is very little time for what I love, for what gives me joy, and precious little energy with which to do or enjoy right now.

So, even though I know–I KNOW–that this is a good position, in a good building, with good people, and a good salary, I have to admit to having a very difficult time surrendering my plans to God right now. I am mourning the loss of them, the dream of them. The dream of what I thought God was calling me to. I miss my girl, I miss the life we had together. I miss the opportunities that I was looking forward to. Now, I am nothing if not unsure.  Right now, all I know to do is to get up and go to work each day. I have signed a contract for this year; I will honor my word. I will pick up my daughter from daycare each day. I will feed my family. I will clean house when I can. I will leave work at work as much as I can (though all teachers know just how futile this can be at times), and try to live life in the small spaces.

I gave a commencement address this summer where I spoke on not being afraid of being small, that greatness can be in the small things.  Right now, my life feels small, contracted down to the barest of routines with little room for the unexpected magnificent. All I can do is get up each day, keep my word, and do the best I can for my family and for myself and soul. Tonight, my daughter and I will have dinner with some good friends; a small pocket of time carved out that means so much because it shows that we are loved and cared for. All I can do right now is be small and try to live fully in the small spaces. Even if I don’t understand, even if I’m not totally sure of where I am or where I am supposed to be. I guess, for now, I’m here. I may not be entirely happy about that fact but, then again, I don’t think I necessarily have to be. Happiness has never been a requisite for me working hard and doing my best. I may not want to be teaching, do not yearn for it with all my heart. This was, honestly, a purely logical choice, for the good of my family. And that will have to do for now, I think.

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Not Perfect. Functional.

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On the eve of my next major life change (going back to work after three and a half years of being a stay-at-home mother), I can honestly only liken these moments to the ones after I found out that I was pregnant. It was not a perfect moment; I was in pain from a pulled back and other momentary health issues, frustrated from other life stuff, and exhausted from what would turn out to be my first trimester. It was not an Instagram-video worthy moment full of giggles and squeals and a positive pregnancy test. The joy would come later. For the moment, it was me sitting the doctor’s office, a Kleenex clutched in one hand, two prescriptions in the other, and my doctor having wisely given me a few moments alone for it to sink in. It was not perfect. I was not ready, despite a child being what we had planned on, tried, and hoped for. In my eyes, I was not perfect. In my estimation, I was not ready. But I was functional. And that would have to do for that moment.

When Elizabeth was born, her bedroom was not finished, much to my chagrin. Her wall decorations weren’t done, pictures weren’t hung up, rocking chair wasn’t bought yet. Like me, it was not perfect or “ready” but it was functional. The bassinet, crib, chest of drawers, and changing table were sturdy and would safely hold my infant and her things. The room, while far from finished or ready in my eyes, would serve its purpose. “Finished” came with time. “Functional” served right then.

Right now, I am far from perfect. I am leaving the spaces and child that have been my world these past few years. I am not ready (my girl might be but I am most certainly don’t feel so, ironically enough). My classroom will not be ready; things will not be just as I would have them. I will not be entirely comfortable, or even comfortable at all at first. I don’t even know if this is my intended path. I’d need God’s eyes for that so I will have to have faith and trust what I cannot see.

I am not perfect. I don’t feel ready. But I am functional.

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