I like to make things happen

I was talking to a class of mine today, a class full of young people who I have come to love very much, some of them like they were my own. I was talking about how wonderful it was to hear of a need, back when I was young and rich, and to be able to fill that need or make something happen with a check. Being diligent with their money could afford them a great blessing, being able to give.

I have never made very much money ( by US standards). Teachers will pay you to let them teach if the venue is sweet. I’ve had some sweet scenarios. But I discovered a long time ago how much more exciting it was to send and start than to spend. It really is.

For a visionary like me, there’s not much better than getting something that I can see, born. I like birthing things. Pregnancy was easy for me and the births of all four of my kids were a breeze. It was almost too easy. Now rearing them has nearly killed me. I’m not so good there.

Anyway, I don’t tell this to brag. I just like to start things.  I will never remember your birthday, nor bring you a perfect present, nor notice your new haircut. I probably won’t check on you if you are sick, much less drop you by dinner. I am a horrible hostess, a terrible room mom, and I make costumes and creative necessities the night before needed. I am not, in so many ways, giving. But I like to start things and people off on things that they should pursue and do. So I try to whenever I can.

I watched the eyes of a student in my class as I relayed the wonder and joy of being able to give. And I saw him, not too far off from now, maybe even tomorrow, using his intelligence and discipline to start things, important things like building wells, and schools and vaccinating a whole village. I saw him going and seeing the need and then sending answers with others who would stay. I saw him content and full of life, always on the lookout for something worth starting.

You’ll see, too.

Are you game?

I am going to try to walk in the brave, if mindless, footsteps of our spiritual sensei, PJ, the elder, and host some gaming tomorrow at school. I have 100+ sweet children 7th period for “Bible’ class tomorrow. Friday is my day to be thrown to the Lions, literally.

I have made the rapid dispensation of a fine blend of literary and biblical knowledge sufficiently difficult to challenge the most intrepid of Bible students the goal of a game..  The game rewards knowing the “word of God” and identifying its influence in the earth. Last night at Epoch we did something a little more significant, but pretty similar in many ways.

In their great wisdom, the PJ’S organized and hosted the first annual, what I am naming, Trash Can(ter), a veritable  genius undertaking. Children were divided uniformly, unequally into teams by some random measure, but not number, or size. Then each group  assigned a number to each member. As Pj’s shouted, gleefully, a number or multiple numbers, personages so numbered  were to place an industrial size trash can over their bodies and run across the gymnasium to the other side. Teams were strategically arranged about the gym, in the corners and under the goals so as to ensure the intersection of said canned individuals during transverse. It was a delightful event, especially for the few, (also liable) parental adults who were on hand to, cart away the carnage? I held my breath and squeezed my eyes  as almost all of the children excitedly donned the armor and raced forward toward their goal, glancing or toppling their opponents in a joust-like manner. The plastic cans magnified the sound of the collision and may have actually, slightly alleviated some shock of the impact. It was good sport all around. I concluded that the inspired design of such quest surely evoked great spiritual principle and metaphor, though such was most imperceivable to me, as my head was ducked into my body.

Tomorrow we may learn to whom one might attribute a phrase or two, but I expect no one will learn such sacred truth as unknowingly invaded so many last night. It took one major thing to fulfill the goal: the courage to move forward. No one failed to get across the gym. Sure some were bumped about a bit, a few wandered a little, a smaller number even walked away from a head-on, but in that climate of team and cheering and must do, everyone made it across.

Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the goal, just what we are about in Epoch… and then, its right there, for all who open their eyes to see.

Every whisper…

...every waking hour, I’m choosing my confession.

A native Athenian, REM sort of speaks to me, for me.

I have so many of the lyrics of this classic running through my head. The tender frustration and self doubt Michael so powerfully relays, feels mine as well.

Sometimes you just have to re-stack your shelves. Sometimes you just have to reorganize your understanding and all the things in your head, move them around to a new place, maybe even make some new shelves. I’ve already left many things that I have been carrying around, in my hand or in my apron pocket, in some other locale than they once knew. And then there are those things that are just appearing on the floor, on the tables, by the doorways like the socks and flip flops that just mushroom about my house. From time to time though, I think that one must do one’s best to put things where they more rightly belong, best one can.

I know I could keep quietly changing, keep the places of my mind  “long changed,” silently held so. I could and in many ways will do just that. I will go on being who I am as well as who I may be becoming, best I know how, and try to live at peace with all, best I can.

But, alas, I am a teacher, by trade and more importantly, by calling. And so, there are things that are escaping me, things I cannot seem to rope down, they are coming free, flowing upon the waters of my call. I can clearly, easily not pick fights with ignorant and parroting parishioners. I can walk away from the bragidocious and insensitive. I can chalk up corporate delusion to a century of conference with only ourselves.

But when I teach the young, the  hungry, the not nearly so easily satisfied, I cannot offer less than as many viewpoints as I can grasp, as much generosity as I can fathom, as much mystery as I can imagine.

I can live a life in the corner…but when I teach in the spotlight …(Oh No! I’ve said too much)….

…I haven’t said enough.

a prayer

Sometimes there are things to say, that need to be spoken…but no one to speak them to…save God. They are weight to another; not a problem to solve, not a true need to be filled,  not a dream to be encouraged nor an insight to be confirmed. Sometimes, there is no one else who can understand my such things, for they are too unknown, to even my own self, to be spoken with effect.

Such a time, season is upon me. I am circling, at safe distance – holy unspeakables. Dragging only my toes near to their habitation, I am unable to look full on, unwilling to face them fully. There are things to be said, but I cannot speak them, yet, perhaps ever…

God, speak for me, as You must, and do at times, speak  for us. Speak for my heart, pumping this  yet un-worded  knowing about my frame.

Let now be the time of your nearness. Closer than I to (my) self, rise to gain me. Speak for my heart, and hear it too, well. I am outside… and await you to do, as always, all for me.