Rest: An Advent Meditation

What would it be like to truly be at rest? To have that spinning hamster wheel of worry in our brains go still; to have the inbox empty, the to-do list deleted, the cacophony of all our electronica—the cell phones, the blackberries, the iPads, the netbooks—go quiet, no need to answer any calls or respond to any questions or be sent into any new eddy of crisis; to not be in conflict with those we work with, or those we live with, or those we avoid at any cost and yet are never quite free of.
To not feel tired.

To know our needs are known; to know our needs are met; to be fully alive in the moment we are in right now; to just be.

Such an art, such a power, such a grace, eludes us. Even with all our advancements and all of our knowledge, it is always just beyond reach—that oasis of rest, that dream in the desert, evaporating in the onslaught of our effort.

If only we could remember that true rest, deep rest, the rest of peace, the rest that knits the raveled sleeve of care, comes only as a gift from God. The God who offers us the shelter of his wings. The God who bids us cease striving and know that he is God. The God who is above all, in all, through all for all time. The God who enables us to be because he is.

Let us go to him, we who labor and are heavy laden, and he will give us rest.

Diary of an English Teacher

So once again I've gone for ages without posting anything here, which is partly because I've been clobbered by the start of another school year, but also because I've been writing about my school year thus far and posting it somewhere else.  I've tried this before, only to lose steam after the first few weeks, so I'm a little apprehensive about trying (and failing) again.  People have been telling me for years that I need to write about my teaching experiences, which seems like an easy thing for someone who is A) an English teacher and B) claims to be a writer of some sort.  But it's actually really hard for me to do and I have to fight a very strong reluctance each time I sit down to write about my job.  Maybe that's because it takes so much out of me as it is that I need some space from it--I need some chunk of my life to have absolutely nothing to do with teaching.  At the same time, though, I realize that it would be plain stupid for me not to ever write about and record some of the wonderful and awful craziness of my job, so I'm giving it another go.  If you'd like to have access to this blog, shoot me an e-mail so I can "invite" you.  It's a password protected site for obvious reasons...

A Little Movie Love (with no spoilers)

As many sources have acknowledged, this has not been a great season for movies. Yes, The A-Team was all kinds of fun with its over-the-top action and winks at the original television series (who knew I would feel such nostalgia for Mr. T and his van?). But I really have to struggle to remember any other movie I’ve seen in the past three months even though I know I’ve seen several—they have all been that forgettable. That’s not even counting the numerous weeks I’d take a look at what was playing and not see a single title I was interested in.

But all of those “meh” feelings evaporated yesterday when I went with some friends to see Inception, which actually deserves the term film and has restored my faith in Hollywood’s ability to produce something with imagination and quality. This is not to say that the film is perfect. The story got a bit muddled at times, and I thought Ellen Page was miscast (I would have preferred someone like Carrie Mulligan—see An Education if you haven’t already, which is another excellent film). However, these are minor quibbles, and whatever flaws I noticed quickly receded as I was drawn completely into this other world. The theater was literally packed—it was a Sunday matinee and every seat was filled—and yet the grip of Inception was so intense and so complete that it was the quietest movie audience I have ever experienced. If it were physiologically possible, I could have sworn we all held our breath for 2 ½ hours.

The visuals were stunning, a reminder that not every movie has to be in that overhyped commodity 3-D to have a dramatic impact. The score powerfully enhanced the atmosphere and tone (holla, Hans Zimmer!). The high concept challenged and provoked my intellect and imagination (see, Hollywood? It’s okay not to spoon-feed a giant bowl of Obvious to your audiences!), and yet it was grounded in real emotion and heart. All the elaborate sets and balletic action scenes were threaded together—much like the dreamers were threaded together—by the pull of family love and the struggle to come to terms with relationships desperately longed for and just out of reach. At the end of the film, the entire audience let out a very audible vocalization, and I saw my own dazed expression reflected in the faces of others as we exited the theater and woke up from the dream we had all just experienced together, courtesy of architect Christopher Nolan.

I’m sure I’ll think of other things to appreciate about Inception in the days to come because it’s that kind of film—the one you revisit and turn over and sift through in your mind for days and even weeks after. One thing’s for certain—I won’t be forgetting it any time soon.

Student Bloopers 2010

I was recently reminded that I never posted the latest round of student bloopers from this past year. I am remedying this at once since an opportunity to laugh at today's youth should never go by unexploited.

Quiz excerpts--
Q: What might you expect to see if you were to go to France?
A: The Awful Tower

Q: During the Renaissance, what did scholars do in reaction to what they saw as the "dark ages" in medieval Europe?
A: Went to Canada

Q: What does Jem do to Mrs. Dubose?
A: He destroys her bushes with a bottom [student meant baton]

Q: What are two items that Jem and Scout find in the oak tree on the Radley property?
A: lucky penis [student was trying for "pennies"] and a wach

Quotes from student essays:

"He was a know body sailor."

"Fair is fowl, and fowl is fair."

"We have the right to bare arms."

"Maybe, if she knew that he would die in the Battle of Somme, she would've given him her vowels, as in, she'd have married him."

"Beatrice is a very analistic character."

"I think courage can also be that when someone is in the heat of the moment, they won't hesitate to think twice. For example, when someone needs to jump over something like a tall building in order to live to see another day."

"They need to have adaptations so they can evolutionate."

"They enjoyed cruising along the busy streets in that shinny silver Honda, feeling that nice genital breeze hit their faces."


Overheard conversation between two students:
"What does speculate mean?" "Isn't that something they do to your house?"

Two-Wheeled Time Machine

I have something of a mixed history when it comes to bikes. As a child, I loved them. I learned to ride on a little green bike that was a hand-me-down from my brother, then graduated to a sweet red and chrome number that had a long, cushy banana seat covered in a cherry red patent leather that shone with sparkles. It also had a metal ring in the back that served as a hand hold for any passenger sitting behind me or hitching a ride on roller skates. As my early 80s childhood self would have said, riding around on that thing was totally rad.

Fast forward to junior high, when I inherited a brown wobbly ten-speed, again from my older brother. I could barely touch the ground with my tip-toes on this bike, and only at a tilt (hence the wobbling), and its skinny wheels seemed especially designed to get caught in ruts in the road. It was this bike that sent me flying onto the concrete on my way to seventh grade one morning, causing me to snap both bones in my left forearm. Needless to say, this bike and I were not friends after that. I had to ride it for another couple years but managed to express my displeasure towards it in passive aggressive ways like accepting rides home from friends who had car transport and leaving it overnight in the bike racks. By the tenth grade, I felt myself to be too sophisticated to ride a bike to school and opted for the much cooler method of walking (first with a backpack, then upgrading to carrying my notebook and textbooks in front of me) and bumming rides whenever I could. Somehow, that transition stuck, and I went bike-less for the next two decades.

This past April, when I was visiting my oldest brother and his family in Michigan, my sister-in-law suggested I try a ride with my oldest niece, Gigi. They had bought a yellow tandem Schwinn through Craig’s List the year before so that my niece Emmie, who is blind, could ride with the rest of the family. Turns out that tandem bikes work well for out-of-practice chicken Aunties too. I climbed behind Gigi full of trepidation, but as we pedaled down the road and began to gain some momentum, I felt a bubble of glee rise up in my chest. With Gigi up front controlling the steering and braking, all I had to do was pedal and enjoy the ride. And an enjoyable ride it was. My brother lives in a quiet, semi-rural community, and the flat, gently winding roads afforded vistas of green trees and quaint vacation cottages. As I pedaled in rhythm with my niece, I began to feel the pleasure of our movement and the wind blowing my hair back, and I remembered once again that riding a bike is fun!

Fast forward to Memorial Day weekend, and a friend and I taking advantage of a two-for-one bike sale. I am now the proud owner of a red and black 3-speed cruiser, and it’s had a transformative effect on me. Namely, it’s made me into a kid again. I’ve taken to asking all of my friends whether or not they have bikes and when we can go riding. I talked about it so much at school that some of my students wrote “have fun riding your bike” in my scrapbook at the end of the year. I don’t know what it is, exactly, that makes it so magical for me. Maybe it’s the slower pace and being able to see aspects of my neighborhood and neighbors that I’ve never noticed before driving in my car. Maybe it’s the lack of definite purpose when I ride. Maybe it’s just the rolling joy of motion. But maybe it’s because I can tell that the people who see me cruising by with a big grin on my face are jealous. Because let’s face it—my bike is pretty rad. Just ask the kid who challenged me to a race earlier this evening.

On (not) Being a Writer

From the look of things, it seems as though I haven’t been doing much writing in the last few months, and there is some partial truth to that. The part that’s not true is that I was taking an online poetry class and writing a poem every week for ten weeks. So why haven’t I posted any of these poems? Well, partway through the class, I learned that posting poems on a blog—even if it’s a personal blog that only your family and closest friends read (and only when they are reminded to…repeatedly)—is considered publication, and a number of literary journals and poetry websites will not accept previously published material. So from now on, any poem I might ever want to submit for publication has to stay private.

The part that is true about my not doing much writing is due to the fact that I’ve been spending some time doing research on the whole publication process, and as I send out query letters for my novel manuscript and research potential places I can submit my poetry, I can’t help wondering about something. In an echo of that age old tree-in-the-forest question, if what I write is never published, am I still a writer? Part of me feels like the answer is no. I might be an aspiring writer but I am not a “real” writer because being a “real” writer means getting put into print by someone other than yourself—preferably by a complete stranger who might not even like you very much but thinks your material is good enough to be seen by other people even in spite of the fact that they might not like you very much.

I don’t think I’m alone in this way of thinking. I seldom mention to people that I’ve written a novel because what tends to happen after their initial exclamations of admiration and excitement is that they will immediately ask, “Is it getting published?” And in the weeks and months after that come follow-up questions like, “Any progress on the novel? Have you found an agent yet?” which I’ve discovered is a question I like just about as much as “Are you dating anyone?” These are not unreasonable questions, and in my more rational and detached moments I can recognize that people typically ask this out of genuine caring. They’re rooting for me. But in my prickly, more defensive moments, answering those questions can make me feel like a big fat loser. No, I am not anywhere close to being published, no I am not dating anyone, and yes, five years from now I’ll be knitting tea cozies while sitting on the couch with my eighty-five cats even though I don’t know how to knit and am allergic to cats, thank you very much.

I’ve read published authors who say that publication really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and that the actual writing is what matters, and even though some of these authors are ones I greatly admire, I still think yeah, right. Easy for you to say, being a published writer. Turns out they might actually be right. I’ve noticed in the past couple months that the more time I spend researching and working towards publication and the less I spend actually writing, the more depressed and doubtful I become. Some of the happiest months of my life in the past two years were the ones where I was fully immersed in writing my novel without any concern about it other than the characters and the story. I’ve also noticed that the longer I go without writing, the harder it is to get started again. I’ve thought about writing this post for the past week, but somehow there was always something else to do, and then another, and then whoops! the day was suddenly over and it got pushed to the next day. Just now, before I finally forced myself to sit down and type, I found it necessary to eat not just one, but two popsicles while watching a discussion on ESPN about the World Cup. This might seem like a reasonable thing for other people, but if you know me, the thought of my watching ESPN in any circumstance is a bit of a stretch, if not an outright cause for hilarity.

I came across a quote recently that said something to the effect that we are what we do on a regular basis. For a good chunk of the past few weeks, I’ve been a housecleaner, sleeper, eater, magazine reader, TV watcher, Target shopper, and phone talker. I’ve also been a sad sack of a worrier who’s been depressed and anxious about not being published and the thought of maybe never being published. But, I am happy to report, as of the past 40 minutes, I am once again a writer.

Explanation

I was asked by my church to write some pieces for our Holy Week services, which are posted below and will be used, respectively, for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. My friend Jani also wrote a poem inspired by her meditation on the season, which she has been gracious enough to give me permission to post here. The final poem in this “collection” was not one I wrote for use in any service but is more of a personal reflection on Easter and what it is I am celebrating. May you all find your own moments of reflection in the midst of busy lives to remember and be mindful of this weekend and its significance.