Tag: Community

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[Re]creating a cursive culture

“Hey, why aren’t you copying the notes off the board?” I asked one of my freshman boys a few years ago as I made my way around my classroom.

“Uhm. Well, because I can’t read them. What the [insert expletive here]  is that, French?!” he snapped back at me.

As I glanced back and forth between my very confused student and my white board, a few things ran through my mind:

1) While my students typically come to DSS with knowledge gaps from being bounced through various schools and life, I knew this particular student was legitimately capable of reading what I had put on the board, and that I wasn’t dealing with a reading level issue here.

2) My handwriting was neater than normal. In fact, for a relatively new teacher, it wasn’t even as slanted as it usually was…

As I stood there dumbstruck, trying to formulate some kind of response, one of my other students piped up.

“How old are you?” she asked her classmate.

“Fourteen,” he said brashly, glaring between the senior girl and I, clearly trying to determine whether or not we were going to judge him for his age.

“He probably can’t read cursive, Miss. They stopped teaching it in the schools. My little brother can’t read it either and they’re the same age.”

Duh.

I stared at the white board covered in my cursive squiggles and made my trademark teacher “I’m-trying-to-buy-myself-some-time-here” humming noise, slightly relieved that there wasn’t a larger issue at hand.

At the time I didn’t realize cursive wasn’t being taught in public schools anymore, but as I’ve switched into auto-pilot and made the same mistake time and time again through the years, I am always reminded just how different school and culture are from when I was growing up.

(Yuck. That sentence just made me feel a million years old, but it’s true.)

The world of education is drastically different than it was ten years ago when I was in my students’ shoes. And when we stop and really think about it, the world as a whole is completely different now than it was ten years ago.

In 2005, Facebook was just getting its start in the collegiate world and texting hardly existed (and was a royal pain in the tush on your brick phone anyway). In 2005, my sister and I still had a land line with a cord in our bedroom. (The coolest land line ever, mind you. Check out that bad boy. We were SO cool. Ahem…moving on.)

landlinephone

Heck, this time ten years ago, there was no such thing as the iPhone and the novel concept of the iPod and MP3 player was just barely catching on.

Maybe it was just my youthful disillusionment, but ten years ago the world seemed more connected.

People still made small talk on buses and in line at the grocery store because they weren’t glued to their iPhones or Droids. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to stop by someone’s house to see if they were home instead of calling or texting them. And while it’s hard to believe, coffee shops were full of people talking to each other instead of pouring over their laptops with their headphones in. GASP!

But today, we live in a world that is separated, yet pretending to be hyper-connected due to social media and the ridiculous amount of technology in our everyday lives. We hear about it in the news, but we rarely think about how disconnected our lives have become as we tune into our music, Facebook apps, and text conversations instead of interacting with the people that God has put right in front of us, if only for a moment.

In May, one of my favorite men passed away. Papa Dean was hands down the best at interacting with the random people God put in his path each day. Dude would talk to anyone and everyone. And usually did.

He didn’t care if it slowed down the line at the coffee shop or if you were in a hurry to get somewhere “important”.

Nor did he care if he knew the person for 10 years or 10 seconds; he could strike up a deep conversation in a matter of minutes and every time his new friend would walk away with a smile on their face (Even if it was just the typical ‘what a bizarre old man’ smile). Papa Dean’s friendly personality made everyone that he encountered feel loved in the most magnificent way.

At his funeral, this was ever apparent by the variety of people who showed up, hugged strangers, and wept with smiles on their faces as the pastor recounted what a marvelous man Papa Dean was in his eulogy.

And just like Papa Dean, his eulogy was special. It wasn’t simply a list of nice things about a man who loved so well. No, it was a message about culture and it went something like this:

“One of Dean’s favorite things to do was write letters. Every day he studied his Bible and wrote a letter to whoever God brought to his mind. Sometimes it was his grandchildren, sometimes his son. Sometimes he wrote letters to God Himself, his caregivers at the assisted living home, or the baristas at Starbucks. The letters varied in topic and length, but always had one thing in common– they were always carefully written in cursive.

Dean prided himself on his penmanship– a skill that was taught to be of the utmost importance when he was in school seventy-some years ago. Seventy years ago, culture was different; the world wasn’t as divided as it is today. People talked to each other on the buses and smiled at strangers on the streets. Neighbors struck up conversations while they mowed their yards. Children played outside after school and their parents would join them for family dinners and modest feasts amongst friends. Life back then was more fluid and genuinely connected, just like the cursive in Dean’s letters.

While dealing with Dean’s passing is not going to be easy, it seems appropriate that He is no longer with us. He didn’t blend into this rushed, disconnected world anymore. He belonged to a culture and generation that is unfortunately fading– one that invested in things that were difficult and tedious like cursive… a culture that believed in written communication and letting people know when they were valued and loved… a culture that wasn’t concerned with rushing through life…

Thinking back on these words nearly a year later, I am reminded that I am a product of the culture around me just as much as my students are a product of their previous public school educations.

I am perpetually in a hurry and generally tethered to my little green and black iPhone… I “connect” with several people a day via social media and text messaging, but the majority of those “connections” could hardly be considered as such by any real standards. Out of habit I read the news or scroll through my Instagram in line at the grocery store or when I sit on the couch at night. It’s what I’ve been socialized to do and thus, I do it.

But what would happen if we all simply stopped and truly engaged with the world again?

What would happen if we as a culture/country/generation struck up conversations with that person we see on the bus every morning or the cashier who usually checks us out at the store? What if we spent the time that we normally wasted mindlessly scrolling through social-media garbage and wrote someone a well thought out note– a note of thanks, a letter of appreciation or encouragement. Or what if we simply wrote letters to the Lord or prayed for the people that God has entrusted us with?

Just like learning cursive, it’s going to be foreign and uncomfortable at first.

(Shoot, I can remember being so frustrated by cursive in grade school that I chucked my letter writing pad at my little sister and screamed, “This is dumb! I’m never gonna need to write like this after junior high anyway!” Aaaaand now I write almost exclusively in cursive. Oops. [Sorry about that, by the way, Kirsten Leigh.])

Imagine the change that could take place in our world if we put aside our discomfort and committed to slowing down and reconnecting our ourselves with the people around us. It would make a difference not only in our generation but in generations to come– not only in our culture but the cultures who model themselves after the institution that is America.

Just like in Papa Dean’s carefully penned letters we could tell stories– stories of God’s goodness both within our own lives and the lives of our newly connected communities… Stories radiating God’s Glory that everyone could understand.

LoveThyNeighbor

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

(Matthew 22:36-40)

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Being Made Whole

Abuse says a lot about a person. In some cases the abuser is crying out for help. In others, the abuser is attempting to make someone else cry in order to project the pain in their hearts onto someone else.

I went to school for a ton of different things (veterinary technician, English teacher, pre-med., film production, and theater acting, just to name a few) but I never went to school for psychology, so I can’t give you the exact explanation of what abuse says about an abuser.

I can however, tell you some of the things that abuse says to the abused.

Abuse says you’re worthless.

Abuse says you’re weak.

Abuse says you should be filled with shame for the part you have played within a certain situation.

Abuse says you deserve everything that has come your way.

Abuse says you are flawed.

Abuse says you are unlovable.

Abuse says you should keep your mouth shut.

Abuse says that the abuse will only get worse if you speak up.

Abuse says you’re the only one that feels this way.

For years I have foolishly listened to the things that my abuser(s) and abuse have spoken into my life.

But recently things have begun to change. Roughly a month ago, I felt God open the door for restoration and healing of some of the worst abuse in my past; abuse so dark and deep seeded that I had never told anyone about it. So when the opportunity for healing first came, my answer was a no brainer.

I said, “Oh hell no.” and slammed the door to healing shut, right in God’s face.

But true to His loving nature, the door swung back open less than a week later– A door which I promptly slammed shut once again… Only to have it swing back open yet again a few days after that…

Annoyed, it became fairly obvious to me that I was going to have to deal with my past.

For the first time in my life, I confided in a good friend about the abuse that riddled my past. For weeks I sobbed and screamed and was absolutely miserable as I worked to lay my pain and brokenness at the feet of Jesus.

Why are you making me walk back into this?! Why now?! Can’t we do this at a less stressful or more opportune time when I’m not trying to balance grad school, teaching, and having a social life? What the heck God!

What. The. Heck!

For the first time in years I was hit by wave after wave of depression and anxiety attacks, sometimes so vicious that I literally had to give myself a pep-talk just to get my tush out of bed in the morning or get out of my car and walk into work. Part of me was dying to talk about everything, but another part of me continued to listen to the voice lingering in the back of my head:

“Don’t say anything. No one will understand.”

And this is the state that I found myself in at the beginning of my students’ spring break leadership retreat– a trip that I was chaperoning.

In the days before the retreat, I began to second guess whether or not I should even go on the trip. After all, how was I supposed to lead a group of teenagers closer to God when I couldn’t even talk to God without spontaneously combusting? But against my better judgement, last Friday one of my co-workers and I packed two vehicles full of students and snow gear, and headed to Yampa, Colorado for a weekend away.

Fish&CrossRanch

On our first evening of the retreat, our students were all given the opportunities to tell their stories– the good, the bad, and the ugly of what had landed them at the Street School and how their lives had changed since becoming a Bulldog. After hours and hours of listening, laughing, and crying together, we called it a night and retired to our respective rooms.

As I was sitting on my bed reading, one of my girls came in, plopped down on my bed, and asked if we could talk. There, in a room 150 miles away from our homes and comfort zones, we exchanged pieces of our stories that had been shared with only a select few– stories of hope, pain, and the beautiful redemption of God. And in a way that only God can do, a piece of my heart was healed that night– the piece that had long been kept isolated by the fear of my past.

The next evening after dinner and group Bible Study, I felt a pull on my heart to share my story– the very same story that I have kept under wraps for over a decade. As all of my students were going to bed, I called an “emergency girly meeting” and all of my girls congregated in my room. In possibly the most clumsy and panicked way, everything I had been holding in for weeks came pouring out. At the end of my bizarre spew of words and tears, I looked up to see all of my girls staring at me with wide eyes.

Terrified, I tried to adjourn our meeting. Telling them that I didn’t know why I felt like God was telling me to say all that, but I was just trying to be obedient… and yeah… that they could all go back to their rooms if they wanted… or that they could stay and talk… or hangout… or whatever…

As I sat there and rambled, I expected them all to hop up and walk out, but no one moved. I tried yet again to adjourn the meeting, stumbling over even more awkward words.

Still nothing.

Slowly, after a few more moments of awkward silence that made me want to crawl out of my own uncomfortable skin, variations of the phrase “me too” were echoed throughout the room and the stories that had been shared the night before were expanded upon. Stories that we had all held in for years, out of fear of judgement or misunderstanding, became common ground and “No one will understand” became “I understand and I promise to walk beside you through this.”

And there, in the basement of the Fish and Cross Ranch, through tears, laughter, and stories God began to heal the hearts of five of His beautiful, beloved daughters.

Abuse tells us to keep our mouths shut– that our stories aren’t important, that no one will understand. But this weekend through the grace of God I learned that is the exact opposite of the truth.

How beautiful is it that He has blessed us with community, so that we never have to walk through life silent or alone?

Through Him, all things are made whole.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

~Psalm 147:3

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Broken bread & poured out wine

bread_wine

Roughly once a month I have the privilege of serving communion at Scum of the Earth Church. According to our church’s tradition, I serve with another person and we stand side by side, holding either the bread or the wine. As our fellow Scum come to partake, they break off a piece of bread then dip it in the wine as my fellow servant and I say, “This is the body of Christ, broken for you.” “This is the blood of the Christ, shed for you.”

Sometimes it’s easy for my brain to switch into auto-pilot while serving communion, after uttering “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.”, “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.” “This is the blood of Christ…” for the tenth or fifteenth time. While my mouth utters, “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.” my brain is drinking in all of my surroundings. As my mind slips away, I begin tapping my foot to the beat of the worship band singing behind me. While I stand there, there are wonderfully quirky people to watch, and of course I usually am keeping an eye on who is coming down the communion line, trying to gauge whether or not we grabbed enough bread or gluten free crackers. I become distracted & my brain switches into auto-pilot, causing my mouth to say those same nine words over and over again without actually considering them.

But Sunday as I uttered the phrases of communion and simultaneously people watched, I was caught off guard by something. As I stood there, wine goblet laced in my fingers, some of the liquid dripped off someone’s chunk of bread and drizzled down my fingers before dropping at my feet in the dimly lit room.

This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.

I don’t know why, but that time the words resonated in my soul as I looked into the eyes of a young woman who I’ve never seen before and said them.

~

Lately I’ve been incredibly guilty of zoning out and auto-piloting my way through life like I do when I serve communion. I wake up, wash up, drive to work, teach my kids, then head from work to potluck/bible study/gospel community/school/home without even thinking about it. At this point, I feel like I could complete my lather-rise-repeat routine in my sleep.

Saturday, a day before the cool wine running down my fingers snapped me out of my proverbial daydream state, I got another wake up call. This last weekend one of my best friends and I decided to road trip to see another friend up in Vail. On an adventurous whim Saturday afternoon, I applied for a summer job as a nanny up in Vail.

Much to my own personal shock, I got an e-mail back almost immediately requesting that I set up a time for a phone interview sometime this week. As I read the e-mail to my girlfriends, I squealed with excitement. Could I really have the opportunity to move from my tiny apartment in the city up into one of the most beautiful cities in Colorado for the summer? This was great! I would get to spend time in my beloved mountains before my move to Texas, I would have an opportunity to be outdoors (and away from the dreaded 100 degree Denver summer heat), and I would be able to have the adventure that I’ve been craving in the midst of my boring daily routine.

And then it hit me.

Holy crap. I am talking about giving up my cute little home that I have worked so hard to make my own, packing all of my stuff into boxes, and shoving them into a storage unit. Not only that, but I would be forfeiting my cherished time off, and the ability to see my friends and family whenever I chose. Am I really willing to do that?

As I sat in my rocking chair in said tiny apartment the next morning, I looked around. I can’t give up all of this. I have my antique book collection, my typewriter, my pictures aligned exactly how I like them, the mural that I painted on my wall… I can’t do it. I can’t give the life I love up. I just can’t.

Just about as quickly as I began to internally panic, the story of the Israelites and their unleavened bread from Exodus popped into my mind.

In Exodus 12, God commands the Israelites to give up leavened bread. He knows that He is about to move mightily amongst the Egyptians through the plague of the first born, and that when Pharaoh releases the Israelites from captivity, that they will need to leave for the Promised Land immediately. They wouldn’t have time to worry about letting their bread rise; they will simply need to worry about following where the Lord was leading them.

~

As I stood there with the communion glass in my hand with the drops of wine at my feet Sunday night, I looked over at the bowl of bread in my friend’s hand and remembered this story that I had been thinking about just six hours earlier.

Just like the Israelites, I need to follow where God is leading me– regardless of whether that is Vail, Pueblo, Denver, or Dallas… I need to go and I need to be free to do so when the time comes. I need to break free from my restricting (yet oddly comforting) daily routine and follow God instead of staying in my own little safety zone.

So over the next few weeks I’ll be separating my necessities from my clutter and packing up my apartment in faith. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know that it will be beautiful. My Texas born friend insists that “The Great Country of Texas” is the promised land; maybe I need to look for my milk and honey down there… Or maybe I will find it in the Rocky Mountains. Who knows…

All of this to say, for the Lenten Season I am giving up leavened bread in a spiritual pursuit of the “spur of the moment” adventure that I feel God calling me to. My comfort zone is, well comfortable… But I know in the depths of my heart that I want God and His Will for my life far more than I want a comfortable tiny apartment for my bread rise in or a lather-rinse-repeat routine where I accidentally forget to include Him because I’m so wrapped up in my everyday life.

Is God calling you to lay something down for Him, that He might give you something else this Lenten Season?

~

31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”

33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.

37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.”

(Exodus 12:31-39)