Look Who's Walking?

Six months from the terrible accident that befell our school, the teacher and driver of the Suburban involved is now walking. This is a wonderful thing. We didn't know if Patty would ever be able to walk again, or even have legs. It's great to see her smiling face in the halls, for the last couple of months in a wheelchair, and now--for short little trips--on her own legs and feet. God is good to us.











Update: A year later

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Sons of Men and Angels Say:

Hallelujah!

Growing, Growing, And Gone...but hopefully not too far away

The neat thing about teaching in a small school for years and years is that you get to see whole families of students grow up. These eighth graders, who managed to squeeze into the first-grade desk are both the youngest children of families who sent all their children to our school. I taught them all. Two have graduated; two more graduate this year, one is a sophomore, and then these two. It's an honor to be part of the lives of these families and to watch the children grow up.

The desk, however, has its own history. I bought it at a school sale when my oldest daughter was two. She and her sister and brother sat in it--each in turn--then a little cousin from the city, then four little cousins from Texas, and finally, my grandson and grand-daughter. When they got a bigger desk for their playroom, I put this one in my classroom. It needs paint, of course, but I think, for sturdiness, you couldn't find a better desk.It has feet solidly planted on the ground...like the families of these students. They are fortunate kids.

My favorite time of year...well one of my favorites...

is when the wheat is green and luscious over all the little hills.






The red road stretches forward, and black cows graze in the fields.




Beside the road, the golden grass, awaits the month of May, when it will green and the wheat will gold, and the wind blows fiercely through the day.

As Classes Go....

...It's a good one.


Now I know you probably think that teaching 18 boys--all seventh or eighth graders--should be classified as hazardous to ones sanity, and you might be a little hesitant to commit to a class like this one every day for an hour, but you just don't know these guys.

They ask questions without being obnoxious and are obedient without being sullen. They are witty and pleasant and reasonably polite. I've only had to hold them late for lunch twice this year.

Here they are--taking a test on the lives of Samuel, Saul, and David, and--lest you think this test is easy--why don't you try to name the three sons of Zeruiah, or tell me who Ziba was...or Ishbosheth. These guy can do that...because they listen in class...and some of them even study outside of class.
Of course as soon as the test is over they play chess or stratego. It's an unwritten rule in this class that they may not talk until everyone is finished, but those are quiet games and you can whisper "check".



P.S.
I never tell them when everybody is finished with the tests...shhh...because I love these times of peaceful quiet too.

Little Birds

Our lesson this morning was about worry...as opposed to peace. Sure the hard times will come, but they are not unknown to God. He has been ahead of us and behind us and is all about us.

It reminded me of last Monday's walk. I had decided to walk up to the gym instead of tread-milling there, but I waited a little for the afternoon heat to abate. By the time I started walking, the weather was perfect, and I arrived at the gym in good time, ready to face my white, toning dragons in their iron circle. It went well. (I'm up to fifty reps now and plan to keep adding until I can stay caught up to my age--like birthday candles. By the time I'm one hundred years old I'll be able to do 100--well, it might take me all day, but that's the plan) Anyway, back to the subject.

When I started walking home I realized that the wind had shifted. It was blowing fiercely from the north. As I hurried and fretted, things got worse. The temperature plummeted; I was shivering with cold; little pieces of straw, leaves, and Oklahoma red dirt drops, were hitting me in the face, and I wondered briefly if the wind was going to knock me over. Then I saw a little bird on the lawn beside the street. He was oblivious to the wind, hopping and poking about looking for bugs and such in the rippling grass. I wondered why the wind wasn't carrying him before it, tossing him into the branches like another sailing leaf. . .He was at peace; the winds raged over him, but he did no raging.

So I laughed and yielded to the pleasant joy of wind in my face; it wasn't far. I loved the walk...but I didn't eat any bugs; some things I'll leave to the birds.

One World

I saw in the news today that, with work starting on the new trade center in New York, the Port Authority is changing its name from Freedom Tower to One World Trade Center, because, they say, it's more marketable.

Governments are euphoric over the possibility that man is going to bring about a world-wide, Utopian, society where everyone is tolerant and sharing. Then we can destroy all our warheads and defense shields because nobody will fight another nation and there won't even be "smack talk" between heads of state. It would be a laughable concept, given the nature of man and his propensity to selfishness, except for its fearful possibilities. History is full of "one-world" government wanna-bees: Assyria, Babylon, Macedonia, Rome, Napoleon's France, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR. They only failed because there were still people left with the power to oppose them, other nations strong enough to say, for example, "Your annihilation of people groups within your borders is wrong. We are willing to fight for our freedom and for theirs", or, at very least, "we will accept your fleeing refugees and record for history their tales of your savage treachery."

Why would anyone want a government to be worldwide in scope? Well, it leaves no opposition; no options; no place to run. "As long as that government is morally sound, protective of individual freedoms, and run by exceptional, self-actuated men, it could work", they say, "Men of integrity. Honest. Upright."

Those kinds of people might start a revolution, because they have high hopes for man's goodness, and great pity for the downtrodden? But they don't run the revolution, and certainly not the resulting government. They haven't the callous barbarism it takes to stay in power and crush the opposition. They fade quickly from the halls of authority, taking with them the constitutions and compacts that soothed the masses.

Who is left in power? People who have no respect for promises, for rules and constitutions; who vacillate with the political wind; who decry loudly and indignantly the very crimes they are guilty of committing; who hide behind the tangle of a cancerous bureaucracy.

Hello, "One World"
Goodbye, "Freedom"

It Snowed; It Really Snowed!

Not a gently drifting, lots of white flakes parachuting down to snuggle midst the tulips kind of snow either. It was a blustery, blizzardy, slap in your face kind of snow with a real attitude, and it followed a few hours of weather vacillation:


I think I'll be fog today, no wait, maybe gently blowing rain, or pounding rain with clouds of thunder and lightening above. Yes, hail would be good too. I'll cover the ground with so much hail that it looks like snow and then freeze it to the ground with a good layer of sleet. Yah! There's the ticket! But...oh I'll just empty the whole lot. They shall have snow too. Hours and hours of sideways flying, drifting in the pauses, clouding in gusts off the rooftops snow!


And in the morning. Quiet. Cold.
Buried tulips. Shrouded cedars. Beautiful spring snow.

Now maybe the sun will come out.

It Rained. It Really Rained.

and I enjoyed the drops as they came driving in and landed on my sleeping face and all about my pillow. Well, I did get up and close the window, but I lay there a while and gloried in the sound of water falling from the flashing sky. It was wonderful.




In other news, I took a picture of my smallest class yesterday...the last hour of the day. All of my classes are wonderful this year, and these girls are no exception. You can tell how bright they are and how friendly as well--I won't use "sweet" because, well, it's over used.

I heard two freshman girls talking yesterday morning at school. (They weren't in my class; I was just sitting in the corner eavesdropping.)It was a hysterically funny conversation that went like this:

"I really should have been born blond, you know."
"You think so?"
"Oh yeah, I'm so totally blond, you know,like all the time I'm like, 'where's my book and I left it and when I go to find it...I'm all saying the dumbest things and all".
"Then maybe you should dye your hair."
"You think so? What color?"

The Sky is Scenery Too

I remember when we lived in Colorado. People there knew that we had moved from Oklahoma and they used to ask us how we could stand living where there were no mountains...no gorgeous scenery. Well, I have to agree that mountains are beautiful, but so are green fields. So is a cloudy sky. This evening I took these pictures of our exquisite scenery. So far, no rain out of all this, but you must admit it looks promising.

Spring Break

Well, I haven't been blogging much, but that doesn't mean I've been sick in bed with influenza type A, or on vacation in the Bahamas, or even gadding about shopping malls with a glazed look to my eyes and lines on my arms from the heavy, plastic sacks.


I've been on spring break...and around here that means "Let's get stuff done!" Income tax took a day or two, but there was a little physical labor as well: I pulled nails and moved furniture and hauled off trash and helped my daughter unload more pots from her paint studio.

I had a breakfast one morning with my daughter and grandchildren at the coffee shop, got my hair cut, got my eyes checked-- and it seems they are no worse for their ten-year hiatus from inspection--washed about a dozen loads of clothes, typed two hundred questions for the next academic tournament, played geo-challenge on facebook, slept with the window open and breathed the wonderful air of spring.


On Saturday, I drove for a couple of hours into Texas and saw my mom, dad, brother, sister, and sister-in-law. We visited for a few hours and shared the cares and joys of our lives. I loved it. Even the trip was enjoyable and serene. I took a lot of pictures...lonely roads and miles and miles of beautiful, wind-full, scenery. It was such a peaceful interlude in my much too busy life.

"Early in the Morning...before the sun was up...

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup..."
no wait...I'll have to alter that quote.

Early in the morning, while all the town was still
I rose and saw the shimmering fog on every daffodil
and I heard the coo-coo-cooing of the doves up on the hill.



The birds were loud proclaiming
that the rains had come at last
And the branches were exclaiming
Ah! Winter's finally past.

And I, a silent listener,
in the fog that wrapped the moon
dared not to move, or crunch a leaf
Lest the beauty stop too soon.

Ok. Snow Will Do.

We had such a great day at school today--big beautiful flakes of snow, snow angels, snow men, hot chocolate, the warm vanilla smell of baking schnetka, grilled steak for lunch and freshly made rolls, watching Prince Caspian in CS 7/8, first the boys group, and later the girls-- the entire class fitting on one great overstuffed couch...these are the great days you look back on later and treasure.

Let it Rain!

Clouds, clouds, billowing and piling and streaming and tossing and hovering and teasing...will it ever rain?

We got a few sprinkles last night, and the sky is gray again today...but will it ever really rain?

The farmers are anxious, their faces reflecting the empty clouds and the hopeful fields. ..wanting green, wanting moist, dark dirt and dripping stalks.

Yesterday one of my farmer friends said:
"We're supposed to be under a tornado watch, but it doesn't really look very promising."

I think it's time for rain.

That's Fred

The same man who has tended the clock tower all these years still tends it. That's Fred. He has served faithfully in a lot of city jobs, more than I know, certainly, but I do know that he was, for several years, the county commissioner. Recently, however, feeling like it was time he retired from a few of his more strenuous jobs, he surrendered the "setting up all the Christmas lights on the square" job to the Lions' Club. They did it one year, and the next year they decided it was so much work they would have to "simplify". A couple of years ago he painted the red steps of the courthouse--a painstaking job with a bucket and brush. At the time, he announced that someone else would have to do that next time. I don't know who. Nobody will be as careful as Fred. As far as the clock goes, however, only Fred knows how it works and what to do if it suddenly goes crazy and starts chiming out too many hours. So he patiently tends it. Some things you can't retire from.

Everybody Needs a Pile of Legos

...and a grandmother with a camera.

Our Town- - -A Fifties Kind of Place

Well the word is...

They are making a movie, using our town as a backdrop for a mystery story from the fifties. It makes sense. Our quiet square looks like it hasn't changed since then. The cars are modern, but the buildings, particularly the fronts, have a frozen in time look.

There are old apartments over all the stores on the square, and some of them are still lived in. Most, however, sit vacant, screaming for someone with enough money to put a new roof on the buildings to come do it...so the old offices with half wood, half frosted glass doors can be reopened.

They would make wonderful studios for painting, sculpture, music lessons...or neat little coffee shops where books lie open on the tables and on shelves within easy reach of old leather couches. Or they would also make great apartments...for all the people who don't live here anymore, having run off to big cities where the jobs are and the excitement.. .leaving the shining clock tower, the covered apartment stairs, the deep red of courthouse steps, the evening smells of pizza buffet and the morning smells of bacon, biscuits and gravy.

Auditions for extras were today. I didn't go. Not that I wasn't alive in the fifties, but I'd want to see the movie before I decided to be or not to be seen in it...and since it hasn't been made yet...that's impossible. But if I were the director, I'd use these steps.

Panamanian Mola

Step Back in Time

Today my seventh hour class--all seventh and eighth grade girls--went for a walk. Well, it was just that kind of day. They were supposed to have a verse test over Psalm 91, but they all had finished it a week early, and I couldn't let them get ahead of the other classes, could I?

Anyway we meandered, and skipped, and floated, and walked backwards through our little town, not regarding the traffic--what little there was of it. On main street, the antique store with its old pickup parked in front, made it seem like we were walking into the past. A warm south wind refreshed us, blowing our hair straight back from our faces; it was heavy with rain whispers and billowing gusts. We soaked it in. After about six blocks, we came to the nursing home and retirement village where half the town is employed. Slipping through the back door to the kitchen pantry, we were treated to ice cream in a cup, thanks to a kindly parent.

On the way back to school, the girls asked if I would kidnap them and bring them home to live with me. "Nope," I answered, "You would all be fighting over the wii, not to mention the guest bed and the computer" Although, if the truth be told, I do have enough couches and blow up mattresses for them all. Instead, I promised to treat them to a cola party. They really did deserve special treatment, because today, when I finished grading their quarter test, I was excited to see that they had ALL had made A's. That's a rare feat for this particular test, which, I assure you, was not an easy one.

Girls, I'm proud of you

Spring Heat Wave

It's 87 degrees out there today. Here are a couple of pictures I took of a little tree that grows by our garage door--bravely blooming in spite of the confusion about the weather.
























Then, of course, I had to play around with the pictures on my picture program and add some of the artistic talent that I don't have in real life.

Old Stuff

Imagine my shock last Saturday when Elijah came into the house in a state of euphoria, carrying what had to be the most common, unimpressive, "no-frills" record player I've ever seen--in fact it looked just one step plainer than the player we used for our Shakespeare records in English class aeons ago--when casette tapes were cutting-edge, high-tech inventions, and eight track players installed in a guy's van made him indisputably "cool".

He proceeded to upload his treasure onto the kitchen bar and extract an armload of old dusty records from a ragged and exhausted paper bag. They were mostly classical selections, but there were some popular fifties tunes as well. We were in for a treat--wow--the thing plays music!

Hmmm. I remembered hours of listening to the Exodus soundtrack, Montovani, Hall of the Mountain King, and even to our own family record--one my sisters and I had recorded in what, I'm sure, was an absurdly inadequate time session one evening years and years ago. It was a strange, nostalgic feeling, like a breeze blowing through the house. Still, this wonderful item didn't strike me as a "great find". How could something like that possibly be an antique? It's recent history to me...so I went off by myself and read a book.

Lost and Found

I hide
Behind the flowery couch
Not because of the quiet dark
But because I'm hoping you find me
And we can rejoice
Together

Different Kinds of Lost

Jesus once told a parable about three lost things:

A lost coin, that, through no fault of its own, lay immobile in the dusty corner—unseen, and in that helpless state of not even knowing it was lost;

A lost sheep, that, through its own stupidity had wandered unnoticed into a lonely bit of wild where wolves threatened—wanting, but not knowing, how to find its way home;

And a lost son, rebellious, caught in a pig sty of a life, having wasted his half of the family fortune after insulting his father by demanding it early—tormented, knowing the way home, but not wanting to humble himself and take it.

All Lost...

The one who won’t go home is just as lost as the one who can’t and the one who doesn’t know the way.

There’s more:

The frantic woman seeks the coin, and rejoices when she finds it.

The careful shepherd finds his lamb and carries it back to the fold.

But the Father knows that he cannot seek his son, for if he brings the boy home unbidden, he will still be lost inside…no…the boy must decide to return to his father…and the father waits in anguish for the day…watching the road…watching the way home.

Are you lost? What kind of lost are you?

Our Sunday Scribblings Prompt was "Lost"

Somebody Got a Camera for her Birthday?

Trust

Who do I trust? What is trust? Why do I trust anybody anyway?

I think we trust people for several reasons: We have found them faithful in the past; we love them and our trust is an extension of our love; or we are desperate, because the world is amorphous and we like something solid to put our back against.

Who do I Trust?

I trust my husband--not to shut the door or turn off the light or put away the popcorn oil--but I trust him to love me, to help me when I need it and not to tell me how stupid I am if I turn left instead of right or lock my keys in the car or forget to put away the popcorn oil.

I trust my parents, because through the years I have watched them live out all the faith they taught me, reaching out, sharing: their home, their substance, their time. I’ve never questioned their love; there was never any need to.

I trust my children and grandchildren to live right, because I love them too much to lose them to life’s chaos, and I have seen ample evidence that their hearts are in the right place and that their feet are on the right path…even if they are dancing wildly all over it.

I trust my God, not to keep me from every inconvenience, but to steady my step, lift up my head, and take care of eternity when this is all over.

That’s why I woke up singing.

Our Sunday Scribblings prompt was Trust.

Let Those Sleeping Dogs Get Their Rest

Our Indonesian student, Sara Lee, is a solemn little girl who bursts out with sudden laughter whenever she catches a joke: "Oh I get it. I understand!" Then she makes little jokes of her own, behaving for all the world like an American teenager--not one of those who ignore all adults with an air of "only my friends on facebook are granted an audience...and then only if I choose to acknowledge them", but an open, "love to learn, love to share complaints and triumphs" kind of teenager who views people of all ages as potential friends.

Turtle is from Arkansas, a state he blames for all his linguistic anomalies, and he delights in tossing idioms to her so that he can explain them. A few weeks ago he had to explain the phrase: "let sleeping dogs lie." Later that day, when he was asking me questions about something in the past and getting off-putting, roundabout answers, Sara Lee, broke into the conversation with a light-hearted warning: "Don't wake up the dog!"

I think it will become a classic around here.

The World so Far Away and Close

About a dozen years ago I read a book by Don Richardson called Lords of the Earth. It featured the Yali and the Dani people of Irian Jaya(now called Papua) and gave an amazing view into tribal lifestyles and recent history. Over the years I've read the book a couple more times, along with some of Richardson's other works (Peace Child, and Eternity in Their Hearts).

Today, after meandering through a discussion in Bible class--a discussion about Jonathan Goforth and the Boxer Rebellion, then David Livingstone and Cameron Townsend and indigenous languages, one of our Indonesian students suddenly asked me if I had ever heard of the Dani tribe? I said yes, and told him about reading Lords of the Earth. He then informed me that he was a Dani. A real Dani. It was an amazing moment, almost like "the white rabbit" stepping out of the pages of Lewis Carroll's book--well not quite; Richardson's book isn't fiction, but it was still a weird feeling.