The Gratitude Wall

Our English teacher had a brilliant idea for giving thanks in November. Everyone was invited to post notes throughout the month--what they were grateful for that day. It's fun to stand and read them all.  From the mundane to the sublime...Gratitude shines!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him all creatures here below!

And I too would give my praise
For the thousand different ways
I feel His love throughout my day.

Biology Project--Cell Models

The biology class just finished making these cell models for a project, and students were carrying a great variety of their finished products in the hall today. I asked a few of them to step outside where I could take pictures of their masterpieces. They are impressive! Well, I was impressed anyway.

Another Fall Morning Drive to Work

I took all these pictures this morning on my way to work.  See why I think living in the city must be torture?  Where would you pull off the road for a quick picture of the sky--If you could see the sky? And what about those trees leaning into the wind? They probably would have been uprooted long ago to make room for beautiful little straight ones with no innate lessons about perseverance and tenacity.

Humor-challenged

I never remember jokes and punch lines--at least not until someone starts telling the joke again. Then it might come back to me, or  a version of it might. In the same vein, when it comes to writing humorous posts, or status updates, or pretty much anything funny for that matter, I’m not very adept.  While other family members, namely my offspring, just seem to have a knack with writing material to make people laugh,  a tentative smile is all I can elicit. So I usually don’t try to make jokes.

But today I actually came up with a good one…in the middle of a CSIV lecture. We are studying polls and surveys, and the use of such materials to shape public opinion. I had copied a newspaper article to discuss. Its headline, “Funky Chickens Prefer Music”, had been derived from a skewed analysis of a faulty survey, so we were discussing the merits of that conclusion. 

I said: “Here's another thing:  the survey doesn’t consider what kind of music was played. Did one farmer play hard rock music and another play classical? Did they notice what kind of music the chickens liked best?  I think most chickens probably want to listen to Bach…since they ask for him all day long.”

And my seniors actually got it. They laughed. They didn’t roar or anything, just a gentle chuckle, but I feel really good. 

It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Faith

How do I know? Anything for that matter. It involves a certain amount of trust. I believe the grass is green in May because I trust my eyes that saw it, my memory that remembers it, the lessons on chlorophyll that explain it to me, the poem books that rave about it, and countless human beings who have made reference to it.  Granted, in South America grass may be green in November, so I may have to qualify my assumption, but most of the time I don't bother. I just accept it. Healthy grass should be green during the growing season. That's the nature of grass. I don't have to live in a state of constant doubt and verification attempts. I just believe it.

Everything we know is the same. There is no one way of knowledge. We build. We rest  on past assumptions that held water. There is no need to blow up everything and begin anew, and if we try to go that route, we end up bleeding, confused, and no nearer the answer than we were.

Is there a God. Yes. What language did He speak? Well, DNA, for one. It's a complex living program more intricate than the finest code our programers have seen, and they, more than anyone should realize that code can't randomly make itself and function. Messed up code brings the program to a halt. Do we see glitches? Sure. We see where things went wrong and were replicated that way, but we also see the "how they should be" sitting right there above it...to the extent that we can repair some of it and are learning every day how to fix the rest.

There is a God.
So how do I know?
I am drawn to find Him. There is something within me that wants to know Him, and feels secure that I have found Him. That's intuition.
How do I know?
I am pushed to find Him. There is a world without that defies explanation in the absence of Him. That's reasoning.
How do I know?
I trust my memory--a thousand times He nudged me to an answer and reassured me in times of fear and frustration. That's experience.
How do I know? I trust the witness of thousands who have embraced Him and lived; I've listened, read their testimonies, and seen the difference in the lives of those who tried to follow Him closely compared with those who didn't. That's culture.
How do I know? I've seen miracles. And I've heard of amazing incidents in the lives of my grandparents and parents. Was I there? No. But I know these people. They never lied to me. Why should they lie about their faith, to which they held fast until we buried them in hope of resurrection day. That's testimony.
How do I know?
I trust the scriptures...internal evidence, external evidence, the historicity and veracity of narrative and prophecy. I'm not going into all that this morning. But I will say that I never study the scriptures without a sense of the value they impart to me.  I watch the impact of their presence in lives and civilizations. I believe they bring revelation. What men do with that is their own choice.

Simple. Sure. I agree. If you want complicated theses on the subject, there are countless very good books. Your mind will follow whatever you keep reading and you have a choice to feed the doubt or feed the faith. I choose faith. And I feel very confident about that choice.

Nothing but the Truth...Senior Play

The seniors just finished performing their fall play, "Nothing but the Truth",  by Philip J. Anderson. I've posted the introduction to the program as a favor to them...just a little something to help them remember it always...or at least as long as the internet keeps this record.

Welcome to a cruise aboard an impressive ship:  "The Deja Vu". 

The year is 1913. Passengers are wary of ocean crossings for the name "Titanic" still makes everyone nervous. 

David McNeely and his younger sister Mary are on their way to China, where Mary plans to serve as a missionary. 

 


The beautiful Miss Kate Miller immediately catches David’s eye and aspires to capture his friendship as well.   

 
Of course, a stunning beauty like Kate cannot help but attract the attention of other eligible bachelors aboard the ship. Pete Jones soon singles her out and attempts a conversation. 

The room stewardesses, Stella  and Phoebe, work hard at making everyone aboard  less nervous about the trip.

Not all passengers are easy to please. Take Mr. Walter Elias and his determined wife Lillian. They are involved in a plot more sinister than sabotage: Finding a husband for their young ward and passenger.   

Their ward, Paulette Cartier, is a young French girl returning to her native Paris after having spent four years at the university in America.  

The captain of this cruise ship, Werner Krause, calmly hosts his nervous passengers, reassuring  them with pleasant conversation and invitations to dine at his table in the exquisitely decorated dining room. 

Our final member of the cast is the manager of that dining room, an opportunistic and pragmatic young waiter. 

So board this ship with us for the next few minutes. Ride along as we sail into the perilous Atlantic. The senior students extend to you a special invitation.

We're still recovering from all the late night practices and from the performances, but if you missed it, I'm sorry. It was wonderful fun to watch.

 

A Medical Mystery

Recently, my father bought a Portable Combustible Gas Leak Detector so he could check for leaks in one of his rent houses. Because my dad is a curious man, forever wondering about things, he blew into the flexible probe and was immediately surprised by the alarm going off. In fact the level of combustible gas in the air coming out of his lungs was over the top level. All the lights were on and the static-sounding alert went crazy. Perplexed, he took the machine home and asked others to try to set it off. Nobody could get even a crackle out of it or a flash of light.

Since Dad's been having gastrointestinal issues for some time, he had a doctor's visit scheduled for the following Monday. Carrying the device into the office, he showed the internist what happens every time he blows into it:  alarms go off.  The nurses in the office all blew into it with no effect. The doctor didn't know what was going on.  So I'm asking for help. Does anyone out there know what this might mean? I've seen a couple of possibilities, but I'd really appreciate more suggestions, since this might be very beneficial in solving his health issues.

Here is a list of the gases measured by the device: Acetone, Acetylene, Benzene, Butane, Ethanol, Ethylene Oxide, Gasoline, Hexane, Hydrogen, Industrial Solvents, Methane, Paint Thinners, Propane, Natural Gas, and Naptha.

Speaking of Blasts from the Past...

I think our recent homecoming theme threw me into a nostalgic mood. I've been going through pictures and scanning them into the future. All kinds of interesting things have surfaced. I particularly enjoy looking at the expressions of faces that were too small to see before. For instance, here's a couple of pictures that show how my children really felt about hiking...one of our favorite family past-times.

 And here are a few that demonstrate what I'm sure my neighbors knew all along--they kept the whole street lively.

They played a game in the evenings called "kidville" Carina, my oldest, was the script-writer and manager, and there was no lack of kids to be the players. The swing set was sometimes a pirate ship, sometimes a star ship.

The street was not usually busy with cars, particularly when my children set up road blocks on both ends so they could practice bike jumping in the middle.

No. They weren't dare-devils; they had just put in a lot of hours practicing on an old balance beam we had bought from the gym, so when we visited other places they were always finding rails to walk.

My daughter, Carina, once again, used her camera and some black and white film to capture the neighborhood...a kind of pre-facebook gallery of attitude poses. There would have been more pictures, but the camera got left out in the mud. Years later, I found an undeveloped roll and took it in to discover these.

Here's Elijah and a neighbor who lived at our house most days. And shy little Claye, in an oddly futuristic French art post. I'm sure we would have had a slide show with narrative if power point had been invented.

 Rain puddles were the best. Thankfully, our street and ditches filled up after every little shower.

Incognito

Homecoming dress-up days are enough to fulfill the actress in me. We only had four this fall--"blue and white day", (not pictured because, aside from a little gold glitter on my face, all I did was wear blue and white clothes)"blast from the past "( so...I represented the collision of Tardis with a DeLorean ), "favorite app",( I was the embodiment of Words with Friends) and "geriatric day"...for which I really had an advantage over my students, having the wrinkles already and the right clothes in my wardrobe. The wig did throw a few people. One of the other teachers saw me in the the teachers' workroom and was a little embarrassed that the students were all dressed up as old people on the very day we had an elderly person visiting our school.

I'm So Spoiled.

Every teacher should teach students like mine sometime in their life.
This particular class is extraordinary.

  They listen. They work. They learn.

Today I'm watching while they do a review puzzle.

















They are delightful, even if they do occasionally ask a question that shows they are really seventh and eighth-graders after all.














One little girl (We'll call her Bobbie) just meandered back to my desk, turned in her assignment and asked me if she could work on some homework for another class.
Can you imagine me saying "No. I'd rather you find some way to disrupt the others, who are still finishing their work."


Oh no! They've suddenly all finished and are turning in their work.  I'd better do something quickly before they form a line and start singing about....what?

They are singing "lunch, lunch, luuuunnchhh".  And,while the cafeteria ladies are being lauded here, and goodness knows they deserve it, I can't stand it for long. I've just time to play a hastily-improvised review game with them!

See you later, Bloggies. This is an emergency.