It's like when mom spent all day cooking dinner and then we complained about the food....

My adorable ninth grade students are fast at work, completing their test much faster than I expected (unfortunately). As I scan the room, I see his face, staring at me, willing me to notice him.
His large, brown eyes hold a vacancy that is more vast than Niagara Falls. His mouth hangs open like a mentally challenged golden retriever.
Then those infamous words come out of his mouth.

"What is a predicate?!"

What is a predicate?! WHAT IS A PREDICATE?!

I have spend the last two weeks describing various grammar principles. You have taken notes, asked me questions, completed worksheets, and practiced sentences in class.
THIS IS AN OPEN NOTE TEST FOR GOD'S SAKE.
And you have the audacity to ask me what a predicate is.

It is at this point that I think you are an idiot.

There goes my "Compassionate Teacher Award of the Year."
I think I made baby Jesus cry.

If I keep writing crap like this, I might as well start listening to Emo

I lack all inspiration.

Feeling devoid of value, unaware of any beauty, unnoticed at every angle.

I do not know how to escape this strange, twisted place where my mind has made it's home. But I do know that I am frustrated.

I know there is more, but I do not see it. And I am missing it....

Ostrich in Hibernation

It is a slow process to pull my head out of the sand... it is incredibly difficult to peel myself away from this ivory tower and to be exposed to dirty truth. I don't know what it is... I don't know what I need to learn... I stuck my toe out long enough- I peeked- and I saw enough to know that going back would be a sin of omission.

And now, I feel like everything I touch must have hidden bloodstains on it. I know there is injustice. I know there is pain. I know there is drastic need for change. Yet to me, it is vague. I am safe from it in my little suburban, middle class bubble. It's like an underlying, pulsing energy of death that flows under a facade of comfort.

Yet anytime I try to learn, anytime I try to understand, I am so overwhelmed with shame, guilt, misunderstanding, and lack of direction that I am immobilized. there is so much.... there is too much.... there is blood on my hands, blood in my mouth, blood on my body, all over my home!

I didn't know, Lord! I don't understand! Part of me still does not want to pull my head fully out of the sand... but I have already peeked.... and I don't think I'm allowed to go back. Oh Jesus! I am so ashamed! I am so confused! I do not understand!

Open my eyes to see the pain; do not let these blessings you've poured out on me to be used in vain

September (or getting close)

Every inch of skin- exposed
Absorbing rays like a human solar panel
stale wind mimics relief
As sweat
drips
down my
back.

Outside- a rolling roar
Constant at-work play list with no batteries needed
Melting into the background
As the
tide
continues
to rise.

We remain mostly alone
Solitary safety beacons lifted off the sand
Lacking child-like screams and voices
For they
are now stuck
in their chairs
in school.

This heat, this surf, this time
Breeds insanity, discontent, and longing
Rememberance of days just passed
Of those days
that we
never appreciated
before.

Suprise, Suprise: My eyes are raining once again

There is something so intrinsically beautiful when humans some together in joy to create something extraordinary. I choose to imagine this taking place on a Monday... when individuals are focused on the next thing... the work ahead of them.. the mundane, the drudgery, perhaps the pain, the everyday. Then, unexpectedly, joy bursts forth as people work together to dance and sing and share... who can deny them? Who can not be drawn into that joy?

I am watching this video and I cannot help but be drawn into that joy... that happened in another part of the work at a time that is now past..... but the joy is present and future.

This is beautiful. My Dad said that it was a reminder that there is still hope in the world. I think I agree.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but.....

I heard a rumor somewhere... that some time, long ago, in a far away land, bounding, supernatural steps towards equality were taken. Black and white finally clasped each others hands in unashamed joy at the response of this event. Slaves and owners celebrated their shared humanity at a banquet table together. Female and male stood eye to eye, sharing their unique perspectives on the wonders before them. As walls were broken down and social constraints destroyed, each walked into new perspectives, new ideas, new ways of thinking that opened up their mind, made their God greater, and fulfilled their life more than they thought possible.

When He died, all of God died with Him, and with that the former ways of humanity/deity interaction. When He rose, everything about humanity shifted, finding it's life and breath within the deity rather than under the deity. Walking into this new life together, walking into the life that only finds its definition in the Christ, allowed the chains of class, gender, color, and appearance to fall off. A fiery display of the vast uniqueness of God's creativity moving together, each different from the next, but completely unified.

In light of this, I do not understand your way of thinking. If God is all we seek, if He is all we strive for in every interaction, I do not understand how we can remain thinking in conditional categories of "us" and "them." If our actions are to please God, then there is no fear in our interactions. "For when two or three of you gather in my name, I am there."

In setting these fences so far away from your deepest-feared sin, I feel that you have missed out on the love (and therefore life) before you. Fifty percent of the world's perspective, fifty percent of the Church has just been cut of from a change of being a part of the body with you, from entering into life together. For how do you enter into life together, how do you enter into a movement with another person, unless you know who that person is? And how do you know who that person is unless you speak with them, know them, interact with them?

Not all intimacy is sexual. In fact, I think that intimacy that supersedes sexuality is the purest form of love.

I could be wrong. I could also misunderstand what you are saying. But this is what I am hearing, and it breaks my heart, for it keeps real, intentional community from becoming a part of life.

Stop.

being so damn funny.

I need to find other people with a sense of humor like mine.

I stopped wearing the shades and took the cotton out of my ears

When all else fails, this will compel me yet: the transforming love of those who have real faith; the confidence of those who trust in the goodness of the Almighty God. This is what makes life beautiful. This is what transforms the world into the Kingdom.

THIS is what You do... and it is so incredibly beautiful...

It has been before me for so long, but for the first time I can say "Lord, I see!!! I hear!!! I feel!!!" All around the the world has been renewed; I cannot comprehend how I have missed it for so long... so caught up in loving myself rather than the Lord.

You are so lovely; how can I do anything but kneel in your presence and praise you?! Woe to me, for I am a woman of unclean lips, and I have seen the glory of the Lord... working, moving, breathing, ALIVE. It is so much greater, so much brighter, so much clearer than I ever thought before.

Come dance with me before our God in a joyous celebration!! There is nothing else worthwhile in this world, for "all is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" if it is not for the purpose of simply glorifying the One who has brought all things into being.

Turning Point

I think I would choose intense pain over this vapid lack of emotion.

No, I lie. I suppose stress and worry have their respective places in my life, but even THAT feels dulled. The only confidence of feeling is a numb fear that emotion will never rise again.

One thing at a time... a constant refrain. But what happen when everytime there is something, another one thing.... and the cool breeze that flirts with sun-warmed skin is unnoticed, the glory of the sunset is forgotten, the wonder of breath is dismissed?

I am held captive by my own choices and sheduling. I have learned that full schedules are not a part of a life worth living. If life happens when we breathe, I've been holding my breath. Freedom, freedom, freedom.. my soul cries but it has no words. Weighed heavy by the numbness that has consumed it.

But only takes a moment to breath again. I can feel you rising; I think I can feel you moving. Life explodes around me again in the faces of those who have been there every day... I just haven't seen; I just haven't heard. I don't want to lose this......

Excuses

Too much schooling sucks out all emotional creativity. I feel, but can't feel long enough to write.


It's not like anyone really reads this anyway.


One more month.

Maybe I Have a Disorder or Something....

As we shared our souls, I breathed you in. Somehow... I'm not exactly sure how... you all became an intrinsic part of my DNA. As we walked together, our beings unified in some pseudo-spiritual-crazy-moon-lady sort of way. I know all of your smiles, your quirks, your laughs; I probably can guess what you all are thinking by various looks of your faces. This fills me with joy. Intimacy of this nature is beautiful. I am a part of you, and you.... you all are a part of me. So much so that the very thought of any one of you fills me to the brim with a burning passion of mixed things such as a longing to see you, the memories we have, the potential within you... etc etc etc.

I always want to relive our times together; I want to create new times together.....I feel abnormally connected. Obsessed, if you will. Phone calls do no justice. I want to touch you, to see you, to smell you.

I would throw in "tasting" for the sake of meeting all the senses, but I cannot see these friendships progressing into mutually licking relationships...

Normal people don't think this way. Normal people don't think that others become an integral part of their very being. But I can't help it. I can't help seeing your intrinsic value. I can't help being thrilled by your individual characteristics. I can't help being impressed with the goodness you bring to the world surrounding you. I can't help but think there is nothing that tear you out of who I am.

I want all of you around me all the time. Perhaps that is heaven, for I cannot think of anything more beautiful.

Satire Births Truth

This is simply one of the best things I have ever read.

I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

By Janet Cosgrove
Christian
November 19, 2008 | Issue 44•47

Everybody has this image of "crazy Christians" based on what they hear in the media, but it's just not true. Most Christians are normal, decent folks. We don't all blindly follow a bunch of outdated biblical tenets or go all fanatical about every bit of dogma. What I'm trying to say is, don't let the actions of a vocal few color your perceptions about what the majority of us are like.

Like me. I may be a Christian, but it's not like I'm one of those wacko "love your neighbor as yourself " types.

God forbid!

I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into "turning the other cheek." We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn't mean we're all obsessed with extremist notions like "righteousness" and "justice."

My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That's all. Just the core beliefs. You won't see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.

I'm a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff.

But that doesn't mean I think people should, like, forgive the sins of those who trespass against them or anything weird like that.

We're not all "Jesus Freaks" who run around screaming about how everyone should "Judge not lest ye be judged," whine "Blessed are the meek" all the time, or drone on and on about how we're all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God's love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven.

Now, granted, there are some Christians on the lunatic fringe who take their beliefs a little too far. Take my coworker Karen, for example. She's way off the deep end when it comes to religion: going down to the homeless shelter to volunteer once a month, donating money to the poor, visiting elderly shut-ins with the Meals on Wheels program—you name it!

But believe me, we're not all that way. The people in my church, for the most part, are perfectly ordinary Americans like you and me. They believe in the simple old-fashioned traditions—Christmas, Easter, the slow and deliberate takeover of more and more county school boards to get the political power necessary to ban evolution from textbooks statewide. That sort of thing.

We oppose gay marriage as an abomination against the laws of God and America, we're against gun control, and we fervently and unwaveringly believe that the Jews, Muslims, and all on earth who are not born-again Pentecostalists are possessed by Satan and should be treated as such.

When it comes down to it, all we want is to see every single member of the human race convert to our religion or else be condemned by a jealous and wrathful God to suffer an eternity of agony and torture in the Lake of Fire!

I hope I've helped set the record straight, and I wish you all a very nice day! God bless you.


Thank you, Onion, for your beautiful satire!

This article can be found in its original context at:
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/im_not_one_of_those_love_thy

It really can't get more cliche than Sunrises and Sunsets...

I watched the sunrise a long time ago, today. I remember the cold as I watched the pink streaks of sky reach around the foothills like fingers on a mission to crush darkness. More importantly, I remember my source of warmth that shared my blanket.... Anxiousness and relief, excitement and calm, worry and contentment somehow mixed into a tangible joy that burst forth from within me.

Since that long lost sunrise I have learned an incredible amount of knowledge. I have learned that life is slightly more complicated that I would expect when I am shouting so loud that I think my own voice is the voice of God. I have also learned that God will work in whatever situation I get myself in....He is just THAT faithful. I have learned what love feels like, and in trying to act out what it looks like, I have seen glimpses of truth. I have learned that I am not perfect, but that doesn't mean that I am not beautiful, lovable, or good. I have learned what the perfect laugh sounds like. I have learned that a struggle can still have joy within it. I have felt more vulnerable than I have ever felt in my entire life, and I have lived to tell about it. I have learned that my interpretation is not always the right one. I have learned that sometimes, I am too stubborn. I have learned that I try to have control over everything.

I watched the sun set today. It seemed to be the appropriate action. A comfortable loneliness embraced me as I watched the darkness win the eternal battle of the sky. The colors, though... Sadness can be overpowered by awe-inspiring visuals. This wistful sunset was mixed with chaos and beauty, and hopeful ends of anticipated returns. God whispers in my ear an eternal love that is much larger than anything I can possibly fathom, reminding me that all this, the sunrises, the sunsets, the emotions, the lessons.... these belong to him. From this seeming disorder something magnificent and beautiful will arise. Another sunrise and another sunset are on their way, full of new lessons and new life.

No More Pedestals, for I am Muddled.

Surely the mountains are too large and too daunting.
Initiative was never a strength, passing them officially seems impossible.
If you were going to try, I feel as if you would have already tried.
I try to reconcile in my mind the possibility or lack of possibility, but my attempt for some sort of mental control drives me more crazy than if I just let it be unknown.
Just when anger, disappointment, and reality formed into the ability to give up, I was pushed back into a downward spiral of hope.
.....Right after I tried to be someone that I surely was not......
The sad thing is, if this hope is ushered forward, I probably will be unsure and critical.
There is too much.... it is too hard... and it is not worth it for you...
perhaps that is the esteem talking there, but really...

I am just going to think about something else.