Wordpress on the Blink

I have a blog with Wordpress dedicated to chronicling my experiences as a teacher of English to children of immigrants, but I can't seem to get it to load today and I've just got to share this story, so here goes.

I often take my second-graders out to the playground with Ms. K's class. Our principal is against recess and still hasn't approved a schedule, but we've been going based on last year's schedule anyway. Two rebels with a cause.

I love watching my students have a blast chasing and being chased, using English in a natural, non-contrived setting. Ms. K and I sit together on a bench and manage about 3 exchanges of conversation in between all the kids running up to tell us things. My ESL kids mostly just want to talk to me, but Ms. K's kids mostly run up to tattle.

"Ms. K! Jaquez had hit me!" 'Ms. K! Jamario be saying bad words!" "Ms. K! Koneshia had pulled my hair!" You've never seen such righteous indignation. I just watch in amazement as these seven year olds make their accusations and express their own innocence with such vehemence. It's really quite funny.

"They're just like Bon-Qui-Qui," I said to Ms. K after one little girl stood before us, hands on her hips, her eyes flashing, voice at full volume, her head punctuating every indignity she'd experienced. Ms. K listens, then dismisses her with a wave of her hand, "Go play."

I comment that it seems like kindergarten teachers spend most of their day getting the kids to line up and the second-grade teachers spend their time listening to tattling.

She agreed that this year her class is terrible about tattling. I asked her if she'd ever heard of the Tattle Box, where instead of letting them tell you their complaints, they have to write them on slips of paper. Presumably, having to write it down cuts down on the tattling. She had, but had never tried one; then said, "I'm bringing one tomorrow."

The next day, she popped in to show me her box, a large shoebox covered in blue, labeled The Tattlebox. "We're starting today."

Three hours later, lunchtime, she popped back in with box in hand, "Look at this."

She took off the lid and the box was literally overflowing with white slips.

We laughed together and agreed that at least they're getting a lot of writing done.

I Love Language

Just a couple of snippets from the colorful language in my life:

The other day my mother offered me some Wendy's coupons. I said, "No thanks, I don't ever go to Wendy's. It's not any good."

She tried again: "June said the food's a lot better now because Arby's is out of there and they've got all new meat now."

"What has Arby's got to do with it?" I ask patiently. My mom, now 80, tends to cut and splice sentences like India does electrical wires.

"Well, Wendy's used to be in kahoots with Arby's and they were really dragging them down but now they got rid of Arby's and everything's better now."

_______________________________

Ever since Steve Jobs died, my Mac's home page has displayed his picture resulting in my students seeing him projected on my Smartboard in between activities. I briefly explained who he was to my first graders when they asked, not thinking much at all would register.

Yesterday my computer shut down in the middle of an activity with the first graders, so I shut off the projector, explaining that my computer was broken.

Julio, my rockstar student who doesn't miss anything, said, "You no can get it fixed because the man he died?"

Still Singing

Today in church my seat gave me a limited view of the choir. From where I was sitting I could see only four women, two behind two in the loft, on the end. As I watched them sing, they became to me a portrait of beauty. Each has suffered and yet all four have risen above sometimes desperate circumstances to sing praises of joy to the God they love, and they appeared to me as women dearly loved by Someone, noticeably, evidently loved.

Widowed, divorced, abused, spurned, bereft, betrayed. These women have lived through various hells not of their own making and have experienced enough suffering to derail their faith, and yet there they were, singing to an invisible Person Who gives them visible joy.

They made me glad today.

They made me believe.

Thanks, ladies.

The Paw of the Lion, the Bear (1st Samuel 17:37)

Just before David stepped out to meet Goliath, he told Saul that the God who had saved him from the paws of lions and bears would save him from the hand of this Philistine. Lions. Bears. Claws. Fangs. Roars. Growls. Noises in the night portending danger. These were the stories of occupational hazards. These were the stories of God's deliverance.

I want God's deliverance to mean I don't ever encounter any lions or bears. I want the promise that God will be with me to mean I don't really need God to be with me. I want the promise to mean Natalie and Aaron arrive safely and comfortably in Afghanistan. I want the promise to mean all kinds of things EXCEPT flesh and blood encounters with enemies, with danger, cold, fear, loneliness, loss, pain. For myself and for those I love.

But, if God had kept the bears and lions away; if He'd drawn a radius of protection around David such that trouble never actually troubled him, then what? Likely David wouldn't have known that God had saved him, wouldn't have been able to look Goliath in the face and say with confidence, "He did it before; He'll do it again."

Why I Go to Church

All wrapped up in a sense of well-being in church today, looking out on the somewhat sparse crowd from the vantage point of the balcony, I thought about why I go to church. Not all the Biblical reasons I could recite, but the nuts-and-bolts, "for me" reasons. Plain and simple. Here goes:

1. I have been going to church. Present Perfect Continuous: An action that began in the past and continues to the present, possibly the most powerful verb tense. Ever since Jesus caught my eye in the late 70's, I've been going to church.

2. Music: Somehow when I sing, when I hear and see others sing and play instruments, when the entire assembly is making something beautiful and transcendent, I find it hard to believe this:

3. People. I go because I want to see people I love, people I know, people I want to know. I want to be around people who've cast their lots as I have.

4. To be reminded. I need to hear the gospel again and again, to hear it said differently, to hear how it matters, how it looks to be a person of the gospel.

5. Beauty. Sometimes I see beauty, and when I do, I worship.

6. Where else? I say, like Peter when Jesus asked him if he wanted to leave, too, "Where would I go? You have the Words of Life."

A Kettle Corn Recipe That Works..at last!

After having kettle corn for the first time a couple of years ago, finding it as irresistible as the White Witch's Turkish Delight, I came home and started trying to make it. The carnival guys wear protective gear, stand over a pot big enough for a witch's brew and stir the oil, corn, and sugar over an open flame. My first attempts sent me looking in the garage for the face mask my husband has for welding and some armpit length rubber gloves for...birthing cows or horses maybe? Both the popcorn and myself got burned. Anyway, I failed to make anything like kettlecorn. I tried some tamed-down version where you shake confectioner's sugar over freshly popped corn, but it strangely tasted like confection's sugar shaken over popcorn. And no, microwave popcorn of any variety won't do. I hadn't tried again until the other day when my several attempts produced a flesh wound and more burnt popcorn, but...hidden like treasure were just a few pieces that tasted right: crispy, salty, sweet. Just enough to ignite the craving again, to search the internet for one more recipe.

I did it! Here's how:

First, I halved the typical recipe because I've never been able to keep the stuff from burning and reasoned that I could control the process with less. I measured everything ahead of time because timing is key. I set out the bowl the hot kettlecorn would go into to keep it from burning in the pan after it's popped.

3 tablespoons oil
1/4 cup popcorn (I used Orville's, a new jar claiming to be fresh)
4 teaspoons sugar

Then I mixed the popcorn and sugar together into one measuring cup.

I have a tall, fairly-heavy-bottomed stock pot with a glass lid that has a hole for steam to escape. I think being able to see what's going on helps a lot. If you have only a heavy pot, you will need to vent it slightly because steam does need to escape to prevent tough popcorn, but be careful, the only thing hotter than popping oil is sugared popping oil!

I put the oil in the pot on medium high heat, added 3 kernels of corn, put the lid on and waited for those kernels to pop. When they popped, I quickly threw in the popcorn and sugar mixture, returned the lid and shook the pot a few times while on the burner. The popping started immediately. This is when you take the pot off the heat and shake it. Every 3-4 seconds. Whether you think you should or not. I shook it back and forth. I shook it up and down. The steam prevented me from really seeing all that was going on, so I wasn't sure it wasn't burning, but at least I could see lots of white.

When the popping slowed, just before I was pretty sure all the kernels had popped, I removed it one last time, carefully took the top off and poured the popcorn into my bowl as fast as possible. Added salt to taste.

It was delicious. As good as the kind at the fair? No, but just about.

They Know His Voice

Sometimes, in the rare moments I allow myself to think of such things, I wonder, when I step into the next life in its glowing nakedness, when all that isn't true but seemed to be crumbles into dust, when suddenly in one moment I'm overwhelmed by the brilliance of Jesus, what will be the truth about the life I lived here on earth.

Which is to ask, do I really follow Jesus? At all? A little? A lot?

I confess that I seriously doubt my ability to answer that question. Of course I want to land in the affirmative, can come up with a few potential proofs, and am fairly certain my fellow believers would point to this or that in response.

And yet......

Haven't you ever wondered if when you get to heaven you'll be shown this entirely different life you could have lived? If only?

Most of the time when I ask myself if I truly follow Jesus, I think no, not really. I don't hear him say go here, walk this way. I've pretty much got my course set, my days planned. But then again, it's not that I DON'T follow him. How's that for avoiding the question, for lowering the bar of discipleship? As you can see, I get lost in a quagmire of condemnation on one side, justification on the other.

Yesterday, however, after reading in John where Jesus talks about sheep knowing the voice of their shepherd, refusing to listen to the voice of a stranger, this thought came to me:

What if the life I'm living is just what he wanted all along? He is the Shepherd. He's called me and I heard because I'm one of His. I go in and out and find pasture. I listen for His voice because I belong to Him, and I don't listen to the voice of the stranger because I don't know him.

It's as simple and pure and beautiful as that.