Transitions

   Life is full of transitions.  Some we expect and some we are thrown into. It's funny how they work- one moment you are here and the next you are suddenly moving to there. There, and the journey to that destination, can be clearly defined and planned for. Other times, it's one unknown step-into-the- dark at a time. Any number of emotions can accompany such times, but one thing is certain. It is at such junctures that the faith we ascribe to, talk about, proclaim, and even teach, takes center stage. Like Job, we are faced with the challenge of learning that what we had heard before must now become what we see (Job 42:5).
   Sometimes the transitions come in a start-and-stop way, kicking us out of what "was", but leaving us dangling before the "what will be".  I've heard this place referred to as a threshold, which I find so fitting. The place between rooms where you have stepped out of the one, but not yet entered the next. The in between, the place of waiting, a place not always enjoyable to be in, but always God's purposeful place of work. Undoing, repair, preparation, and even rest.  Trusting God to know what He's doing, what we need, how to get us there, and that this good God really is good and full of love for us.  
   Oswald Chambers describes this kind of faith perfectly, in his commentary on Abraham's "going out, not knowing where he was going" (Heb 11:8). "Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us “go.” When my focus is there, not on the circumstances around me, or the transition, where I've been or where I'm headed, but on the One who is in control (and has been all along), it is then I know His rest.

 

Reflections on literacy

   Literacy has always been a word that triggers thoughts of libraries, books, and people learning to read. And rightly so...in the world I grew up in. But things have changed, and today literacy has taken on an entirely new meaning, a whole world of meaning, in fact. Literacy encompasses discovery, learning, and proficiency in countless genres.  From print to audio to any number of visual images, literacy could be defined as "the communicated word in any area of life". "Being literate" involves our understanding and mastering any of these various forms of communication, and thereby being able to speak that genre's "language". Looking at literacy through this lens makes life suddenly full of stories and messages and thoughts, coming from every direction and at any minute, waiting to be heard, discovered, and understood by us.
   The thrill of this "new literacy" is that it opens up a conversation between us and the world around us.  It also frees us to communicate in the ways that most speak to us, and challenges us to attempt those that don't.  It encourages us to be adventurous, even daring, and allows us to explore undiscovered areas of creativity.  I have found this metamorphosis in my own view of literacy this semester to be almost exhilarating, like discovering an old box of forgotten childhood treasures.  This literacy goes far beyond taking a book to the doctor's office waiting room, or even a tablet with a Kindle app on an airplane.  It urges me to look everywhere to see what is being communicated to me, and then to look again, deeper.  It invites me to consider how I will then respond, and how I can share this with others. It declares my competence to be literate, in ways I never considered before, giving me new confidence.
   It is this view of literacy that I take with me into the secondary classroom, and want to teach to my students.  Particularly as a middle school ELA teacher, I want my students to discover, as I have, that being literate means far more than what is contained in the middle school ELA TEKS. I want to help them see that literacy is learning to have that conversation with their world, and then sharing that with others.

Food Through the Years

Waking up Sunday mornings to garlic. Mom, up early, making spaghetti, or roast and gravy, to be ready after church.

Coming home after school to Mom's ice box cookies, drizzled with glaze, perfect with milk.

Sitting in lawn chairs on the driveway,

inhaling the aroma of Dad's famous grilled chicken.

Peeking over the giant vat of boiling water as Grandpa stirred the crawfish.

Dipping the ladle in sparkling Christmas punch, to be sipped from my sister's delicate glass cups.

Baking Pillsbury cookie dough, to be eaten while we read, minds captured with the latest adventure.

Sipping coffee in the early quiet, as God prepares me for the day.

Stepping Back in Time

It's often said "You can't go back", and generally speaking, this is true.  But every once in a while it happens, like an unexpected gift, where we seem to enter a time portal that propels us back to a place or experience from long ago and we are suddenly seeing, smelling, tasting, and experiencing the past right here in the present.

This happened to me Friday night. I grew up in a Catholic home and we were very involved in our local Catholic parish.  I have wonderful memories of both religious and social events at the church, and most of our family friends were also members there.  One of my favorite times of the year was Lent, especially the Friday night fish fries.  The community center packed out with families devouring plates piled high with delicious crispy catfish, fried right there by the Knights of Columbus. There was laughter and music and kids running all over and lots of food.

Though I no longer attend a Catholic church, I occasionally visit events at my parents' parish and Friday night I accompanied them to their fish fry.  I walked in and was suddenly ten years old again.  Though it was a different church and unfamiliar faces, the laughter, music, and mounds of food, including slices of home-baked desserts, were just the same. We ate and talked and relaxed and ate more, our souls being nourished at the same time as our bodies.  I was reluctant to leave at the end of the evening, but grateful for the reminder that as much as the world and our lives change, some things stay the same, most of God Himself. And, of course, that amazing Lenten catfish.

Everything is better in small towns...and with family

   While I have always been a big-city girl, nothing seems to be as enjoyable as time spent in a small town.  That time is always accompanied by family, which also makes everything better, so whether the chicken came first or the egg I do not know, but I suspect they go hand-in hand.
   A few weeks ago, on a beautiful Saturday morning, a couple of my kids and I, along with my parents, were strolling through quaintly restored downtown Bryan, TX, headed toward the farmers' market.  There, the farmers' market is the real deal.  Rather than a cool hipster hang out, actual farmers bring in home-grown goods from real farms in old Ford pick up trucks. Everything about it oozes authenticity.  Somewhere on the 100 yard walk from our car to the canopies of fresh produce, flowers, herbs and honey, someone mentioned being hungry.  Mind you, breakfast was only an hour or so in the past, but we have a family tradition on trips of any length or location, that we must make food stops about once an hour.  So, it made sense to everyone to turn around and look for some cute local place for a bite.
   My middle daughter, who's in school there and frequents the charming establishments in that district, immediately suggested a new kolache shop nearby.  We did not need to be convinced.  In a few minutes we entered a tiny little bakery with still-sparkling pine trim and stained concrete floors, and an intoxicating aroma of freshly baked breads, kolaches, and cinnamon rolls. As we stared through the glass case at the mouth watering choices, I'm pretty sure I heard multiple murmurings of, "Just give me one of everything".  My dad proceeded to order almost that much, along with hot cups of coffee, and soon our 2nd breakfast was being devoured.
   I lost track of all the times someone said, "These are seriously the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had", but the truth is, they just were. The perfect amount of cinnamon and sugar, pecans and glaze. Light and flaky. Melted in your mouth. Amazing.
   Or... was it the cute shop? Or the picturesque town? The perfect crisp, early spring day? The farmers' market? The small town? Or being with family? Probably, all of the above.  But I will definitely be returning regardless of the weather, and by myself if need be, and I can test that hypothesis while indulging in another one of those cinnamon rolls.

Thinking and Reading

There's so much discussion about reading comprehension, and rightfully so.  We want students to be able to understand and synthesize what they are reading so they can both do well in school and enjoy what they are learning.  Comprehension is critical to students learning and to their success.  Yet to stop there with our goals for their literacy is to do them a huge disservice.  A lifelong disservice, in fact.

When I look up "think" in my favorite dictionary - the American Heritage 2nd College Edition from 1982 - I find a surprising array of definitions and synonyms, including: to reason, ponder; to formulate in the mind; to reflect; to judge; to believe; to hope or expect; to remember; to visualize or imagine. When you take all these words and put them into the context of reading, you begin to see the much bigger purpose reading can and is intended to play in our lives.

I once had someone, who didn't see much purpose in reading, say to me, "If you would stop reading all those books and just pay attention around you, you'd probably learn a lot more."  What this person didn't realize is that books are an incredible source of learning.  When we combine our reading with thinking, we are challenged, encouraged, entertained, taught, questioned, inspired, refreshed, and become more of who we were made to be.  Reading, when allowed, changes us.  That change can be for the better or worse.  So our thinking has to begin before we start to read, during the selection process.  And it has to continue after, so that the text is given time to do more than just plant seeds, but to germinate, take root and grow, in the hopes that it will eventually bear good fruit.

Comprehension, Communication and Choice.

   I've often heard it said through the years that reading unlocks doors, opens up new worlds and worlds of opportunity, and other expressions like these.  It's interesting, however, that for so many children, reading itself must first be accessed.  For the students in the case studies we read about, they thankfully had parents who intervened when this was not happening.  It's a reminder to me that I must be committed to staying in communication with my parents and doing everything I can to create an atmosphere where they are comfortable approaching me as well.  A child's education is truly most successful when it is a complete triad of effort: the student, the teacher, and the parents. Everyone involved has a unique and invaluable vantage point, and understanding this with appreciation and humility can clear the way for the child to succeed while catching potential problems early.
   
   For the student, critical keys are freedom to choose and pursue areas of interest while having the tools to understand and process what they are reading.  Teachers are pivotal in assuring that both of these are made available to the students.  Being aware, in touch, and willing to listen, though requiring extra effort and energy, guarantee students have the opportunity to thrive.  Moreover, this communicates to a child that his teacher cares, not just about his getting good grades or test scores, but about him, and that his interests and needs matter.  Students who know they are cared for want to try for that teacher and for themselves.  This type of caring strengthens not just reading skills, but the student's confidence and self-esteem, which has far-reaching effects beyond the classroom.

I've been thinking more about reading and rest.  I have several books currently "in process" (typical), strategically stationed at different places throughout my day, where they carefully fulfill a specific purpose for specific times.  As I was reading my just-before-I-turn-off-the-lights book last night, currently a book on mothering by Angela Thomas Phar, I was struck by a quote she uses by Amy Carmichael that says, "In acceptance lieth peace." Angela Pharr follows up this quote with the comment, "What a perfect description of rest."  As I pondered that for a few minutes, I realized how perfectly that describes reading.  Regardless of the book- spiritual, leisure, informative, cooking, educational,etc.- just the very act of sitting down to read demands acceptance of however things are at that moment in my own world, in order to turn my attention to the words on the page and enter the world the author has created. In this letting go is peace.

I find this peace in every literary step I take through the day  From my Bible and devotional when I wake up that refreshes and equips, to the book I mentioned earlier at bedtime.  I am even discovering in my first endeavor into audio books that listening to The Shallows, What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, provides a peaceful ride through Houston traffic to work in the morning.  Even having to sit down in order to catch up on class readings, with an out-of-control to-do list pressing on me like a merciless taskmaster, is restful because the priority of school forces other things aside and I must focus.

Finally, there's the joyful rest I've enjoyed through Wonder. Not only is this book a delight to read, but the very story of Augie is one of acceptance and rest.  Augie is faced with unimaginable challenge that may change, but will not end, yet embodies acceptance of these and so lives a life that overflows with kindness and courage and peace.

It's an amazing thing that we can learn so much from books, both from what they offer inside their pages as well as in their very existence in our lives.

How does literacy provide rest? I am being reminded that throughout my life literacy has, in fact, been a direct avenue to finding rest.  This has been especially true when rest has been most elusive, whether from circumstances or just my own frame of mind.

To sit down (just that by itself!) with a good book in a favorite chair, or outside on the patio with a breeze blowing, near the fireplace in the winter, or under crisp sheets at bed time, is always a giant exhale for me.  With life and family and responsibilities running at what feels like a million miles a minute, to stop and enter another world through the pages of a book, is to immerse myself in rest. Certain books certainly do this more readily than others, but any book is a diversion, a veering off the beaten path, to the unexplored and new discovery of whatever lies down that road.  Just like exploring small towns along the way on a summer road trip, a pause with a book at any time of day   refreshes and leaves us changed.

Writing, too, provides it's own unique rest.  While reading provides this through what we discover and take in, writing does so by what we discover within and give out.  For me, that has been through creative writing, reflective writing, spiritual writing, relational writing, and even sporadic attempts at poetic writing.  When life has been difficult or a relationship particularly challenging or hurtful, it's easy to feel stuck, especially when emotions are deeply engaged or running high.  Getting these feelings and thoughts out on paper (or a screen) is often an effective way to dislodge the obstruction so thoughts can run freely again.  It is a tool of release and a freeing from what can be binding.

Our own literacy stories offer rest by providing a record of where we've been, how we've grown or changed, and how far we've come. As we look back over past books read or peruse old letters or journals, we can discover peace and encouragement to face whatever is in front of us thanks to reminders of what is behind.

What exactly is "rest"?

I'm not sure how we got to 2017, but here we are, and God's been telling me to rest... Rest...Rest? Who has time to rest?

Rest is an elusive thing and seems to carry with it the connotation of being lazy or idle.  Yet the dictionary defines rest as,"The act or state of ceasing from work, activity, or motion; quiet." While laziness encompasses the idea of an unwillingness to do anything, rest requires the will. To truly rest, we must decide and follow through with letting go, stopping, or ceasing.

The Bible has even more to say about this, with God going so far as to tell us that to enter His rest, we must choose to trust. That the existence of unbelief blocks us from experiencing the rest He has for each of us. So the key to unlock this door is faith.

God says He wants us to know rest, but we must "be still" or"cease striving" and let Him be in control, according to His plan and His time. Life isn't meant to be a long road of striving and exhaustion. When responsibilities, or troubles, or just life piles up, we naturally try harder and work more, but we, also, too often, assume the belief that it's up to us to make sure it all turns out well. Yet, more often than not, we really have very little to do with that.

 Jesus invites us to come to Him and find rest for our weary souls. He's so aware that this world isn't the way He intends it to be and that it is exhausting.   That our hearts weren't meant for this.  But that, in Him, it can be different.  In Him all things are made new.

God wants us to be faithful, to trust Him, and then to rest in the stillness of His all-sufficient power and love and faithfulness.





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