I was raised to believe that everything is a game. You’re either winning, or you’re losing. There was nothing wrong with the philosophy in itself—my parents wanted us to do our best.
The problem is that I am a natural born meateater. I have a hard time turning it off. So I suck at losing. Or being wrong, which in my head for so long was the same thing.
Because I don’t like being wrong, or losing, I made sure that I knew what I was talking about. Shea will tell you that I am not often wrong. And that he owes me $110 million for all the times he’s said “I bet you a million dollars I’m right” and lost. Even Gabriel is in to me for about $30 million.
Lately I have really been thinking about this need to win. I read some books by a man who says—among other brilliant things—that our cultural obsession with winning in this country traps us in a very basic existence. Specifically, that we can never be the ChristiansChrist calls us to be if we are constantly ordering ourselves as above or below everyone in our lives.
We only need to orient ourselves in terms of one thing, really. Our relationship with God.
In percolating on this, I realized I need a whole new perspective. I had no idea how many times in a day I order myself in the hierarchy. I do it so naturally, it’s almost unconscious. Just yesterday, I had this conversation in my head: “I’m wearing yoga pants to pick up the kids. Again. I wore yoga pants to pick up the kids Tuesday. If I wear them today, what will the other moms think? But so-and-so wears yoga pants every day, and the same ones, I’m pretty sure. I’m not as bad as that.”
And do you know as I was typing that, I thought in my head “Well, at least I just thought it. So-and-So would have said it out loud to everyone and asked if that made her a bad mom. I’m not like that.”
Well.
Natural born meateater. It’s going to take a minute to replace the motherboard.
My goal this month is to let it ride. To shake it off. To be quiet and watch. To not need to be the one who knows or does or handles it. To not keep score. To not always try to hold the high ground, where I just find myself alone and under siege anyway. To let Shea win some of his money back.
I am going to try out the idea that I don’t have to have a say. I don’t have to have a point of view. I don’t have to have an explanation or an answer. I don’t have to take every person’s idea in and sort it immediately into a pile of “brilliant”, “stupid”, “ridiculous”, “intriguing” or “foolish”. I can just let it be, since it usually has nothing to do with me, and trust that God is doing His work.
Folks who know me really well know that I will need a lot of support to make this happen. A lot of prayerful support. Maybe even a miracle. I’d be grateful if you could remember me in your thoughts.
We don’t usually post on the weekends. But this is a huge issue for both of us. We prayed over it and felt directed to write this and publish it today.
There’s a shocking and crass commercial from the “non-partisan” but funded by the Koch brothers group Generation Opportunity, aimed at discouraging young adults from signing up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
It shows a young woman getting her first pap smear under “Obamacare”. While she is in the stirrups, the doctor leaves. A giant Uncle Sam rises from the corner and steps between her legs as the door slowly and ominously closes.
Yep, it’s a rape commercial.
I am not going to address this from a political perspective, because that’s been done. I want to speak to it as a Christian woman. Not the least because most of the employees listed on the website over at Generation Opportunity attended Christian colleges.
I’m going to assume that we all know our Bible, and that I don’t have to quote scripture here to make my points.
Our bodies, made in God’s image, are sacred space. If we are Christians, then that is the end of the story for us. It is never ok to exploit this sacred space, or make sport of violence against it. It is bad enough that sexual violence is so prevalent in our nation. But to use the threat of sexual violence as a tool of fear—to support a falsehood, by the way—is surely sin.
The commercial is clever, with its lilting circus music, designed to take the edge off. But darkness is often packaged in clever and distracting ways. And that’s what this commercial is—darkness. Generation Opportunity, and its sponsors, Americans For Freedom, are hosting darkness.
No matter how you feel about the Affordable Care Act, this cannot be acceptable to you. Not if we hope to have a loving, respectful kingdom of God here on earth. God-loving folk are the care-takers of this kingdom. We have a responsibility to protect it and its law, which is love.
The bible tells us “Let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Romans 14:19). There is a way to have this argument, respectfully and peacefully. There is a way to bring light to the questions, instead of darkness. There is a way to reach an uplifting solution that respects the sacred space of everyone, as Jesus calls us to do.
But if we insist on treating universal health care as a game, with winners and losers, then let’s remember: women’s bodies are not the playing field; sexual violence is not the tool; win at all cost is not the goal.
There is only one rule: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13: 34-35).
I am including the link to the commercial here, with reservations. I don’t want to promote it, but I want you to know that it’s out there. If you have been a victim of sexual violence, you may want to skip it.
I am also providing the link to the Contact Page at Generation Opportunity, in case you feel so moved to let them know how you feel.
There’s nothing better than brand new school supplies!
At the very core of education, in your own classroom, there is nothing like the magic of educating kids. Nothing. You see moments in a kid’s life, flashes of brilliance and frustration; you hear them laugh, you see them cry. Sometimes you make them cry, and you steel your heart to their tears because you know what you are saying is for their own good.
You are mom, friend, sister; you are at once the coolest cat and the biggest bitch; you will love them, and have days where you could climb a mountain; you will hate them and have days where you wish it was still legal to spank them.
You will love their parents and you will hate their parents. You will see some beautiful souls and some souls bound for the deepest parts of hell. You will hear stories that make you believe in the human spirit, and stories that give you nightmares and make you hug your kids a little tighter. Students will lie to your face; parents will lie to your face. One day, a student will tell you a truth so terrible that you will wish they had lied. You will help them while your heart is breaking inside.
You will want to save them. You will want to take at least 20 of them home with you. Then you will realize that some kids are not meant to be saved by you. And you will cry.
You will change kids’ lives. And they will change yours. A young man will stand across the desk from you, his head down, his voice quiet, and tell you that he doesn’t think he can ever put into words the way you have changed his life. The angels will sing. Some people would go home and call that a career. But not you. You will get up and come to school the next day because that’s what you do.
All of this is true. It happened to me. And in the midst of it, I taught some English to 11th graders.
It’s such a gift, this job, but it demands your life’s blood. It’s not an “in the meantime job”. It’s a 20 hour a day, plan a year in advance, every day is a brand new challenge job.
When you’re good at it, you give your life to it. And no good teacher ever just teaches. They coach and moderate and sponsor and serve on committees and boards. They get inside as many circles of their students’ lives as possible, because good teachers know that connection is how kids succeed—when there are trustworthy adults at every turn.
You will know you are on the right track when the question of your reputation results in fierce debate between the kids who love you and the kids who hate you. Change is hard for teenagers, just like for grown ups. When you push them, they’ll push back. Stay strong. I once had a student named Jerome revise a paper 9 times to get a B and when he did, he hung that thing proudly on the fridge. And didn’t speak to me for two weeks. I was so proud of him. That’s some real learning, right there.
You will make mistakes. Tons. There’s no way to talk to 200 kids a day and not say something stupid on a fairly regular basis. When you do, just apologize. No one ever apologizes to teenagers. They will respect you forever if you own your mistakes. And they will learn from you that apologies don’t make you weak, they make you honorable.
But don’t ever let them forget that you are the queen—or king—of your classroom. Yes, the queen can be wrong. But she’s still the queen. So when they ask “Why are we doing this?” and what they mean is “Do we really have to do this?” ask them “Who am I?” By Christmas, they should know to say “You are the Queen of this classroom” and they should know that means that you are trustworthy, you are making the best decisions for them that you can, and that as a result, you will brook no lazy disagreement.
A teacher is like a farmer—we sow a lot of seeds. We don’t always get to see the fruit that grows, or the harvest because it can take years. I keep myself hidden on Facebook, but I have a few former students in my newsfeed: the doctor, the teacher, the one who works with older people, the one who joined the family business, the single mom who finished college, the single mom who is serving our country, the one who just celebrated her 10th wedding anniversary. It is so incredible to see their smiling faces as adults, their beautiful children, their dreams coming true, their determination to do the best they can.
You will have this too, if your heart is sincere. It’s about the kids. The kids will strip you down and make you see who you really are. The kids will make you better, even the ones who make you crazy first. Maybe them most of all.
Society won’t tell you that the job you do is important, but it is. You are in charge of tomorrow.
So best of luck. And in January, when you cannot for the life of you remember why you picked this stupid f*$king job, hang on. I promise that by May you will feel much better.
This is Door County Kona blend with hazelnut creamer. Good coffee helps me keep my tree climbing feet on the ground!
As you know, I’ve been working on letting go of my fears. This is the non-medicinal part of my recovery from postpartum anxiety. Turns out popping a Zoloft every night is not the work.
My friend Lara and I were talking about being more fearless, since we are both very worried about what might happen. And I said “We just have to rub the raw chicken on the kitchen counter! And trust that when we clean it up, we’ll get it all. And if we don’t, what’s the worst that can happen?”
This was met with silence. I know, because I have been friends with her for almost 20 years, that she was resisting the urge to curl into a fetal position at just the thought of raw chicken on the kitchen counter. That’s her THING. And even though I know that she knew that I wanted her to laugh and say “That’s right!” she couldn’t. Could not.
What she said was “Well, you might die.”
Which made me immediately obsess over the state of my kitchen counters.
In my defense, I come by this genetically. The women in my family go from zero to end of the world in five easy steps: “Where are the dinner rolls? We forgot the dinner rolls! No one set the timer!! They almost caught on fire!!! WE ALMOST BURNED TO DEATH ON CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
We call it tree climbing. Like monkeys, who climb to the top of their trees and screech (or do worse) when agitated.
When I was pregnant with my son, I had contractions at 26 weeks, three days before Christmas. I called my mom on the way to the hospital. Two minutes after hanging up with her, both my sisters-in-law and my cousin called to see if I was ok. By the time my dad called, I answered the phone and said “I’m sure I’m fine. Everybody needs to relax.”
My dad said “Relax? Are you kidding me? Your mother is so far up her tree, she has a STAR on her head!”
Yes, that’s how we roll. You remember Swine Flu? I just knew that if I didn’t get my kids vaccinated, I was inviting death and destruction into my home. I checked the CDC website daily for an update on the spread of the flu and the availability of the vaccine. I called the people at the county vaccination clinic so often that they knew me by name. Shea will tell you he was out of work at the time, but that’s not true. It was his job to GET THOSE KIDS VACCINATED. I didn’t just climb the tree, I built a tree house and strung lights.
In the words of Truvy Jones, I now know that I was suffering from a case of postpartum anxiety. Nevertheless.
I want to argue that tree climbers make life easier, because we see things coming and we get out in front of them, but it’s not true. The truth is we invent stuff to see at the top of our trees because we’re so shocked by the fact that when we get to the top, there’s nothing there.
Like the Christmas rolls. I am sure somewhere in history a family has burned to death on Christmas day from an oven fire, but probably not since ovens were made of adobe. And don’t get me started on what I found when I looked up the facts from the swine flu pandemic in 2009. More dangerous to drive a dang car down the street.
So listen up anxiety sisters and fellow tree climbers: cut down the blessed tree. Don’t bark at shadows. Don’t kill your chickens before they’re hatched. Or whatever other messed up metaphor you want to use for maybe being the biggest source of your own stress and anxiety.
Oh yeah—mom laying on the beach on a perfectly beautiful day when the sun is shining and the kids are playing, and instead of relaxing, you find something to worry about? I’m talking to YOU.
What if, instead of the creepy dark belief that evil is lurking around every corner, the truth is that real life is mostly less stressful than most of us make it out to be? I’m not saying there are not horrible times in life, but what if we make it worse by constantly imagining the worst?
In my life, tree climbing is both chemical and emotional. Nature and nurture, baby. So I medicate and meditate: Do not be the source of your own stress. Do not be the source of your own stress.
There’s no shame in being more peaceful.
And no one gets any awards for being out in front of nothing. Just saying.
The last five years have been so hard for the folks in this country. Lots of endings, lots of fear. It’s easy to believe that it will never get better, never be different. It’s easy to wait for things to change.
Maybe there’s another way to see it, though. Maybe, instead of waiting, we should be jumping at opportunity.
We know that God has a plan. What if we were brave enough to ask God and ourselves this question: What is it that we really want to do?
Meet our friend Julie. In a few weeks, she and her husband and her three year old daughter are making an amazing and brave and thrilling life change. Julie asked God the question and then she embraced the answer. We hope she inspires you as much as she inspires us!
I believe in two “F” words: Faith and Fate. Is this belief strange for a Christian? Maybe, maybe not. I believe everything happens for a reason, a reason we may not understand, but maybe we’re not supposed to understand why somethings happen. Sometimes a third “F” fuels the other two “F” words to work hard in one’s life: Fear.
Around this time last year, my husband and I were making a lot of life changes that included: moving houses, adding to our family, and learning to live on one income.
We were moving houses as a temporary situation to save money for a year and I was excited. It was going to be an opportunity for me to stay at home with my daughter for the year, but also to be able to see my mom every day. It was an especially exciting time for us as we learned that we were expecting our second child after trying for almost a year.
While I had happily taught English at the high school level for six years, I needed a break or a change. I also couldn’t believe how quickly my two year old daughter was growing and how much I was missing, so I made the change that many people couldn’t imagine taking in this economy: I took a leave of absence from a career I loved.
Some people looked at me like I was crazy or even dissatisfied with my school (which I really wasn’t), but I FELT something. I felt like God was sharing His plan with me. That’s what faith is, isn’t it? Trusting in God’s plan when you just can’t conceivably understand how it will fit together. So, I fearfully/faithfully took a leave of absence from work and trusted in Him.
On June 9th, 2012 among moving boxes and Dora birthday presents, I took a test that revealed I would be carrying a second baby in the year I had chosen to stay at home. It was an exciting and surreal moment. I felt like I understood why God had aligned everything so perfectly now, it was all working out!
But, things don’t always work as expected because three weeks later, I lost the baby.
To say I was devastated is an understatement. I questioned everything, and unfortunately, even God. This is where the three “F” words come in. From my FEAR, grief and sadness over losing my precious baby, I prayed for understanding. When tested, our FAITH appears and we start to understand our FATE slowly.
After losing the baby, I became like a hermit. I didn’t want to leave the house and so I started to surf the net and also reminisce about happier times, which led me to the summer of 2008. My husband and I had traveled to Rio do Janeiro as a way to visit family and experience a new culture.The pictures were beautiful and filled with happy and carefree times. I wanted that again; I wanted to escape to a new life where I could start again. So, while my heart was slowly starting to heal, I tried for a new beginning by applying for jobs in a country thousands of miles away.
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? They call it “CidadeMaravilhosa” or the Marvelous City because of its constant motion, sounds, smells and friendly people. People from all walks of life are active throughout the day, usually near the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, or even Leblon. It’s going to be a busy few years for this city of roughly 6.5 million people, as they are hosting both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
I started remembering everything I loved about my mother’s native country and the memories gradually started putting me back together. I started emailing and researching a few schools in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And slowly, it started to become a true possibility. After a few months of making a dream into a reality, we did it…
We attended a job search in Atlanta, Georgia for educators interested in teaching or working in Mexico, Central, South America and the Caribbean. It really seemed as if God was pointing us in the right direction again. Once we were finally inside the meeting area with the schools, we were informed that only two of the four possible schools we had been interested in, (very few of the schools had positions open for both English and Math) still had positions for both of us. And when it was time for us to interview with a school, there was only one, Rio’s American School (the one we really wanted) who still had our positions. It was if the lord was narrowing down the choices for us. To make a long story short, they called us in January to offer us the jobs.
We don’t know what we’ll encounter or even if it’ll be easy for us, but isn’t that what faith is? When I asked my husband why he wanted to do it, he answered, “Why not? I mean there’s so much out there. There’s so much to explore and so much to see. I want our daughter to be the kind of person who wants to see the world and not be afraid to take risks.” I agree, hubby, I agree.
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Full Of Graces 