Archive for the ‘Parenting’ category
October 6, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. October 6, 2018
It’s a dilemma that is rapidly becoming a problem! Someone has been sitting on my stool at Starbucks, the last stool on the right at the counter that looks out towards Pike’s Peak!
It’s where I almost exclusively write my blog post! It’s my space to create, my stool to be cool!
What should I do? The man who has been sitting there doesn’t understand the history. It’s like the three bears coming home and finding Goldilocks eating their porridge!
I’ve thought about yellow caution tape wrapped around the seat, but, of course, the Starbucks corporation would probably frown on that idea. I wouldn’t want it to become another national news story about putting someone in his place…that is, anywhere that is not my space!
I mentioned it to one of the baristas who knows of the guy’s error in java judgment. She knows that stool is where I sit and gives me a look of disbelief and sympathy each morning it happens.
“Can you tell him to move?”
She looks at me with concern and compassion and says, “No.”
“Well, what time did he get here this morning?”
“I don’t know,” she responds. “He was here before I got here!”
Perhaps that’s what I’ll have to do…arrive earlier, be standing at the door as Starbucks opens at 4 A.M. Then I could take note of when the trespasser arrives and snicker! Of course, I’d have to go to bed about 8:00 the night before and Carol would be asking what in the world is going on with me?
“I’ve got to get to Starbucks when it opens. There’s a guy who’s been sitting on my stool!”
Carol will look at me like a DMV license renewal clerk. “What is this, Bill? Some kind of coffee version of Black Friday? Are you going to rearrange your whole life around the need to sit on a certain stool at Starbucks?”
“Yes!”
“Just find a different stool!”
I gasp at the idea. “That’s like me telling you to find a different husband!”
“No, it’s not even close, but if you go looney over a coffee shop stool it might be a possibility! Doesn’t this sound a little bit like when one of the grandkids is playing with a toy that one of the other grandkids wants to play with? All the one without can think about is that one toy, even though she’s surrounded by a roomful of other toys.”
“No, doesn’t sound like that at all.”
So I guess I need other options! Perhaps I could carve my name into the wood on the counter with the words “Space Reserved For” etched in before it.
Here’s the thing! I’m substitute teaching 3 to 4 days a week, so I’ve become inconsistent in my occupying of my spot. I’ve just come to expect that it will be there when I’m there, like a college student returning home on break and expecting his old room to still be the same, and to be his!
Next week, however, I’m teaching Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday is the only day, except for the weekend, where I can get to my stool. HE will probably be there, and I’ll sense the creative juices draining some my existence.
We humans are creatures of habit, some good habits and some bad…and some just plain weird!
Categories: children, Community, Freedom, Grandchildren, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: behavior, Change, coffee, comfort zone, disliking change, habits, person space, personal space, Starbucks, trespassing
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October 2, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. October 2, 2018
Carol and I were driving to Simla on Sunday morning. I was scheduled to speak to the Simla Saints, as I do many Sundays. I was ready to tell them the story of Simon Peter, who, after a night of catching no fish, is told by Jesus to cast his nets one more time. I went through the message in my mind as we drove down the road.
And then the flashing lights appeared behind me.
“I wasn’t speeding was I?”
“I don’t think so,” encouraged Carol, as she reached for the car registration.
The law enforcement officer approached my vehicle. “Good morning! Sir, you’re driving with tags that have expired. I checked a couple of places and it came back the same result.
I looked at him with bewilderment and a quick search in my mind for understanding. I went into the vault of my memory to find some evidence that I had taken care of the renewal that had expired at THE END OF MAY!…exactly four months in the rearview mirror!
Seriously, I did not remember getting the reminder card that they send you in the mail. Perhaps it got mixed in with the political ad recycle pile, or perhaps the U.S. Postal Service was to blame! Yes, that’s probably what it was!
Or perhaps I was just stupid and didn’t do it!
Innocent or ignorant, didn’t matter! It was time to pay the piper disguised as…the DMV!
My personal list of dislikes is not that long…arrogant athletes, itching hemorrhoids, speeding BMW’s, seventh graders who think they are entitled, and…going to the DMV! It’s the adult equivalent of after-school detention!
It is my penance for negligence, for being totally clueless to the fact that I hadn’t noticed something I should have for 120 days!
The DMV looks like a crowded airport terminal where several flights have been delayed. An expressionless lady greets me…kinda’…at the front counter and asks me why I have come to the DMV on the first day of October with the masses that have gotten there before me.
“To renew my tags, ma’am!” She gives me a number. I look to see if it says, “Come back tomorrow!” It doesn’t! Instead, it says that I’m number 658. I’m not quite sure what that means until I see the lit board on the wall that could double as a Bingo number board. They are now serving number 560. I’m only a hundred away!
But there are other numbers on the board as well! There’s 131, 322, and A8. It could be that I’m four hundred away, but they are trying to fool me into believing I’m close. It’s another part of the punishment strategy of the DMV. I’m convinced they have goal-planning retreats to dream up new ways to inflict pain on the mental and emotional state of those who enter its doors. In the backroom I’m envisioning their mission statement in bold script writing:
“Our mission: To test the patience of our customers who have no choice but to sit and wait!”
And so I wait! I find a seat wedged between a hefty guy wearing Old Spice and a young man focused on playing a game of some kind on his cell phone. I’m the traditionalist who has brought a book with him, Patterson and Clinton’s The President Is Missing. Ironic that I’m reading this book in the DMV, a place that is missing compassion and concern because I was missing that little sticky tag.
Two hours later my number gets called by the automated Bingo caller and I make my way, number 658 in hand, to counter number 19 where a middle-aged woman gives me a suspicious look. She reminds me of my third grade teacher who was suspicious of anything any boy in her class ever did. The memory makes me shrink into a moment of confession.
“My tags are expired. I don’t remember ever getting a card in the mail!” I plead in a pitiful way. She looks at me with disdain. I have a memory of being sent to the principal’s office and wonder if there is also such a place in the DMV. Perhaps it’s another room where you take another number and are told you can’t eat lunch that day. (I’ve noticed a sign with big bold letters as you enter that tells people that no food or drink is permitted in the DMV! People leave the place dehydrated and nutritionally depleted!)
She takes my information and tells me the total. I repeat the total to her as I begin to write my check.
“$160.43?” That’s not bad I tell myself.
“No.” She repeats the figure again. I’m $300 off! “$460.43!”
“Oh!”
I swear I hear a chuckle resonating from her. I think I see her lips whisper the words, “Sucks to be you!”
The total includes a fine for being ignorant and negligent, and to make sure you never come back to the DMV ever again!
And, you won’t believe this!…in the mail that afternoon is the renewal notice for our other vehicle. It needs to be renewed by the end of October.
I immediately renew it on line! The DMV has taught me my lesson!
Categories: children, Community, Grace, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: car registration, Department of Motor Vehicles, forgetting, guilty, license plates, negligence, negligent, patience, penalized, penalty, penance, renewal tags, take a number, the DMV, waiting
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September 30, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 30, 2018
Corin Grace Hodges is three and a half with limitless energy! I’m 64 with limited energy! Without calling me a wimp she scolded me into submission last Friday. It was as if she was saying “Keep up with me, Granddad!”
After she met me at the door at 7:30 in the morning ready for action, we had breakfast, and went to her kid’s gym, which is called “My Gym”, went by Grammy’s school and spent some time saying hi to people, and went to Culver’s for lunch, we stopped at a park playground. There was a bench there. It looked appealing, like a cool cup of water in a desert of exhaustion. I went to sit down and watch her play.
“Come on, Granddad!”
“Huh?”
“Come on!” she repeated as she stood at the top of a playground creation. “We’ve got to get the fish!”
“The fish?” asked the clueless aged one.
“Yes, the fish! Get the fish and put them in the bucket!”
I watched her cup her hands together and carry an invisible fish back up the steps to an invisible bucket on a pretend boat. I pulled my weary body up from the comfortable bench to slowly join the rescue effort.
“Come on, Granddad! Get the fish!”
I followed the drill sergeant’s commands, cupped my hands together, and picked up a fish. “What kind of fish are these?”
“Rittle fish!”
“Are we going to have them for dinner?”
She gave me a look of disbelief, like I had said a cuss word in the midst of a silent school assembly. “The bad guys are going to get them! Hurry up!”
I didn’t realize there were bad guys in this playground drama, a playground that we had all to ourselves, which made it an even greater imaginary adventure.
“The bad guys are coming! Come on, Granddad! It’s your turn to steer the boat.”
“Oh, okay!”
“There’s some more fish!” She went down the slide and cupped her hands together again. “Come on, Granddad!”
“Do I have to come down the slide?”
A look of dismay at my stupid question. “Yes!” And she was off to the other playground apparatus twenty feet of sand away. “The bad guys captured me, Granddad!”
“Oh, no! I’ll come and save you!”
“No, you can’t!”
I’m a playground rookie, unfamiliar with a three year old’s rules of imagination, so I’m not sure what I’m suppose to do. “Steer the boat, Granddad!”
“And come and get you?”
“No!” said emphatically. A few seconds of uncertainty. “Okay! I escaped from the bad guys and there’s more fish!”
Back to cupping the hands! I’ve seen this movie before, so I begin to cup my hands. “No, Granddad! You’ve got to steer the boat! I’ll get the fish!”
“Okay!” I answer, confused and dazed.
Thirty minutes of rescuing fish, escaping bad guys, and confusing Granddad later we hop back in the car and head to our house for an afternoon nap. Did I mention that Corin Grace Hodges is competitive, determined, and a bit stubborn? I say to her, “I bet I can fall asleep before you do!”
“No, you can’t!”
And she’s right! After humming one chorus to herself she is…out! She beats me by at least twenty seconds!
Categories: children, Grandchildren, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: grandchildren, granddaughters, grandfather, grandkids, grandparenting, imagination, park playground, Playground, playground equipment, playing with the grandkids, slides, spending time with the grandkids
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September 29, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 29, 2018
Dear Mr. Substitute Teacher,
I am sorry for how I acted in the class you were our substitute for yesterday. I did not act right. It may have been because I had two Hershey’s bars for breakfast. That chocolate sometimes makes me do things I don’t usually do. Like putting Vaseline on the top of your desk that caused your hand to slip, resulting in your chin hitting the edge of the desk. I don’t usually do things like that. That second chocolate bar put me over the edge!
After you got the bleeding stopped you somehow figured out that it was me who had done it. I probably would have ‘fessed’ up even if you haven’t figured it out. I shouldn’t have used my right hand in spreading it. I couldn’t hold a pencil for the first two class periods!
I apologize for that!
And the constant chatter! You probably should have sent me to the office after the Vaseline thing, but you gave me a second chance, and I wouldn’t shut up. I don’t understand what came over me! Is there caffeine in a Hershey bar?
It could also be the class subject matter. I’m a history buff, you know. I play Fortnite everyday! Coming to Social Studies class just seems to bring all of that knowledge to the surface that I need to share. I just get all excited and out of control. I apologize for my inappropriate loud bursts.
You are a great teacher that I hope will sub for my class again. I promise I will be perfect next time. If you let me know you’re coming to my class I will make sure NOT to have chocolate bars for breakfast, maybe just do some fruit and yogurt that day!
AND I’ll help you with the other students who may be problems for you! I know who they are, and am willing to give you some intel on each one of them. That’s the least I could do for you!
Oh, and you’re probably wondering about the picture of George Washington on the wall. Yes, I was the one who dotted his face with spit wads…one on each cheek and a direct shot right on the tip of his nose. They were great shots!…but probably not appropriate. You’ll be glad to know that I cleaned up his complexion after school yesterday, although I thought the spit wad on his right cheek improved his appearance a little bit. I can’t help it if I’m a crack shot with a plastic straw. You should see me spitting watermelon seeds into a bucket twenty feet away!
Once again, I wanted to apologize for my behavior. I need to do better. My goal for the year is to only get suspended from school once and I know if I don’t improve my ways I could meet and surpass that total by the time Parent-Teacher Conferences happen in mid-October. You’ll be happy to know that my mom says I won’t be allowed to play Fortnite during my suspension!
Thank you for being nice!
Your Friend,
Johnathan Lee Davis, III
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, apologies, apology letter, classroom behavior, Fortnite, Hershey's chocolate, middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, school classroom, school suspension, spit wads, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, Vaseline
Comments: 1 Comment
September 25, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 25, 2018
At our middle school, as any other middle school, there has been a lot of information and discussion about bullying- what it is and what to do if you are the person who is being bullied?
This school year there has been an initiative to have students and teachers think about doing the polar opposite of bullying. It’s the idea of being kind. Teachers and administrators wear t-shirts that say “Be Kind” on the front. (I’ve got one of the t-shirts!) Since school is only into its seventh week it’s hard to make any “kind” of determination on the effect or non-effect of the initiative yet.
Students ARE influenced by slogans and sayings, images and symbols, but I’m not sure how well a school can teach kindness. It’s on a different plane than learning algebra, what the functions are of the three branches of government, or the different body parts of a grasshopper are.
From my Christian faith, kindness is one of the results that emerges in the life of a Christ-follower as he/she allows the Holy Spirit to take up residence in his/her life. Kindness, along with other characteristics like perseverance, self-control, and peace are called “fruit of the Spirit.” That’s not to say that someone who isn’t a follower of Jesus can’t be kind, but I’m more comfortable with the belief that the Spirit can develop it within my life than in the idea that it can be taught to be a part of our human nature.
Middle school students are a bizarre community of many things- kind and thoughtful, self-centered and obnoxious, unorganized and wrinkled, understanding and supportive. Perhaps teaching and emphasizing kindness will cause a number of them to think about what they say and do before they do it, but I’m hesitant to believe it will change them for a lifetime. It may simply make this school year a little more tolerable!
I’m not so naive as to believe that if someone is a Christian he/she is automatically kind. I know a lot of people who identify themselves as Christians who are simply jerks! I wouldn’t let them date my granddaughter or walk my cat (if I still had a cat)!
Jesus modeled kindness for his disciples. His disciples were a bit clumsy in how they showed such a practice, but it finally sunk in. Early followers of Christ were known for their kindness. It grew out of their spiritual relationships and from the life of their community.
Can schools teach kindness that has sanitized from anything resembling Jesus? Time will tell, but it may end up being more like a “kinda’ kind!”
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, love, Nation, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: be kind, being kind, being led by the Spirit, fruit off the Spirit, Holy Spirit, kindness, middle school, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, showing kindness, teaching morality
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September 22, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 22, 2018
Middle school is a time of discovery as eleven, twelve, and thirteen year olds enter a new land of educational challenges, physical awkwardness, and unwise decisions. Like the frightened character in the horror movie who decides to open the door to the room where the strange sounds are coming from (and the theatre audience is yelling “Don’t do it!”), middle school kids do things and say things that make us shake our heads in dismay.
Like the boy last year who told his teacher, “I’m getting tired of looking at your face!” It did not go well for him!
Or the eighth grader who thought it would be cool to body surf down the concrete wall in the stairwell! He got about five feet into his journey and then fell over the side, landing on the steps in the lower half of the stairway!
Ands then there was yesterday when a boy decided to put his chewing gum into his armpit…underneath his shirt! Just as gum gets stuck on the underside of desks for eternity this boy’s armpit was stuck with some Dubble Bubble!
As with the actions of many middle school students the first question that comes to an adult’s mind is “Why?” Why would a student who can understand algebra put bubble gum in his armpit? Was he trying to keep it moist? Did he not know where else to store it and his armpit wasn’t doing anything anyway? Was it a class where the teacher doesn’t allow gum and he thought he could sneak a few chews in from time to time?
And what did this boy, who by the way did have some armpit hair to help create a situation that gives new meaning to the term “bubblicious”, tell his parents? Where did he get the idea that putting gum in his armpit was a good idea? Did he see his dad do it once in the midst of an elk hunting trip?
Is an armpit gum crisis a disciplinary problem that requires the security guard to be called; or a medical situation for the school nurse to handle; or a custodial situation with some stain remover; or a wood shop problem solved with a little bit of sawing…kind of like cutting some small trees down!
It happened on Friday afternoon. For some middle schoolers Friday afternoon is when they get a distorted understanding of American freedom and think anything is okay. For teachers and school administrators Friday afternoon is like the end of a marathon race. Energy is low, muscles are cramping, their cardio system in at its max, but the finish line is in sight! They are stretching for the tape just about to break it and throw their arms up in triumph…and someone comes into the room or office and says “Jimmy wanted to see if he could fit in his locker and now he’s stuck inside it!”
There is the urge to respond with “Well…he will still be there on Monday when we come back!”, but…then the teacher or administrator remembers that their job description includes something like “rescues students from themselves!”
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: armpits, bubblicious, chewing gum, Dubble Bubble, dumb decisions, educational challenges, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, stupidity, teaching middle school, twelve year olds
Comments: 2 Comments
September 18, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 18, 2018
I did not get a too-early call this morning from Timberview Middle School. No phone ringing at 5:30 with urgency! I get did four phone calls from another school, but I ignored them. It’s gotten to the point where I rarely substitute at any other school besides Timberview. I’m like Andy Griffith in the midst of middle school Mayberry. Everybody knows me there! I coach three sports there, with this being my 18th year of coaching boy’s basketball.
So today is a day off! Yesterday I corralled 7th Grade language arts students the whole day, keeping them focused on verbs, mis-spellings, and the green grass of literature. I’ll giddy up the same herd two days from now.
Today, however, I’m relaxing…kinda’! When I leave Starbucks this morning I’m going up to the school to take care of a couple of details and surprise a coaching teammate with a cup of Americano with a little bit of cream. She deserves it for having to teach 8th Grade math all day.
Since retiring from being a church pastor close to three years ago (Doesn’t seem possible!) my understanding of “a day off” has been altered. It used to be that Monday was the designated day off after the hyper-speed pace of Sunday. Now it’s whatever day I’m not substitute teaching.
Could be Monday, could be Thursday, but it’s almost never Friday!
And what do I do on whatever day it is that I’m off? I think about what’s going on at the school, wondering which students will make unwise decisions and which teachers will be ready to pull their hair out. I’ll wonder what new color of hair will appear in a classroom that day and what 8th Grade girls will look like their jeans were vacuum sealed around them. I’ve noticed- and maybe you have also- that my middle school experiences are filtering more and more into my writing. In the first month of the school year I wrote 7 blog posts related to middle school. Today I’ll write 1,000 to 2,000 words in the third fiction book I’m writing and the story will have been influenced by my recent middle school experiences. One of the two main characters is a 7th Grade boy! That’s what I do on my day off! I write about middle schoolers.
I’ll also eat a more substantial lunch today, maybe a luncheon date with Carol. I won’t need to “wolfe down” a Tupperware bowl containing cottage cheese and cucumber, or a PB&J sandwich while gulping a bottle of water. Today I won’t even have to use a plastic fork!
I’ll be able to talk in a normal voice, use the bathroom when I want to, wear a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, and sit in the swing on our back deck and read Vince Flynn. I’ll be able to enjoy a third cup of coffee on my writing stool- the last stool on the right looking out at Pike’s Peak! I can stop at the supermarket and check out the “day old food” discounted rack and play Words with Friends. I may even run by Penney’s and see if they have underwear on sale!
And in the midst of all those opportunities and “down time” I’ll be thinking about Timberview, like a kid wondering what might happen in the next episode of my favorite action TV series.
Crazy, I know, but it brings a smile to my face! And I’ll ask myself “Was I that dorky when I was in middle school?”
Absolutely!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Grandchildren, Humor, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Andy Griffith, blogging, day off, dorky, down time, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, Starbucks, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teachers, teaching, teaching middle school, Vince Flynn
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September 16, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 16, 2018
Today marks the 955th time I’ve sat down at my laptop and pecked out a blog post. 955! That’s almost a thousand! Okay…it’s 95.5% of a thousand! When I was in high school I longed for 95.5%. I would have considered it perfect if I had ever received a mark that high!
At the rate of my writing I’ll hit “the summit”…I mean my thousand blog post about the end of November. Since I’ve been substitute teaching quite a bit so far this school year (16 out of 22 days) my frequency of posting has dipped…but I receive so much of my writing material from being with the students that it’s a good tradeoff…kinda’ like continuing education!
When I write my 1,000th blog post I’m not sure what I’ll do. In the world of print, newspapers know how many copies they sell and subscribers they have. Authors know how many book copies they’ve sold. I, however, don’t have any idea who reads what I write and who doesn’t. Last week I sent a Facebook birthday greeting to a former college classmate of mine. She replied with a thank you and then said she enjoys reading my blog.
Didn’t know that! The parent of a player I’ve coached said the same thing to me. I barely know her, but she reads the words I write that often bring chuckles and sometimes even profoundness.
955 times.
How did I get into it? The seeds for my blogging sowed back in 1980 when I went to be a part of the staff of First Baptist Church in Lansing, Michigan. The church had a weekly newsletter and I began to write a column each week for it. It began a discipline for me where I’d be called upon to create something in writing each week.
When I went to pastor First Baptist Church in Mason, Michigan the newsletter column habit continued…plus I had to come up with a sermon every Sunday. Some weeks the words flowed out as smoothly as breathing and other weeks the words seemed like elusive air bubbles that I couldn’t quite grasp.
36 years of ministry with the last 31 of those being the senior pastor resulted in the writing of about 1,300 sermons…and now 955 blog posts!
My first blog post was on December 30, 2008. It was entitled “Missing Mary”, and it focused on the fact that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had come up missing in our church’s nativity scene.
The seed thought for my last post, before today’s, came from the Japanese science fiction movies we used to watch, where the dialogue was about three seconds ahead of the moving of the actor’s lips.
In between those two blogs I’ve written about having coffee with Jesus, psycho parents of young athletes, substitute teaching, growing old, my parents, middle school church camp, friends who have died, being a grandparent, coaching, pastoring, and questions about how churches function.
People ask me where I get my ideas for my blogs and the answer is…from watching and pondering about life. Not very profound, but that’s it.
How much longer? Who knows? At the rate the world and technology are changing it could be that blogging will be about as relevant as cassette tapes in a couple of years, but until that happens I guess I’ll keep writing about life and the pursuit of it!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Blog posts, blogging, church newsletter, creative writing, Facebook, feedback, Missing Mary, readers, writing, writing blogs
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September 15, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 15, 2018
In my growing up years I used to love watching Japanese science fiction movies from the 1950’s and 60’s. Most of them were still in black and white, a bit cheesy, but very entertaining for a ten year old on Saturday mornings before the normal cartoon line-up shows came on, like Johnny Quest.
The plot for some of the films must have been thought up by half-crazed people under deadline duress. Curse of the Mushroom People, Invasion of the Neptune Men, Frankenstein Conquers the World, and Evil Brain From Outer Space are just a few of the films that came out of the minds of some disturbed film folk.
One thing I noticed as I watched these movies was the fact that the dubbing of the sound with the picture was almost always off. Perhaps it was a result of the movie being translated from Japanese into English, but it was always noticeable.
The lips were still moving but all the words had already been said. Sometimes it was as much as three seconds. The words of the next dialogue line were being heard, but the picture on the screen was still the previous speaker.
In later years as I’ve watched some of those old films it has become a feature that amuses me!
The last three days I’ve been substitute teaching seventh graders for a science class. It has made me realize that in this day of apps for everything under the sun there is a need for a “three second delay app!” That is, an app that would allow a person’s common sense to catch up to the words before they are spoken.
It became apparent amongst the seventh graders because of their tendency to “blurt”, “spew”, and “verbally twitch” without thinking. One student spewed so much nonsense that his own classmates were greatly relieved by his being asked to leave class. Amazingly, no one else needed a three second delay app for the rest of the class.
Seventh graders aren’t the only ones who need a rewind or delay button, although they would be the main consumers of such an invention. There is a prime market of adults who could use the three second delay as well. With people’s words being recorded on someone’s cell phone and social media, what we say without thinking seems to be coming back to haunt us more and more.
And whereas, it kind of adds more entertainment value to the viewing of Curse of the Mushroom People, it causes apologies and some serious backpedaling for us today.
I would have liked that three second delay app back in 1970 when I had taken a young lady to our high school’s homecoming dance. After the dance I took her home and walked her up to her front porch. The porch light was on and as we stood there she asked me if I would like for her to turn the light off. And I said, “No, that’s okay!”
WHAT????????
If there had been a three second delay so that my common sense could have caught up to my words I wouldn’t be reminding myself that I was an idiot that night…48 years later!
Categories: children, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Curse of the Mushroom People, dubbing, dubbing the sound, Invasion of the Neptune Men, Janpanese science fiction movies, middle school, middle schoolers, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, teaching middle school, the effect of words, thinking about what we are going to say, Words
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September 11, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 11, 2018
I was part of a foursome playing in a golf benefit tournament for an organization that provides housing and services for homeless families. In fact, we were on a goofy hole where we had to replace our golf ball on the green with a tennis ball and putt it until you hit the flag. And then we received the news!
The plane hitting the World Trade Center wasn’t an accident. It was the first of two planes hitting the twin towers in a terrorist attack. I remember that we made the turn after the ninth hole and went into the clubhouse and watched the news on TV. I can’t remember any of the other golfing events of that day, just that I was there when the events of 9/11 unfolded.
Each one of us has just a few events or moments in life where we can recall what we were doing, who we were talking to, or where we were when an earth-shattering event took place; that is, an occurrence that changed life for us, or changed how we viewed our world.
And when I say events, I mean in our own lifetime, not in the past centuries before we were alive. For example, as a follower of Jesus the events of his Passion Week…death and resurrection…define who I am now, but it occurred before I was born.
For me, the first event that changed my perspective of life happened when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was a fourth grader at Williamstown Elementary in Williamstown, West Virginia. I walked home and threw myself on my bed and bawled. In my simplified view of politics I was grief-stricken by the fact that someone had WANTED to kill my president. The world wasn’t suppose to be like this. It was my “Come to Jesus” moment with the realization that I lived in the world that lacked harmony and goodwill.
Other assassinations were a part of our nation’s path in the years following that, but my view of the world had already been changed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
In July of 1969 another event happened that was pivotal for me. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I was sitting in the living room of our neighbors’ house in Zanesville, Ohio. He was a Nazarene pastor, and we sat there and watched the fuzzy images on the TV screen. It changed my view of the possible. A moonwalk was something that had been a part of science fiction movies. It put our world closer to the plot of original Lost In Space TV series that seemed unfathomable. To actually have someone walk on the surface of the moon broadened my idea of the possibilities of what people can achieve.
From the destructiveness of one person to the inventiveness of a team of achievers to the depravity of an organization committed on causing destruction, these are three events in my lifetime so far that stand out as defining moments.
It’s different for each one of us. I’m not sure what someone who has been born since 9/11 would say is a defining moment for him/her. Just think! There a very few students in high school and younger who were alive when 9/11 happened. It is pre-history for them. They live in a world transformed by 9/11, and yet don’t quite understand how it changed things for them.
There are numerous moments that slightly change us, but only a few that transform us. There are only a few where we can look back and remember what we were doing, where we were, and who we were talking to when “the moment” happened.
9/11 is one of those for me. I remember and I never will forget.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Jesus, Nation, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 9/11, changing events, defining moments, Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lost In Space, man on the moon, moments that change us, Neil Armstrong, September 11, September 11 2001, Transformation, twin towers, World Trade Center
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Words from WW Blog 