To This Day

and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?

                Upon first hearing Shane Koyczan’s poem “To This Day”, I wept. Having now heard it and read it many times, the impact is no less. He has put so eloquently into words how so many of us feel-to this day. Yes, I have left it behind, in a sense. But the long-term effects are subtle. The long-term effects are a handy tool for the Enemy to use against us. That’s why, to this day, criticism stings me harder, certain words trigger a feeling of nausea, and the positive is easily buried beneath the negative if I am not careful.

every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

                “Hey, Purd!” I can never forget it. I have tried. I won’t even tell how I got the nickname; it is too painful. It sounded like it didn’t mean anything, and that was the beauty of it for Her and all of Her lemmings. They knew I would never tattle, because then I would have to explain. So they could shout it at me on the bus or across the middle school campus and I would try to ignore it. “PURD! You look PURDY today!” Explosive laughter. Strange looks from people. Quizzical looks my friends, from my brother.”What does that even mean?” I never told. So they would say to Her, “Why don’t you shut up?” and of course She would put on a face of innocence. It was just a made-up word, what was the problem?

                That nickname did not follow me to high school, because She moved away. I began tenth grade with a profound sense of relief and a little bit of hope, which was quickly dashed those first few weeks. Some of Her lemmings tried the name, but it didn’t sound the same without Her to egg them on…so they came up with new ones, things that everyone could understand perfectly well…and I still never told because by then it seemed pointless as well as immature. Back then we were told to get over it, as long as no one was doing anything to us physically.

                When the cutting began, along with the hostility toward my parents, the diagnosis of borderline personality was made. How ironic is that? Day after horrible day I had to deal with being tortured by people who enjoyed watching others suffer, but I was the one with a personality disorder? At the time, though, I bought into it because I was already convinced there was something wrong with me anyway. My parents, not so much, especially when the suggestion was made to put me on Prozac. No, thanks. The idea of drugging their sixteen-year-old daughter was abhorrent to them, and they were right. In fact, I myself am opposed to that sort of thing under most circumstances-and I am not talking about legitimate things like actual ADD or bipolar disorder, in which case medication may be necessary in order for a person to function normally-but I am talking about drugs administered to mask the actual problem. Having gone through that with my son, who was put on Abilify at the age of ten, it makes me shudder.

                Looking back, I realize some things. I realize that I did have some issues, but they were probably more hormonal than anything. When at the age of thirty-two I was told by an OBGYN that no, I wasn’t crazy and never had been, that there were actual things going on physically that were not my fault, I actually hugged the man. I also realize that some of the issues had to do with the normal difficulties of growing up, that I am a particularly sensitive person which doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and that the school I attended was a shark tank. I was one of the plankton on whom the sharks fed. Finally, I realize now that the kids who went through a lot of the same things and seemed unbothered actually were bothered, they just had stronger personalities and many of them, like my friends Tisha and Charlotte, had such a deep Christian faith and were so mature spiritually that they were able to withstand it better than I.

                Knowing all of these things on an intellectual level, however, does not honestly help very much in the reality of everyday life. I think of Truman Capote, who needed so much affirmation from people because his wounds were so deep. I think of how he drained them emotionally. I don’t want to be the sort of person who takes and takes from my family and friends without giving back. I never want to be the kind of teacher whose self-esteem is so tied up in how the students respond to me that I fail utterly at earning their respect. I don’t think I am any of these things, but I worry about it a lot.Ridiculous thoughts that are lies from Satan keep me awake at night-and even as I write this, I know it might happen again tomorrow. I still walk the tightrope.

                In the movie “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, my favorite line, said by an English teacher to a lonely young man, is “We accept the love we think we deserve.” It’s true. I see it all the time, particularly with young ladies who don’t see their beauty and worth and will allow themselves to be treated like dirt. But I see it with young men, too. With them it is usually different as they build walls of sarcasm and hostility, purposely making themselves unlovable so they won’t be hurt any more. I did all of those things. I tried it all. None of it worked. To this day, I still find it hard to accept praise, to receive unconditional love. I had a great family, but the abuse I suffered at the hands of my peers unfortunately often overshadowed it. I also accepted Christ at a young age, but the vile words of classmates often made me forget that God made me beautiful.

                “Strong animals know when your hearts are weak. “ Thus says little Hushpuppy in “Beasts of the Southern Wild”, a movie that I love so much because it speaks such truth. The people who get some kind of joy from hurting those who are weaker know exactly who we are, and they attack. That gives them power. Logically, the thing to do would be to not let them see that they have hurt us, but that’s easier said than done. I got better at it over time. In fact, I am so good at it now that I don’t let people know they have hurt me even when it would be more beneficial for everyone if I did so. I push it way, way down. Sometimes I feel stuffed to the brim, as though I will explode. Sometimes I do explode-at the wrong people, the ones closest to me. To this day,I am not “all right”.

            What I am, though, is forgiven and loved, not only by family, friends, and students, but by a big incredible God.When you come right down to it, no one is all right. Everyone is broken, be it a little or a lot. We want to do God’s job and fix each other, but we can’t. What we can do is love each other, help each other, and encourage other. We can pray for each other and support each other. “I see that I’m a little piece in a big, big universe,” says Hushpuppy. Indeed, we all are. Some of us may feel that we don’t fit, that there’s no room for our particular piece of the puzzle, but we all do.

and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying

                The best mirror is God Himself. Look at Him, the One Who created us and sees only beauty, the One Who puts a spark of Himself into us all, and gives us life. He was the Something inside me that made me keep trying, even when I felt that I was on the edge of falling off the edge of the world. Those words that still echo down through the years can be drowned out by the Song, but I have to let that happen. I have to ask Him to silence those other voices and show me the mirror that reflects Truth and reveal to me daily that I am more than what I perceive myself to be-not because I am any better than anyone else, or any better than I ever have been, but because I am allowing Him to work through me.

“ Our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty.”

I'm Impressed!

“I’m impressed that God made this day so wonderful”. –small boy to his mother

                I read the above on my Facebook feed this past week and found it both beautiful and insightful. The little boy, Aidyn, is five, I think, or six-at any rate, still young enough to be impressed by God’s everyday gifts rather than taking them for granted.  I was not having a good week myself, but perhaps I was not looking hard enough for the goodness in things. Stress kept mounting and by yesterday morning I was ready to throw in the towel. I’m just being honest. It was not any one thing; it was a whole string of petty annoyances that included students being disrespectful, difficulties with my own kids, a dog with separation anxiety doing weird things like eating an entire package of hot dog buns, trying to do stuff on the Internet and not being able to get it to work right, and so and and blah, blah, blah.

                I tried singing praise songs. Of course I dutifully read my Bible. Dutifully. I went to church on Wednesday night. I prayed, dutifully. Listened to Power 88. Tried talking to a friend about something I was dealing with. That backfired because my daughter decided I was “saying mean things” about her. I wrote in my journal, reread some of Blue Like Jazz. I did my relaxing things like reading my fun books and playing my brain games and coloring and watching reruns of old TV shows . I diagramed a few sentences because I am strange and I find it entertaining. More dutiful prayer and Bible reading and praise music-and still, nothing. I was not at all impressed. I ate ridiculously healthy food and only felt hungry, not virtuous in the least. My tenth graders still resisted reading A TALE OF TWO CITIES and my eleventh-graders still argued about what constitutes plagiarism and the two boys who have been goofing off in that class partied on until I took them out into the hall and had a very strong one-sided conversation with them and then wrote them up, which is the thing about my job that I hate the most.

                Yes, it was that kind of week. And yet…

                On Thursday the Zambian Singers came to our school as they do every year. If you have never heard them, you should. They are a group from Africa, totally non-profit. Everything they make goes to funding their Christian school of 250 students and five teachers in one of the poorest regions of Africa. Yes, 250 students. Yes, five teachers. I tried to imagine fifty students in one classroom without any of the fancy trappings I have, like nice chairs and tables and decent books and a whiteboard, a computer, and a projector. I tried to imagine the difficulty inherent in attempting to give individual help to fifty students, and how exhausted those teachers must be every day.  The Zambians sang their amazing concert, all a capella, their voices blending in incredible harmonies. They got our own Mr. Wade up there to sing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” with them. I was beginning to be pretty impressed.

                My mind wandered back to the previous day, when I found a note of encouragement from a student. She said things about me that made me cringe, not because they weren’t nice, but because they were. They were undeserved, at least at the moment when I was reading them. On Thursday afternoon after school, the two boys to whom I had had to assign detention came into my classroom. One worked on the math that is frustrating him to no end and the other did chores that I assigned. I talked to them both and they expressed regret for their behavior. One in particular really owned it, said that it was pretty inexcusable and that he would make every effort to change things. This reinforced what had been said in the note-that the students DO appreciate me, they just don’t always act like it. Impressed again, I went home. Unfortunately, it was a rather bad evening, and my mishandling of things with my kids didn’t help. I dutifully prayed. No, I desperately prayed. I needed things to get better. I prayed with the expectation that they would. I had already seen glimmers of the possibility that they could. There were the Zambians, and the note, and the apologetic boys, and I had found in some donated books a complete set of the Little House series. I have not owned a complete set since the fire. Then there was that really good discussion in creative writing…and on Wednesday there had been that really good discussion of romantic poetry in senior English. The week had not been a total loss.

                By yesterday morning, my kids were speaking to me again. We were out of uniform so I didn’t have to wear a dress. In first block I realized that majority of students actually are reading A TALE OF TWO CITIES-at least enough to have a halfway coherent discussion. In second block a student told me that she had finished LORD OF THE FLIES already and that it made her cry. I asked her why, specifically. I mean, it makes me cry, too, but I was curious. She said not only was the story sad, but that she felt terribly sorry for the author, who obviously had a very negative view of humanity and had no hope .We talked more about the book and I was impressed by her depth of understanding. In third block we had a great time with ROMEO AND JULIET, especially when a girl read Romeo’s part and a guy read Juliet’s. At lunch, my Nerd Herd shared pizza with me. Ham and pineapple. The day ended with the second of the goof-off eleventh-grade boys coming and offering to help me clean my room. He told me that he had learned some important lessons during the week, and that he knew his behavior was inappropriate and immature, and it was time to start buckling down and being a better example to others. Guess what? I was VERY impressed.

                Last night I sat and took stock and realized that that if we seek to find only the bad, we probably will. Like William Golding, the author of LORD OF THE FLIES, we can choose to see everything as a total loss and ignore the wonder that is all around us. The Glory is still everywhere, though. We may be having a week that seems so disastrous that we are blinded to what is Real. We may be going through things that are so awful that we forget about the grace. But there is a possibility that the Grace and the Glory and the Good are all intertwined with the Terrible Awfulness or the merely annoying. While my prayer and Bible reading this past week may have been largely of the Dutiful rather than the Grateful sort, I know that God knows me and knows that my heart’s desire is to honor Him, and He forgives me. He forgives me for missing blessings while they were happening right before my eyes. Blessings like a sorrel colt with an injured leg that is healing and mending because a girl with a loving heart has been fully obedient. The Girl and the Colt are two creatures that came suddenly and unexpectedly into my life and I am forever changed. Likewise the Boy, who last night brought me a rose, the Boy who humbly acknowledged that he has not been much help this past week because of his attitude-that Boy is a gift. The students who tried to make right their foolishness, the friend who was willing to listen, the rain that fell in buckets and renewed the grass for the sorrel colt to graze upon, the flowers that are blooming because they think it is Spring, the husband who tracked down a copy of an elusive book that I wanted, the stars that hang so low in the sky some nights and sparkle so brightly that the traveler can find his way Home, even the dog who ate the bag of hot dog buns but who has been there to help heal our pain-these are gifts from the One who knows best what we need.

                Thank you, God. I am impressed.

“I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How to Say Goodbye

Tell me how to fill the space you left behind
And how to laugh instead of cry
And how to say goodbye…

                Imagine this, if you will. A world of perfection, where no one sinned and no one was sad and nothing died. A place where the grass was more lush and green than any grass our eyes have ever beheld, the fruit was sweeter than any fruit we have ever tasted, and the animals were all tame and friendly and without malice or fear. A world where you could run your fingers through a lion’s mane and he would purr like a kitten. A world where mankind walked in harmony with God and all of Creation. It existed, once. It was called Eden.

                And then, in a moment of pride, mankind succumbed to temptation and the lust of the flesh. In a split second, his eyes were opened to a new reality of sin and sickness and suffering and death. I wonder what our first parents must have thought, how they must have felt when they realized that the garments God gave them to cover their nakedness were made from the skins of their animal friends. That they, indirectly, had caused the first death, the first shedding of blood. It must have been terrible. The sense of loss and pain must have been nearly unbearable.

                We have been feeling it ever since that moment.

                We were not designed to deal with death. In the beginning, nothing was supposed to die, not people, not animals, not even plants. In a world that now seems so hardened and indifferent toward human life, even now, we don’t cope with it all that well, not really. Not when it involves those we are close to, or when it is a result of senseless and random evil, like the 9/11 tragedy and the Sandy Hook massacre. We try and we struggle and we flounder, struggling to make sense of it all. The reality is, there is no one solution, no formula, no foolproof  six-point plan to coping with grief and loss.

                Countless books have been written about this topic. There are allegedly even stages of grief that have been observed, but those who compiled the list admit that grief often deviates from that pattern, that people may move back and forth among the various “stages” , that some may go directly from shock and denial to seeming acceptance and then anger and deep sorrow may come years later. In other words, it cannot be so easily defined. There is no one way we are “supposed” to feel, no one way that all of this should go.

                C.S.Lewis understood this. For so many years this man was able to intellectualize and compartmentalize, and, using logic, he had figured out the reasons why human beings suffer. Then he suffered the most terrible loss of his life, the death of his wife Joy from cancer, and suddenly it just couldn’t be so easily explained. In the following conversation, he is speaking to a friend regarding his loss:

“Life must go on.

 I don't know that it must, but it certainly does.

 

              - I'm sorry, Jack.

              - Thank you, Christopher.

 

              - We're all deeply sorry.

              - Thank you.

 

               Anything I can do?

 

              Yes, just don't tell me it's all for the best, that's all.

 

              Only God knows why these things have to happen, Jack.

 

              - God knows, but does God care?

              - Of course.

 

              We see so little here. We're not the creator.

 

              We're the creatures, aren't we?

 

              We're the rats in the cosmic laboratory.

 

              I've no doubt the experiment is for our own good, but...

 

              it still makes God the vivisectionist, doesn't it?

 

              It won't do.

 

              It's this bloody awful mess, and that's all there is to it.”

 

 

                    “Bloody awful mess.”  It sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? Some might even consider it a not very “Christian-like” expression.  Some may find it offensive, even. I don’t. It’s the reality-the raw, unvarnished, aching reality. It is the utterance of a man who is in despair, the sound of ultimate suffering. I have been there. I have walked that road. I have never lost my faith, or doubted God’s existence, or even thought in any conscious way that He doesn’t know what He is doing. I have, however, wondered at times if He is capable of cruelty. I have questioned why He allows us to undergo such pain. The only answer is that we live in a sinful, fallen world. I didn’t make it this way, so how can it be fair?

 

                    It’s not. God is not “fair”- but He is just. He is merciful. Above all, He is Love. Because He is Love, He weeps with us and He does not become angry at our questions. He is big enough to handle anything we hurl at Him in the midst of our very human sorrow. He knows. That’s why He came here as a Man. He does not expect that we will understand exactly how we are supposed to get through the grief that death causes. He knows that we are limited, and can only fumble along day by day. He knows that even years down the road we will have moments when our longing to have those we love back with us is nearly unbearable. But as we blindly stumble through unspeakable pain, the one thing we can know, the one thing that was actually promised was that He would not leave us comfortless.

 

                    I would never try to tell anyone, ever, that there is a “right” way to say goodbye. Grief is very personal. I can have an idea of what someone is going through, but I cannot fully know. I can sympathize and even, to a point, empathize because of what I have been through, but I am still not them and they are not me, and I would never presume to tell them, “This is what you must do/say/feel/ think.”  I know some who try to remain stoic because they think giving in to grief is a sign of weakness or lack of faith. Nonsense. Throw something if you have to, break all the dishes in the cupboard, go outside and scream and shake your fist at the sky, but allow yourself to feel it.  Pretending that it’s not there, pretending that it can’t possibly be terrible and awful because it is “God’s will” is just a lie, and God doesn’t believe that any more than we do. He knows when our hearts are torn and if they are ever to be healed at all, we must acknowledge that it is indeed “bloody awful mess” and we can’t get through it on our own.

 

                    When contemporary Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman’s beautiful little five-year-old daughter, Maria, was killed in an accident several years ago, his first instinct was to never write another song. That’s real. That’s an honest acknowledgement that losing a child is unbelievably painful and utterly heartbreaking. Within days he had reached the conclusion that if what he believed was ever true, it was still just as true in the wake of Maria’s death and the world still needed to know. The result was his album “Beauty Will Rise”, which he refers to as his personal collection of psalms. It is a completely honest chronicle of suffering and is probably some of his best work. Another result of the loss is “Maria’s Big House of Hope”, an orphanage in China built with the donations of people around the world in memory of Maria.

                   

                    I believe that the Chapman family still struggles and weeps and grieves. In fact, I know they do, because I am connected to Mrs. Chapman’s Facebook page and she often makes comments that speak of their sorrow. Yes, they have gone on. They live their lives fully and embrace the time they have, but it does not mean they miss Maria any less. Even knowing that we will see someone again in Heaven does not completely ease the pain, because we want them here with us, right now. That is natural and human and there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. Picking ourselves up and being able to somehow move on does not mean that we forget, ever.

 

                    I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to forget the good times and the love and the laughter. I don’t want to forget the hugs and the silly jokes and his voice and his eyes. A student of mine who lost her father six years ago says she is afraid of forgetting what he looked like. I told her that she probably won’t, but even if she does, she will remember what he was like and that is what truly matters anyhow.

But I will not tell her that she will ever reach a point where a memory doesn’t move her to tears. I will not tell her that the loss will ever be unimportant. What I have told her is that the loss has made her who she is, and will continue to be part of who she is. I have told her that it has changed her forever, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We are shaped as much by experience as we are by heredity.

 

                    If we will but admit that even as Christians, we can only do the best we can in the face of grief, we will seem so much more real to those who don’t believe. Be honest when you are walking in the valley of the shadow. Be honest with yourself and with others. There is no one way to say goodbye. Don’t worry about whether you are doing it right…just trust Him, one step, one moment, one hour, one day at a time.

 

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell, we'd be held...
-Natalie Grant

Whom Shall I Fear?

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10, NIV)

          It had been a rough week, to say the least. Two of my classes had chosen to be rather uncooperative, with some outright defiance on the part of a few students .On the home front, I was dealing with an injured horse, a sick child, and the financial stresses that seem to crop up at the worst possible times. I wasn’t feeling well physically, and my old nemesis, Depression, which I have battled off and on for most of my life, was lurking around the corner. I stay one step ahead of this particular enemy most of the time, recognizing it as merely an agent of the true Enemy, but I was tired and a bit discouraged and I wasn’t sure I had the strength to fight.

          Then, a voice out in the hall, a sweet young male voice, caught my ears. “I know Who goes before me, I know Who stands behind, the God of angel armies is always by my side.”  I stuck my head out the door and saw a middle schooler standing at his locker getting his books as he sang Chris Tomlin’s “Whom Shall I Fear?” He didn’t see me and I didn’t want to embarrass him so I withdrew quietly back to my desk and thanked God for that small, yet all-important reminder. The day didn’t get stunningly better but I did.God had spoken to me through a child to inform me in no uncertain terms that I was not alone. I am never alone. I do not have the strength to fight anything, be it sickness, depression, or financial woes- but God does.

          In C.S.Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, the high demon Screwtape tutors his nephew in how to corrupt mankind through deception. One of the many strategies he discusses is prayer.If a man prays and things don’t get better, he can say that God didn’t listen, therefore God doesn’t care, or perhaps He does not exist. If a man prays and things improve, it can be chalked up to chance or coincidence-something that “would have happened anyway.”  Therefore, prayer is no proof of anything. I know many people who have fallen into exactly this line of thinking. For me, I have ceased to think of prayer as any kind of evidence. Prayer is our most powerful weapon because it strengthens us. Does it affect what God does? I think it does, quite often. In fact, because He exists outside of time as we know it, it is entirely possible and even likely that our prayers now are determining what He has already done. When I first heard this idea expressed by a pastor, I was staggered. Can it really be?

          We try with finite minds to grasp the Infinite. It cannot be done. We try reason and logic, which does have its place, but then we run up against the Unexplainable. A friend of mine recently related a story about a terrible car accident which he survived. The officers on the scene looked at him in amazement. “You can’t be alive,” they said. “It’s impossible.” But Ben was alive, with only one small, insignificant injury. The fact that, humanly speaking, he should have been dead was not lost on him. He had been drifting somewhat from his true purpose, and this brought him back to it, realizing that our time on this planet is very brief. The accident itself was part of the Plan written from before the foundation of the world. It was a Plan written for the whole universe.

          Shakespeare said that “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”  There’s some truth to that. God has given everyone a role to play in the great Story. But there is no “merely” about it. The roles were assigned by the Author of all things. He, the Author, the God of Angel Armies, does not regard a single one of us as “merely” anything. We are His masterpieces, each one of us. So no matter how weird I am, how unlovely physically, how limited in my abilities, I still matter. I do not fear death nearly as much as I fear not being truly alive while I am here. I fear, quite often, that because I do not measure up to the world’s standards of conformity and beauty, that I am nothing. I know this is a great lie of Satan, but I have seen more than one person fall victim to it. Mostly, I fear that the root of bitterness I still harbor in the deepest recesses of my soul will spring into weeds of cynicism that will choke out all of the love and idealism I try to nurture.

          Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to send me spiraling into that abyss of self-doubt. Fortunately, I have a God Who doesn’t let me stay there for long, provided I allow Him to consume me from the inside out and give Him control. When I do that, giving up is not even an option. The real truth is that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, perfectly designed for whatever his purpose for us may be. The real truth is that in the face of hardship and loss and betrayal, the God of Angel Armies has always been with me. At the end of The Screwtape Letters, “The Patient”-the man Wormwood has been trying to turn from his faith-dies during an air raid. Screwtape is outraged, because the death is a victory. Wormwood was unable to pluck The Patient from the hand of God. In the end, The Patient sees clearly the angelic beings who have been with him all along, and then he stands before his Savior. Screwtape, knowing that Evil has lost, roars that “someday we WILL win.”  But that is not true. Satan lost the moment Jesus went to the Cross and died in our place. He is defeated already.

          All of this is knowledge that I have had from my childhood. Getting it into my head was not difficult. I was a bright child. Getting it from the head to the heart, however, has been an ongoing process. Salvation is a present progressive kind of thing. I am being saved. I am being transformed. The one thing that the Enemy, as clever as he is, is unable to comprehend is that Jesus did what he did out of love only. There was nothing in it for Him. And of course Satan, being the one who comes solely to steal, kill, and destroy, will never understand that. We think we understand it, we say we understand it, and then we make our weekly trek to church and throw our offering into the plate hoping that it will be enough to buy God off and keep anything terrible from happening, ever. When the Bad Thing does come, we remind him of our great righteousness and question His justice. We bought our ticket-so why isn’t the journey easier?

          The journey is what it is because we actually didn’t buy our ticket-God did. Our redemption was purchased with His blood, not our own. He never said it would be easy. We just assumed it would. We think we deserve something. We think that the process of transformation should be a walk in the park, but a walk in the same old park day after day just isn’t very challenging. When we played that old childhood game of Follow the Leader, it was pretty dull if the leader just went around in circles, never jumping over a crack in the sidewalk or climbing a hill or wading through a puddle.

          Life would indeed be easier without challenges, but challenges are part of the deal and we are stronger for them. Of course there are things which will make us fearful, but the fear lessens when we realize Who is leading. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is being afraid and facing what you must face anyway, in the power of Christ. I know I am not walking alone. Because the Leader in this game is omnipresent, he can be standing behind me, going ahead of me, and walking beside me all at once. It’s as great a mystery as being able to transcend linear time, but God is God. There’s an old song that goes, “Fear not tomorrow-God is already there.” Even if I cannot quite grasp this with my human understanding, I can grasp the unseen Hand of Almighty God, the Lion of Judah. He is standing guard. He always has; He always will.

No guilt of life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
‘til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

The Face of God

“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

                Many critics are slamming the new movie production of Les Miserables, based on the Broadway musical taken from Victor Hugo’s classic novel. Having read some of these negative reviews, I can only be saddened. These people simply don’t understand. They go on and on about the movie’s imperfections, some legitimate, some, in my opinion, totally untrue. In focusing on the flaws in the film itself, they totally miss the point. Or maybe they do get the point, and it makes them angry because they want to deny its truth: there are such things as forgiveness, redemption, and self-sacrifice. Victor Hugo knew this, and wrote about it, as my husband puts it, “with a sledgehammer.” He tackled the notion of man’s inhumanity to man with a grim and gritty sense of realism, unmatched by few save perhaps  Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Harper Lee.

                The story of Jean Valjean, sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, is, at its core, a very simple one. The novel itself is nearly 1500 pages long, but about a third of it is exposition, attempting to help the reader understand the context and setting and focusing on the political aspects of the story as well as the history of France. It is the story, however, that matters. It is a love story. The love of parents for their children, the love of friends for one another, the love between husbands and wives, the love of God for humanity-it is all there, presented with heart-rending beauty and complete honesty. Jean Valjean’s redemption following a simple act of human kindness gives us pause. If mankind and mercy are truly our business, then why aren’t we doing more? 

                These thoughts make people uncomfortable, and that may be why the critics are not getting it. They don’t want to. It is impossible to truly do good without God, no matter how hard we strive, on our own, to “be good”. Javert, the antagonist of the story, is a pathetic figure despite his self-righteousness and relentless pursuit of Valjean. In bondage to law and order,  Javert has convinced himself that because he is “good” and Valjean is “bad”, his cause must be just and that the only “right” thing to do is capture Valjean. This inner conflict eventually drives Javert to suicide.  It is easy for us to simply dismiss Javert as evil-but is he? Or is he merely a picture of the way we ourselves tend to live?

                Yes, it causes great discomfort indeed to examine ourselves and consider how many we may have turned away because they were labeled as worthless, hopeless, beyond redemption. For all the time we spend mocking a Britney Spears or a Charlie Sheen-would that time not be better spent in actually praying  for them?  Their falls from grace-which are not truly falls from Grace, after all, because God still loves them-make us feel so much better about ourselves, don’t they? We can say, “Well, at least I’ve never done THAT.” Is that so much to brag about?  Maybe we haven’t done “that”, but we’ve certainly done plenty-and, even worse, failed to do what we really ought to do. But we forget about that, and watch a film like Les Miserables and try to figure out who the good guys and bad guys are. We tell ourselves that the priest would never really protect a Jean Valjean, would never give him the stolen silverware and hand him the candlesticks as well. That’s just a fantasy. But wait-isn’t there something in the Bible about if a man takes your shirt, you are to give him your cloak as well? And if that was an impossibility, would Jesus have told us to do it?

                I noticed that a lot of people were crying at the end of Les Miserables. I myself started weeping when Jean Valjean was given the candlesticks, and never really stopped until I was almost home from the theatre. It wasn’t just sniffles, either-by the end of the movie, tears were rolling down my face at a ridiculous rate. But for whom, or what, was I crying? Why did my chest hurt, why did I feel as if I couldn’t breathe, why could I not even speak for a full fifteen minutes after the movie ended?  Yes, it was horribly sad, possibly even leaning toward melodrama. It was beautiful and poetic . The characters were wonderfully realized. Fantine’s awful situation, the rescue of Cosette by Valjean, the suicide of Javert, the death of Valjean, the love that existed among the characters-all of this, and more, stirred emotion and opened the floodgates. But there was Something Else. Something bigger.

                The story of Les Miserables , the title of which can be translated as The Wretched, The Victims, The Poor Ones, or The Miserable, is the story of all of us. It is a story of loss and pain and longing for “a castle on a cloud”- a better place, a true home, somewhere to belong. It is a story of dreams destroyed, of bitterness and emptiness, of the utter despair people sometimes feel. But it is also a story of hope. It is a story that helps us understand the truth that to love someone is to see the face of God. Fantine, depite her outcast and miserable state, had Something-because she loved Cosette. When we reach out our hand to help a person in need, when we call someone “brother” and show them the respect and dignity to which every God-breathed soul is entitled, we see His face-and, hopefully, we acknowledge our own brokenness and wretchedness and very great need for the Love that transcends our humanity.

                Let us be good to each other-and see the face of God.

                “Ecclesiastes names thee Almighty, the Maccabees name thee Creator, the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty, Baruch names thee Immensity, the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth, John names thee Light, the Book of Kings names thee Lord, Exodus names thee Providence, Leviticus Sanctity, Esdras Justice, creation names thee God, man names thee Father; but Solomon names thee Compassion, which is the most beautiful of all thy names.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Believe

Children sleeping, snow is softly falling
Dreams are calling like bells in the distance
We were dreamers not so long ago
But one by one we all had to grow up
When it seems the magic's slipped away
We find it all again on Christmas day...

                Yesterday at church a lady teasingly asked me if Santa was coming to see me. I told her of course-since I’m married to Santa! She replied that she is married to the Grinch. I hope this is not true. I know how blessed I am to be married to a guy who loves Christmas at least as much as Clark Griswold does and maybe more, a guy who has a  lot of George Bailey and the Old Man from A Christmas Story in him. A man who, like me, has never really outgrown the magic. Whatever our circumstances may be-and some years have been better than others, financially and in other ways-we always seek to make Christmas special. Last year’s great and shining moment was, of course, presenting Raina with her horse. This year, we took a day trip to Montgomery to see the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s fine production of A Christmas Carol. It was our big family gift to each other, and it did not disappoint. We had been before, several times, but it had been about five years and so it all seemed new again-and besides, that is a story that never ever grows old.

                In the book The Polar Express, there is a bell that can only be heard by children-children who Believe. As they grow up ,the sound of the bell fades away. “At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.” Personally, I hope to be one of the ones for whom the bell continues to ring. I do not ever want to lose my sense of wonder nor my idealism to the bitter cynicism that at times threatens to crowd out my joy and steal it from me. I do not want to be one who says that the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s reclamation is only fantasy, that people never change, that Scrooge’s newfound salvation would have ultimately been shallow and fake, a mere emotional response.

                I know that Love is real. If I look closely for signs of it, I see it everywhere. I see goodness and truth in the everyday, the mundane, the ordinary-if I am actually seeking it, if I want to see it. We really can choose to See. And so I decided prior to our Montgomery trip that I was not going to let anything that happened spoil the joy of that day, and that, furthermore, I was going to try to notice things, because our days on this earth are short at best. It was indeed a blessed trip, the worst thing that happened being some spilled hot chocolate on Alyssa’s dress-but even that did not occur until we were almost home. There was no fighting. There were no car problems. We were afraid we were running late, but it turned out that we actually had time to spare, so we were able to thoroughly enjoy our dinner and then peruse the gift shop at our leisure.

                Before we went to dinner, we strolled down to the park area to watch the ducks and geese on the pond. In the fading light, I gazed at my children and realized that they are now all three almost the same height. I remembered the last time we went to the play, when Alyssa was seven and Raina was ten and Tony thirteen. They were so small. Where did the time go? My vision blurred as I tried to fill up my eyes and heart with the sight of them standing there by the water. Then I glanced to my right and saw another family-a young couple, an older man, a boy of about four, and a big chocolate Lab. The grandpa was pointing upward and I saw that he was showing the little boy a small flock of Canada geese flying overhead. The boy, perched on his grandpa’s shoulders, laughed with delight. The family slowly made its way across the park, tossing a ball for the dog who would chase it eagerly and bring it back, a huge doggy grin on his lovable face. They were happy and relaxed. The boy was obviously thrilled to be with his grandpa, and the parents were holding hands and smiling. It was Real.

                After dinner, which was Cornish hen and other delightful things, we purchased some small items in the gift shop and then sat in the lobby and waited. I watched the people coming in, families who, like us, had obviously been looking forward to this special outing. One little girl who looked to be five or six was wearing a pink dress and pink boots. I saw her tug on her daddy’s sleeve and say something to him-and then they began to dance. There were people all over the lobby, smiling, talking, and laughing. The door kept opening and closing, letting in the bitter cold. But this little girl and her daddy danced together as though they were alone in the room. He twirled and spun and dipped her, and then lifted her into his arms. She giggled and put her small hands on his face and they looked deep into each other’s eyes. It was Real. I know it was, because my daddy used to dance with me like that.

                Earlier in the evening, when we first arrived at the Festival site, we had seen a dog jetting across the parking lot with its owner, a college-age girl, running in fruitless pursuit. Tony took off running, headed the dog off at the pass, and returned her to her grateful and tearful owner. “Thank you, thank you so much,“ she kept saying. ‘I don’t know how she slipped out of her harness.” I wonder if this girl lives on her own. The dog may be all she has. It was a mixed-breed dog, exceptionally ordinary in appearance. Yet the love the girl has for her dog is Real. I could hear it in the panicked voice .We were in the right place at the right time, and my son is very quick on his feet and he knows how he would feel if he lost his very ordinary-looking dog. His simple act of kindness may have made all the difference for this one young lady.

                Everyone knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, of course. We own nearly every movie version ever made and we watch several of them every Christmas, my personal favorite being the George C.Scott version while my family likes the Patrick Stewart one just a bit better. We can recite the dialogue word for word. When I teach the book to my English classes they are amazed at how I can go on for several sentences without glancing down at the text. It is not surprising, since some of my earliest Christmas memories involve hearing A Christmas Carol read aloud, and I have read it countless times since, and my children, too, can quote from it. Nevertheless, seeing it on the stage from our front-row seats was a dazzling experience. We laughed and we cried, and we rejoiced when Scrooge went first to his knees, and then to beg forgiveness of his nephew Fred. We lived the story once again, as did the rest of the audience. And when Bob Cratchit placed his hand over his face and sobbed, “My little, little child!” there were more than a few sobs from those watching. Perhaps they were thinking of the little murdered innocents in Connecticut. I know I was. Or perhaps some of them have children who are ill, or are in some kind of trouble. Everyone has a story, and can relate in some way to that anguished, heartfelt, and very Real cry of sorrow.

                There was a purpose, you see ,for Jesus to come as He did, not as a king, but as a helpless baby, a baby born into poverty, a baby whose mother was probably shunned and outcast and whose foster father was made a laughingstock. He came so could he know our pain, feel it for Himself and be able thusly to put His arms around us and whisper, “I know what you mean.” He lived His Story so that He could know ours in a way that is Real. Scrooge’s hard heart melted in the Hand of the One Who knows, and is, the Past, Present, and Future. I love Christmas because it reminds us of the Gift, but it should not be a thing we remember just once a year. It should be Real every day that He gives us. If we can remember that, then we will never stop hearing the sound of the bell. If we just Believe in something finer, stronger, and greater than our finite minds can comprehend, and are willing to give ourselves completely to the One who spoke Creation into being, then we can know beyond all doubt that everything will, in the end, be all right. The Story is unfolding. Choose to SEE. Choose to Believe.

                                                                Merry Christmas.

Believe in what your heart is saying
Hear the melody that's playing
There's no time to waste
There's so much to celebrate
Believe in what you feel inside
And give your dreams the wings to fly
You have everything you need
If you just believe.

               

At Least I Bring You Hope

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope
For nothing is more precious
Than the time we have and so
We all must learn from small misfortune
Count the blessings that are real
Let the bells ring out for Christmas
At the closing of the year...

            Yesterday afternoon as I sat at my desk stapling papers during my planning block-stapling those last tests and exams that must be given and graded next week before school is dismissed for the holidays-I decided to check my Internet news feed to get a look at the weather forecast and see what was happening in the world. Most days I go from one class to another so quickly that I hardly have time to notice anything, and yesterday was no exception. Breaking down Julius Caesar for the tenth grade so they could prepare for Monday’s test, having a deep and serious discussion on The Screwtape Letters with the seniors, and then reading an abridged script of A Christmas Carol with the ninth graders that ended in great hilarity and delight, I was having a normal, albeit it rather noisy, school day. And then after lunch, after the usual banter with my students over chicken sandwiches and applesauce, I went back to my room to face the paperwork. Really, checking the weather was an excuse to procrastinate for five minutes. That was when I read about it-the horrible tragedy in Connecticut. A shooting at an elementary school that left 28 dead, including twenty children.

            There are no words, really, to describe how I felt. Sickened, dismayed, horrified, heartbroken-none of them seem adequate. I sent an email to my fellow teachers because, as busy as we all are, I didn’t know if any of them had heard about it yet. By the time the final bell rang an hour and a half later, many of the students had heard about it. They came by my room to talk to me and ask if I knew any details, which I didn’t. Their big question was, of course, why. Why would someone do such a horrible thing? I had no answer. I still don’t. And, while I know that this tragedy is going to open up a storm of debate about things like gun control and video games and the disintegration of the American family, all of which are valid concerns, I cannot think of much other than the human side.  

            I saw Barack Obama, admittedly not my favorite president, struggle to maintain his composure as he spoke about what had happened. He is, after all, a daddy. He loves his children. He is human .In times like these, it is our humanity that unites us .I do not know any of these families. I don’t know their names or their religious preferences or their nationalities or their political views. I don’t know if those children were well-behaved or drove their teachers crazy, whether their parents disciplined them or were permissive, whether they colored inside the lines or scribbled. I don’t know if they were rich or poor or in between, from traditional or non-traditional families, whether they had buckteeth or were chubby or wore glasses or had a penchant for stirring up a little mischief in the classroom. None of this matters, none of it matters at all. The one thing I am sure they all had in common...is that they were loved.

            Maybe they were loved by a mom and dad who were still together and had never experienced the heartache of a broken home. Maybe they were loved by foster or adoptive parents, or struggling single moms, or grandparents who had been forced by bad circumstances to take on the raising of a grandchild. Maybe they had siblings who looked up to them if they were older, or who teased and protected them if they were younger. Maybe they had dogs and cats at home, or bunny rabbits, or hamsters. Maybe there were already lots of presents already bought for them, waiting to be placed under the tree or wrapped and sitting there tantalizingly. Or maybe Mom and Dad were waiting until another paycheck came, or hoping for a Christmas miracle if they were out of work. Perhaps some of them had new bikes and sleds and skates hidden away in a shed or garage or attic. I cannot know.

            Perhaps yesterday morning before school, some of them had to be sternly told to hurry up and finish breakfast and get dressed. Somebody probably spilled his milk and somebody probably complained about having to wear that ugly sweater and somebody probably just lost a tooth, or was about to lose one. And as they left, as they got onto the school bus or were dropped off by Mom or Dad or Grandma at the school doors, no one knew that that hasty hug, that “Have a good day; behave yourself”- that those would be the last things, the very last. Because the truth is that we never do know, that we never can know, and if we realized this every day, maybe we would be better to one another. Last night as I was grumbling about the horrible tangle of shoes and sweaters and schoolbooks thrown onto the dining room floor, I was struck by how I would feel if there was no chance of that mess being there again, ever. What if I got up in the night to look in on my children and then I remembered that those beds were now empty- carefully, perfectly made, every item in the room in place, never again to be used, worn, played with by those three irreplaceable pieces of my heart?

            Last night my girls sang so beautifully in the school choir, and I couldn’t look at them enough. This morning they are earning Christmas money by taking on the enormous task of cleaning the front room (if you could see our front room, you would understand why we consider this a task worthy of actual financial compensation).In this process, they will get mad at each other and their brother will have to put in his two cents and then they’ll get mad at him. Tomorrow we will be in a rush to get to Sunday school and I will probably yell at someone to hurry up, and at least one girl will be frustrated over her hair and I will become exasperated. But through it all we will still be a family, and we will not stay mad at each other. One of our household rules is that no one goes to bed angry or leaves the house angry .When I hear about things like yesterday’s nightmare, I am reminded of why we have that rule. I am also reminded of why those “small misfortunes” must be learned from and taken in stride. Our time is indeed precious.

            Christmas is ten days away. I pray for those families who will have an empty place at the table, presents that will never be opened by tiny eager hands, a hole in their lives now that makes the world seem a dark and empty place. In ten more days anything can happen, and I tell myself this not to be morbid or fearful, but to remind myself to be a little nicer, a little more forgiving, a little less easily frustrated. I remind myself to “count the blessings that are real” as I ask that God’s peace and comfort fill the hearts of those who have suffered a loss that I cannot fathom. I remind myself that “charity, forbearance, mercy”- all of these are “my business” and I best get on with it. And finally, I remind myself that we should always be as united in our humanity as we are when tragedy strikes-that, as a nation, even as a world created by God, we should be there to pray for and comfort one another, forgetting our differences and remembering only that we are all, at the heart of it, just people after all. Broken, hurting, needy people.

God bless the folks of Newtown, Connecticut-and God bless us all.

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years and each time I learn the news, I react not as a president, but as anybody else would, as a parent, and that was especially true today. I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do.”- President Barack Obama