on mistakes

How many times have we thought back over mistakes and realized, even now, that we still grit our teeth and squeeze our eyes tightly shut at the remembrance of such horrible things that happened because we were naive, foolish, or just plain not thinking straight.  I know I have my share, and I'm pretty sure that you do as well.  Have you ever wondered whether you will ever be able to forgive yourself?

I used to.  There are some things that I've done in my life that I'm ashamed of, and there are things that happened that make me wish with all my heart that I'd just simply known better--or thought it through--or just somehow known not to take that particular road.  However, I've come to realize one very important thing:  my mistakes, like everything else in my life, serve to make me who I am, and I am a better person for them.

For example, I stopped writing blogs a few years ago because of a mistake that I made.  Partly it was through my neglecting to be diligent, partly it was because I didn't think things through and therefore allowed myself to do something that I came to regret, and partly it was just dumb luck.  But whatever the cost, the repercussions were serious, and I felt grateful that I was able to keep my job.  For the rest of the year, I went around like a timid child, afraid to do anything or say anything.  Even though I was "safe," I didn't feel safe.  I felt trapped.  I felt like I was walking in a nightmare of my own making.

But then I stopped and thought about it.  I realized that as misguided as my actions were, they weren't done in malice.  I did not deserve the self-condemnation that I was feeling.  I knew that it would be a long year, but I resolved to make the best of it and keep on (believe me, that did not come overnight).  I did make it through that year, and the next, and now I feel that it is well behind me.  I am slowly learning to trust again--to trust myself and others.  I had to finally come to the point where I could forgive myself for this error of judgement and move on.

Mistakes, even though they are so very hard to get past, often have their own rewards.  The lessons that we learn come at a cost, and therefore we are bound to remember them and (hopefully) not repeat them.  I know that I will never be so naive again when writing a blog.  I have purposefully set my blog on "public", because I intend to make sure that there is absolutely nothing questionable or objectionable on the blog.  If at any time I decide to write something that might be seen so, I intend to fully stand behind it, because I now understand the cost.

So if you have something that has been bothering you, something that makes you wince when you remember, just remember that God reminds us to give thanks in all things.  He doesn't say this to make us squirm; he wants us to be free.  So look, and live, and be free.

On treasures...

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Matthew 6:19-21

But treasures on earth are so much fun! I don't know what I'd do without my I-phone, my computer, my TV, my dvr and dvd and Roku and all the rest of it.  And my writing--how can I possibly live without putting pen to paper (so to speak)?  

Some treasures are literal--other treasures are figurative.  We have the beautiful possibility of devoting ourselves to God.  We can look at our treasures and turn them over to God.  Not that we would have to literally turn them in to the community church--we only have to realize that the comforts that we enjoy are a gift, and we are to possess them only, not let them possess us.  In other words, have them, use them, but don't be so into them that they take over your life.

I am writing this at 5:40.  I used my Iphone before this to talk with a friend who is hurting. I used Facebook before that to hear about other friends' problems and pray for them (yes, I played some Candy Crush, too!)  Everything has its time, and God doesn't want you to live a life without pleasure.  But you can devote yourself to him in the midst of that pleasure.

So lay up your treasures.  Enjoy those that you have here, but realize that they will one day be parted from you.  Be sure that you also lay up treasures in heaven, so that when you get there, you will find them waiting for you.

Okay, then, before I close, what on earth ARE treasures in heaven? How can we lay up treasures in a place where we have never been?  Sweet reader, if you really believe that you have never been there-never touched Heaven's gate, then you don't understand heaven.  When you pray, you are touching Heaven's door.  When you worship, you are sweet perfume in the air of Paradise.  When you give yourself to another without regard for your own reward, you are piling up treasures more costly and beautiful than anything we can imagine down here.  And when you give your life for those that are beloved of God, you bring the love of God down upon yourself in a way that you can only imagine.  Do we see it here?  Not nearly as well as we'll be able to see it there.  We have a glimmer, but "now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face".  

And that's the true mystery of these treasures.  They are valuable, they are wonderful they are ours--but they will mean next to nothing when compared to the wonder, glory, and majesty of our Father, our Brother, our Friend--our Bridegroom.  He is our true treasure.  His smile is priceless-and he waits for us.  So come quickly, Lord Jesus!

On obedience`

My sister lives in South Carolina, so I don't get to see her much.  I've only been to her house a couple of times.  Once, when she was living in DC, I came to visit and we went to Columbia to visit her son and his family.  That's when I got to see something that I will never forget.  My niece, Deanne, was training her little daughter Hannah.  Now, I'm sure you know that in the South, the boys and girls are very polite.  Whenever you speak to them, they always answer, "Yes, ma'am."  With that delightful drawl, it's as sweet as it can be.  As a California girl, I'd always just assumed that the response came with them from the womb.  But when I was visiting, I realized that I was sorely mistaken.  That "yes, ma'am "is acquired.  Through training. And obedience.  Time and again, I heard Deanne say something to Hannah, who would answer, "Yes."  Sweetly, Deanne would prompt, "Yes, what?"  Not so sweetly, Hannah would respond, "Yes, ma'am!"  It is learned by practice--and obedience.

We learn through obedience, too.  I find that more often than not, I first do things because I'm told to do them.  It takes a while for me to get the habit of doing them because it's right (and even longer for me to do them because I want to).  Take praising God in all things, for example, I remember praying, "God, I don't know why I'm going through this.  I don't like it.  I don't want it.  But because you've said to, I thank you for it." (Can you hear the yes, ma'am??)

But sooner or later, it becomes accustomed, and then it becomes welcome.  I know now that praising God in all things means that we give him room to work, whatever the situation.  Even if the time seems dark, we acknowledge that he is eternal Light.  And that's okay, if only because he says that it is.

I am determined to write once a day for a year.  I am not interested--yet--in being published.  For whatever reason, I feel that I must do this first--this act of obedience to my writing.  And so I will.  Sometimes, like today, it will be just a passing thought.  Other times it will be something of more import. Maybe one person will read today's thought.  Maybe ten will read tomorrow's.  And that's okay.  I'm doing this in obedience, and in the knowledge that if I am faithful with a little, I will be able to be trusted with a lot.

And I want that trust.

Yes, ma'am!

perspective

Sometimes we see things incorrectly.  We see them through the filter of our pain, our grief, or even our joy.  When times give us a proper perspective, we can turn around and look at them differently and see them in a whole new light.

I moved here 7 years ago.  I was not happy about the move.  I knew nobody, saw nothing in the land that I was happy about, and generally felt that I was being driven away from my home by business. The only bright spot in the grey of my picture was the fact that I was going to become good friends with someone that I deeply respected.

Time lends perspective.  I have friends. The terrain, though desert, blooms beautifully in the spring, and the mountains never fail to thrill me with their stark majesty.  I have come to realize that my vision problems might very well have gone undetected where I was, and my language skills have grown as well (thanks, Laurie and Brian for giving me confidence in myself!) And the bright spot?  I have had to realize that he is a colleague, and that's enough.

I think that it does us good to look backwards every once in a while and catch a glimpse of what has gone before. The mother that we didn't understand become much wiser with the perspective of age and children of our own.  The friends that we couldn't live without--what on earth did we ever see in them ? The truths that we thought were unchangeable and undeniable?  Turns out that some of them weren't even truths at all.

And that's another thing.  Are you afraid to look back?  Are you afraid to stare into the face of what you always knew, thinking that it's somehow sacrilege to question their veracity?  I'll tell you a secret--it's not afraid of you.  If it is true, it stands tall and proud and even more beautiful given the perspective of age.  And if it's not…well, sometimes things grow better when you remove them from the distortion of time and clarify their meaning with the perspective of wisdom and understanding.

So I challenge you--take a look around you and tell me what you see. The world is growing all around you.  Are you growing with it?

Ordinary time

I took down the Christmas decorations today.
The house looks bare
it's almost as if nothing special ever took place here.
It's just
Ordinary.

The radio plays rock, pop, country, talk, classical, jazz
But no Christmas music anywhere,
Everything is just
Ordinary.

In the church, everything is white.
The poinsettias are gone,
Given to the good folk who came for Epiphany.
Nothing new has come to take its place
And it won't
Until Easter.

Ordinary time.

It was ordinary time in Jesus' day, too.
The first two years were wild,
The trek to Egypt exhausting,
But later they were allowed to come back

Back to Nazareth

And everything fell back into place--
Joseph the carpenter,
Mary his wife,
and their son
Jesus.

Just an ordinary family
In an ordinary time.

Little did they know.

On wisdom

I have learned a lot just by living.
Others say that I'm very wise,
But I don't necessarily think that.
I just think that I've lived long enough to realize some truths.

I used to be ashamed of my circumstances.
But I have lived long enough now to know
That circumstances change as we grow,
And if we are not happy where we are,
There is always time to change.

I used to think that I was alone in my struggles
But I have lived long enough to know
That we all share struggles: hurt and fear and pain
And we can help others by comforting them
With whatever comfort we have found from others
And from ourselves.

I used to feel pressured and tense
But I have lived long enough now to know
That pressure and tension
Is often of our own design,
And we can choose to live with them and suffer
Or release them at the end of the day and be content.

I used to feel that our decisions make us who we are,
But I have lived long enough to know
That our decisions, while having consequences,
Do not mire us in the muck of despair
Unless we give them permission.
Even if we have made decisions which seem unforgivable,
There is always forgiveness.

I used to believe that I needed a mate to be whole.
But I have lived long enough to know
That your mate for all time and eternity
Is Christ Jesus, and with him you are never alone.
Further, no matter who your mate is,
How wonderful that person might be,
You will one day be left alone,
And life will go much more smoothly
If you have developed a good and loving relationship
With yourself.

I used to fear death,
But I have lived long enough
Had enough loved ones pass before me
To embrace it as a hoped-for goal.

I used to fear change,
But I have lived long enough
Passed through enough windstorms of change
To realize that there is great good in the storm.

So if all this amounts to wisdom,
I guess maybe I'm wise.

If you'd like, I can share this experience with you
So that you in turn can share it with those you love,
So that the world may one day be as wise as we are.

Or better said,
The world can benefit
From the wisdom of its elders.

And by the way, many of you are my elders,
And I am happy that I am here to listen
So that I can learn from you.

Just speak.

on the shooting at Taft High

I never thought it would happen to me.  Or if it did happen, I thought that it would happen at the school where I teach.  But it did happen to me, and at a school that was a big part of my life.  I went to Taft High, I was bullied at Taft High, and I graduated from Taft High.  I was stunned (still am) to hear that this happened, but I have to say that I'm not terribly surprised. I don't mean to say that I expected that it would happen there, but I did think that it would happen again somewhere.   It seems that this sort of thing is happening more and more, and I can only say that I'm thankful that this situation wasn't worse.

As far as I can understand, the shooter walked to school, trying to conceal his shotgun.  Neighbors saw this and called 911.  He entered his 2nd-story classroom during 1st period and opened fire on a classmate.  The boy was someone that the shooter claimed had bullied him.  He then tried to shoot another student, but he missed.  He had 20 rounds of ammunition in his pockets, but his teacher, Mr. Hebert, and a campus supervisor, Kim Fields, were able to talk him down.  Rumors have spread that the student was suspended or expelled last year for having a "hit list" of students that he planned to kill, again because of the bullying.  The school was able to successfully evacuate (I think, I also heard that they were released from their rooms…) and they came home to their parents.

There are many things that can be taken away from this shooting.  First of all, if you see something strange, REPORT IT!  Lives might very well have been saved because of the fast action of the boys' neighbors.  Because the neighbors called 911 when they saw the boy walking with a poorly-concealed shotgun, the police response time to the shooting was only 60 seconds.  Just last week, I participated in a police training activity at my high school.  The police knew that they would at some point be called to come in to an emergency call at the school.  Even knowing this, the response time was anywhere from a few minutes to nearly 10.  One minute seems unbelievably fast.

Secondly, if you expel a student for threatened violence, don't let them back in.  I know that this may seem unfair, but I have to say that there should be no second chances here.  If a student threatens violence, you can be sure that the other students know it.  It will not defuse any situation or make it in any way better to bring the student back.  I honestly believe that if a student--FOR ANY REASON--threatens another's life, that's it.  No second chances.  No do-overs.  If it means that the student has to be bused to another school in another district, then that's what will have to be done.

Also, we need to rethink our classroom policies.  As a teacher, I keep my classroom unlocked as long as I'm inside it, with the exceptions of working late at night or during a lockdown drill.  I'm pretty sure that Mr. Hebert did, too.  If he didn't, the student would never have been able to enter.  Making sure that teachers lock their doors after class has started seems a pretty easy way to avoid this problem.

That leads me to the biggest--and hardest--part of this problem: bullying.  I've heard people say that the boy must have had mental problems.  I've heard people wonder about the boy's parents and why they didn't teach him to stand up to bullies.  That's really beside the point, in my opinion.  The boy was bullied. The boy had to deal with this bullying every day at school.  And I'm sure the boy is not alone.  Bullying happened at my high school when I went there. It happened in my junior high, and also at my elementary school.  Nobody ever seemed to care that I was being constantly put down, taunted and ridiculed.  One of my starkest memories as a child is a girl coming up to me in elementary school and saying,  "I wanted to tell you that I think you're nice and I wish I could be your friend, but it's not fashionable to like you."  I actually felt sorry for her.  Here I was causing her anguish.  But every single day was anguish for me.  I can't tell you how many nights I came home and thought about killing myself.  What stopped me?  Killing myself was a sin.  That was it, pure and simple.  I didn't want to go to hell, so I endured hell on earth.  The worst part of it was that I believed that I somehow deserved it.  I must have been too fat, too ugly, too stupid, too weird, too something, or else I would have been able to have friends.  It was decades before I figured out that I was not to blame.  I still have problems trusting those who reach out to me in friendship.  Those years left me believing that anyone who befriended me either had an ulterior motive or were going to hurt me.  I had many experiences of both.

Please don't think that I'm saying that I was alone or that this only happened in Taft High.  I wasn't and it didn't.  Others around me hurt just as much as I did; I just didn't see it at the time. Friends in college have told me of similar experiences in their own schools.  It happened all over then.  It happens still today, and I think that it's  more common today than ever before.  We have identified the problem, yes, but as long as the problem is glorified on Youtube, in movies, on television, and in real life, it will continue to exist.

To understand this better, you need to understand what I consider to be bullying.  Any time you take unfair advantage of another, you are bullying.  Any time that you use someone as the butt of your joke, you are bullying.  Any time you spread rumors and gossip about a person, you are bullying that person.  Bullying is endemic of our society today. We see and share posts that bully public figures.  We see television shows that glory in badmouthing others and we passively laugh.  We let our children (and I'm as guilty as anyone else here) play video games that devote themselves to bullying, hurting and even killing others,  I'm not talking about "Modern Warfare" or the like.  I'm talking about Grand Theft Auto and the video game "Bully"(!).  It is clear that bullying is part of the fabric of our society.

How do we deal with bullying?  I think that first and foremost we must define it and we must strictly forbid it in our schools.  We must have a zero tolerance policy for bullying--nothing else will do.  We can be the most defense-conscious schools in America, but if we continue to allow bullying, we continue to foster the very problems that lead to the violence.  When we see bullying, whether it's boys "joking around" with much smaller boys by holding them up and refusing to put them down, whether it's calling someone names, whether it's "teasing" that's not seen as teasing by the other student, it needs to be dealt with immediately.  If you let it go, you've just shown another student that it's perfectly all right to bully and denigrate his/her classmate.  That is not right, and it has to stop.  We need to create a culture of civility in our schools and an understanding that their emotional safety is just as secure at our school as is their physical safety.

Yes, there is mental illness.  Yes, it is a big problem.  Yes, there are other reasons.  But bullying is the one that we can control.  If a person is mentally disturbed, that is something else again.  But even if this boy was mentally disturbed, I have to wonder--if he wasn't bullied day after day, would he have felt such anger that it seemed that nothing would solve the problem but revenge by fire?

I'm extremely grateful that TUHS was spared the horror of Sandy Hook or Columbine.  But please, people, let's use this experience as a weapon.  Don't allow bullies to rule at our schools.  We can deal with it at school, but it's best dealt with at home.  Show your children that it is not okay to treat people without respect, and your children will learn to treat others as they would like to be treated themselves.