Words from WW Blog

“If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion.” -Mia Hamm

Back in September when I tested positive for COVID-19, I lost much of my sense of smell. The fact that I could not smell the bacon that was being fried was a sign that not all things were as they should be. In the six months sense then some of my senses of taste and smell have come back, but don’t ask me to sniff the wine or smell two week old milk.

And then there’s the spice rack in our house!

I can smell the garlic and the cinnamon, faint hints of a few others, and not a hint of purpose in most of them. Spices and seasonings that don’t offer flavor are anomalies. It’s like tofu that just lays there and stares at you, or pasta without the sauce.

Passion is the seasoning of a purpose-filled life. This past week in the silence of a post-track practice school hallway I talked to one of our runners about the importance of passion. Passion is the flavor-filled spice that keeps us coming back for more. It’s that ingredient that is hard to define. When its there it’s obvious and when its not there it’s even more obvious.

As my friend, Ron McKinney, one who knows about the passion of guiding and equipping young learners and athletes, stood there with me, we talked to the young athlete about the things in life that energize us, keep us coming back for more.

In the educational arena, rising costs creating financial pinches are causing an alarming number of educators to consider leaving their profession. Last year’s educational schizophrenia overwhelmed many teachers. This year’s classrooms are often daily examples of a missing year of maturing for their students. Sixth-graders are more like fifth-graders and seventh-graders are more like sixth-graders.

Worries about students, concerns about making ends meet, increasing demands and responsibilities set upon them, all of those things in life that seek to zap the flavor and make teaching like a trip down the generic lane are tasteless clumps in the stew.

The passion for guiding young learners has been grieved by the circumstances of the times. Just as I wish my sense of smell would come back, many teachers are hoping the predicaments of the times will soon be drained through a colander and the adventure of equipping young minds with the tools of life will be what is left.

In the mean time, just as I tell the cook, “That sure was a great dinner!”, maybe we can find ways to say to our educators, “That was a great lesson today! Thanks for teaching us!” And maybe, just maybe, the nutmeg and paprika can be smelled again!

Fifty years ago this month in my high school senior year, I ran the Athens Marathon. Not Athens, Greece! Athens, Ohio, the hometown of Joe Burrows and the Ohio University Bobcats. It was wavering above and below the 32 degree mark the whole day, light flakes of snow erasing any thoughts of heat exhaustion. Halfway into the 26.2 mile run, I started wondering what in the world I was doing. The racecourse took the chilled runners out into the boonies, where the idea of quitting was abandoned because there was the necessity of running back to civilization. By the end of the race the exhaustion had poured over my body, but also a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, completing what seemed impossible.

This year school teachers are in the midst of a marathon education race. Many bystanders don’t understand the challenges of this journey. Just as the marathon runners disappeared into the outer limits of the Ohio countryside, teachers head into the boonies of their classrooms, often weary, emotionally, and mentally fatigued. By March they are about two-thirds of the way into the academic year distance run. It’s a run with endless hills to climb and potholes to beware of.

And the thing is, the thing that many people don’t realize, that folks outside the educational environment have failed to consider, is that this school year includes residue from the previous school year where students were in class, out of class, in school part of the time, at home and distracted, at home and playing video games as remote classes were going on, with students and not with students. The warts that were forming underneath the surface last year have come out black, blue, and a few other shades this school year.

Teachers are instructing in the midst of the classroom acne, unsightly and challenging. Discipline problems are more common than missing commas in a grammar lesson. Teaching young Johnny algebra is often greeted with attitude, and a request to get started on the day’s assignment is met with indifference.

Not all students are like that. Not even close to all them, but enough to where many teachers are hitting the same kind of wall that marathon runners talk about, a cloudy and confusing time where the thought of quitting is lurking in every class of every school day.

Teacher Appreciation Week that comes in May each year needs to be moved up to March…maybe February. A flood of appreciation notes is needed by our educators about right now to help them refocus on how valued they are. They need that to help them rediscover the privilege in the midst of exhausted frustration. When I say privilege I mean the impression and impact they have been, and are having, on their students.

Like yesterday, when two former students of the teacher on maternity leave, who I’m subbing for right now, stopped by after school to say hi to her. She is two to three years in their school past now, but still missed and thought of highly by them. Those actions of honoring former teachers mean so much.

And it’s also the privilege of being a part of a student’s request for advice. Staying the course when the final days of May seem an eternity away gives teacher the privilege of speaking truth into the lives of the young. For some of them, teachers may be the only adults who have stayed the course. Parents have split apart or given their attention to other people and pastimes. Classroom supervision may be the only semblance of order in the lives of some students.

So, teachers, when you’re wondering if it’s all worth it…when Johnny flips you off in the hallway…when Dorothy comes to school sorta half-dressed…when tears suddenly begin streaming from a student’s eyes when you ask him to solve the next problem…when Tim won’t be quiet in class…when Suzy just wants to stay in your classroom during lunch because it’s a quiet place…when missing assignments seem to be more prevalent than submissions…stay the course, stay the course, stay the course! There is a multitude who are cheering for you. You just might not know it until a few years later.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Recent events, challenges, and heartaches have dehydrated the perspective of many folk. In their eyes the glass is already half-empty and has a crack in the bottom. It’s understandable. COVID-19, restrictions on what people could and can do, drastic changes in how the education of our kids and youth are conducted, Washington uncertainty, rising costs, and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine that causes people to wonder if the world is about to blow apart.

It’s challenging to see that the glass is half-full. Some people say that I’m simply optimistic in an age of overwhelming pessimism. I can understand that, but I would reshape the understanding of my optimism as being hope-filled faith in the One who is so all-knowing that He can count the hairs on my head, all-loving that He holds me in the palm of His hand, always-present walking closely beside me, and all-powerful in that He can change the direction of the world and restore the wounded to health.

In a half-empty mentality, the Russian invasion is the bitter icing on a sour cake. It’s a punch in the gut that causes folk to double over in pain and disbelief. In the half-full view, I believe that the One Who created the universe is still looking at the moment He will refill the glass, that the unsettling of the world’s events does not change what God is about.

In our life journeys, there are times, some brief and some long, when having faith is a struggle, a slow walk in sinking sand. It’s as if our vision in the Unseen disappears and we’re not sure if He is still there. I compare it to the Saturday of Holy Week. Jesus has been crucified and then laid in the tomb. Sunday, and it’s proclamation of new life and new hope hasn’t arrived yet. Saturday was confusing, depressing, a day of soul-searching. It’s difficult to see the hope in the midst of the day between the emergence of calamity and the arrival of resolution.

As we scan the history of mankind we’re reminded that there have been a multitude of “Saturdays”. Hope, however, is in the glass.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a man from our small town church who recently passed away from COVID. A Vietnam veteran who experienced some of the horrors of that “Saturday sorrow”, he had found new life in Jesus. As the chaplain stood by his hospital bed in my friend’s final hours, the soon-to-be-departed took a notepad and, since he no longer was able to speak, he wrote the words slowly but confidently “It is well with my soul!”

His glass, in a spiritual and eternal sense, was about to be overflowing with the glory of the Lord.

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)

Twice in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus talks about the necessity of losing in order to find, losing in order to gain. His message was counter-cultural then and would be greeted with scoffing and shaking heads now. After all, losing is for losers, right? Why attempt anything if you’re not going to end up on top?

Jesus’ words were focused on the thought-line of surrender. Surrendering means giving up control, losing the control. It’s taking my hands off the steering wheel and letting someone else, the One, direct and drive me. (Side note: I confess that I’ve noticed my uneasiness when I sit in the passenger seat and my wife is driving the car. I’m impatient and irritable, feeling every bump in the pavement! There, I admitted it!)

The Winter Olympics had brought the issue of losing to the news spotlight again. Sports Illustrated predictions on who was supposed to win and place in each event or team competition did not play out much of the time. Long on-air discussions on what happened to certain athletes who lost, consumed much of the broadcasts. The disappointment was evident in the commentators’ voices. The viewer got the impression that losing was either unpatriotic or the result of unfairness in the competition.

The reality, and the basis for many life lessons, is that we all lose, and losing reminds us that we’re not all that! Sometimes we need to lose in order to gain perspective. Losing shows how grounded we are, and whether we can accept being humbled. My college basketball team was 4-22 in my senior year. We were experienced in the art of humility. But I learned so much during that season about supporting one another, striving to be a better player, and the bond of brotherhood. In our situation losing brought us closer together instead of pulling us apart.

I was watching an episode of The Andy Griffith Show a few days ago that was actually the seed thought for this writing. Andy’s son Opie was in a 50-yard dash race. He dreamed of winning the race and having a medal pinned to his shirt. Barney Fife, the Sheriff’s deputy who often pretends he knows it all, trained Opie for the three days or so leading up to the race. Opie, however, finishes fourth out of four, and stalks off, refusing to congratulate the winning runner. His dad is disappointed in him, not for losing but rather for his conduct after losing. His dad tells him that no one wins all the time and it’s how we act following a loss that is a telling feature of who we are. It takes Opie a day to let the message of his dad’s words soothe over the misery and anger of defeat. Finally, he comes to Andy and tells him that his heartache is about his father’s disappointment.

There is a long list of things in life that are more important than winning. For us to admit that, however, means taking our hands off the steering wheel and losing the power that we thirst to always have. In essence, it’s not it means to be a follower of Jesus, not the one that Jesus follows.

It’s been a week where I’ve been surrounded by sixth-grade students. On different days I covered all of their core classes: Science, math, language arts, and social studies. Roughly, the same 55 students each day, most dressed in interesting outfits either carefully thought through or whatever was on top of the pile when they arose from bed. In fact, I suspect a few of them wore what they had slept in.

If someone walked into a classroom he would soon figure out that it contained sixth-graders. You see, a sixth grade classroom has certain telltale signs that give it away, like a Wheel of Fortune puzzle where all the key indicator letters are filled in and anyone can figure out the rest. Sixth grade classrooms are like that.

Here are the clues I discovered this week.

The Noisemaker: There’s the kid who makes unnecessary sounds and little comments, like popping or clipping sounds with his mouth and tongue, or the kid who thinks his pencil is a drumstick, or the girl who giggles like a hyena, or the boy who likes to take advantage of the fact that his chair squeaks whenever he shifts his weight.Or, I can’t forget this one, the kid who brings some kind of snack with a noisy wrapper. If it was a movie theatre that usher with the flashlight would be constantly busy spotlighting the noisemakers.

The Brainiac: There will always be the student who knows everything, wants to answer any question, and set other students straight on their incorrect understanding. The thing is…he usually is right…but never gets invited to birthday parties!

The Walking Disaster: Every class has at least one student who’s notebook or binder looks like an explosion happened within it. Papers are hanging out in every direction. He’s like Pig Pen from the Peanuts comic strip. But instead of dirt and mud trailing along behind him, the Walking Disaster leaves a trail of paper, pencils, candy wrappers, and have a computer charging cord following like a dog leash. His shoestrings are flapping along and he frequently asks if he can return to his last class to retrieve something that he has forgotten.

The Red Buller: She has not necessarily had two cans of Red Bull that morning, but her hyper-ness gives the observer the impression it has been here breakfast. She can’t stop talking, erupting his attention-getting comments at just the right time to cause an evacuation from the lesson plan of the day. The threat of lunch detention works for about five minutes and then the Red Bull-effect surfaces again. When you see this student in the hallway during passing periods you realize this is how she is ALL DAY LONG!

The Quiet-As-A-Mouse Kids: They don’t stand out because they never say a word, make a sound, or even move! When any of them are asked a question the response is a usually an indecipherable whisper that not even the speaking kid can hear. They never ask to be allowed to go to the restroom or get a drink of water because that would require movement from their glued-to-the chair position. The teacher never has to worry about them, which causes the teacher to worry about them.

The Future Pro Athlete: Every sixth grade classroom has the kid who wears nothing but the jerseys of sports teams. Monday is a LeBron jersey, complete with wristbands; Tuesday is Tom Brady day…from his years as a Patriot; Wednesday is dress down day to a Duke Blue Devils t-shirt; Thursday is Max Scherzer baseball day; and Friday is patriotic USA Dream Team jersey day. And then the teacher watches the future pro athlete playing football with a group of students at lunch one day and realizes the kid can’t catch a cold!

I had all of these “personalities” this past week and more. And here’s the thing! I enjoyed it…mostly! 95% of my students were awesome, made me smile and laugh, and gave me hope about the coming generation. Yes, there was the 5% that caused me to grind my teeth at night, but the 95% full of personality and distinctiveness will carry me forward.

And now I start a two-month teaching gig for an 8th grade language arts teacher who have birth to her first child yesterday. I’m getting prepared to be harassed for my wardrobe, lack of knowledge about their favorite musicians, and total lack of understanding of certain words that they use. None of them say “groovy” and know who Three Dog Night is. They’ll look at me like I’m hopeless and make me feel like…a sixth-grader!

I didn’t know. Somewhere along my journey I hadn’t been informed about how to wear a polo shirt. I suppose I could blame it on the fact that I have never subscribed to GQ magazine or stopped to look at the picture posters in the men’s sections of Penney’s, Target, or Dilliard’s. For several years of my life the wardrobe selections I chose from had mostly come from the Last Chance store of Dilliard’s located in Phoenix. Last Chance is the gathering spot for all the returned, and looking suspiciously used, merchandise the company receives.

So, the eighth grade student was simply trying to educate me on one of the missing links of my lifelong learning. The shirttails of polo shirts, he informed me, were not to be tucked into my pants. They were to be worn loose.

“Oh,” was my initial response.

“Yes, hanging out. Tucking your shirt in looks…” He paused considering what descriptive term he would end the sentence with. “…not cool!”

“Not cool?”

“Old, weird, nerdy,” he added. This from a student who is already taking calculus at the high school located next to our middle school.

“But I’ve always tucked my shirt in!” I exclaimed, sounding like a courtroom defendant.

“Yes, well…”

“I’d feel almost undressed with my shirttail hanging out. And besides, this is coming from a generation that thinks sagging is a fashion style.”

“You look a little too much charter-schoolish with it tucked into your pants.”

“What about button-down shirts? Those should be tucked in, right?”

“Not really.”

I did a quick review of the fashion warnings of my lifetime. There was the time I wore jeans that were too short and was teased for having my Noah jeans on. And there was the time I wore white socks with loafers…dumb-looking! And black socks with tennis shoes in my 8th grade basketball team picture, the only kid who had a different colored sock on besides white! And there time I wore an out-of-style sportcoat for a couple of years for Sunday church services before someone told me it should be given to our kids whenever they wanted to play “dress-up”!

But the only times I’ve worn my shirttail out was when it was too small and short to tuck in. And now a straight-A 8th grader has given me the news that I stand out like a sore thumb.

So I went into the staff restroom and untucked it and felt like students were looking at me even more than they had evidently been looking at me. At the end of the next class I went back into the restroom and tucked it back in…and felt normal again!

Perhaps it’s a sign of my traditionalistic tendencies, dating back to Central Baptist Church in Winchester, Kentucky in the late 50s…or my habit of adding creamer to my coffee (Hold on to that one!)…or my understanding of Scripture, the early church, and the community elements of the Body of Christ. In other words, I’m trying to rationalize my uncomfortableness with the road my life has traveled so far, and how I’m used to things being a certain way.

Okay! Here it is! I have misgivings about church communion being performed with little cups that resemble those half-and-half creamers for my coffee. You know, the mini-sized wafer on top and two drops of grape juice inside the cup! It’s just…just…so un-special, like buying generic at Walmart.

I understand the rationale for it: safer for these pandemic times, doesn’t consume a lot of time, and you don’t have to worry about dropping the tray and spattering the lady wearing the brightly-colored, flowered dress. Larger churches can distribute the half-and-half easily as people enter the sanctuary and there’s minimal clean-up afterward.

The positive aspects of half-and-half communion also make my inners itch. The fact that it helps keep the worship service to an American hour rubs up against my desire to slow down and contemplate the meaning of the elements and the memory of Jesus’ last supper evening.

At the small church I attend most Sundays and speak at once or twice a month, communion is a Body-building experience. For a while we had people come forward and pick up their elements at the front of the sanctuary, but now we’ve returned to passing out the tray of bread (Ry-Krisp crackers!) and then the tray of communion cups. In the communion experience I need time to think about grace, forgiveness, sacrifice, who I am and God still loves me.

The United Baptist church (A contradiction in terms, kinda like jumbo shrimp!) my grandparents were a part of in rural eastern Kentucky observed communion only once every three months, not because it wasn’t important, but rather to make it stand out as being even more significant. Most Sundays they had communion they also had a foot-washing service…another part of that Upper Room story.

I’ve got a little Lutheran in my blood in that I like how they make the eucharist the focus of their worship and observe it each week.

But back to the half-and-half creamers! I’m afraid our disconnectedness from our spiritual roots will obscure the understanding of Jesus’ last meal more and more. I can envision a grandpa sitting with the grandkids and saying something like, “Back in the old days, we used to PASS OUT little cups and pieces of bread ON TRAYS!” The grandkids eyes would get big and one of them would reply, “Grandpa, you used to do it THAT WAY?”

Okay, maybe we won’t get to that point…at least in our lifetime! I am, however, having nightmares of accidentally pouring my half-and-half communion juice into my cup of coffee!

“He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:3)

God has a way of orchestrating a new song even when our hearing is cluttered with noise. That’s just how He is, ready to dumbfound us with the creation of a new chapter in our stories. Sometimes that new creation is resembling of the plot twist of a suspenseful novel or a tear-jerking love story. With our nearsighted vision we miss the signs, stumbling along the path, until suddenly there is a clearing, a clear moment of revelation and discovery.

And so it was on the second of my three flights as I head back to Colorado Springs from Ohio, the plane that would take me from Charlotte to Dallas situated in Seat 20A. My boarding group was 7 out of 9, always a mystery to me since I would be plopping down in the seat by the window. An older African-American couple was already in B and C as I finally made my way down the aisle pathway. I apologized for having to make them get up so I could scoot in. They didn’t mind so we took a few moments to get ourselves settled and resettled.

It didn’t take us long to start chatting. I told the lady, the rose between two thorns if you will, to nudge me if I started snoring, and the fact that I’d arisen at 4 AM to go to Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia. It broke the ice, so to speak, and we started gabbing about life. I told her that I had flown back to Huntington to surprise my sister for her 70th birthday, and then I asked if they lived in Dallas. She replied, “No, we live in Charlotte.”

“Going to visit family in Dallas?”

“Going back for our daughter’s funeral.”

Such words came out unexpected to my hearing. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I paused, searching for the next words to say. “Was it unexpected?”

“Cancer. Three years, and then the Lord took her home.”

“Having a child go before you, that’s not how it’s suppose to be.”

“Yes, but she blessed a lot of lives and now she’s in the Lord’s hands.”

“Almost three years to the day I was on a plane back to Huntington for my dad’s last day before he passed.”

“How old was he?”

“Four months shy of 90.”

“Isn’t that something? My dad passed three last spring three months shy of his ninetieth!

“What is your daughter’s name?” She whispered her name through the veil of her face mask and I didn’t quite understand what she said so I said, “I’m sorry. What was it?”

She pointed to the front of her face mask. It had a picture of her daughter and her name. “Scooter. We called her Scooter.”

“I’ll be praying for you as you celebrate her life and grieve her loss.”

“Her life was a testimony for the Lord, and we know she is rejoicing in His glory.”

“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” I said, quoting my favorite verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. We talked some more about Scooter and the memories. I found out that the lady had been a special education teacher and would be subbing for those amazing kids when she returned to Charlotte. I told her about my wife working with the same set of students and how she taught pre-school deaf kids when she got out of college. We marveled at God putting me in the seat beside her, the first and last time we would meet this side of Glory, to taught about life, death, and hope in the midst of death.

As they rose from their seats to exit the plane, I reiterated that I’d be praying for them as they gathered with Scooter’s friends and husband the next day and then escorted her remains back to Charlotte. She looked at me, grasped my hand, and said, “And may the Lord bless you!”

Sometimes God puts you in the seat next to the window not to look out, but to listen to the one sitting on your right.

My sister reached a milestone birthday yesterday. I won’t tell you which one, but it’s somewhere between 60 and 80 and it begins with a 7. I know, I know, that’s not much of a clue, but she might get upset if I told you what number it was that ends with a 0.

Her daughter planned a “card shower” for her…and let me tell you!…she may need to bake a cake for the postal carrier. It’s not often that he/she has to deliver such a stack of cards to one mailbox, so many that a giant rubber band was needed to keep them from cluttering up a city block.

So I decided to fly in from Colorado to Ohio with our card in tow and hand deliver it to her. The expression on her face was worth the trip, priceless! It’s posted on my Facebook page. The shock, the quivering hands, the realization that she hadn’t combed her hair yet that morning. The gift of surprise is the sugar in our too-often bland lives.

I love my sister, a wonderful lady who is so giving and caring of others, self-less to a tee! To bring her to tears in the rush of the surprise was emotional for me as well.

God blessed us with the gift of surprise. The gospel story, the ultimate encounter of good news, was punctuated with surprise and wonder. The birth narrative, the healings and life transformations, and the reconciliation that the cross of Christ made possible, the surprises of the Lord are beyond our calculations.

Sometimes the way He orchestrates the symphony of our lives is so peace-filled and wondrous. We simply need not worry about our hair or be in a hurry and be in the flow of His spirit.

And now this morning, some would say coincidentally but others would see the care of the Comforter, I’ll be speaking at my sister’s church. Their pastor, a wonderful man of God, called my brother-in-law yesterday as we were enjoying a birthday lunch at Outback, to say that he was ill and he needed my brother-in-law to take care of Sunday’s service. I’ve spoken at the church before and could sense that Pastor Rob would be delighted, even in his sickness, to know that I’d fill in for him. Just another example of the surprises of God. Instead of sitting in the congregation listening to Rob speak and teach on James 5, I’ll be graced with the opportunity to lead the congregation in the discovery and pondering of a miracle of Jesus.

God is good. God is gracious. God is graciously good.