At Least the Teacher Can Do It

It was a lively morning in the classroom, preparing to leave for a field trip to a park. Jeffrey's grandma, who works nearby, stopped by in the midst of the chaos. "Have a good day, everyone," she called from the doorway. After a pause in which she surveyed the excitement, she added, "And, um, help Ms. Djerf have a good day, too!"

"She will!" Jeffrey cheerfully replied.  "She always does!"

Grandma tried another tactic, every bit as subtle as the first. "You know what I mean," she chided, "like, behave nicely and pay attention."

"Oh, she ALWAYS pays attention!" Jeffrey reassured her. "I mean, she's not a kid. She's a grown up! It's EASY for her to pay attention!"

Cupcakes and Osama

I didn't have a lot to say this morning. But I had cupcakes. And I'm pretty sure the cupcakes were what mattered most.

Allow me to back up to last night, as I whined to my roommate, "Tiff, did I actually like teaching middle school this year?" She assured me that yes, Megan, you loved it and talked about them all of the time. (It is SO helpful to live with a good listener.)

I was relieved by her answer, but it was an honest question. The rocky last several weeks with those seventh and eighth graders have erased my positive memories and developed feelings of intense frustration. We've all been inching toward the exit sign, keeping a wary eye on one another.

I prefer to end the school year with a sense of closure and a way of affirming the students individually, but since my dominant thought over the past month has been "Goodbye and good riddance," I decided not to overreach this year. No big mushy-gushy class meetings attempted. No individual gifts made or notes written. Still, in frustration with my own feelings, I've been asking God to somehow wrap up the chaos in a good way.

The answer was simple: cupcakes.

So, last night, even as I struggled to remember any positive memories from the year, I devoted myself to yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting -- and the Holy Spirit met me at the table. As I took my sweet time arranging candy on the frosting just right (each cupcake unique from the others), I felt the irritation ebbing and instead, love rising. 

For me, putzing in this way was a choice to love them and place value on them instead of remembering their flaws. As I worked, I began to remember fun and meaningful moments from the year, and once again, I could pray for their good instead of dwell on my angst.

Those thoughts and prayers translated into me standing before the class this morning, thanking them for a great year and, before distributing my yummy cupcakes, challenging them from Psalm 34:8 "Taste and see the the LORD is good; happy is the man who takes refuge in him." 

What does all of this have to do with Osama? Well, it just made me think about the ways I like to show love, I guess.

I putzed in a similar way earlier this week, pouring my creative self into a birthday card for my brother Peter, with whom I share a long history of Osama Bin Laden jokes. The resulting masterpiece ("23 Places Osama Is No Longer Hiding") was my artsy-fartsy way of saying, "You're valuable to me. Our shared history matters."

I realized halfway through the project that Peter might not think it was funny, and I worried that the underlying message might not be transmitted. But I was stuck with the idea, so I gave it all I had and prayed that my heart would come across in the silly efforts of my strange imagination. I think it did; he seemed as delighted to receive it as I was to make it. That's what I was hoping for.

There's no big conclusion for these thoughts, just more thoughts and questions. Do I leave enough margin in my life for this creative love to have an outlet? Creativity takes time. And sometimes I'm most creative when I'm working on something for someone else. Interesting. 

How do I keep something that is a gift from God, a way in which I reflect His image, from being about me? How do I keep it in His hands, seeking always to point it back to Him?

And how am I doing at expressing love in other ways, when putzing for hours is perhaps not the best method? Am I more committed to loving well, or to expressing myself well? 

Thank You, Father, for all of the creative ways You show Your love to me. Let me be quick and free to reflect it to others!

Extemporaneous Information: Animal Reports, Part II

We finished our animal reports weeks ago, but I just finally re-found my scribbled page of notes. While the students presented, I was sitting in the back of the classroom, frantically recording on two different sheets. The top sheet was always the evaluation; the bottom, the things too funny or interesting to risk forgetting. Ended up with a full page in the second category.

One more quotable from the panda girl:
"Pandas have 84-240 germs when they are born." Germs, grams. How different could they be?

We have great community in our class, even if we're misinformed:
"Penguins mate for life..." Blair stopped in the middle of reading her display board.  She looked up at the class and calmly asserted, "but that's not true."

"How do you know?" I responded.

"We looked it up."

My skepticism must have showed on my face, because Jeffery rushed to her defense. "It's true, Ms. Djerf! I saw it in a commercial!"

A few beavers have it figured out:
Taylor told us all about beavers. The class -highly sensitive to anything remotely inappropriate- was particularly excited about question time during his presentation because they could say the word "dam" over and over again. What I liked the best, however, was the part on their habitat. It read "Some beavers live in the frozen north. Others live in northern Florida."

"Stump the Presenter" is a game we play without even trying:
"How many eggs do lions have in one year?" Poor Emma. She'd learned a lot about lions, but she was a little thrown off by this question, and it took her a minute to respond that lions don't lay eggs. "I know, but how many?" the questioner replied. (We're not the world's greatest listeners.)

If you're threatened by someone else's superlative, simply respond with unrelated but competitive information:
Martha told us that cheetahs are the fastest land animal.

Jeffrey's immediate response: "Yeah, but they can't swim."

And yes, Ms. D. was paying attention while laughing. She even learned three new facts. And she's pretty sure they're legit:
A group of cheetahs is called a coalition. (Bet you didn't know that.)

A tiger's eyesight is six times better than a human's.

A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away. (How do they figure things like that out, anyhow?)

Hmm. I wonder how far away you can hear a class of first and second graders?

If You Let Your Roommate Use Your Waffle Maker

Alternate titles for this post:

What Elementary School Teachers Do With Their Free Time

or

Proof That Tiffany Is an Amazingly Good Sport

or

How I Talk Myself -and My Roommate- Out of Pretty Much Everything

And now, without further ado, I present "If You Let Your Roommate Use Your Waffle Maker: An Open Letter to Tiff"

Dear Tiffany,

If Megan has a breakfast party, and then she leaves your waffle maker out

for a rather long time,

then she will, of course, have to make more waffles.

But look on the bright side: if she makes more waffles, then you'll have leftovers! (You are clearly psyched about this.)

But if you have leftovers, she'll need to stick them in the freezer. This could be a problem...

...because, before she can put them in the freezer, you'll have to clean it out.

And if you clean out the freezer, then she'll have to take the trash out.

If she takes the trash out, you might as well round up the recycling, too. It's only a small mountain this time.

But once the recycling's gone and the pantry is remotely accessible again, Megan will want to rearrange the pantry shelves.

Until she looks at the pantry and is entirely demoralized. At which point the entire project will be shelved (ha!) and you'll both need at least two episodes of Psych, half a pan of brownies, and a bag of microwave popcorn to recover.
Consider yourself warned.

With love,
your very poky roomie
who did finally put away the waffle maker away 83 days after that delightful breakfast party

Turns out my indecision has influence my reputation; I've become known as a waffler!
(Inspiring artwork courtesy of Dave Omdal)

Mother's Day Thoughts on a Crabapple Tree

[Yet another post from the Soggy folder. I began this for Mother's Day last year. The flowering tree part doesn't fit so well this year, as the crabapple trees in my neighborhood have yet to bloom. Oh, well.]

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

-Robert Frost, "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Over the past few days, the pink flowering trees have abandoned their blossoms, and I am sad, because this means that the white-flowered ones will soon be divested of their beauty as well.

Every year, I wish that they would bloom longer. But that wish is synonymous with wishing that every sweet baby remain a baby, or that the sunrise would never turn to day. These trees, to fulfill their purpose in the ecosystem, must be not only lovely, but also fruitful.

As I've bemoaned the snow-like carpets circled beneath these trees, I've caught myself personifying the trees. (I'm a little prone to this.) I've wondered: is it a sacrifice for the tree to leave her ethereal garment on the ground in a thousand fragments? I doubt that, unless she has stooped to believe that her only value is in the show-stopping beauty people like me admire.

If she were to listen to my complaints, she would fail to delight in the harvest ahead. A few months from now, my windows will overflow with the sounds of birds chattering to each other as they gorge themselves on the crabapples, satisfied and delighted. These trees will feed a veritable flock, and subsequently, the propagation of further crabapple trees will be accomplished.

There will be beauty in that season, too, but I'm certain there will be fewer passersby stopping to ooh and ahh.

As I've thought about this, I've thought about the many amazing mothers I know. Motherhood -a season all about fruitfulness- is not often a show-stopping garment. Many moms have chosen to trade in aspects of their lives and appearances which were those most praised by others in order to invest in the lives of their children. In a culture which every day tells women that their value lies in their ability to maintain and perfect their visible beauty, the difficult, invisible work -and especially, the physical sacrifice- of motherhood is rarely appreciated.

To every mom who reads this, then, let me say: there is so much beauty in your season of today, whether it is seen by the world or not. As you love and labor, trusting God for your children and your role in their lives, may your "adorning be the the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious." (1 Peter 3:4)

And may the outward losses and changes of this season bring about an inner awareness of eternity, that the things you do invest yourself in may result in deeper hope in God, both in you and in your children. "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wearing away [and motherhood is just one of many things which makes that truth abundantly clear], our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Happy Mother's Day!

Morning Drive

Three things made this morning's drive to work particularly cheerful:

1. Coffee with peppermint mocha creamer. Yummmmm.

2. I had to wear my sunglasses today. That meant it wasn't raining OR snowing.

3. My super-funny, quirky, beautiful little sister was AWAKE and talkative. Ordinarily, my three riders try to fall asleep as soon as they get in the car, and my attempts to elicit conversation are met with snarls. But today's ride was a happy ramble all the way to school. We ended with this conversation:

M: I'm not really all that excited about candy.

me: No, you're more of a chip fanatic.

M: Yeah, I am a chip fanatic. Oh, and fruit snacks. Fruit snacks are my life.

me: Ha!

M: *Sigh and dramatic pause.* I really want an armadillo. And twin chinchillas.

I walked into school with a huge smile on my face.

(Happy birthday, fifteen-years-old-and-way-taller-than-me baby sister! I'll see what I can do about armadillos and chinchillas...)

Singing Snowbanks and Sandbags

[I wrote the first draft of this piece on March 17. Would have made more sense to publish it then, when there was still snow on the ground, but...well, I saw snowflakes on my way to work this morning. Winter is still struggling to move on.]

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven..." (Eccesiastes 3:1)

I soaked up a woodsy walk this afternoon, following a trail through hills in that awkward stage between cross-country ski course and golf course. There's been enough sun this week to slump the snowcover down to a smooth, trackless crust. I saw no evidence of skis, boots, or even animals using the trail recently, except for one turkey.

I marveled at the tranquility, holding my hand parallel to the ground and feeling the kiss of both seasons: the sun warmed the top while the chill radiated up from the snow to shiver against my palm. Cloaked in dormancy, the woods seemed as though they could remain this way forever.

And then I heard it. A few paces ahead, a lively gurgling. The entire hill was singing. Beneath the icy crust, snowmelt from the golf course above was racing -joyously- to the lake below.

Couldn't see it, but it was rushing beneath my feet. Alive. Beautiful.

Turns out winter cannot last forever.

Still masked in ice, the lake looks deceptively placid as well; but it must be rising every day. Waterfront land owners all over the state are marking the increase and responding to protect their property accordingly.

A few sunny days, and we shift from the drowsiness of winter to the near-panic of flood. Snowbanks to sandbags.

I stood on the hill today and pondered it. I've been waiting for the melt, ready to pounce on the first hint of spring. But all the news stories about flooding this week have reminded me that the changing of the seasons brings with it new challenges.

It's true in life, too. How often I chafe against an immovable snowbank, wondering if it will be winter forever, and then, when it does melt, I'm scrambling around for sandbags, somehow unprepared for the deluge I anticipated.

I ask God to work, to change something, to move me to the next thing. No immediate changes occur, and I get comfortable in my stillness. And then change comes and all I see is my unreadiness for it, all the ways I could have prepared back when life was still.

Sandbags protect what property owners have deemed most valuable. In a season of overflow, boundaries regarding our priorities become crucial. The decisions about what's non-negotiable are easiest made before the flood arrives.

Decisions about which relationships are most important. Decisions about what and who will have the strongest voice to speak into your life. Decisions about what must stay and what can go.

Times of stillness are perfect for putting down deep roots in our relationship with God and His Word, for allowing what He says about us to become the most important things about us. As far as He's concerned, there is no such thing as a season of insignificance.

It's not easy to sit in a season of waiting and somehow be content and prepared at the same time. Perhaps the best prayer is this one, borrowed from Corrie Ten Boom:

"Lord, prepare me for what You've prepared for me."

(I owe many of my thoughts on this topic to Alicia Britt Chole and her powerful book Anonymous.)