In Gennesaret

As I drug my lazy self out of bed yesterday morning after a few days of too much pie and too much time on the couch, my devotional was from the beginning of Psalm 118: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. That staggering proclamation about God is repeated multiple times in the Old Testament – “his love endures forever.” In Ezra, Jeremiah, both books of Chronicles, several psalms . . . in fact, every single line of Psalm 136 ends with that phrase. And of course, after pondering these passages all day, now the old Chris Tomlin song quoting the verse has been running through my head. And while humming that catchy little tune, it suddenly occurred to me how very remarkable that belief is in the context of the Old Testament. I’m no ancient history expert, but I do know a bit about the other religions in the world during the time of ancient Israel when these books were written. And I don’t think any of those peoples proclaimed their gods as loving. Like, ...

Last week, I wrote about a moment of accidental brilliance I had. This week, I write about a moment of unintentional snobbishness. As I’ve grown spiritually over the years, my prayer life has changed. When I talk to God, it’s usually very personal. Pretty casual. Always respectful, of course, but intimate, spontaneous and friendly. My team I work with at school is the same way. Our prayer times in the morning before the kids come in are very meaningful to me. I feel like Jesus is sitting there in the room with us, loving us and enjoying our chat with him. Prayers at my church are different – and I was irked by that during a recent service. My church is rather liturgical (which was a new thing for me), and this is usually evident in the prayer time. Most of the prayers are read. And to be honest, I just don’t care for that. Because for me, reading is not praying. It’s reading . Praying is a conversation, not a recitation. I wouldn’t have a conversation with friends by reading alou...

Every once in a while, I have a moment of accidental brilliance with clearly divine origins. Vocabulary is a big deal to me. I read research quite a while ago that said the biggest difference between inner city students who succeed and those who don't boils down to two things: parent involvement (duh) and a strong vocabulary. Having good words at your disposal changes not only your communication but your thinking. When you learn the word "vague", you start noticing vagueness around you and want clarification. When you know the words "irritated" and "distraught" and the subtle difference between them, you can recognize each in your friends and know better how to help them. My middle school students learn eight good vocabulary words a quarter – strong, useful, prevalent words that I think will impact their communication in positive ways if they know, understand, and use them. (That may not sound like much -- but by the end of middle school, that gives ...

As a general rule, I don't assume my dreams have any particular meaning for me unless something really smacks me in the face for some reason. That said, I've been having some weird dreams lately. Not weird as in atypical -- they're the kind of dreams I've been having all my life. Like, I'm a student in class and I don't know where to go or what I was supposed to study and I've been missing classes for weeks. Or I'm an actor in a play and I can't find my costume and I've been learning all the wrong lines -- or even doing the wrong play altogether. That kind of dream. Yesterday, it was a teacher/director scenario. I was helping in a class with a woman trying to direct a bunch of young kids in a play. And she was making me crazy because she had no idea what she was doing. She was talking way over their heads. She passed out some freaky picture (something like an ancient mosaic) to show the kids where she wanted them each standing on the stage . . . ...

  "But she could love Charles Wallace." Last week, I finished  A Wrinkle in Time  with my 8th graders and fought back tears as I read this final scene aloud in class. The protagonist Meg finally understands that the only weapon she has against IT, the evil power controlling her beloved little brother, is . . . love . Love is the one thing she has that IT doesn't have. Meg first wonders if she is expected to love IT; she is sure that IT could not withstand love, that it would "shrivel up and die" if she loved it. But she realizes that she is incapable of love that great. I don't think any of us are. We hate evil, understandably. Nevertheless, we can and should love those who are caught up in and therefore victims of evil. Like Meg's brother, who was a good kid, but prideful and unwise, who believed he was strong enough and smart enough to withstand IT's power, but was very wrong.  "She could stand there and she could love Charles Wallace." Y...

This is going to sound like bragging, I’m afraid. I’m not bragging. I’m not boastful or prideful about this at all. I’m just in wonder at it. A father spoke at our school’s chapel service this week. He told the story about Jesus calming the storm (he wore a life jacket and used an oar – this dad knows his audience). And he expressed frustration at the disciples freaking out over the storm rather than waking up Jesus who was sleeping in the boat. Why didn’t they turn to him first? he questioned. And why don’t we? And that’s when I realized . . . I do turn to God first. I didn't used to, but I do now. When I have problems in my life – big ones or small ones – God really is the first person I’m talking to, at least more often than not. Somehow over the years, I’ve grown into the sense of being in constant conversation with God. Not quite the way Brother Lawrence did it in The Practice of the Presence of God (Kolin mentioned him during chapel, too), but yeah . . . it’s like he’s ...

These days, I’m praying every night for sleep. Many times. I pray for it when I’m first lying down trying to shut off my brain. I pray for it when I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and fear I’ll be awake until dawn. I pray when I get out of bed in the morning that I’ll sleep better the next night. Sleep issues have been a constant in my life for almost as long as I remember (I wrote about them here nearly a year ago). I’ve had several sleep studies, seen many specialists, tried multiple remedies . . . and yet I still have seasons like right now where genuine rest eludes me. If I had a few thousand dollars lying around to cover my high deductible, I’d see a specialist again. But I don’t, so I just pray. And pray. And pray. And I still don’t sleep as well as I need to. There are many who say this is exactly why they don’t believe in a God, or at least in a personal God who loves us and is involved in our daily life. If a personal loving God existed, these people say, he would...

My daughter got married the weekend before last. I’m not objective here, of course, but I do believe it was the most beautiful wedding ever (see the picture here for corroborating evidence). My cheeks hurt by the end of the ceremony from smiling so hard. The reception was lovely . . . the weather was lovely . . . my girl was lovely . . . the vows and toasts were beautiful . . . it was just a joyous occasion. And then on the last evening of their honeymoon, someone broke into their hotel room and stole their wedding rings. And then the next day, they got a call from the hotel that the rings had been recovered, and they were able to go back and get them (no details of what happened . . . the hotel people probably can’t discuss a legal situation like that). During the twelve hours of furious back and forth in the family group text about the rings, my other daughter was strangely silent . . . and then not answering my phone calls. Nobody else had heard from her, and her local friend ...

Turn the other cheek. If someone slaps you in the face, don’t slap back – offer them the other cheek to slap as well. We do all realize that this is Jesus talking, yes? There are many sayings that believers have adopted over the years that people think are actually in the Bible but are not. “God helps those who help themselves” is a common one. But that’s not the case with this cheek-slapping thing. It’s in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5. This is straight from the mouth of the Son of God. Apparently, that doesn’t make any difference for some believers. About a year ago, Russell Moore, the editor of Christianity Today magazine, expressed his concern about the many pastors who had told him that they preached this passage on a Sunday morning and congregation members asked them where they got their liberal talking points. Oh. My. Word. But there’s more. Moore says this: What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quotin...

I love my job. Really, I really, really do. But my place of employment has had a few rocky years. Every once in a while, we come to a point where I say to myself, Okay, time for a fresh start. The old issues are over. The people who were discontented have left or are appeased. Now we can move forward and have peace. Bu-u-ut no. There’s always something. I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that even though I love my job, there will always be stressors I’m dealing with. Because as my colleague says, it’s a very people-y job. And people are . . . well, people . People are wounded. Everyone has been damaged by someone and bears the scars. And that damage often bleeds out in our behavior toward others. People are fearful. They are afraid of making mistakes. They are afraid of saying the wrong thing. They are afraid of confrontation. They are afraid of burning bridges. They are afraid of being labeled and unliked. People are selfish. Even when they want to be self-less, they ...

Y’all, I’ve had two colds in the past three months. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for me it can be. If I don’t treat my colds early and effectively, they grow into monsters that do me in for a month or more. That’s what happened in June. I came home from a trip sick. I mean, sick . Sicker than I’ve been for a long time. And that cold progressed into a wicked chest cough that hung around for the rest of the month, even after my doctor prescribed an antibiotic and a heavy-duty cough suppressant (which wasn’t cheap, let me tell you). I mean, people, IT SUCKS. Then the first morning of the second week of school, I woke up with the inkling of soreness in my throat and felt a bit of panic. Thankfully, because I was home this time at that first hint of a symptom, I was able to start taking my Zinc, Selenium, and Vitamin C immediately. That’s my happy little cocktail that seems to kick these little infections out the door if I start it early. The cold came . . . but it was very m...

This past July, I spent a couple crazy weeks working at Crystal Sea Drama Company (which I casually refer to as “my theater” because I've spent so much time there over the past decade). It was the year for our New Play Festival, which I’ve said many times is the best thing we do. CSDC students wrote the plays, CSDC alumni directed the plays, and CSDC campers performed the plays. Last fall, I taught the playwriting class preparing for this big event. There were six girls in the class – more than I’ve ever had for a playwriting class. They were all writers already. Most of them had novels in progress, and some of them had two or three they were working on. But writing a play . . . that’s a different kettle of fish, they learned. And it was a fun few months working with them in that endeavor. I was proud of the work they ended the semester with. Only three of them chose to have their plays performed in the festival, which was fine. But not until we were rehearsing this summer did...

Y’all, God has blessed me with really good people in my life. People who love me, support me, appreciate me, and go out of their way for me. The gifts and kind words and all-day-long singing I received on my birthday last week were small examples of that. Seriously, friends . . . how do I deserve you? So many good people. So, I really shouldn’t give as much attention as I do to the one exception, right? One person. There’s just this one person . They are a constant burr in my saddle these days. They make my life harder – and if this isn’t intentional on their part, or at least passive aggressive, it is most certainly selfish. In almost everything they do, they seem to communicate a lack of respect for me.  It’s only one person. Why do I let this one person affect me so much? We’ve all got our baggage, you know. I’ve shared some of mine before here in this blog. One particular parcel I tote around unseen is an unspoken message I’ve heard in my heart since childhood – parti...

Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. ( Matthew 11:29 in The Message) I taught a breakout session at my school’s Parent Conference last week about discipling our children. (Read that closely: not "disciplining". Discipling. ) One of my primary points was that discipling is not teaching. We disciple not through words but through actions – through living life together. When Jesus called his disciples, he didn’t say, “Come – have a seat. Listen to what I have to say.” He said, “Follow me.” When he told them to love each other, he didn’t give them a definition to write down and recite back to him later. He said, “Love each other the way I have loved you.” We learn more by example than we learn by words – from our parents and from our Lord. Walk with me . . . work with me . . . being a disciple of Jesus involves with-ness. It’s concerned with acting more than it is with knowing. But those last words – the unforced rhythm...

I recently read The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. Being a director and a playwright, I’ve felt a bit of shame at my ignorance of this classic playwright and his works. I have actually seen this particular work of his performed . . . although I don’t remember anything about it (other than the fabulous set designed by my friend Alfy, which was the reason for my attendance). So, I ordered a copy of the play with an Amazon gift card I got at the end of the school year. And I wasn’t impressed. I felt the same way when I finished a long-drawn-out reading of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina this summer. I will say that I at least knew what was going on most of the time in that novel; the play I had a hard time following at all. I appreciated the tragedy of Anna’s end and the joy of Levin’s enlightenment . . . but the journey to get to those moments was laborious. The Brothers Karamazov had a similar effect on me. Yay for the occasional glorious mountaintops . . . ugh for the long, winding ...

A friend of mine recently put her own birthdate on her son’s passport application by accident. A small, understandable error in the midst of the craziness that is a sudden, stressful, quickly organized move of a family of five to another country. But it had the potential of really messing up their plans, and she was, as you might imagine, quite distraught by it. During my daughter’s recent visit here, she had a car accident. She’s a good driver (she’s probably a better driver than I am). This was actually her first accident after nine years of driving. There were extenuating circumstances: it was pouring down rain, she was in a new car where she wasn’t yet familiar with the feel of the brakes, PLUS she was suffering a migraine. But the real kicker? We had yet to get her insurance adjusted for the new car, so the accident wasn’t covered. A brief period of our not being completely on top of things led to a misstep that has been an unfortunate pain in the butt for all of us. Small mi...

Just call me Team Shmuel. I mean, Lord bless that boy. He’s a fictional character created by The Chosen to represent the Pharisaic opposition to Jesus. And as the series has progressed, I’m coming to the opinion that this character is one of the most brilliant things about the show. Yes, he’s a Pharisee. He is passionate about the law. He really frustrates us at the beginning of the story because he seems to be the stereotypical Pharisee we all have in our minds when we read the gospels. The antagonist, always in Jesus’ face and bashing him behind his back. He’s black and white with no grays, and he’s trying to bring our man down. But people, give him credit for being sincere . As the story progresses and he moves up to Jerusalem to join the Sanhedrin, he is increasingly dismayed by the politics going on there. That’s not what this man is about. Shmuel loves the Lord! Shmuel loves God’s law! Shmuel loves his people and wants to bring them back where they should be in their cove...

I’m old, people. At least I feel old some days. You know when I feel most old? When moving is hard. Moving. Not moving from one home to another. Just moving . Moving my old, stiff body. Newton codified the principle in the law of inertia: “An object at rest will stay at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion – unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” I’m a teacher on summer vacation, and the bulk of my body in any given moment is NOT in motion. And to make it move is more of a trial than it should be. But I have made a discovery. Starting to move is hard. But that’s the hardest part. Once I’m up and going, it’s just not that bad. Yes, that’s old news. That’s Newton’s law again – once in motion, it’s easier to stay in motion. The thing is, this is something we all need to be reminded of sometimes, don’t we? After my father passed away, my uncle told me a story about him. My dad was the first in his family to go to college, and my uncle was the second. About a ...

See this picture? I’m seriously considering posting it in my classroom this fall. That’s weird on a lot of levels – one being that I am not one to do much of anything visual or decorative in my room. I'm not artistic in that way, and I simply don’t have the time or energy to mess with it. My first year of teaching, I spent a good deal of my summer making a cute little bulletin board display that I don’t remember anything about at all other than the fact that I know it wasn’t nearly as cute or meaningful as I thought it was and it took way too much of my time to create. But I’ll admit that the idea of putting up this picture in my classroom is also weird because . . . well, just because it’s weird to display a big picture of an outdated farm implement. Like, what?? Here’s how I got to this place. I wrote a post here a couple weeks ago about rest – and that I had come to the tentative conclusion that rest is the laying down of burdens. (You can read  that brilliance here.) H...