New Office Tenant

Tim, our church's intern, has a new pet he collected at China Camp State Park. It lives in my old candy jar on his desk in my old office. I saw it, and I was reminded of a poem sent to me by a friend some years ago. He sent it to me because I was studying prayer.

ISKANDARIYA by Bridget Pegeen Kelly

It was not a scorpion I asked for, I asked for a fish, but
maybe God misheard my request, maybe God thought
I said not "some sort of fish," but a "scorpion fish," a
request he would surely have granted, being a goodly
God, but then he forgot the "fish" attached to the
"scorpion" (because God, too, forgets, everything
forgets); so instead of an edible fish, any small fish,
sweet or sour, or even the grotesque buffoonery of the
striped scorpion fish, crowned with spines and
followed by many tails, a veritable sideshow of a fish;
instead of these, I was given an insect, a peculiar
prehistoric creature, part lobster, part spider, part
bell-ringer, part son of a fallen star, something like a
disfigured armored dog, not a thing you can eat, or
even take on a meaningful walk, so ugly is it, so stiffly
does it step, as if on ice, freezing again and again in
mid-air like a listening ear, and then scuttling
backwards or leaping madly forward, its deadly tail
doing a St. Vitus jig. God gave me a scorpion, a
venomous creature, to be sure, a bug with the bite of
Cleopatra's asp, but not, as I soon found out, despite
the dark gossip, a lover of violence or a hater of men.
In truth, it is shy, the scorpion, a creature with eight
eyes and almost no sight, who shuns the daylight, and
is driven mad by fire, who favors the lonely spot, and
feeds on nothing much, and only throws out its poison
barb when backed against a wall— a thing like me,
but not the thing I asked for, a thing, by accident or
design, I am now attached to. And so I draw the
curtains, and so I lay out strange dishes, and so I step
softly, and so I do not speak, and only twice, in many
years, have I been stung, both times because,
unthinking, I let in the terrible light. And sometimes
now, when I watch the scorpion sleep, I see how fine he
is, how rare, this creature called Lung Book or Mortal
Book because of his strange organs of breath. His
lungs are holes in his body, which open and close. And
inside the holes are stiffened membranes, arranged
like the pages of a book— imagine that! And when the
holes open, the pages rise up and unfold, and the blood
that circles through them touches the air, and by this
bath of air the blood is made pure... He is a house of
books, my shy scorpion, carrying in his belly all the
perishable manuscripts— a little mirror of the library
at Alexandria, which burned.

The 8th-Grade Roommate Chronicles

I have been looking for my favorite knee-high boots for ten days. I had looked everywhere for these boots, concluding today that they had fallen out of my car in my travels and they were gone forever.

Today, I get into the room I share with Kaelyn, and I see these boots on the floor by the ottomans. These ottomans are hollow and have been nicknamed "Doom" and "Despair". No one wants to look inside.

This partly explains how my boots went missing for so long.

The other part came when I asked Kaelyn about their reappearance.

It turns out she'd been assigned a last-minute tidy "sometime last week-ish", and, um, sort of tossed them into Doom and Despair.

WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!?!

"They were hungry".

So we had a heart-to-heart and set a new rule (which I thought went without saying):

We do not feed our roommates' footwear to the furniture.

Top-five things I Learned from Erin Pendergast

I find myself missing my lunches with this wise and funny teacher-friend weekly.

1. Life makes more sense when there are fewer American taboos.

2. Life requires irreverence. Just laugh.

3. Life requires at least three languages to explain it properly.

4. People are what's really important.

5. Actually, being a mom is pretty awesome.

H is for Happy Birthday

It is the fourth anniversary of my blog, and my 29th birthday. Or at least it was when I started this post.

A friend said that after today, I'm rolling toward 30 like a snowball headed for Hell. It's a colorful analogy, but I'm hoping its loaded with hyperbole.

I had a really lovely birthday. I got a badass leather jacket in the mail from my mom, as well as trip to Nordstroms in a little silver box. My sister-friend mailed me new Stila red lipstick, the Stila Paris palette, and some Chocolate shortbread made from pure crushed cacao. I had to work, but I got to go with Shannon for some life-changing pumpkin cheesecake at the Cheesecake factory.

I was so delighted by the sweets and the bits of glamour, but it was the Coleman kids who gave me a great birthday. Faith and Zach, who are 6 and 8 respectively, stormed my room at 7am to wake me with a big "Happy Birthday!". Zach had arranged all my presents by "my seat" on the couch. Kaelyn had scribbled a giant "Happy Birthday" all over the mirrors that I use. There would be NO missing her salutations. And then, when I got my coffee and curled up on the couch, there was the big reveal of the Coleman birthday tradition: The Birthday Turtle. Here he is:

The birthday turtle sings "Happy Birthday" and marches around. Faith informed me that everyone in our family gets to have the Birthday Turtle sing to them. And there it was. Everyone in our family. On my birthday, the Coleman kids did all the things that mark the special days of family members.

When I lived in Florida, I loved my birthday because of the fuss my students made and the chance to throw a party. Even though we were too busy to spend time together often, birthday parties were not missed. Once a year, I could be surrounded by my favorite people. This is a really important occasion for a single person who lived alone. There was one day when the warmth and celebration was more powerful than the sense of solitude and loneliness.

This year, I didn't have to manufacture the occasion. When the warmth and celebration found me, I noticed the loneliness and solitude were gone for the first time in years. This year I got the birthday turtle because I'm part of something to celebrate--full time. Every day.

F is for Fireworks

I've wanted to work in pyrotechnics since high school. My dad blames my high school chem teacher, Mr. Griffiths.

Griff was truly great. I had him only one or two years before he retired. Instead of languishing in the classroom, boring students and biding his time, he chose to blow things up. When I met him, he had no eyebrows because he had blown the windows out of the lab trying to make rocket fuel.

It's hard not to love a teacher whose demonstrations were too epic for even the fume hood. In the dead of Minnesota winter, Griff took us outside for "the important" demonstrations.

I can't even remember the principles he was illustrating with some of his biggest explosions. I think it's only the teacher in me now that extends him benefit of the doubt and assumes he even had some. But I do remember the lab that is the chemical rite of passage--the unknown element with the flame tests. We had copper--that most identifiable of elements that burns a bluish green.

After that, I was hooked. How could my calling be anything other than that of artistic explosions?? Put to music? Every year, on the Fourth of July, I'm inspired. I become convinced I've missed my calling.

Dad has never shared my convictions. When I went to far as to change my major to chemistry and seek an pyrotechnics internship, he threatened to end his support of my academic career. I have all of my fingers and toes to show for his wisdom.

As you watch the displays tonight, enjoy the greatest of flame tests. Say thanks to your chemistry teacher for inspiring and training the pyrotechnicians, and say thanks to all the dads who kept the rest of us from practicing.

And for your chemistry fun, here is a table of elements and colors, courtesy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Department:

Also, you can check out the PBS Nova site on the anatomy of fireworks.

	Color	Compound	Wavelength (nm)
	red	strontium salts, lithium salts lithium carbonate, Li2CO3 = red strontium carbonate, SrCO3 = bright red	652
	orange	calcium salts calcium chloride, CaCl2	668
	yellow	sodium salts sodium chloride, NaCl	610-621
	green	barium compounds + chlorine producer barium chloride, BaCl2	589
	blue	copper compounds + chlorine producer copper(I) chloride, CuCl	505-535
	purple	mixture of strontium (red) and copper (blue) compounds	420-460
	silver	burning aluminum, titanium, or magnesium

Highschool on TV

I've found I really enjoy movies about high schools, not in the John Hughes sense, but movies whose main character relationships are between teachers and students. Okay, maybe not main ones, but secondary ones at least. I'll concede that the movies are usually about student-student relationships.

I might be the only one I know who really loved the new Harry Potter movie. I like the Harry Potter franchise, but true fans complained that it wasn't what it was supposed to be. I don't know whether it was accurate enough to the book, but I do know that when Harry and his classmates moved from middle school to high school, the books and characters were much more endearing. I found their classroom foibles, romantic blunders, and detentions delightful. I thought: I teach those kids. Not wizards, but I teach teenagers and there's something so universal about who they are 15-18. Even if they are wizards, they still get scolded, boy-girl troubles are the end of the world, and there is nothing like the burden of an impossible teacher.There is a collectivism among the Hogwarts faculty about the well-being and potential of its students to which I can deeply relate. I am blessed to teach at a similar school, where (on a good day) the students are cared for and taught by a community of committed, concerned adults.

I also watched the movie FAME! this afternoon with my sister, where rockstar kids with performing arts superpowers are loosely coached by famous former FAME stars like Debbie Allen. The teachers in this movie had a strong presence with a tough-love approach, resulting in adoration from their students. These kids, too: romantic blunders, distant parents, struggling to achieve in impossible classes, arbitrary stratification into "cool" kids and gifted "outsiders". I found myself rooting for the kids who come from behind to shine at the end.

Then we watched the season finale for the show Glee from the DVR. If you haven't seen this show, it's about a teacher in a Midwest, ordinary high school who tried to revive the school's glee club. It has the deadpan, unapologetic, absurd humor of the office without the mockumentary style. The teacher gets in his glee club the most ridiculous, rejected kids on campus who at least know they can sing. To the ordinary viewer of this show, those kids look like mutants. To me, they look like the inhabitants of Room 5 at the end of the day and so I love them. At the end, the students sang a song to their teacher "To Sir with Love," and it made everyone cry. People may doubt that students are that grateful for their teacher, or that the teacher was that moved by his students--but this is my world! This is why I approach graduation with a breaking heart.

Channel 13 News every week, it seems, has some horror story about a teacher abusing his or her students--the kind of story that makes the holy task of relational teaching very difficult. These non-fiction accounts of the modern high school setting get it so wrong according to my experience. Teaching isn't about power and abuse - or worst, sex - that might be the "real world", but it isn't teaching. Real teaching, I've found, is cultivating the mind and spirit of extraordinary people through life-changing relationships.

I instruct my students to disregard Hollywood's approach to most things because of the glamorization and romanticizing inherent to film. But in the case of students and teaching and those relationships, there seems to be much more truth in the fiction than anything I've heard about in the "real world".

B is for Basketball

I am writing this as I watch Game 6 of the NBA Finals--cheering for anyone playing the Celtic, as I was instructed to do.

This spring, to the amazement of everyone around me, I learned to follow a sport. Basketball.

It's no secret that I am a stranger to the sports world, and this certainly didn't change that. It's also no secret that I didn't pay attention to basketball for the love of the game.

I was blessed this year to have nearly the entire MVA varsity team in class. They truly are a group of extraordinary men. In class and out of it, they are smart, challenging, funny, and considerate men who made my classes more interesting and enjoyable. I appreciated them as students so much, that appreciation overflowed into one for them as athletes--sort of.

The Junior class fundraisers more or less mandated me to be at every home game--which is fine because I loved cheering for these guys. I just didn't know what I was doing. I loved them, but I had no idea if these guys were playing well or poorly. I could deduce the basics of basketball, sure, but that's not enough to connect with them in, for many of them, their most important place of performance. It felt so strange to care so much about something I knew so little about!

So I did what all teachers (not really) would do in my situation: I made a class project out of my NCAA March Madness brackets. These basketball guys helped me with my bracket picks, and we did a debrief about the previous night's games in the morning. I watched the games with a notebook and would bring in my commentary and questions. Five weeks of this, and I am a basketball Jedi. ( Ok. Maybe Not. But I can now give a decent play-by-play using the right terminology.)

It's true that I live to learn and Basketball gave me a new subject to explore. It is true that I have an uncommon affection for my students in general, and I would have cheered for these terrific guys if they had chosen to be mimes in boxes. And it is true that it's very easy to cheer for a team that enjoyed the success and exposure that ours did this year.

But more than all this, Basketball for me was my Missio Dei. To develop some basketball expertise was to become indigenous to my student culture. I maintain a Facebook and text-message like my life depends on it for the same reason. I even adapt my playlists and learn to love the music they love in order to love my students better.

Basketball became crucial to my scheme of what's called Missional Living.

According to Floyd McClung, former director for Youth with a Mission,

"Missional living is about investing in the lives of other people. It is not a program. It is certainly more than organized outreach activities. Being a missional person means intentionally building bridges to other people – for the sake of them knowing Jesus and discovering what it means to be a fully alive, free human being. It is an attitude that says, "I will invest my life in others for the sake of Christ and his purposes on earth." It means I will live that way in every sphere of life and every day of the week."

And according to Dr. Ed Stetzer and Phillip Nation in their book Compelled by Love,

"In an alliterated sense, missional living is an incarnational (being the presence of Christ in community), indigenous (of the people and culture) and intentional (planning our lives around God's agenda) focus on the power of the Gospel to bring the reign of God into people's lives."

Nation and Stetzer also directed me toward 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 & 18:

"For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; ¹⁵and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer ^C)">live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf... ¹⁸Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation."

I started attending a bible study (of sorts) with my basketball players, and we had open and important conversations about faith and reason and even race and culture (Did I mention most of them were West African?) --the kind of where Jesus shows up and we see a glimpse of eternity. The kind where true reconciliation of race and gender and culture and age and lost and found really begins. I had the privilege of exploring the truth of the Gospel as it applies to all things--even basketball.

And--as a surprise blessing--I am amazed by the power and art of this sport. I can't believe those jump shots go in from 40 feet away. It's exhilarating to see the ball run up the court so fast, and when they catch those passes from half a court away and drive in to the basket with precision and agility--fireworks!

For me, I saw there is church and basketball because there is Mission.

Missio Dei.

Amen.

Teaching Statement of Purpose

Students,

I am here to encourage you in your search for truth or help you begin it;
To refine your capabilities of discernment and expression;
And to challenge your understanding with good-faith information and arguments
presented in a careful, loving way.

You are here to humble me with your talent, strength, and potential;
To refine my capabilities of discernment and expression;
To challenge my understanding with your honest questions
and diverse life experiences;

And to remind me that teaching is a personal, individual,
relational and sacrificial act for the glory of God.

Maps

A student just gave me a pile of maps that came out of some National Geographic magazines. He's Chinese, so I am not sure where he came by ones that were ten years old, but he presented them with a flourish.

"I think you like these," he said.

He has no idea. Maps are some of my very favorite things. My dad got National Geographic for years when I was growing up, and we were allowed to look at the magazines as long we we kept the maps tucked in their correct issue. I was too young to read it, but I would look at the pictures and pore over the maps. I have map of the city of London covering my desk at home and have many of the streets memorized. The maps on the wall of my classroom are not only useful teaching tools, but cosmic verification that I am in my predestined place.

When my parents moved to Florida, they had to dispose of all the magazines with their carefully-filed maps. I remarked to a friend last weekend what a loss this was. Ten years of magazines and maps in the dumpster!

How peculiar that a pile of these maps finds its way to me today.

The Witches of Macbeth

High Points

I was uploading some of my photos from my trip to print, and I found myself amazed at all we saw and did. I have led this trip 4 other times, and none of them were as fulfilling and fruitful as this one. So even though I have been home for a few days, I thought I would blog about the high points, city by city, before I forget them.

Rome:

Out of a dozen days in Rome, these couple were some of the very best. While in Rome, our tour guide through the Vatican took us through the Papal apartments to the Raphael rooms, which included the School of Athens. In front of the painting by Raphael of Plato and Aristotle (and Heraclitus), our guide explained Platonic epistemology to the students in terms they understood. Jen and I also identified some core teaching tendencies in the two of us, and vainly located ourselves in the painting as well. I am Plato, she is Aristotle.

I also saw the Keats and Shelley museum for the first time, which was a treat because I love the Romantics' fascination with Italy. I have often cited Keats as my favorite Romantic, (on my more stable and grounded days I say Wordsworth) and the museum at the spanish steps is the apartment where he died. The museum had a huge stack of first editions, letters, and collected works, as well as a writing desk in the place of Keats. It made me want to write odes.

Florence:

This is usually my favorite stop on the tour with the students because of the relaxed pace. There is also a tour guide there we have had three times on whom I have more than a small crush. It is always a pleasure to see Giovanni again, who taught me how to order a cappucino in Italian, showed me were the Brancacci chapel was for the Massacio frescoes, and this time showed me where to get my tickets for the Uffizi. I had never been able to get tickets to this incredible gallery, where I saw the Renaissance-era work that is my speciality. Unfortunately, they put the most notorious works behind highly protective glass. This is to keep flash photography from ruining the image in the long term, but as you can see with the light reflections, the image is ruined in a different way, anyway! The best part of this museum, though, was the way we went through it. It is a rare thing to have a companion in a gallery who travels as I do. Jen and I bought the same book, read the same information about the paintings we were seeing (in person!) as we went, and then discussed what we read and saw at the same pace! How much more I digested and kept because of this! When I see a piece of art in person, it becomes part of me, and every reproduction of it reminds me of the time I "met" it. I have never in one day "met" and known so many masterpieces, and I'll continually be delighted because these are some of the most reproduced works.

Paris:

The highlight of Paris for me was my world history lesson in the Louvre to about half of my group, including my little sister. I walked them through the Italian painting wing, and taught them about Counter Reformation art, and introduced them to DaVinci (both the Mona Lisa, and Madonna of the Rocks) and the picked up how to identify key figures based on colors and symbols, identifying which ones were divine and which ones were human. I used this for a mini theology lesson on the dual nature of Jesus. Then I took them to the French Neo-classical wing and we examined the propaganda paintings by David for Napoleon and talked about modern media and politica propganda, I used Gericault's Raft of the Medusa to teach compositional fundamentals, and I used The Oath of the Horatii and Winged Victory to teach about neoclassicim and the impact of this intellectual trend on modern democracy, natural rights philosophy, and the extension of art to the masses. At one point, I had a trail of eavesdropping strangers who thought I was giving a tour. My glee was uncontainable.

London:

We had great weather in London, making for really lovely days. I got to tour the students (myself!) around Parliament square, up through Trafalgar Square, through the theatre area to Picadilly Circus, narrating as I went. I pointed out 10 Downing St, and explained Nelson's victory over Napoleon. It was so thrilling to teach my students about my favorite city in the world. My sister said I was insuffereable, but I could not have been more delighted. Another favorite time for me was my walk with Jen along the length of the Strand, my blog's namesake, to Fleet Street. This is a picture of me crossing the Strand. I hadn't walked its full length in ages, and it is a lovely, photogenic walk that lets you commune with the literary saints and pass a free afternoon.

Flesh

I recently picked up The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus by Brennan Manning. I have been hungry for something lately--hungrier than usual and even less satiable. When I was browsing my dad's bookshelves for a commentary on Isaiah (yup... still working on that one), the book triggered some recognition I still can't identify, so I pulled that one too.

At the same time, I have been lately nagged by the phrase "And the Word became Flesh."

I wonder if I don't spend too much time in the theoretical when it comes to Jesus. I can argue my faith, I have made a great context for it again and again in the ideas and events I have encountered in my studies this year. But in all of this reading and research, I have been wrestling with a great sense of practical agnosticism. I know God can, but I don't know if God would for me.

I more than carry that characteristic American pragmatism and self-reliance. Couple that with my dominant image of God as the creator and sustainer of the universe, and I am left with the awareness of God but not seeing how it's supposed to fit with what I see and experience on a much-smaller-than-cosmic scale.

And then I remember Jesus. And I see that I have been forgetting the point at which, according to St. John, the Word became flesh. When I reexamine my day, it is so easy to see why something other than this esoteric cosmic force is needed--I need something to combat the confusion, the fear, the good-byes, the resentment, the worry, and the failure. And I need something big enough to explain the joy and the hope that still runs through all of these things.

So I return to the figure of Jesus, and I find the answers to the fleshiest, most human daily agonies:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matt 11:28-30

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you?...Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. " Matthew 5:26-34

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27

"I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:11-13

" But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you... Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" Matthew 5:27-34

May Poems

El Hombre
William Carlos Williams

It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!

From Al Que Quiere! The Four Seas Company, 1917


MAY

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

CANNOT tell you how it was;
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and breezy day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last eggs had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird forgone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was;
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
With all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and grey.

"May" is reprinted from Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.

Christina Rosetti. London: Macmillan 1879.

My Senior Speech

When I went to England, I went as part of a program that included 20 people from my university. Many of the people in the group were very close, but my day-to-day life didn't really include most of them. I only had a couple of friends with whom I shared my kitchen, and eventually an apartment.

When the program ended, we had a final weekend in Wales and a goodbye-type session. My friends Cassie and Matt played and sang a Bob Dylan song many of us better know to be covered by Lifehouse, "You Belong to Me." ( I wish I had a way to put it on here)

At the closing session, they played the song and I gave the following address. It may seem overly saccharine, but is my closest thing to the thing that is the MVA senior speech:

The next song is called “You belong to me.” Listen to it, and before you let it remind you of Shrek, or Bob Dylan, or a cheesy unfitting love song, let it remind you of what it means to “belong.” When we left, even the bravest, most independent of us was scared. We were scared to leave what we knew, scared to leave those who loved us: we knew we belonged at home. Moving here drowned our sense of belonging in the confusion of our “Foreign Country Syndrome” and… sometimes drowned it in the pub. But look at where we are! Look around you! Look how familiar the faces have become. It goes beyond knowing everyone’s name and major, or what class they teach or to whom they are married. It goes beyond knowing what sport people played in high school or where you are involved at UMD. Those groups to whom we belonged gave us labels and those no longer apply. We are the ones who know best what each of us has become. We have become the travelers like the one mentioned in the song. Look how what was once exotic has become familiar. We know the smell of the Rendezvous chips. We know that a pint in the Manor bar, or Manhole, costs a pound sixty. We know our way up and down Broad Street. Do we remember when calling them chips instead of fries, buying beer by the pint, and going to a black-shoes only clubs sounded so foreign?

We belong in England, and this sense of belonging freed us from fear. We are not afraid to sleep on a train-station floors. We are not afraid to attempt another language. We were not afraid to wander Barcelona, though we probably should have been. And German Beer by the Liter definitely does not intimidate us. We now belong to the exclusive group known as Travelers—not tourists—travelers. These are people who understand HOW to understand other cultures, how to cope with inconvenience, people who see how quickly companions become friends, and who see how to live life as the journey it was meant to be. Everyday here, whether we realized it then, or not, was extraordinary. Every person here, whether we hung out together or not is extraordinary for coming, extraordinary for what they did when they came, and extraordinary for what they have become. The time is coming soon when we will not longer belong in England. We don’t belong to Cassie and matt when they are singing the song, and we won’t belong in our old lives as our old selves. Coming here could have been the hardest thing we ever did, but leaving is about to be harder. Remember that each one of you belongs to us, and with us: you have flown the ocean in a silver plane, and gotten your photographs and souvenirs, but you have also found family in your fellow Travelers.

Students and Teachers and Spring

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985 / England)

Senioritis

I had my last Youth in Government meeting last night with my officers. We selected a new group last night, but more than a step forward, these elections marked my first great loss of this graduating class. This is my first senior goodbye--and I am heartsick. I think maybe I am not supposed to be this bothered by their departure.

This sentiment probably betrays my age. This is my first set of seniors I have known all four years. I even had a few of them, in one form or another, since they were freshman. Furthermore, these four years have been the only four I have ever worked out of school--and ironically it has been in one. Sometimes I notice I have followed the same coming-of-age path in my teaching career--freshman, sophomore, junior, and with my move to MVA, sophomore again. I don't feel I'll reach senior anytime soon, because I will still be in school while they move on.

Last night was the first time I had to come to terms with the fact that these kids--who represent significant time and effort and love and dedication over the last few years--are leaving. I tried to console myself by thinking that my attachment, and therefore sense of loss, was a function of this post-university-in-high school-first-job-ever circumstance. Unfortunately, I don't think this is it.
Perhaps I am missing the protective detachment that comes with experience, but I doubt even that would overcome the affection I have for these students who are going to be great people.

Christina, my secretary-turned-vice-president, is one of the first students I ever had. I taught her first period her freshman year and kept track of her since. She is--truly--always up for anything, and those who follow her are sprinting to keep up. She has this insurmountable enthusiasm which blazes through the most boring tasks. Combined with her startling ferocity, her sense of humor makes participants out of the most unwilling. If anyone needs a cold glass of truth thrown in his face, it will likely come from her.

Casey, my chapter president, is an extraordinary young woman. She has this deep conviction to her principles and an unwavering moral compass. She speaks directly and truthfully (if not a little painfully sometimes) but her relationships are marked by a tender loyalty. I have met few people who understand as well how to be a true servant leader. She leads like Jesus did--really--where she makes friends and family out of her followers and makes serving them more important than any preservation of power. When I watch her work, I am so proud of her.

I am looking forward to training a new set of officers, because like Legos, the act of building something is more meaningful than the thing itself. But I can't picture what Youth in Government will be without these girls who have been my whole experience.

Likewise, what will I do when some of my most precious seniors graduate from MVA? Heavier than the weight of normal goodbyes is the loss of those people who have defined my whole experience here. My time has been short, sure, but it has been my whole time.

I keep thinking that this is only a microscopic version of what parents must feel, which gives me a great appreciation for those people who found themselves signed up for that.

The Parable of the Talents

14"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15To one he gave five talents[a] of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

19"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'

21"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

22"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'

23"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

24"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

26"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

28" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Footnotes: Matthew 25:15 A talent was worth more than a thousand dollars.

I am FURIOUS about the reaction of the so-called "AP kids" today.

• I am NOT furious because another adult squandered a class to which I could have felt entitled.
• I am NOT furious that preparation for this class and these kids which won't be used strongly dominated a much-needed break
• I am NOT furious that the administration did not feel the same compulsion I do to beat students into being better versions of themselves.

I am FURIOUS because of the squandered talent. Those kids were given five "talents."

1. They are given a second chance to redeem wasted time.
2. They are given nearly one-on-one tutoring by a dedicated, qualified person.
3. They are given every curricular advantage--even with the wasted time, what they have already actually used is double the national average
4. They are given detailed instructions with crystal clear expectations and an endpoint to the work in sight
5. They have the privilege of an administration who cares first for their success and makes special arrangements (at great expense) on the students' behalf.

These children did not just bury talents to be handed back. They threw them in the lake. It was not an unjust master they feared, it was the inconvenience.

I don't think the master's reaction is unjustified--the only way to address this cancer of character is to "throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

If only I could recommend that instead of "Demerits" on some official form.

Driving Thoughts III

• On my way home, I was listening to Manchester Orchestra. I marveled at the originality of composition. These are new melodies and new sets of words that come from a perfectly ordinary person. (I know, because I met him and many like him.) For someone who loves art as much as I do, I often take for granted the miracle of artistic creation. What an extraordinary thing to make something beautiful and sophisticated from nearly nothing!
  
  
• I really hate when I make punctuation mistakes on my blog.
  
  
• I hate Florida. It is an ugly, cultural wasteland--or so I whine--but I love my job. In an irritating moment of truth, a friend pointed out to me that I don't get Montverde Academy without Florida. Furthermore, I suspect I wouldn't appreciate my job so much if I didn't hate Florida as much as I do. If I hadn't come from a horrible administration, would I really appreciate mine so much? If I hadn't had the anti-students, would I really be as glad for the sometimes-mediocre set I have now? If my artistic well weren't so dry, would I really enjoy all that I read and learn at school so much? It seems pretty unlikely. It's really a delightful thing to be aware of one's gratitude. Gratitude begets joy. I just don't really think I'd select for myself the progression of misery->gratitude-> joy.
  

On Religious Tolerance

A former student of mine is Iranian, and she went home for Christmas. She came back frustrated because she had a lousy time, and I suggested that might have been because the "Spring Break" series never actually made it to Tehran.

She replied, "Actually, summer is the best time to go, and we party all the time. My cousins use heroine, and all they have to do is go to rehab--it's not even a really big deal. They pretty much let you do whatever you want in Iran, as long as they can't see your hair. I don't know why it matters, because I am more of an American, and everyone there can tell. Even the taxi drivers know, so they all tell me about Jesus. It is wierdest thing."

"Is that because they know you won't turn them in?"

"No. You can be a Christian in Iran. You drive past a mosque next to a Catholic church. I think there are even Jews in Iran, even though I've never seen one. They don't really care what religion you are... as long as you're not Sunni.

What I got in trouble for most, though, was my boots. Apparently they came too far up my calf to be decent. What doesn't make sense to me, is that I was getting in trouble for covering more of my legs. My grandmother and Iranian family want to cart me off out of shame. In Iran, they call me a 'spinster,' except this Iranian word for women like me literally means 'milk gone sour.' I'm tainted because of my boots."

"Your parents don't care about this?"

"No. It could be that I have the Iranian version of the hippie-liberal-green-party parents."

"But you were one of my most conservative students in our politics class!"

"Maybe," she replied, "but you have to consdider the rest of our family."

Life Lessons #2

This weekend, a few more life lessons came to light:

9. If ever offered the chance to meet "his friend Bobo," always DECLINE--more than once, if you have to.

10. Tatoos are no substitute for clothing.

11. When it comes to 1000 Places to See Before You Die, it is important to remember that BIKETOBERFEST is NOT on the list.

12. Driving is a lot like Mariokart Racing: Only after a collision, you don't just spin around and get dizzy; you wind up in the hospital and have to pay thousands of dollars.

13. If you consistently fail quizzes and you feel newly inspired to cheat, start small. Teachers find perfect scores suspect when a series of "F"s ends in a sudden "A". They will find you out.