Fired up and angry about more stupid commentary about the stupid accountability movement in public education, I went searching for this quote by Albert Einsten:

    Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted

...and came across this wonderful list of things we wish our children would experience before graduating from high school and stepping into the wide, wide world:

by Matt Lintner

Management guru Peter Drucker famously said, "What gets measured gets managed." But what if we're measuring the wrong things? Consider the following: you can graduate from high school with straight A's without ever having

1. Searched for answers to unknown questions.

2. Budgeted your own time.

3. Discovered what most interests you.

4. Initiated a project requiring sustained commitment.

5. Taken risks or experienced failure.

6. Led a team in the pursuit of a worthy goal.

7. Practiced consensus building or the messiness of compromise.

8. Asserted yourself, even if it meant challenging authority.

9. Built something of value.

10. Created art that speaks to the soul.

11. Explored the natural world.

12. Interacted with people outside your age group.

13. Volunteered substantively in your community.

14. Apprenticed in fields of your choosing.

15. Started a business.

16. Traveled and gathered perspectives outside your comfort zone.

17. Acquired practical skills like saving and investing, handling tools, programming, growing food. . .

Perhaps most tellingly, you never learned to say No.

America can continue down the path of national standards, high stakes testing, longer school days, expanded calendar, merit pay, and all the rest -- but none of it will cure what ills us if we're not focused on what truly matters.

Matt Lintner is a teacher in Fairfax County Virginia. 

My school is geared towards helping students experience # 2, 8, and 12-- but so much more of it is missing, and so much of our students' energy seems directed (by themselves, their parents, their teachers, our culture) toward the next step, "The Real World," as if where they are no is only a passage, somehow unreal or not "counting" except for how it impacts their future. 

Way too many

There is seriously something going on at my school, in which the parents of my students are dying at what is surely an unnatural rate.  Cancer.  We curse its name a lot.
Tomorrow I am going to a memorial service for the father of a student from my English and Creative Writing class last year, a lovely, smart, creative and sensitive tenth grader whose father died two weeks ago from brain cancer.  School is a safe haven for her, her mother tells us; she does not want any of us to bring up the subject of her father's illness or his death.  She wants to be able to ignore it while she is at school.
As if that were possible.
But I was in her English class the day after he died, and she was there too, a little distant, but soldiering on.  We were talking about applying to college and taking career interest inventories.  She said she was deciding between majoring in education or death studies.

It is of course an understatement to say that I am not looking forward to his funeral tomorrow.  Last year I went to two memorial services for students' mothers.  Cancer.  Cancer.  One  was at a local botanical garden, and one was at a fairly traditional local church.  The first was actually surprisingly lovely, with wonderful stories about a woman I wished I could have known.  The second was more formal and not very comforting.  To me.
But last week I went to the funeral of my friend K's father-- an octogenarian who had been a respected trustee of his Baptist church, a pillar of his community, a beloved father.  A man who was much closer to ready to go.  His was the first funeral I've been to that had an altar call, and the first in which all the speakers were so positive about the resurrection and the place he had gone and the shape and feel of the other side and the fact that we would all (because no one admitted to needing to be saved) see him again.

The worst memorial service I have ever been to was the one for the 8th grade sister of my 10th grade student, now 3 1/2 years ago.  There was a prayer service the day before, with wailing children and weeping adults, and a closing prayer by a Unitarian preacher that offered no hope for redemption.  And the memorial service offered no peace, no comfort.  Mind you, I can't really imagine what could have been comforting in the face of that kind of loss, unless you really do believe, as they said at K's funeral, that this is the day the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it.  I can't blame the preacher, but that experience did launch me on what began as a frantic search for... meaning, peace, comfort... that took me almost obsessively to every kind of church.
I haven't found that comfort yet, certainly haven't found any answers-- but I do have the intuitive idea that a church is more likely to offer some kind of peace than a service in a community center, like tomorrow's.  Maybe mostly the comfort of words that have dug grooves into my subconscious.  I remember when my grandmother died and the minister came to our house to get our input into the service.  He asked about bible verses and hymns she might like, and I suggested "Amazing Grace".  My mother pointed out that she would have hated and completely rejected that idea that she had been a "wretch" who was saved.  She was right, of course; it was just a song I knew, and the familiarity bred comfort.  We ended up with Psalm 139, which was a lot closer to the truth.

Living Stones

Last year when I was so frustrated at work I started researching not only other jobs in my field, but other fields, and taking to heart what so many people have told me, that I have a knack for layout. "If there was a job where I could spend all day formatting Word documents to make them attractive, I'd be happy," I would say-- knowing that there is such a thing as graphic design, wondering if I would be able to make it through the black & white and color design classes my mother took at the local community college when I was a kid.  I looked into the graphic design curriculum at that school... Typography classes... Drawing... Fundamentals of Design... Digital Illustration... Design for the Web... 

Then I got the idea for a quilt I made for Mom this Christmas... starting with the quilted labyrinth in the center, using some of the many batik squares I've had for several years, begging to be made into something-- attempting to arrange them both light to dark and on the spectrum from warm to cool / dull to bright in water, air, fire and earth.  This is only the second quilt I've made, and I enjoyed figuring out how to make it work, given my limitations (lack of knowledge/experience and also a distaste for precision, measuring and taking great care).  I want to do something new, but I don't have a burning idea, like the labyrinth.

So at church last week when I saw an announcement of an art show to be held in May I was immediately intrigued...  but the theme left me cold: "Living Stones".  I didn't even know what that meant.  I could think of lots of important biblical stones...

-       the pillar of stones that Jacob sets up in Genesis

-       the stone tablets with 10 commandments

-       many, many people being stoned for their sins (Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)

-       the stones that represent the 12 tribes of Israel (Joshua)

-       the stone David used to fell Goliath

-       "the stone that the builder rejected has become the chief cornerstone"

-       the devil tempting Jesus to turn stones to bread

-       the stone rolled away from entrance to Jesus’ tomb

-       "let he who is without sin throw the first stone"

-       "upon this rock I will build my church"

-       "who among you, if your child asks for bread, will give him a stone"

...but I couldn't think of any that had that "living stones" image.

So, like my parents' daughter (only without the need to whip out that huge hardbound Exhaustive Concordance), I searched for every "stone" reference in the old and new testaments, and came upon this from Habakkuk:

Habakkuk 2

⁹“Alas for you who get evil gain for your houses, setting your nest on high to be safe from the reach of harm!” ¹⁰You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. ¹¹The very stones will cry out from the wall, and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.  ¹²“Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed, and found a city on iniquity!” ¹³Is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor only to feed the flames, and nations weary themselves for nothing? ¹⁴But the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

and this from  1 Peter:

 

1 Peter 2

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. ²Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— ³if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶For it stands in scripture:
‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
   a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’
⁷To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
‘The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the very head of the corner’,
⁸and
‘A stone that makes them stumble,
   and a rock that makes them fall.’
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
¹⁰ Once you were not a people,
   but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
   but now you have received mercy. 

_____________________________________________________________________
I've sketched a couple of ideas here, but they are all quite literal, and based on the "rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight" piece... those are the lines that mean something to me.

Mom says this image has been meaningful to her, and that she will send me some other verses, from Paul, that expand on the "spiritual house" idea-- the continuing incarnation, the idea that Jesus is the cornerstone of the church and we are all the stones.  I get that, but it doesn't have meaning for me.  Not right now.  

The best I've got is that hand game children do-- "This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors-- see all the people!" -- coupled with that singsongy "I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together..."

One of the lucky ones

As I hear about Citizens United and how "corporations are people too," court challenges to the Affordable Care Act, the power of money in US politics and the continuing erosion of civil liberties in the face of the War on Terror,  I have two persistent thoughts:

1.  These are all signs of the end, the inevitable march towards the fall of the US empire, a ruling class so high on its own power that it crushes the people as it steamrolls towards its own demise.

2. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. The sin is great; I am powerless to stop it. My role is not to tie myself into knots bemoaning it or trying to change it in some systemic way, but to clean up its mess and care for the people who become its refuse, its "collateral damage".  And, when possible, to create in my students the habits of skepticism and empathy.

I realize I am only able to have these thoughts because I am one of the lucky ones, a "winner" in our economy.  How is it possible that a public school teacher is in the top quartile of earners in the US?

I'll tell you how: because "we the people" in the US are poor, and struggling.  And I am one of the lucky ones.

Happy New Year!

One hawk is hawking...

A & I first heard, then saw (not the normal sequence of events!) one of these beauties today circling over a sprawling suburban parking lot.  One instance of beauty in a regular old day.

I read a wonderful article in the Washington Post this weekend and, the strangest thing, I can't find it in the Post online, but I found it here, written by Daniel Burke of the Religion News Service and published in USA Today back in September.  I don't know what the Post is up to, but I do know that this article has some radical ideas about forgiveness and recovery from shame.

Merry Christmas!

Many thoughts about returning to the church of my childhood for Christmas again.
This year:
- I enjoyed the singing and the fellowship, but didn't have an overwhelmingly emotional experience.  I do love those lines from Isaiah, though, where they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.  That coupled with Brueggemann on Krista Tippett's show this morning has me thinking about prophecy and the poetry of the Bible.
- I thought much more about the "echoes" of my childhood, especially the embarrassing parts, that assault me at every turn in that building.  Will I ever be able to step into that place as myself now, without those echoes?  But then if it weren't for those, is this the place I would choose?  More on that later.
- I introduced my wife as my wife without a second thought.  Or with barely a second thought.  The "gay" part of gay and Christian doesn't seem to be bothering me so much.  In fact, the "christian" part might be bothering me more.
- When the preacher acknowledged how special it was to be in a room with many generations of families-- adult children home to visit their parents, new grandbabies (some of which we had just had dinner with, indeed, the babies of children I used to babysit for), etc.-- I felt the holiness of the moment too.

And felt a reason I am drawn more to the institutional church than to the religion (unlike... everyone else I know, the "spiritual but not religious" contingent this woman rails against): to be a part of this very community.  It is a holy place, isn't it?  and exactly how I, in my mistaken belief in my own self-sufficiency (and in the superiority of self-sufficiency), most need to be challenged.  What must it be like to be so deeply involved in the lives of others, in their defeats and tragedies, losses and most human moments, not only their awards ceremonies, weddings, celebrations...?  Once I felt called to do that; then I couldn't even make it through a full year as a hospice volunteer.

Poor S. was the only pastor of Church X in town on September 11, 2001.  He wasn't even 30 yet.  People came to the church that day, drained, scared, angry, bereft, and he, such a young man, muddled his way through pastoring to them, in the midst of what was surely his own fear and pain.  How did he do it?

Faith and doubt

Last night I read Pauline Flynn's book Charlie's Gift, a gentle book chronicling the author's continuing journey through grief and belief and occasional mystical moments of connection in the years after her husband's death.

A big part of the story, which I am still thinking about, is her struggle to trust her intuition, in moments after his death when she was sure Charlie was communicating with her.  The moment he died, all the lights in their neighborhood went out for several hours.  On several occasions over the years that followed, at significant moments, Charlie seemed to be signaling his presence or otherwise communicating through lights, flickering or extinguished, and occasionally, suddenly, all aglow.  She knew (as Nick Darrow would say, just knew; it was gnosis) that these were no coincidences, that they were miraculous, mystical, moments of connection and communication.  But, she thought, what are the chances that such miracles happen to regular people like her?  And wasn't she just wishing this was the case?

Funny, it's impossible to write about it without passing judgment: "Charlie seemed to communicate" introduces doubt; "Charlie communicated" implies none.

Pauline traces her own doubt to a childhood witnessing conflict between a too-credulous (faithful) mother and a too-practical (reality-based) father-- and, I would add, years living with a husband who, by her own description, leaned rather more toward the practical than the mystical.

I think, though, that the whole culture is stacked against us letting go of our skepticism and trusting this kind of intuitive connection.  My first thought, when I read about her immediate understanding of the connection between Charlie's passing and the lights going out was, "wishful thinking."  Yet I believe, perhaps more than most, in the theoretical possibility of such things being true.  I believe in ghosts; I believe it's possible to communicate with (and receive communications from) people who have died.  When I hear about people experiencing such things, I don't usually dismiss it out of hand.  Or so I thought.

"The gifts of the spirit can be recognized by their fruits," my favorite novelist Susan Howatch is always saying.  It seems to me that those are good words to live, or judge, by in this case.  Does trusting this intuition lead to good things or bad?  More peace, or more disturbance?