Are You a Teacher?

Maybe it's been a long day, or a long week, or a long 8 months. And you know you've been going to work every day, but you're not sure if you're a zookeeper, a prison warden or a teacher.

I understand how that can happen. I spent a few days in the classroom last year as a substitute teacher, and I have nothing but deference and respect for you. In fact, I have previously recommended we remove our hats to salute a teacher whenever she walks in the room.

So, for Teacher Appreciation Week, I've provided a few indicators based on my limited classroom experience to help you determine if you might be a teacher.

I suspect there are a few REAL teachers who could add to this helpful list. Please do so in the blog comments, or the facebook comments.

You Might be a Teacher

1. If you’ve ever identified the graffiti artist by the way the words are misspelled, you might be a teacher. 

2. If you can tell the content of a child’s complaint by the tone with which he says your name, you might be a teacher.

3. If you have ever looked at a Hershey bar or large pizza and suddenly formulated a lesson plan about fractions, you might be a teacher.

4. If you’ve ever accidentally used the terms “inappropriate response” or “expected behavior” with your spouse, you might be a teacher.

 

5. If you’ve ever considered writing a letter of complaint to Dixon and Oriental Trading Company for making pencils that never sharpen, you might be a teacher. 

6. If you’ve ever thought of creating a facebook fan page for Ticonderoga because they make pencils that actually DO sharpen, you might be a teacher.

 

     7.  If you've ever attended an "Indoor Recess Support Group," you might be a teacher.

 

Teachers, your turn :-)

Update: Levi's first grade teacher and her twin sister added these hilarious tidbits:

If you go to sit in your chair and find it's already taken by a kid "warming it up," you might be a teacher.

If you can sing songs about giant gas balls in space--particularly Uranus, without batting an eye, you might be a teacher.

If you can break into song and dance while teaching addition and subtraction or r-controlled vowels, you might be a teacher.

If you can tell the difference between "I need to go to the bathroom" and "I NEED to go to the bathroom," you might be a teacher.

If a magical drink of water cures a stomach ache, a headache, or even a sliver, you might be a teacher.

If you feel like a rock star every time you go to Wal-Mart because kids are hollering your name, you might be a teacher.

If you correct kids' behavior no matter where you are, you might be a teacher.

If you feel the need to do the "attention clap" at the dinner table, you might be a teacher.

If there are times in those public places you really wish you had your playground whistle, you might be a teacher.

If you have to go hug and talk to at least 4 kids when picking up your own kids, you might be a teacher.

If you've ever walked around sniffing kids for the cause of that "unusual smell," you might be a teacher.

Or if you just say, "does anyone need to go to the bathroom?" after smelling the unusual smell, you might be a teacher.

 If you get more excited about birthday treats than your kids, you might be a teacher!

If you sneak an extra of the really good birthday treats (or am I the only one?), you might be a teacher.

 

Mothering Mistakes

On the way home from school, Spencer and I had one of THOSE arguments about age appropriate privileges and the reasons parents make the decisions they do.

“What! Why does he get to?” Spencer objected.

Add caption

“Because he’s in fifth grade.”

“Well, I’m in fourth.”

“Well, Zach didn’t get to do that when he was in fourth grade.”  I crossed my fingers on the steering wheel, knowing Zach has had this privilege before, but NOT in fourth grade.

I feigned confidence in my statement and he sniffed out my half-truth like a blood hound.

“Yeah but he did when he was in 3^rd.”

Busted.

“Yes and it was a mistake.” Then I asked one of the most ridiculous questions I’ve ever uttered. Ridiculous because the obvious answer is ‘NO’ and ridiculous because I was reasoning with an impassioned fourth grader. But apparently I was comfortable with that degree of ridiculous so I asked, “Do you want me to make the same mistakes on you that I made on Zach?”

He practically yelled, “Yes!”

Sometimes when you don’t know what to say, it’s best to say nothing. Kurt’s mantra is “less is more,” and I am always telling the boys “The best way to stop an argument is to stop talking. Stop fueling the argument.”

So I didn’t even respond. Humph.

But from the back seat Levi took over my side of the argument, “You want her to make mistakes on you?”

Sometimes Levi surprises me. He’s funny and random, but he pays attention, and sometimes I think he’s wise beyond his years. Part of me wanted to reach into the back seat and hi-five him in an act of mother/son solidarity.

Spencer picked up right where he left off. “Well if she makes the same mistakes on me, at least I would get to ‘do that.’”

I was rolling my eyes and laughing on the inside over his flawed reasoning. And with the “eyes in the back of my head” I thought I saw Levi rolling his too.

Stay strong, Levi. We’re in this together.

But Levi wasn’t rolling his eyes, he was still engaged in full-on verbal combat. “But Spencer, that’s only one mistake. What about the 70 million others you’d have to go through?!”

Yeah, what about the …wait…what?

Suddenly I realize I’ve mistaken solidarity for incredulity.

It was as if he was trying to coax Spencer out of his dark and illogical argument. Pleading with him to see the dire implications: Can you bear the thought of her making more mistakes than she already has?

It’s true. I’ve made mistakes. A lot of them. Mistakes I don’t want to repeat even if Spencer wants to suffer them.

Mothering mistakes are inevitable. But I’m also beginning to see they’re necessary.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not conjuring up parental screw-ups in my free time. My mistakes don’t require planning—I’m what you might call “a natural.”

But if it weren’t for my mistakes, I’d have no reason to demonstrate a humble (even embarrassing) apology.

If not for my mistakes, how would I show what repentance looks like?

And without mistakes, my boys would have fewer opportunities to demonstrate grace.

What if our parenting mistakes are the classroom where we teach the language of apology and the posture of humility? What if our embarrassed admissions are an opportunity for our kids to extend grace—to us. 

And someday, when they realize their own mistakes, they will neither be surprised nor completely devastated. By God’s grace, they will have learned to acknowledge, apologize, turn from it and receive grace and forgiveness.

And that is the crux of the gospel: We receive grace in exchange for mistakes.

Even when there are 70 million of them.

 

 

 

 

 

The Resolution I Kept: A mid-quarter-ish assessment.

I used to set New Year’s Resolutions every year. Like a recurring nightmare, “lose weight” always topped the list. But after 20-something-ish years and three children…well, let’s just say I crossed it off the list as if to say “never mind.”

But I do like knowing I’ve accomplished something during a year, and something had to replace it as a resolution.

So when my kids grew out of board books, I decided to broaden my literary horizons beyond Cuddles the Cow and Good Night Moon. You know, grown-up books. The kind with pages that tear and words that don’t rhyme. So, a few years ago I resolved “to read more books.”

Apparently there’s something to that admonition to make measurable, specific resolutions, because that year came and went, and I had no idea if I’d read more books.

 

Not to be deterred (after all, “loose weight” had a 20 year list tenure!), I put it on the list again the next year.

Maybe I should make it “measurable” this year, I thought. So I modified the resolution: “Read one book each month.” At the end of the year I knew I’d read some books, but I had no idea how many.

Last year I finally got smart and resolved to “Keep track of the books I read.” And while I did not “lose weight,” I DID keep track of the books I read!!

So here, in the order I read them, with my favorites in bold, are the books I read in 2013:

Who Do You Think You Are?, Mark Driscoll

Permission Marketing, Seth Godin

Same Kind of Different as Me, Ron Hall & Denver Moore

Five Conversations to Have with Your Son, Vickey Courtney

The Prodigal God, Tim Keller

Lineage of Grace: Ruth, Francine Rivers

Sticky Faith, Powell & Clark

A Window to the World, Susan Meissner

The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller

Truck: A love story, Michael Perry

Christ in the Chaos, Kim Crandall

Cleaning House, Kay Wills Wyme

A Million Little Ways, Emily P. Freeman

The Weathering Grace of God, Ken Gire

The Greatest Gift, Ann Voskamp

The Lost Letters of Pergamum, Bruce W. Longenecker and Ben Witherington

 *****

Bolstered by success, I resolved again this January to “Keep track of books I read.” Thankfully, my mid-quarter-ish assessment reveals I’m on track.

Here is my partial list for 2014 along with my two-cent review:

Son of Laughter, Fredrick Beuchner

(A strange read for me. Life in the Old Testament was not very tidy.)

Die Empty, Todd Henry

(Awesome title. Kind of self-help-y, but many ideas for making the most of your life and time.)

Desiring God, John Piper

(Not an easy read for me, but an awesome paradigm shift for Christians! So glad I read it.)

So here’s to two consecutive years of keeping a resolution.

What are you reading? Any suggestions for my list?

 

The Broken Arrow

Down in the depths of our storage room are boxed-up pieces of our childhoods. There’s a blue Rubbermaid filled with my memorabilia: a sticker book, drawing notebooks, and an enormous key chain collection. There’s also a box with Kurt’s treasures: a jersey, medals, and ribbons.

That's a broadhead.

Over the years we’ve added to the collection, but the keepsakes don’t always fit in the box. For instance, I have gigantic vintage pompoms that roll around the storage room, making their annual appearance at Halloween. Kurt has a broken broadhead arrow memorializing his first successful archery hunt. It was displayed prominently (or not) on the inside of our storage room wall, for all the other keepsakes to admire.

Three little boys also admired its prominence. All those treasures from another time, and another life, are so intriguing. Especially my key chain collection and that wicked broadhead. Awesome!

One day this summer, the boys asked if I would take them spear fishing. There were several problems with their request:

1) I know little about fishing. 

2) I know nothing about spear fishing. 

3) I think it requires a spear gun, and we don’t have one. 

4) These are elementary aged boys. A spear in their hands seems unsafe.

They assured me we did not need a spear gun as they planned to fashion a fishing spear out of scrap wood. I was skeptical and somewhat humored. It struck me as cute. So I said, “Tell you what…if you make a spear out of wood, I will take you to the dock to go spear fishing.”

They sprinted to the garage. I imagined them whittling away on a 2x4, and I chuckled.

Unfortunately, I greatly underestimated their appetite for spear fishing. They appeared in my kitchen an hour later. And instead of the whittled club I imagined, they had fashioned an honest-to-goodness weapon. On the end of an old broom handle they had J-B Welded a broadhead.

They were ready for me to make good on my promise.

Unfortunately, I could not.

It would have been risky at best, and I think it would have been illegal. (Not that beating a fish with a whittled club would have been a good idea either. What was I thinking?)

They were mad, and I felt bad. So we went fishing anyway, but without the scary spear. Just the regular poles with little hooks and stinky rubber worms, which, on this occasion, was "lame."

I chuckled when I relayed the story to Kurt later. But when I finished, he asked, “Where’d they get the broadhead?”

I had no idea and suddenly felt stupid and irresponsible. They had fashioned a weapon after all!!

A little investigation revealed the broadhead was none other than the prized keepsake from the storage room. It had been severed from its broken shaft with a hacksaw.

That evening, a repentant boy quietly repaired a broken arrow with electrical tape and placed it on our dresser. It was laid on the frayed page of a spiral notebook. Written above it: “I love you.”

The note and the arrow still sit on our dresser. What could have been an ugly reminder of an emotionally charged evening is now a sweet keepsake of repentance and love.

He makes beautiful things out of dust…and broken arrows.

Giving Thanks for Beautiful Things

A couple years ago my friend and fellow music-lover lent me a CD and introduced me to Gungor. If you've listened to Christian radio for five minutes in the past year, you've probably heard their song "Beautiful Things." If not, here are the lyrics and a link to the song. Listen. You'll like it.

I brought the CD home, tossed the cover on the counter, and eagerly consumed their work. The title track was an immediate favorite. It's sung as a prayer: 

You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of the dust.
You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of us.

Later as I was wiping the counter I picked up the CD cover and finally noticed the cover art. It reinforced the song's message and made an unforgettable impression.

I loved it. 

Artist Ben De Rienzo 

The artist does himself a disservice by making it so easy to overlook. But he rewards the close observer.

Look closely and you'll see the flowers, leaves and stems are a mosaic of tiny symbols representing a sin-sick world. But the artist has arranged them so perfectly, you might not notice the horrific things at first glance.

I think it’s a poignant metaphor. 

It seems a lot of life is made up of hardships. Even in striving for good, there is sometimes pain. Jesus himself gave us the guarantee that nobody wants: “In this life you will have trouble…”

Artist Ben De Rienzo

That’s what those tiny images symbolize. The guaranteed trouble. Sometimes it’s our own doing, sometimes the blame falls to others, but sometimes it’s just because we live in a world poisoned by sin.

Thankfully, the story and the picture don’t end with trouble. 

Jesus finished that troubling statement by saying, “Take heart! I have overcome the world." I have sometimes failed to receive that encouragement because I've mistakenly thought He'd magically make all the bad stuff nice. 

And although He can do anything, God is an artist for His glory and our good, not a magician for our comfort and entertainment. He did not promise to abracadabra handcuffs into gumdrops.

Instead, Jesus the Great Artist has an unfathomable way of arranging all that trouble into something beautiful. And when we finally stand back to view the Artist’s work we look to Him and say, “Wow. That’s kind of unbelievable what you did with all that trouble.”

Sometimes I'm too close to the artwork He's making of my life. I see the ugly mistakes, bad decisions and painful loss. And it all seems broken. But the Great Artist takes the broken pieces. He arranges each one so when the work is done, the masterpiece causes careful observers to admire the Artist who’s great specialty is making something beautiful out of something that wasn't.

It’s really just a long way of saying the word redemption. To redeem is to buy back, to exchange, to recover, to convert. And redemption is the great work of God. 

This November, I want to give thanks to the Great Artist for making beautiful things out of dust…even out of us.

Mystery Injury

Once upon a time, but not that long ago...

I was cleaning up dishes to the tune of all kinds of boy-ish commotion in the basement. It was that borderline kind of commotion where after every slap-like noise I flinched and waited to hear someone bawling or pounding up the stairs.

Instead, the slaps and whaps were followed by silence, the kind induced by riotous laughter. I peeked down to see all three boys doubled over laughing. The couch was tipped over, draped in blankets and pillows, and Nerf dart shrapnel littered the floor.

I went back to my bubbly water…in the kitchen sink, that is. For a couple of minutes I heard a succession of strange noises followed by laughing and screams and doubled-over silence.

After one such silence they all three appeared in the kitchen looking bewildered.

There stood Zach with a bloody forehead. But more peculiar than the dripping blood was their demeanor.

No crying.

No accusing.

No denials.

Just plain old confusion.

Naturally I asked, “What happened?”

I leaned his head over the sink and waited for an answer, but no one, including Zach, could explain the head wound.  The usual suspects were innocent.

Didn’t know when.

Didn’t know what.

Didn’t know how.

Just saw the blood.

So I shook my head, cleaned him up, offered an icepack and said, “Maybe you guys should take a rest.”

How, I ask you, do you cut your head and not remember when, or how, or on what?

I called it a Mystery Injury.

This week I had my own Mystery Injury

I went for a walk around our gravel loop with the boys riding bikes in front of me. As they experimented with shifting gears and pedaling downhill, I recalled those rugged toddler years when I strolled those three boys in one stroller around that same loop. “The days are long but the years are short,” I reminded myself, and a little parental panic bore into my chest.

I had about 90 seconds to feel all sentimental when two of them flagrantly disregarded my instruction about riding on the highway—the one where pickups haul boats at 65mph and 18-wheelers carry everything from hay bales, to combines.

And somewhere between nostalgia and anger, I just started whimpering. You know when your inhale gets all chopped up by your quivering diaphragm? Weirdness.

Normally the first might make me smile and the second might make me yell, but neither usually produces tears.

Perhaps it was a toxic hormonal cocktail brewing inside me. One mental jolt by memories or disobedience knocked that bubbling concoction, and it spilled out my tear ducts.

When I arrived back at the house, I had “pulled it together,” but the bike riders detected the watery eyes. And I saw that same bewildered look.

Didn’t know when.

Didn’t know what.

Didn’t know how.

The usual suspects were innocent. But blood and tears are often proof that something hurts, and without a doubt, we could use a little rest.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Well, I didn’t get a nap that day, or a massage or a vacation.

But later that week I got the kind of rest where Christ extracts the panic from my chest. He assures me I am not solely responsible for every decision, good or bad, that my children make. His holiness reveals the mistakes made in the long days, but His grace calms the fright caused by short years and failure to do what I had hoped.

Perhaps the best rest is not a massage, or a pedicure, but instead a mind transformed by grace.

Foodie Faux Pas

Many bloggers have some sort of culinary element on their blog, and I can appreciate that. All the experts say bloggers must offer their readers something of value. And many culinary artist bloggers offer recipes, instructions and sometimes even videos explaining how to assemble delectable dishes!

My culinary element is a little more bland. The value I offer is the “low bar.”

The “low bar” value is meant to help you feel better about what you’re already doing. And to be honest, I didn’t realize I even had a cooking element until I sat down to confess my most recent foodie faux pas.

I’ve written about the time I salvaged the melted cheese, and the time I abandoned cooking altogether. I was initially too ashamed to blog about a distasteful incident where I left frozen chicken breasts in the 147°F vehicle overnight. When I went to fix supper the next day I realized my blunder. The good news is, no one got sick.

But my culinary standards have reached an all-time low…even at a subconscious level.

Last night I dreamed I was attending a formal dinner. I donned my royal blue 10^th grade prom dress which bore all the landmarks of 1990s fashion—rhinestones, large bow, drop waist and tapered hem. (In my defense, the tapered hem is making a comeback).

Whatever the occasion, I was asked to bring one course of the meal.

Photo courtesy Microsoft Office Clip Art.
Apparently there's been no demand for photos
of french cut green beans. 

With all the finesse of a middle aged woman in a 10^th grade prom dress, I handed the host my savory contribution.

A can of “French Cut Green Beans.”

Then I woke up.

What the…?

Why not a can of mushy sweat peas, or corn kernels?

Well, if I’m analyzing my dream correctly, it was a formal dinner, and nothing says fancy like an exquisite French word. For example, “julienned squash,” “petite carrots” and “Lean Cusine.” Sounds so fancy doesn’t it?

Chopped squash, little carrots and microwaveable dinners might be dressed up with French words, but it doesn’t make them any tastier. Perhaps a Parisian chef accidentally put the food processor on “shred” instead of “slice” and when the green beans came out looking like a pile of wet grass clippings they declared, “Ahhh, Oui! French Cut Green Beans!” Zee Americans vill eat it up!”

And subconsciously, I have.

“French Cut Green Beans” are an unfortunate culinary nightmare. But kudos to the French, or American marketers, who concocted the idea to embrace their mistake.

It would be like me embracing my chicken incident and calling it Shauna’s Super Slow Sans Salmonella Chicken. (See that French word sans? It means “without.” Sounds fancy!) And if I embrace my mistake and give it a fancy French flavored name, it will probably be pinned on Pinterest.

So just in case, here are the instructions:

Defrost chicken breasts in packaging at 147°F in the back of a preheated vehicle. Do not remove from vehicle until chicken has become dangerously warm. When the danger of food poisoning is immanent, remove from vehicle. Open packaging, and inspect chicken for salmonella. If none is visible, continue cooking using traditional methods (ie. stove, oven, crock pot…anything but a vehicle). 

Bon Appetite!