new york from all our eyes

"six words. capture a moment, a feeling, or an idea. write one for each day. we'll put them together and maybe we'll create a three dimensional look at our time. or would it be four dimensional because there are four of us looking at the same things and seeing different ideas?"


FRIDAY

Only Jesus knew what was coming. kj

Long drives need music and books. mh

And that’s when I understood Watsky. he
We settled into each other’s space. kb

SATURDAY

Blonde boys make the best drivers. kj

I left my headphones in Virginia. he

The anger was for your protection. kb

God got us to our doorstep. mh

SUNDAY

Wow, so transubstantiation really is important. mh

His earnest belief made him lie. kj

Underdressed in the presence of royalty. he

We didn’t turn on the TV. kb

MONDAY

Giddy sick broke and too happy. kb

I prefer people watching to shopping. mh

Lost among a sea of words. he

Everyone's looking but no one sees. kj

TUESDAY

Road-trips and remembrances help make stories. mh

I gave him cigarettes, not money. he

Her words unlocked both of them. kb

Ten year anticipation made me choke. kj

WEDNESDAY

I was a time traveler’s tourist. he

Snow covered all my past sins. kj

Your nostalgia is greater than mine. mh

Your fall took me with you. kb

THURSDAY

Cold weather, warm strangers, good friends. mh

Standing alone among millions, he cried. kj

All the words melted away today. kb

Take some of my body heat. he

FRIDAY

Subway windows are haunted by faces. kb

His plane ticket was his escape. he

Walk a mile, drive five hundred. mh

Saying "heading home" is a lie. kj

SATURDAY

We didn’t leave Hillary at McDonalds. kj

“I love you.” “You’re stupid too.” he

I was awake for 22 hours. mh
I realized your floor was home. kb

because we are "in Christ," because His life is ours, our fundamental life story has already been written

Sarah Lebhar Hall
Christianity Today
1 November 2012

landfill harmonic

some days

So much beauty piles up around me that I lose most of it. I try to capture it--wrestle it onto a page or into a metered cage--but so much of it slips through my fingers.

From the sun that fell on the wall and darted down the hall that morning a week ago, to the beauty of the music filling the room. From the clutched, three-handed fist of community in pain to the way the Lord throws forgiveness over me like a blanket, tucking in the edges. From the surprise pot of tea that I forgot about and which reached perfection in the cold to the way the wooden kitchen floor felt while we made dinner.

The way that her soft red hair smelled as I kissed the top of her head or how I've never seen her so happy as she was sitting on the floor, her hands clenched into fists.

two thousand and thirteen to date

So here I am almost at the end of 2013.  I have had to continually remind myself of exactly when this year started. It's felt like several all smashed into one, each filled with strikingly new experiences from first transcontinental flight, first few months cooking for myself, first graduate school application, first secular university. 

And that barely scratches the surface what with all of the countries I've stepped onto and oceans I've dipped my toes in. 

This year has brought a great deal of excitement and has  certainly changed how I view the world from the simple (eg how to successfully interact platonically with men my age) to the more complicated (eg thoughts on the British education system verses the American one).  I have made friends I will never forget and said goodbye to them within the same year. 

This year has also brought a great deal of failure on my part from cultural interaction in England to struggling to feed myself well while in unit here in the United States. Even through all of my failures when I did not glorify the LORD, love those around me, or care for the world , the Lord has been gracious. He has taken those failures and, more often than not, turned them upside down into blessings.

I wouldn't trade the contents or order of this year because I know that the LORD will continue to teach me through what has happened this year.

Next year could find me in Tennessee, Washington, or a hundred other places. Right now I am focusing on trusting that the LORD is in control and that it is His hand alone which guides me. He will carry me through whatever happens next whether or not I can anticipate it which, if this year has anything to say on the subject, the unanticipated adventures that the LORD sends me on are often difficult, but worth the trip.

memphis

This past weekend I visited the Memphis Teacher Residency.  My travel companions and I had the great privilege of meeting with the staff and professors of the program, current residents, and graduates of the program. They showed us a lovely time while in their classes, eating delicious food, walking down Beale street, and getting a feel for the city.  Christ is moving there.

fear

Fear is a way that I live my life.  It's often laced through my actions, I write it into my papers, and I clip it into my hair in the morning.

People say that this is a fearful time in your life, this one that I find myself wrapped up in. You suddenly realize that those structures which have been surrounding you are falling away. Family, church, university.  It is not that your family deserts you, or that the church as a whole rejects you, but rather that where faces are familiar, where habits are formed, where you know which way is up...everything gets jumbled in the shift to a new place.

The fear is gripping me as I don't even know where the next place is.

But the Lord knows.

So there I will place my hope.

inclusive

"Some relationships are exclusive so that when the couple is together if anyone come they feel like they are intruding. Other relationships are inclusive so the people they encounter feel welcomed. Lets make our relationship be inclusive."

Visit A Ministry of Hope for the whole lovely story.

my God is so faithful

During the summer of 2011, I worked with Sacred Road Ministries as an intern on the Yakama and Warm Springs Reservations here in the Pacific Northwest. While there, I wrote about Darius.

Quiet. Shy. He has the cautious hope of a boy who is often picked on. His eyes fit perfectly into his face behind his glasses. They give him the appearance of being much older than he is.
"There's a boy behind the tree...crying." Her nonchalant expression tells me she had seen many tears in her seven or eight years. She cares enough to tell me, but not enough to care. Turning the corner of the building, I can hear him. Now circling the tree, I follow the edges of the roots with my heals and watch the tree revolve, waiting to see who it is. I'm not expecting anyone in particular, but I'm certainly not expecting to see the sun glint off of glasses. I see his helmet as I stand above him, round and scratched up along with the knee, elbow, and wrist pads that accompany the huge roller blades on his feet. It isn't until I get down on my knees and sit next to him that I can see how upset he is. "You okay?" Pointless question, but they're words to say and he responds to them. "They got me wet. I hate getting wet." Words spoken through a wet nose and shaky breath. "I'm sorry..." "I told them I don't like getting wet." Inconsolable. We sit silent.

... 

The parade goes by to blaring country music. The fire truck, misting most and soaking a select few, blissfully cool in the ever present sun. Next a van with a poster taped to it about a support system for domestic violence. Next, the same for diabetes prevention. Following them comes someone who decided they wanted to join the parade because they had nothing better to do. I see the sun glint off of glasses  and see the roller blades. He's following one of the vans and chatting with a friend until he sees us, fourteen white people in a line of native faces. It's the first time I see his smile, radiant under his waving arm. "Hey you church people!" "Hey!" "You back?" "We sure are! Will you be there today?" "Oh yeah! MY GOD IS SO BIG, SO STRONG AND SO MIGHTY THERE'S NOTHING MY GOD CANNOT DO...FOR YOU!" As he gets further away, his voice doesn't fade, but grows louder. Faces turn and look, immediately puzzled by the white sunburned faces the words are directed towards. I don't look to see who sees. 

... 

Gone a whole week. Finally back. Children running everywhere, jumping out of their skins. My arms are filled with bodies, one after another. My chin on so many heads. Names trip out of my mouth. I know I only get to use them for four more days. Glasses. A smile, but such a different energy coming from it, unidentifiable until a ball is in his hands and then in another boy's face. Destruction. A desire to be anti-matter. Creating hadn't helped. relationships had gotten him nowhere. He gave up. The violence built up, getting stronger and stronger until the four-square ball was rocks and faces were targets. 

All I can hear as I watch them holding his hands, trying to protect the other children is "MY GOD IS SO BIG, SO STRONG AND SO MIGHTY, THERE'S NOTHING MY GOD CANNOT DO!"

When I returned to Warm Springs the next summer for a week, I looked everywhere for Darius. His face constantly came to my mind through the months that followed my internship and I desperately wanted to see whether my prayers had been answered...whether the Lord had preserved this one boy...whether He had restored some kind of balance or peace to his heart...whether he had kept him from being torn apart by violence unlike so many of the lives on the reservations.

I didn't see him.

Still I prayed and waited and wondered. I have always struggled with leaving the reservation. I want to be doing, not watching. I want to make God's Will happen. I want to make a difference. But there was nothing I could do. God kept me from working on the reservation that following summer and this summer as well. While I desperately wanted to dive back into the mountain of work to be done, He kept me home and then He kept me abroad. All the while I had to trust that the Lord was keeping those who were working...that He was keeping the children...that He was keeping Darius.

This summer I returned to Warm Springs once again for an all too-short week. When our church was assigned to begin a new location for the children's ministry, I gave up the idea of getting to see Darius again. Still, while working with our hands deep in the earth of the community garden, I asked one of the current interns whether she had seen Darius. She didn't recognize the name. She didn't recall the description. He hadn't been to kid's club that summer. He was gone. I gave up.

Still, there were many children to be cared for, loved on, and prayed for. I threw myself into their stories. The week continued on until Wednesday. Standing under a shade tree after two hours of follow-the-leader through the nearby playground in 98 degree weather, we opened a large cooler of watermelon and tried to cool off along with the kids. A group of older boys who had been swimming in the river came closer and, on seeing that there was food  to be had, joined our little group. One of them came, took a piece of watermelon, and stood next to me. I turned to ask him what his name was and saw the glint of his glasses. It was Darius. 

He was right there. He looked content and comfortable and was clearly a calming influence on the other boys he was with. While they acted out, throwing watermelon rind across the circle, he simply observed. He turned to me and said "Hey. How've you been?"

"I've been good Darius." A shocked look. Whoops. He didn't remember me. I explained that I used to work at the Boy's and Girl's Club when he went there before. His face relaxed again. "It's good to see you again, Darius." A smile.

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There is nothing my God cannot do.

reason 1027 that my roommate is wonderful

She repeatedly brings me flowers when I'm sick and stuck at home.

last monday

Last Monday my tutor looked me in the eye and told me "you should get this published."

That tiny comment has completely changed how I look at my writing. I knew I liked it, and I knew that select friends liked it, but to have someone who writes for a living...who is a tutor at THE University of Oxford...tell me that I should publish something, and that it could probably get published, stops me in my tracks.

My first reaction was a welling of emotion that screamed "write more! write for hours on end!" and the next was "there's no way you can write something that good again. give up." I've decided to go with a hopefully happy medium that says "write the next poem for him and see what happens."

I think I'll go with that for starters.

why to thank the cook

Thank you Father for giving us this new year! At meals we thank God and the cook...the LORD being the primary cause while the cook is the secondary cause.

Psalm 104:14

“He makes grass grow for cattle and plants for man to cultivate.”

Welcome to yet another one of the moments in Doctrine I that I suddenly felt validated as a human being. Goodness I will miss that class. I almost can't wait to get back to Covenant next fall so I can read my notes and study guides again.

why we tell stories

I feel like this could potentially be a brilliant introduction to a poetry unit for a high school class. It captures so beautifully the reasons I love poetry and why it's relevant in even day to day life. I definitely pinned it onto my "teaching" board.

Thank you to Metaphysical_Plumbs for sending me the link!

when i become impatient

2 Peter 3:9 “The LORD is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

Oh how I need to remember this.

Scripture for parents with exceptional children

ISAIAH 65:18 | "But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold, I crated Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness."

All God creates He creates for joy. God creates all children. He knitted them together before time. Exceptional children are no less children than typical children. Therefore, God creates every exceptional child for joy and we are to rejoice in them.


PSALM 22:10 | "On you was I cast from my firth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God."

Just as you rely on the LORD, so also your children are under His protection.


HOSEA 13:5 | "It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought."

The LORD is with you even in trial, despair, mourning, and frustration.


PSALM 127:3 | "Behold, children are a heritage [blessing] from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth."

There is no limit on this promise...no qualifications. All children are blessings.

Deuteronomy

DEUTERONOMY 32:2 | "May my teaching drop as rain, my speech distill as the dew; like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb."

The first time I read this verse, I thought "that has got to be taken out of context. There is no way there is that practical of a verse in here...especially in the old testament." However, as I poked around, lo and behold I found that it is really just that beautifully practical. Deuteronomy usually a bad rep. for being a book of rules, regulations, and thou-absolutely-shall-nots. However, I propose (and many others agree) that it is far more beautiful than that. While I have not yet studied it extensively, I have looked particularly at what it has to say on teaching and have found it to be eye-opening.

It answers the question I have so often asked: "Why do we teach?"

Yes, there are a lot of laws...laws that we have been set free from in the gospel...not that we are to avoid them, but that they no longer dictate our salvation. Rather, Christ's sacrifice covers us. The parallel that Deuteronomy makes is that God saves you and me from sin when we are slaves to it just as he saved His people from Egypt when they were slaves there. Therefore, we are to rejoice in the LORD and do what pleases Him just as the Israelites rejoiced in the LORD and committed themselves once again to follow Him. Deuteronomy doesn't teach us an obtuse number of things we have to memorize and which are only good for scribbling onto doctrine tests...it teaches us practical laws about how to care for people.

The essential understanding is that we as teachers, neighbors, parents, and students are sinners who need a Savior. God sent that Savior in the form of His Son who died on this earth and rose again triumphant. Every time a teacher reaches out to a student or a parent in kindness, every time a parent is patient with a teacher's misunderstanding or a student is willing to put their own interests down in the interest of their classmates, we are living out the love that marks Christians.

1 JOHN 3:10 | "By this [love] it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother."

1 JOHN 4:8 | "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."


all scripture from the English Standard Version Bible translation

Another Shift

Lots of processing lately. Processing the past....how it's not the present anymore. Shuffling through and beginning to sort things into the "mostly done" pile and the "still very relevant" pile. Processing the present and how it's so different from the past and what I have experienced and yet how it's still clinging to childhood. Due to my quite introverted self, these are the things that often fill my head.

However, most recently, I have begun to process what is coming. The last time I thought about it this much it all centered around leaving for college. Here I am. An independent (yet not really at all) young woman three thousand miles from home and earning my education one paper and relationship at a time. But here, like some crazy hurricane, comes "moving in."

And not the kind of moving in that denotes moving out first...but the kind of moving in where I'm already out of my childhood home, and I've been out a while, but now I"m entering into a place that will become my home...a separate entity from my family according to the government  And yes, I don't hold that much stock in how they define what I am, but it's the only way I've been able to pin this "moving in" down in any sort of way. It likes to wriggle around...like the bugs captured, pinned, labeled, and lining the walls of my seventh grade science class.

I'll say "independent young woman" and actually mean it.

I can say it's like a hurricane, but a hurricane is too familiar. I could say tsunami, but it comes too suddenly. Everyone has seen this coming since my birth. I suppose it's just a leap...yet not off a cliff, because I'm to move forward, yet not on a sidewalk where I can count the squares zipping by underneath me. I can't leap this far forward on my own.

The thing that strikes me most however - this mystery beyond all of the unfamiliarity - is how calm I am. I don't  know where I'm to live, I can't be certain of who I will live with, or how I will find a vehicle, or how I will cope with the drastic changes. In the past, even little discrepancies such as where I sit in class, or strange formatting for a paper has thrown me spinning into anxiety. I almost wish I could say that I'm leaning on Matthew 6:34 which tells us to "...not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." BUT! Something even more comforting is filling me...the peace of the LORD. I am not striving to comfort myself or frantically setting up walls or structures to make sure life is channeled where I want it...I'm simply waiting.

Now and again I stop and think "why am I not anxious?" and I don't have an answer beyond the LORD's kindness to me. How great is the LORD. He's given me peace I do not even have the wisdom to ask for.

Educating Peter

This is a response to "Educating Peter," a film by Home Box Office films that we watched in my Educating Exceptional Children class.

While I could not find the whole film, here is a link to the first fifteen minutes of it. It's plenty to express some of the greatest benefits of inclusion for students with disabilities.

The film “Educating Peter” tells the story of a third grade boy with downs syndrome entering into a general education classroom for the first time. Through careful documentation, the film shows Peter move from a struggling, disruptive child to a successful student. The shift is made not through his own ability to achieve, as he was always had the capacity to do so, but through the attitudes and expectations of those around him. Having always attended a special education class with children who also had disabilities, Peter didn’t have the social skills necessary to have positive interactions with his fellow students. The teacher, having had no training in special education, struggled with how to react to his violent outbursts and unpredictable behavior. By collaborating with a special education teacher, she put in place opportunities for Peter’s fellow students themselves to take ownership of his education and behavior. While the expectations for them were higher than is usually recommended, they were the people that Peter interacted with most often. As they began giving Peter positive reinforcement as well as a starvation of attention for his bad behavior, he was able to begin to understand the expectations that they had of him. With a firm structure in place, Peter learned how to focus and began learning more than anyone involved expected. By the seventh week he had fewer outbursts and by the fourth month he had become a part of the class. The teacher began to expect more of him, changing her expectations from “I don’t think you can do that…” to “I expect you to do that because I know you can.” Peter matched the higher expectations and continued to push against them, constantly improving. By the last day of school, the other students valued Peter in their classroom both as a person, and as a fellow student. Not only had the inclusion process benefitted Peter by helping him gain a fuller education with higher expectations, but it also benefitted the students that were in class with him by teaching them about social interaction and loving those who are not easily loved.

All throughout the time that I watched this film I could not help but smile. Many of those smiles had to do with Peter being an adorable little boy and seeing the improvement he was able to make, but those that have lasted the longest are connected to the reactions that the teacher and other students had. All of the groups involved benefitted from the experience even though they didn’t expect good to come from it. This is exciting. It’s a clear example of the benefits of inclusion that doesn’t just show the good outcome, but also shows the real and sometimes harsh difficulties that led to that outcome. It proves that we as teachers cannot simply decide what a student’s least restrictive environment is without giving them time to adjust to that environment. It is also desperately important that a student’s Independent Education Program puts them into environments that challenge them rather than caudle them. It is only through a healthy level of challenge that they will be able to improve and gain the opportunities that their fellow students have available to them.

positive triggers

"You shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the LORD your God did..." Deuteronomy 7:18


via Highest Heels

How my textbook smells exactly like one of my childhood books. Every time I open it I end up with this strange feeling of manipulation that fades into happy memories.

How the twinge of smoke on the air from the local neighborhoods sends me right back home to damply crisp leaves under my boots and the feel of your scarf through mittens.

via Oh, Pioneer!

Tea steam in your nose as the rain pats against the window.

That fuzzy feeling on your tongue when the mocha was too hot but you couldn't wait.

The LORD calms my fears with positive triggers...reminding me that memories need not always be avoided...that they can be so very sweet.

Ebenezer Project

"Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the LORD for you.” So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the LORD and fasted on that day and said there, “We have sinned against the LORD.” And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the LORD our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the LORD. And Samuel cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the LORD thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them, as far as below Beth-car. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the LORD has helped us.” So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel. And the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel." (1 Samuel 7:5-13)

Goal: To document some of the ways that God has been faithful to us as students, faculty, and staff of this little college.

Needed: Rocks, sharpies, a place to pile the rocks

To Do: write ways the LORD has been faithful to you on a rock and add it to the growing pile.

Result: A beautiful testament to the LORD's faithfulness.