Lent Day 20: School’s Back in Session

I know what it feels like to be a balloon and to have the helium sucked out of you, because that’s what going back to work did to me today, only with joy instead of helium. As of Sunday, I felt nearly completely joyful. I felt as if I could conquer the world. I could literally feel myself beginning to be positive about many things. And then I went back to school today, and everything was the same as it always is, and there was too much to bear.

My day began with the computer cart I had reserved not being plugged in for break, so all the computers were dead. I resorted to my backup plan, because I always have one of those when I am supposed to use technology in a lesson. Everything turned out fine, but I was, for some reason, still annoyed.

My day continued with one of my students pretty much straight-up lying to another teacher about whether or not I make them do citations for my class. Luckily it was my lunch, so she had me come over to her room to put the citation information up on the board for the students. He tried to weasel his way out of it by playing it off in his clowning sort of way. It didn’t work.

My day continued to continue with one of the counselors telling me that some of the students think I am mean this year, not at all how I was last year. My response was to ask her if the students realized that their behavior was part of the reason their teachers can be grumpy. Basically, I played it off on them, like a jack ass.

Finally, I finished my day on a positive note playing racquetball with Celeste, which is always a great time. When we play, it doesn’t matter so much who wins or loses, but we talk, we do the dozens, and we let our frustration. And somehow, though she likely doesn’t know it, I always learn from Celeste. I always leave a little more calm, with a bit better perspective.

While I was making fish stir fry for dinner, I stopped…

and thought about how I have been with my students this year, and how I have let my anger creep into everything I do.I have been shorter with them, and I could make excuses, but there really is no excuse. I thought about how I have short-changed not only my students, but also my friends, my colleagues, and my family because of my bitterness with God, and my general anger, though I still cannot pinpoint the source of the anger that overtook me.

I thought about how my first response was to blame my students, my 12 to 16 year old (well, a couple of repeat offenders who are 17) students for my shitty behavior. They are children, young adults, and my behavior, as a grown woman, should not be dictated by their level of participation, their willingness to think that English is the best subject ever. (It is, though.) My behavior should come out of, or, to use a really bad creative writing phrase, it should flow from my own moral and ethical belief system, which is not to take my anger out on those around me.

I’m not above being all “Hallelujah, Jesus Freakish” when I say that since I’ve reevaluated my Christianity (and added in some Buddhist thought, too) I am ashamed of some of the ways I’ve behaved while I was out there in the wilderness (yet again, damn I wish I’d learn one time). The biggest shame I face is the fact that I have treated people in a way that nowhere near resembles Christ’s love, but it, instead, resembles the “GOTCHA” mentality that is so prevalent in our culture, where people just sit in wait for others to screw something up, so they can call each other out on it. There has been no cheek turning for me, unless it has been me turning my cheek and hiding my mouth behind my hand, so people can’t hear what I am saying about them. Seriously, it’s been bad. I needed that reality check today.

So, today, I am asking you all for a little bit of accountability. I want to be filled with God’s grace, sharing it with all those around me, especially my students. And I want to follow that old saying from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” I want the words of my mouth, and the actions of my body to glorify God. I no longer want to conform to the patterns of this world, but I want to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I want to be the teacher my students remember for being loving and gracious, and if I’m lucky, they’ll remember some of the language arts I teach them, too.

Peace.

 

Lent Day 17: Nearing the Death of Little Blue

Today on my way to Anderson to meet my brother, I noticed that the temperature gauge on my dashboard was way up at the red line above the H. This compounds the problem that Little Blue’s engine has had recently. When I idle at a stop light or sign, the engine revs and slows, revs and slows, and I worry that my little car may just decide to stop right then and there, leaving me stranded wherever I am. I’m not afraid to have my car die in the street and have to walk, but for some reason I have become afraid of the idea of being car-less.

I forget that having a car is a privilege for me, not a necessity. I live less than two miles from my place of employment, and there are three different bus routes that go within a quarter of a mile of my house. Not having a car is not a hardship for me, but over the past couple of years, I have become accustomed to being able to go on small trips at my own will. I know I will get used to having no car again, but I also just bought my super cool Indiana Youth Group license plate, so having my car break down is a little heartbreaking.

On my way home from Anderson, I had to pull over at a gas station to let my car cool down before I could continue the trip home. I was sitting there feeling pretty sorry for myself about my car, when I decided to listen to my voice mails. A friend of mine had called to tell me that these reflections were meaningful for her this Lent, and I immediately began to think about how blessed I am, and about how for the first time in a while, I actually feel as if I am allowing God to use all of my gifts and talents. I am teaching English, which I love, and I am spending a considerable amount of time thinking about spirituality and theology, which fills me.

I live under no delusions, though. Just because my spiritual life has taken a drastic turn for the better within the past few weeks, I know that doesn’t mean that everything is coming up roses all the time. I know it doesn’t mean that every time I feel sad or doubtful, God will send an affirmation that I’m doing the right things. And, it doesn’t mean that everything will always work out the right way. But I know it does mean that I have a much better perspective about how to deal with adversity, or at least I am in a better head space. Being in this better place helps me have an assurance that God is with me.

I feel like Asaph in Psalm 73:

When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,

I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

This Psalm resonates with me in so many ways. I want to be continually in a place where I think the “earth has nothing I desire besides [God].” I want to be confident that “God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” This sort of goes along with what I was saying yesterday, but it’s a bit different. This struggle of knowing I should desire God constantly is bound by my ability to do so, because I am human. I am bound by my body, by my place in culture, by the necessity to live in the world. My desire should be for the best for my neighbor and the best for my God. I mean, there’s a reason that Jesus said there are only really two commandments: “To love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” And, of course, these two commandments sum up my every struggle, everything I’ve ever written about here or anywhere else. How can we, bound by our earthly bodies, focus so heavily on entities outside of ourselves? To love God with our whole heart and to still have love left over for our neighbors as much as ourselves? Honestly, it wears me out. Sometimes it wears me out even to think about it, let alone do it. Peace.

*

This is how I woke up today with a cat in my face:

Spazabella: The Disgruntled Cat

After morning prayer, I went downstairs for breakfast:

Bacon, Eggs, Strawberries, and Rooibos Tea with Raw Honey

I spent the rest of the day with my super-amazing little brother:

At BD's Mongolian Grill

We went shopping at Old Navy (again with the unethical practices), and I bought some smaller-size clothes, down two sizes from the last time I bought clothes there. We also went to TJ Maxx and Whole Foods. I can’t help myself. I love Whole Foods.

New ‘Do, Decent Breakfast, and Some Thoughts About Sexuality Which Really Have Nothing to Do With Lent

I want so badly to let my hair grow out, so I can give myself dreadlocks. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. When my hair reaches a certain length, I find myself just wanting to rip it out by the roots or to shave my head down soft like a baby’s bottom and slick, too. Today was the day when I couldn’t take it anymore, so I got out the clippers and gave myself a wide Mohawk with a DA in the back. It’s weird and different from my usual self-inflicted trim. Before I went crazy about my hair, I made myself a delicious Spring Break breakfast, which I intend to do every day before I go to school to work on grading.

Two Soft-Fried Eggs, Bacon, Strawberries, and Chai Tea with Raw Honey

Hair From Two Ways

And a Cat Who Judges Me

Note: Now for a bit more of a serious subject. This is not complete, but is just a seed for a longer, more well-developed essay.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about spirituality and sexuality, as I usually do. These two areas are important to me and intrinsically part and parcel of one another for me. In my life, they cannot be separated, nor can the soul and the body. I’m not going to get all theoretical in this post, but I do want to mention a couple of things I’ve been thinking about. I’ve heard many GLBT folks say that they knew who they were from a very young, but they just couldn’t tell anyone, they didn’t have words for it, or they were shamed into not talking about it. I’m not sure I fall into any of these categories, at least not until much later in my adolescence.

I’m not saying I couldn’t tell something wasn’t the same in me as it was in everyone else. I knew that pretty much from the get-go. But then again, I didn’t know it, too. I knew how I felt, but I didn’t know it was gay. I knew who I loved, but I didn’t have a framework for recognizing same-sex desire then, I don’t think. Looking back, I can name it for what it is. I can see how much in love I was with some of my friends. I can name my fifth and sixth grade English teacher as one of my first teacher-crushes. (Since then I’ve fallen in and out of love with too many teachers/professors to think about! Ha!) I can call my love, my desire what it is. Now. Could I then? I don’t think so, but I could feel it.

My Brother and I Digging in the Front Yard of Our New House

When I was in grade school, I knew I loved some of my friends. I knew I loved them much more or much differently than they loved me. I would share my toys, and I am pretty selfish. I would color pictures for them. I would take cookies for lunch with the sole intention of sharing them. I got jealous when they would spend time with other friends. I was heartbroken when I wasn’t invited to their slumber parties. I was devastated when one particular friend got a boyfriend and stopped playing with me on recess. I was crushed when I got in trouble for kissing another friend in kindergarten Sunday School. (Of course, the very next year, I got in trouble for kissing a boy at school. Maybe my problem wasn’t lesbianism, it was showing the kissing kind of affection!) Every adult message was telling me that the way I felt about my girl friends was wrong. Did I understand then? No. I knew my parents encouraged me to choose my own clothes, toys, books, and activities when I was at home, and I didn’t quite understand why I had to wear dresses to school sometimes when I preferred my jeans and t-shirts and tromping around in the woods. I suppose it was to make me seem more normal in the grand scheme of things, but then what’s up with this school picture? I was a butch little kid.

Somewhere Around Third or Fourth Grade

By the time I got to middle school, I was determined to be “normal,” even though I had a crew cut and relied on my FARTS University t-shirt, which I wore under most everything, to get me through the days. I think maybe why I like teaching middle school so much is because I felt so lost through most of it. I had one particular friend who was, for all intents and purposes, my “girlfriend.” I loved her, and I would keep on loving her through high school when we both had boyfriends, even becoming quite jealous when she got married and moved halfway around the world.

I had to wear this shirt under my other shirts, because it was "inappropriate."

I “went with” one boy all through middle school and into my freshman year. He was incredibly abusive and manipulative, leaving huge physical and emotional scars on my body. But I stayed with him because I had the intrinsic desire to be like what I thought everyone else was like, to be like what I thought I should. Everyone else had opposite sex significant others. Everyone else was making out in their family friends’ basement. Right, right? Eventually, during one of these “let’s play hide-n-seek so we can go lock our naked selves in your basement bedroom and make out” make out session, he forced me into having sex with him when I was just 13-years old, and I became one of many girls he date raped, or just straight up raped. The killing part of this was that he was two-years younger than I was. So much for being normal.

Looking back, I know now that my classmates weren’t all dating people of the opposite sex. I know that many of them were doing the same thing I was, putting on airs to make it through Blackford County Schools. Many of them didn’t date at all! There wasn’t room for people like us in that place at that time, so we played the game. It wasn’t that there wasn’t language for who we are. There was: fags, faggots, sissies, butches, dykes, unnatural, sinners, queers, homos, queerbates, gaywads, ACDC, swing both ways, and all sorts of other language that served to normalize us. Apparently, The Crying Game and Boy George made no impact on the small minds of Blackford residents. It wasn’t that we couldn’t talk about it, but we certainly couldn’t fathom our sexualities as positive, healthy expressions of love. And, of course, why would anyone bring on that ridicule by naming who they are?

I won’t say that growing up was particularly difficult for me, like I am sure it was with many of my friends and like it is for many kids now. I felt a sense of security in myself and my identity as a jock, artist, and nerd. I just threw myself into one of my acceptable identities, and I always have been confident in who I am. Perhaps, too, some of the security I felt in playing a part in the “Blackford County Play” was because I couldn’t feel free to say who I was, and by not naming it, I could pretend that wasn’t who I was. Besides I had a really for real romantic relationship with a boy, a young man, a beautiful soul of a man. He was a really for real high school sweetheart, who is a subject for a way different essay than this one. So I had a thick, thick closet door to keep me safe. In the same way the closet door kept me safe, it also stifled me until I finally came out. Slowly. Inch by inch.

Softball. I played catcher, and if you don't laugh at that, it's because you don't get it.

And as I came out, I quickly learned that the most spiritual people in my life would have the strongest opinion about who I was becoming I was revealing to them. And, it even more quickly became evident that who I was revealing did not jive with who they thought I was, or should be. Never in my life have I had more Scripture thrust at me like a serrated and rusty knife than from the years of 21 to 23. I look back, and I think that Jesus must have been embarrassed. I know I was ashamed for the people who were beating me with a book I had previously loved, pouring so many teenaged years into studying it and getting to know my God. The God who had been my God through all of it and who still remains my first love.

Lent Day 11: A Lesson in Love and Humility

Without giving too many details, I will just say I have learned a lesson in humility and love this weekend at AWP. To make a long story short, my insomnia didn’t, in fact, go away. It only got slightly less ferocious, allowing me five hours of of sleep for one night instead of three. When I don’t sleep, I get mean, curt, short-tongued. I have been all of those things this week, which led to quite a large eruption of misunderstandings last night between a friend and myself. The quarrel led to me moving down to the lobby of the hotel for quite some time, so I could recompose myself and not put my fist through the mirror in our room. See I told you I have some anger management issues, and I felt as if I could beat my way with small, tight fists through the thickest, heaviest punching bag on the market. I didn’t.

Instead, for a change, I left the room to recompose myself elsewhere. By this morning, after a conversation with my beautiful and sensible wife, some coffee, a session on queer YA fiction, and some prayer, walking, and meditation, I was able to calmly and rationally initiate a discussion of the events of last night. And, of course, we came out on the other side with love and grace, because I am learning that’s how things work out when you practice humility and love.

Here is the photographic chronology of my day:

Walking North on Michigan Avenue

A Coffee Shop I've Always Wanted to Try and Finally Did

A Little Morning Reading and a Mexican Mocha

Buildings Dating from the Mid-1800s

Do You Need Some Art Supplies?

Capitalism Block on State Street

I decided to go to church tonight, but I wasn’t sure where to go, so I literally typed the address of the Palmer House in the first blank of the “Get Directions” feature in Google Maps, followed by the word Methodist in the second blank. I figured I couldn’t lose since I live four hours away, and I’d never see any of the people again. I mean, it’s always a crap shoot when you’re a lady-boy lesbian and looking for a church in a different city. Each time I risk rejection from the body to which I’ve belonged since the age of four when I “gave my life to Jesus,” a form of rejection that breaks my heart again and again.

I walked to Temple Church (a.k.a. First United Methodist of Chicago) with low expectations and hoping that I wasn’t dressed too shabbily. I can never accurately anticipate the dress code at a “First United Methodist,” because they are usually the big, old churches that are trying to stand guard and keep from dying out. But that guard-standing usually comes outfitted in whatever is the latest fashion.  I always assume that the dress code is on the upper end of the spectrum, not jeans and the sweater I was wearing. But, as I mentioned, I’d never see any of these people again, so I pressed on.

Temple Church's History in Stained Glass

Destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire

As I walked past the beautiful arts garden, pictured above, I looked to my right and got a glimpse of the Chicago Picasso. I could feel that this hour of my life was going to be an adventure. Electric Jesus was in the air. I strolled through the revolving door and up to the security guard. Yes, you read correctly, I walked confidently over to the security guard, and said, “Can you please tell me where the church service is meeting tonight?” She pointed me up the stairs and through some double doors.

I was a bit disoriented as I walked through the thick wooden doors, because I was released into a space that looked like a storage closet, only without anything in it, too big to be a closet, too small to be a respectable hallway. The space was a hallway nonetheless, and I began to search for what I was sure would be a large stone chapel or sanctuary. Instead I found the small, intimate chapel pictured here. In fact, I had to ask the lovely man in the picture if I was in the right place.

A Tiny Church Service in a Huge Church's Small Chapel

By the time the service started with a greeting and then a hymn that none of us really knew, I realized I was experiencing the Body of Christ in a very real way. The mix of people was diverse: various ethnicities, social classes, sexual orientations, gender identities, and abilities. There were people there with children of varying ages, and older people who were there alone. The bulletin specifically spelled out that we were all welcome.

The service followed the liturgy while still being personal: we confessed as a group and then offered silent meditations of our own. When it came time for the prayer requests, the congregants shared intimately and without reservation, and then we prayed for those concerns. We passed the peace! Finally, we collected tithes and offerings and shared the Eucharist together. We stood together around the communion table and celebrated the Great Thanksgiving as we looked each other in the eyes. I could feel the Holy Spirit hovering there in our midst, like the soft breeze that blows off Lake Michigan in the summertime, and as refreshing.

Jesus’ body was broken, His blood was shed, and we were redeemed yet again. A glorious miracle.

Several times the intimacy and the beauty of it all overwhelmed me to the point of tears. Here, four hours away, is the type of community I long for each Sunday. Here, in a church I assumed would be too uppity for my jeans and sweater, I met my Jesus in the realest way I have experienced in years. Here.

Today was a beautiful mess. Peace.

Lent Day 5: Work and Lunch

Today at church, Matt talked about work and the ways in which our attitudes and actions at our jobs reflect our Christian faith. He brought his sermon to a close with four main points:

1. Your work has eternal implications even if it has no apparent eternal value.
2. How you perform at work is as important as where you work.
3. How you perform at work is as important as how you act at work.
4. Putting your heart into your work allows God to bless your work.

The thread of the sermon that struck me the most was, again, this idea of being placed somewhere to do a work, like Nehemiah, who was working so hard on a great work that he couldn’t come down off the wall. How can I put my whole self into my work? How can I let my work reflect my spirituality in a way that witnesses Christ’s love to my colleagues? I know it isn’t the way I’ve been working, nor the way I’ve acted in the past. I just need to keep reminding myself that I need to remember whose I am before acting or speaking. I am a new creation, so I should act like one.

*

After church I went to my parents’ house and spent a few hours with them while we planned our summer vacation. We got everything taken care of, except for the tickets to the Minor League AAA All Star Game. Supposedly they are on sale, but it seems as if we may just have to mail in the order form, which seems odd in this digital age. We tried to call today, but they didn’t have access to the tickets. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be able to get them ordered when the box office is open.

When I was finished at my parents’ house, I met Merideth’s mom, Alane, at Ivanhoe’s for lunch. I got the half fruit plate and it was HUGE! There is no way anyone could ever eat the whole fruit plate, unless I just can’t put away fruit like other people can. Alane had the grilled cheese which she said was really delicious, but she couldn’t finish hers either.

We had a nice chat.

There is no easy way to move on when someone dies. Dave wasn’t my dad, he certainly wasn’t my husband, but he was my friend, and I miss him. I can only try to imagine the pain, the sadness, the overwhelming grief of his very close friends and family, and all I can say is that sometimes things are hard, they don’t get easier fast, and sometimes they never get easier. Sometimes our losses are so deep and so painful, they just sit there seething, chafing under the surface, and I, personally, have no way of helping someone through that type of pain other than just sitting across the table from them and opening my heart to try to absorb some of it. And even then I feel so inadequate. So fucking cheap and fraudulent. I don’t understand, so I just sit and try to love.

*

I’m emotionally spent today, so I don’t have any excellent spiritual insights to give. Instead, I invite you to give yours. What did you learn today? Something I could learn from? What bit of knowledge, what gem, did you receive?

Lent Day 2: Miseducation and Common Prayer

I’m sitting in Bracken Library, taking a break from scanning pictures into the computer for my students most recent project, and it’s a little bit eerie in here. There are probably only 25 or 30 people at the computers, if that, and it’s very quiet, even here on the first floor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the library quiet like this. Today has been strange all around, though, so I am not sure I should be surprised about the library.

Today was the last day of Istep for the 8th graders, so tomorrow we move back to doing our regular classroom stuff, instead of being broken up and spread around for testing, so my stress level will surely go back down. The students told me they thought the test was easy, which either means they did really well or really poorly. I think they were trying to tell me that, so I would feel like they had done super well. One student even said, “It’s because you taught us so well.” I have no doubts I teach well, but I will see in a few months how well they did on this stupid test, which is all that really matters now isn’t it? Two days makes or breaks a student. And his or her teacher.

Anyway, I did receive another blessing today. When I got home, I had yet another book that I purchased with my Amazon points waiting in my mailbox: The Miseducation of Cameron Post. I made the mistake of starting to read it, and now I don’t really want to do anything else. Obviously, if you clicked the link, you notice the secular nature of the text, but to me, the subject is so intimately intertwined with my spirituality, I can’t see a difference.

Church people insist that our sexuality reflects our spirituality by encouraging people to remain virgins until marriage for the sake of religious purity, so it only makes sense to me that our sexuality is somehow an act of worship. Maybe this is why I nearly weep when I find a book that speaks to my soul like this one. I keep finding myself thinking, Where was this book in 1987? My life would’ve been so different if literature like this had existed then. I might have realized at a much earlier age who I really am. I might not have been so lost for so much of adolescence. But I can’t go back, nor do I want to!

As I am reading this book it makes me think about how intricately woven we are as human beings, how delicately God put us together, but yet how hardy we are. I mean let’s face it: humans are fragile but resilient. We can crack or break, but we can take a lot of shit before we do. In a strange way, I think that’s what Lent is about. God wants us to recognize that we are fragile, but that we are designed to weather the storm, whatever that entails. Jesus wants us to follow him to that cross, where our resilience meets our obedience meets our fragility.

For the first time, today I tried to pray the various prayers throughout the day from Common Prayer, and I think it went well. I noticed that it made me think through the day about who I am in Christ. I love that the midday prayers are the same every day and I love that one of those prayers is St. Francis’s: “Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.” And of course he goes on: “For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” How beautiful. And if we really pray it and believe it, how can we not be transformed?

Through these ritual prayers, I realized that I was more conscious on some levels about how I conducted myself in the classroom and with colleagues, but praying through the hours also drew attention to the fact that I am so far from where I want to be spiritually. However, praying so frequently and with a specific prodding to pray for others really made me think hard about those around me who need prayer, love, grace, and my action. And so I continue to learn.

Peace.

Swimming. Dave. Ayn Rand.

If you had asked me a few years ago if I would have ever taught a book by Ayn Rand, I probably would have laughed heartily at you. And then I would have given you several reasons about why I wouldn’t have even entertained the idea. Today, however, I began the pre-work and front-loading for the book Anthem. We will be entering our essays, which we will write after reading the story, into a contest sponsored by the The Ayn Rand Institute. We are beginning the whole Ayn Rand process with the students giving group speeches about six different topics: socialism, Soviet Russia, Prometheus, Gaia, dystopia, and Rand. The students seemed to be really excited about this project, and I framed it by saying I hadn’t read the book yet, but that her beliefs might challenge me a little. I think they liked the fact that I am having them read something that I potentially won’t agree with and will be frustrated with. Ah, middle schoolers!

*

I swam this morning for the first time in ages. It was a sprint day. Whenever I do sprints (running or swimming), I recognize how out of shape I am. I felt like I was sucking air through a coffee stirrer while trying to wrestle a Leviathan. I hope the sprinting gets easier each week. Wow.

*

Dave Pace, Merideth’s dad died on Thursday night. His funeral is Wednesday, and the viewing is tomorrow. Her family has asked me to perform the ceremony/service, and I agreed. I just hope I can keep it together and not make a blubbering fool of myself. He is one of the greatest men I have ever known, and I will truly miss him. I only hope I can honor his memory with my words.