Looking Back on 2020

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve started looking back on 2020. There were things that were disappointing, frustrating, and angering, but Ian and I have found ourselves in a place to be grateful; we both still have our jobs, and we didn’t lose any close family members to Covid. (As a side note, my great-aunt Margaret did pass away from Covid on December 24^th, and we lost another friend this last week who died of a different cause. We have experienced sadness this year ourselves, but not in an earth-shattering way, and our hearts go out to those who experienced deep tragedy. We know first-hand what it is to lose one’s livelihood and to lose a family member to an early death, but those happened to us in other years.)

The difficulties and challenges we faced this year brought us closer to God and each other. I have often jokingly described this as a character-building year, which is an interesting phenomenon, because most of the experiences which have built up my faith and character I would never have chosen to go through, even with the promise of coming out a better, stronger person on the other side. And yet God uses those things to show me both His goodness and the kindness and the love of my fellow human beings. So I think that’s what it means to thank God IN all things, even when I can’t thank Him FOR all things.

In February of this year, Ian and I had attempted to give up some of our favorite things for Lent, but then after a couple weeks, both quit our fasts because they didn’t seem meaningful like they had the year before. We talked to each other about this strange failure of fasting to focus our attention on God, and then suddenly, in the middle of March, the world shut down and we were forced to give up most of the things that were filling our days. 

Ian traveled for work in 2019, I work full-time, and the girls are in school. We do a lot with our church. We have a lot of people in our lives whom we love very much and see often. These things are great, but by the end of 2019 I was burnt out from being busy. I missed my family deeply; I felt like I never had enough time with my daughters. Every commitment on the calendar felt like a burden, and yet it didn’t feel like there was anything we could cut out.

Then suddenly, Ian and I were both working from home and our girls were doing online school at home, and all calendar commitments disappeared. I was able to reconnect with my family in ways that were challenging and rewarding. I got to know my daughters’ scholastic abilities even better and taught them how to do certain chores, and enjoyed having amounts of time with them that I hadn’t had since they were very little. Ian and I grew closer by actually disagreeing about stuff and having to work through it together, no longer able to avoid spousal conflicts that were usually “resolved” by the fact that we were both out of the house so much.

I’ve tried to spend this year focusing on the silver linings. In 2019 I desired to have a better prayer life, and in 2020 I found myself with time to read the Bible more deeply and slowly, to read Prayer by Tim Keller, which had been on my reading list for a while, and to put into practice some of his tips on developing a prayer life. The restrictions of this year cut out many distractions, which helped me invest more effort into my relationship with God. I can honestly say that God has been with me all of 2020; I have felt His peace on me in times of gratitude, fear, uncertainty, anger, unrest, and amazement at both the best and worst of humanity.

Back in March and April, I remember watching (online) in wonder as parts of the planet started to heal, the water and air cleaning themselves up through natural mechanisms when travel was shut down; as families suddenly had more time together, and as people were kinder to each other online and expressed appreciation for doctors, nurses, teachers, and grocery-store employees. 

Even when things got extremely ugly, when George Floyd was killed, I watched as people had both the time and a lack of distractions to push for greater change in societal racism, and people who had denied its continued existence in the United States recognized it as more extensive and insidious than they had thought. There is a new push for racial unity and reconciliation within the church which I have not seen in the past.

All the things that had taken up so much time were gone, and we appreciated more the few things that remained. We talked to family members on the phone and live-streamed church (I honestly remember a thrill of joy at seeing my pastor’s face and the building behind him—FINALLY!—after what was actually only the first week of quarantine). We had time to read books and do puzzles. Getting a haircut or ordering take-out suddenly became more meaningful when local community members’ livelihoods depended on it. I gained a new appreciation for things I had taken for granted before: the joy of a face-to-face conversation with a friend, better on FaceTime or Zoom than on the phone and better in person than on Zoom. Now I love seeing entire faces when possible, uncovered by masks. I have a new appreciation for a loud classroom full of talking students, because these days my students are few, are separated by six feet of empty space, are mostly silent. 

I am waiting for the world to go back to normal because of these things that I miss. I can’t wait to have all the people I love over to my house for a barbecue once this is all past us, though I wonder how long it will take before most people feel comfortable with large gatherings again. I have friends who can’t wait to get back to concerts, and others who can’t wait to get back to sporting events, and others who can’t wait to travel whenever and wherever. Honestly, what I am looking forward to the most is being able to play interactive, no-distance, community-building games with my students. Yet I recognize that even though these things are good, they are luxuries. Some people have much greater needs for a more normal society; the drop in reporting for child abuse troubles me, as does the lack of community and community resources for addicts. Privately, I mourn for all the people whose 2020 has been much worse than mine. 

Lent, in the past, has helped focus my attention on God and on my dependence upon Him, and this year I am seeing some of the similar side-effects to what happens when I fast during Lent. I have a new appreciation for things I take for granted, simply because I can’t have them. I pray more and turn to God when I realize my lack of control over the world around me. Sometimes, in moments of desperately missing whatever it is I am fasting from, I get angry, or simply mope. This year, I have had moments of private fits of anger over things I want to do and cannot do. But, as during Lent, the unimportant and little things gradually become less important and I realize the importance of the two great commands: loving God and loving my neighbor. Nothing else lasts. Other things in this life that are important, such as healthcare, education, social justice, economic prosperity, etc., exist, or should exist, to do one or the other: love God and love our neighbor. And in a year when so many of my neighbors, those in the worldwide human community, are hurting, I am ready for it to be over. At the same time, I feel grateful for its lessons, for this chance to rest and let the important things come back into focus so that in the future, I can hopefully do a better job of loving God and loving my neighbor.

Letter to Washoe County School District Board of Trustees

Dear Board of Trustees,

My name is Melissa Bullard and I teach high school Spanish for WCSD. I want to thank you for your efforts to safely reopen our Washoe County schools. The challenges are unprecedented and there is no solution that will satisfy all parties involved; it is difficult to balance the risks from Covid-19 with the risks for our students' education since we are not able to proceed as normal. I have read over the presentation to the board and I have a few questions and suggestions. My perspective is that of a high school teacher (I teach Spanish) and a mother of elementary-school aged students.

First, I am in favor of the proposed model for two reasons: 1), because I do not believe that Covid poses a great risk to most elementary-aged children and 2), if I am going to do my job this year, I need child care for my daughters. Everything I have read seems to suggest (though it is not yet proven) that children contract Covid at lower rates, have fewer serious symptoms when they do contract it, and even seem less likely to transmit it to adults. (See https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/children.html, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-in-babies-and-children/art-20484405, https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/18/how-likely-are-kids-to-get-covid-19-scientists-see-a-huge-puzzle-without-easy-answers/, and https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/20/880983822/coronavirus-mystery-are-kids-less-likely-to-catch-it-than-adults-are.)

Additionally, while some lament that schools are used as child care in our country, the fact is that there are no systems in place that offer full-day childcare for kids my daughters' age. (Even if there were, I don't see how those would be advantageous because my daughters would still be around large groups of kids; it would simply be a different group of kids.) I am fortunate enough that if I cannot send my daughters to school, my husband's job could support us financially for a year and I could homeschool. Many teachers do not have that luxury, and if all teachers who have elementary-aged children at home quit their jobs to homeschool (or simply because it's better than hiring a full-time nanny), the District will have a severe teacher shortage this year.

Second, please consider whether there is a way that we can reopen in line with the proposed plan but allow teachers (as well as families) to opt in to a Distance-Learning-only model. Many of my colleagues are in higher-risk age categories, have autoimmune conditions that put them at greater risk, or simply feel the risk is too high. Could we not allow these teachers to opt in to leading and running Distance Learning? If you support their learning and training and give them time to adapt to a Distance Learning model, as well as any additional training they need to possibly expand their own knowledge (as they might have to teach subjects or grades that are not their original area of expertise), they would have a higher chance of being able to provide a high-quality education to students who are learning from home. Teachers who are uncomfortable returning to the classroom may retire early or move on to other jobs, and once again, we will have a severe teacher shortage.

Third, as you make plans, please be aware that we will need a way to recruit more substitute teachers and make attendance policies and teacher sick leave policies more lenient. My husband's job is such that if one of my kids gets sick, I will most likely have to be the one staying home with them. If the quarantine period is fourteen days (and I have two daughters), that means that if my daughters or I were to display symptoms of Covid-19 and I had to be out on sick leave, that could potentially be up to 42 days that I would take off as sick days. In the meantime, I could probably still help my students with their Distance Learning work, but I would be unable to teach at my school.

Fourth, although the proposed High School Learning model looks like the best option for students at this point, please be aware of what teachers can reasonably be expected to do. Page 51 of the proposed High School Learning Model states that for Distance Learning, "Instruction will be supported daily by qualified certified teachers." This is fine depending on what you mean by daily support; if daily support is a quick post on Teams to check in with students, a meaningful homework assignment to be collected and or graded later, and time spent briefly answering a few student emails, that is doable. However, if I am teaching my regularly-scheduled classes during the day (at half-capacity for student safety) and utilizing my normal prep period for planning instruction, grading and giving feedback on student work, participating in IEP meetings, answering emails, participating in PLC activities, etc., I will not be able to offer meaningful feedback or interact fully with my students who are doing Distance Learning for that day. Last time I checked, I have 163 students on my rosters for next year, meaning that for every day that I am teaching 80 or so kids in-person, I will also need to somehow engage the 80 or so online. It will not be possible to have meaningful interactions with all of them within contract hours, and grading, planning, implementing, emails, etc. already take several hours beyond my contract hours every day.

Fifth, on page 15 of the proposed model, under the "Safety & Health" category, it says "Staff may be asked to engage in duties not typically associated with their professional positions." What exactly does this mean? Typically, I already do spend some time wiping down often-touched surfaces with Clorox wipes or doing other minor cleaning that my room needs. But you are already asking the high school teachers to do additional Distance Learning work for a hybrid model and, as I mentioned before, my duties during a normal work week extend far beyond my contract hours every day. Asking teachers to also take over the work of custodians is not reasonable.

Sixth, if students 10 and over are required to wear masks, what will disciplinary policies be for students who arrive without a mask, refuse to wear a mask, repeatedly forget to put their mask on, wear it incorrectly (after instruction on how to wear it), etc.? There are a few students who become belligerent and disrupt the learning environment over minor issues, and teachers often bear the brunt of having to manage those issues, either because District policies or their school admin do not support the teacher's authority in the classroom. In this case, it is District and State authority that will be challenged, but teachers will be the ones enforcing the rules. How do you plan to support teachers as they deal with these students? If you don't issue real consequences swiftly, it sends the message that either A), the District doesn't actually care about student/teacher safety or B), the risk is not so great and therefore wearing masks isn't actually necessary in the school setting.

I know that you have an extremely difficult task ahead of you and please know that I am fully committed to learning and adapting to new models of teaching within what I am physically capable of doing and what is best for my family, and I know that many teachers feel the same way. But we will need support and flexibility from District Admin, just as we teachers must be supportive and flexible toward our students.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Melissa Bullard

The Night Before School Starts

I love the night before school starts. 

I love that a whole year of possibilities lies ahead.

There will be new students, who are delightful in their individuality. There never were two persons exactly alike, and by teaching, I get to see a microcosm of developing humanity.

There will be new content challenges, which will make me a better teacher because I will have to solve new problems and figure out how to help my students develop their language skills, both in breadth and depth, in the best possible and most fun way.

There will be new challenging students, whom I may come to dread seeing every day, but who will ultimately make me a better teacher because I will learn and develop strategies for dealing with difficult behaviors.

There will be new victories, where I will keep working with a student who A), doesn't like me or the class, B), isn't motivated to learn at all, or C), is motivated and works hard, but just can't seem to keep up with his or her classmates. We will struggle along for a few months, and then, sometimes slowly and sometimes seemingly overnight, things will change. A joke or a comment will reveal that we've finally made a connection; a student will start putting effort in and will see positive results; or suddenly things will click and I will start realizing that a student's work is much higher-quality than it was before (sometimes this arouses suspicions of cheating, so I always pay attention to what they are able to do in front of me without help, and when it turns out that things really have finally clicked, it is the best feeling).

There will be growth, where a student will present in front of the class, write a paper, have a spontaneous conversation with a classmate, read an article, or comprehend a video, and I will be amazed and proud at what they are able to do in Spanish. 

There will be clean whiteboards, which will be written on erased countless times, and new school supplies, which will slowly get used up and fade as the school year goes on.

There will be new strategies to try, some of which will work wonderfully to increase student learning or engagement, some of which will need to be adjusted a few times, because they show promise but aren't working quite yet, and some will be tried and then dropped with no plans to try again next year. 

There are always new coworkers, some of whom will join my circle of friends and become sounding boards, outlets for venting, cheerleaders, or even someone I can go to in tears.

There will also be a lot of difficult things. There will be rebellious, hateful, and rude students. There will be ridiculous, bureaucratic requirements delivered from the school district and the legislature, which will take up hours of my time and have little to no impact on student learning. There will be days where classes will drag on, where my students stare at me dully and never seem to become interested, where I will realize, in the middle of an activity, that it's not working AT ALL, but I have no backup plan, and my attempts at improvisation will fall short. There will be times when I come down harshly on a student and realize I should have been more patient, and I will have to apologize, and other times when I will realize I should have addressed a particular behavior and didn't, and will stay awake at night thinking about how to handle it if it comes up again. There may be some calls to CPS. There will be days where I cry and days where I decide I have to quit teaching (I usually have about one per month).

However, I will keep coming back, and things will get better, or even if they don't, I will figure out a way to deal with it. I think that the most successful and long-lasting teachers have a few things in common. One is a genuine desire to help students, another is the ability to wear rose-colored glasses. To not wear down, you have to always be looking on the bright side, always think that problems can be solved, always come back ready to do better tomorrow, always hold out hope that that one student WILL learn, that you are making a difference, that that kid will, whatever the reason behind their misbehavior, begin to treat the people around them better - you just have to figure out a way to make it work. If I got to a point where I were not able to focus on the good, and find ways to minimize the bad, I would have to find a different job. Like any job where you're dealing with humanity, there's a lot of bad, places where our fallen natures are evident. It's not that teachers refuse to see reality (if we didn't, we couldn't teach students where they are at); I think that it's that teachers also are always seeking the potential good and ways to help their students arrive at where they could be.

But also, like any job where you're dealing with humanity, you also get to see all the good, the places where the image of God is found in humanity, via altruism, kindness, humor, growth and learning, friendship, connection, courage, determination, perseverance, honesty, and creativity.

It's those things I look forward to seeing throughout the year, and I'm not thinking about the bad yet, which is why I love the night before school.

Growing a Growth Mindset

Back in December, Ian asked me a question: "What do you feel like you learned this last year?"

I didn't have to think about it long; there was a consistent theme running throughout the last year (or even year and a half) of my life. I blogged about this in November of 2017, when I wrote about what had been my most difficult class period at the beginning of the school year, and how through consistency and persistence and a lot of prayer and grace, it was transformed into one of my favorite classes. Having a growth mindset, and believing that goals can be attained, has been a relatively new perspective for me to take (and continue to take) over the last year.

I have always been tempted to give up things; I tend focus on the process over the results. While emphasizing one over the other is probably not healthy for anyone, my tendency to focus mostly on the process meant that I wasted a lot of time, experienced a lot of false starts, and was left feeling a sense of frustration and powerlessness over my own life. Whether a goal was related to parenting, teaching, cleaning, writing, planning, organizing, or even awkward conversations in relationships, I would back down at any point where I felt uncomfortable (physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc.), became bored, lacked inspiration (fun is probably my biggest motivator), or experienced pain or setbacks. Again, this led to a lot of stops and starts when it came to friendships, parenting goals, teaching goals, writing, and even things like cleaning my house.

So, the word that came to mind when Ian asked me what I had learned was push. The theme for this year has been sticking with things even when they are difficult. Whether dealing with difficult students individually, managing an entire classroom of difficult behaviors, reaching my own personal goals (reading the Bible, writing, learning to play a new song on the piano), or even exercising, I have learned that setbacks, failures, challenges, fear, and weakness are not reasons to give up. My own complacency and fear have been giving way over the last year or so to more of a growth mindset: add the word "yet" to anything that you think you can't do, and if it's important to you, work hard at making it happen.

Most importantly, I learned that for someone like me, to whom perseverance doesn't always come naturally, there are specific ways I can increase my likelihood of persevering at perseverance.

For one, I learned to get better at seeking accountability. Although I am an introvert, socializing has always been a motivator, plus I hate letting people down. So I joined a gym and a kickboxing class and met up with friends to walk. Obviously, the accountability related my job was simply the fact that I like doing my job well AND I didn't want to get fired. When I wanted to grow professionally, I submitted presentation proposals and volunteered for specific responsibilities at my school. Whether or or not we were doing Bible study, we had particular friends with whom we ate dinner almost every Thursday evening, simply because they were our friends. The study was optional, but we were committed to having dinner and enjoying each other's company. Planning ahead of time to do things with certain people helped me stick to my goals, and an unexpected bonus that was probably the most rewarding was that my friendships deepened as a result. (It seems so obvious now when I write it.)

Another thing I learned to do was turn off my constantly-objecting self-talk. I tend to process internally, so there are myriad thoughts swirling around in my mind at one time. I found it was amazing what I could accomplish when I refused to listen the whining, complaining, or lazy parts of my brain. In order to do this, I often had to replace the questions with more motivating self-talk, or even try to trick myself ("if you do three more squats, you can stop... okay, three more... okay, now just try three more..."). Overthinking, for me, was leading to under-doing, and I was tired of it.

I was truly proud of some of the things I accomplished or the positive results that came to me. I was learning to do things that weren't natural. As a teacher, I got much better at consistency and issuing consequences, and my most difficult classes either became my favorite classes or plunged me into a depth of strength that I didn't know was there. When I worked out, I discovered that pushing my muscles harder and experiencing pain meant a blissful rush of endorphins and peaceful relaxation at the end. Plus, every week I was able to move more, lift more, reach a higher number of reps. As a friend, I discovered that time together and commitment to meeting with others meant that my friendships were deeper than they had been in years. Getting to know people can be awkward and there are strained moments, but when you find someone who seems like your kind of person, planning regular times with those people and doing things with them leads to developing friendships. Making friendships in high school was easy for me, and as some friends moved away or we got busy with life, I let some of those friendships slip, which was a mistake on my part. Going back to working at friendships has given me people in my life with whom I can relate, share feelings, discuss struggles, ask for for advice, get help, give help, and just feel valued as a human being.

Eventually, it all becomes whatever is the opposite of a vicious cycle (A Happy Cycle? A Self-Rewarding Cycle?). After accountability and perseverance have done their work and you see the rewards of pushing through, it becomes easier to push the next time because rather than thinking only of the "should," or visualizing an imaginary end in sight, you have actual positive memories of the last time that you succeeded because you didn't let yourself quit. Each new success, even small ones, builds up to become reasons you should keep going next time you're facing a challenge. Self-discipline is so difficult, but building up positive memories of results has become a huge motivator in my own life.

So, even though my lazy side dislikes challenges, ultimately I am thankful that God brings these challenges into my life. It would be so much easier to never have to grow, to never be stretched out by life and experience the pain of dealing with difficulties. Yet my biggest personal growth and the achievements of which I am most proud were won through overcoming the biggest challenges. It can hurt to grow, but there is a certain joy at new heights that isn't experienced any other way.

Going Home

A couple weekends ago, I got the opportunity to travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to present at and attend the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching (SWCOLT), and what surprised me the most was how much going to New Mexico felt like going home.

Mind you, I haven't lived in New Mexico since I was six months old (I was born there as a fourth-generation New Mexican). After living in Washington, my family moved to a small town in northeastern Arizona (Many Farms) when I was seven years old and didn't move away until I was twelve, so my older elementary years, which I have often heard are some of the most formative years, were spent living on the Navajo Reservation. I remember being surrounded by red desert and sandstone mesas, with the rare rivers and streams lined by poplar or cottonwood trees. My mom's family lived next door in New Mexico, and the nearest Wal-Mart, library, and other stores were also located in New Mexico, in Gallup and Farmington, so approximately once a week we would drive to one of those places to take advantage of their libraries and stores with a wider selection. We would often travel to Albuquerque to my aunt's house for Easter and to Las Cruces to my grandparents' house for Christmas, as well as random visits in between.

I haven't been back to Arizona since I was twelve, and I've traveled to New Mexico a handful of times to visit my grandparents since then. I mostly consider myself a Reno-ite now, having lived here longer than any other place, though I would qualify that I am not from here. I didn't realize how many aspects of the Southwest sank into my soul and my identity as a kid until I came back for the conference and felt an aching joy in my heart at being reunited with things I didn't know I was missing.

Random resurfacing memories brought back feelings of home. There is a statue in the Albuquerque airport called Dream of Flight, with an indigenous man running after an eagle, poised as if the eagle is just about to lift him away from the earth. The statue is vibrant; the man's face looks like a mixture of longing as he watches the eagle and hope as his feet seem like they are just about to leave the ground. I was so happy to be reunited with that statue, even though I had forgotten its existence; it reminded me of my childhood and all the times we picked up and dropped off family members at the airport.

I saw Spanish names everywhere: Bernalillo county and Sandoval county and Santa Fe and Santo Domingo Pueblo; Rio Rancho and Los Lunas; as well as names that were references to the many indigenous tribes that now live in the region: Zia, Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, Anasazi; beautiful words that had slipped from my consciousness over the years.

Once we were in Santa Fe, adobe-style buildings were everywhere, solid reddish-brown buildings and flat roofs with wooden beams poking out the sides. Some walkways were lined with luminarias, as well as the roofs of some buildings. Most churches are Spanish-mission style.

Geometric designs on Navajo rugs and imitations of those geometric designs covered floors as carpets, walls as art, and even as designs in granite patterns built into countertops at restaurants. I saw a lot of pottery for sale with similar geometric patterns and figures of kachina dancers, as well as images of Kokopelli playing the flute. Turquoise as the semi-precious stone of choice adorned jewelry, belts, and scarves.

New Mexican food was the best; I could get green and red chile, and it was all the exact flavor and amount of heat with which I grew up. I could get chile rellenos perfectly breaded and stuffed with cheese (no meat or beans, which are a travesty to this New Mexican). The burritos rightly used potatoes as filler, rather than rice or beans. The posole was good and I had hot, thick, soft sopapillas drenched in honey, just like I remembered eating in restaurants in Albuquerque as a kid. Green chile was an option in everything, from wedge salads to Hollandaise sauce to scones.

What was so odd at first was that I felt like I found a missing piece of me. The different elements that don't really co-exist in the same way outside the Southwest - ubiquitous Spanish, Native American designs, turquoise, people of a variety of ethnicities (in particular, European, indigenous, and Hispanic), bright sunshine and clear skies, and certain geometric patterns - have a specific place in my heart, and being there filled that place that I didn't know was missing anything. It was odd to me to feel such a connection, because at this point, I have lived in Reno for nineteen years, and I never lived in the Southwest as an adult. All those things I recognized were simply memories from my childhood. Because I moved around so much as a kid, I never really felt like I was "from" any particular place. But being in Santa Fe made me feel like I had gone home.

I always have a let-down feeling at the end of a trip, but this time it was much harder to come back. I don't think it was being tired, or coming off the high of traveling, or going back to daily life after the fun of a professional conference and doing something different. I think it was that I rediscovered part of my personal story, my heritage, and my heart's home, and leaving it was saying goodbye all over again.

My Husband, the Lumberjack (Or, the Power of Yet)

I am not a quitter, but at the beginning of the school year, I thought I might have to quit teaching.

(Actually, that's not true. I am kind of a quitter. I never mean to be, but I get distracted and lose interest in things. Also, I am not a detail-oriented person, so once I have to get down into all the boring details, I lose steam. And I grew up with this weird belief where I thought to myself that if something was difficult, it was because it wasn't meant to be. It never occurred to me that I might have to push through something that was hard. This is a lesson I am learning rather late in life.)

The first day of school this year was rough. This was unexpected and discouraging. Usually the first day of school is awesome, at least for someone who teaches mostly freshmen, because the kids are nervous about their first day of high school, and so there are no behavior issues or distractions. The kids come in, looking so very young, so very much like they are still middle-school students, and about a third of them stare at you, wide-eyed at their new surroundings and lacking self-awareness; another third are quietly and forcefully trying to blend in with their surroundings and avoid drawing any attention to themselves; the other third are either anxiously trying to engage the attention of their peers by any means possible or are desperately and loudly showing off how much Spanish they remember from middle school. It is hilarious and heartwarming to watch, and there are usually no problems.

But the first day of class this year, the kids came in - almost forty of them in my 7th period class - and defied all my expectations.

They were not shy.

They were not nervous.

They were ready to take over.

I had several who were blurters - who constantly blurted out wrong answers, purposefully stupid guesses (the laughter of peers is highly sought-after), some right answers, and worst of all, tons of English. They whispered to those who were next to them, had conversations with each other across the room, addressed me as though I were one of them, ignored instructions the first time they were given and followed them the second time loudly, haphazardly, inefficiently, and only after several interruptions. They made jokes, pushed conversations in new directions, and reacted so loudly and forcefully to the fact that I was not speaking any English that me speaking Spanish itself became such a distraction and I was forced to switch back to English to regain control of the class. It was a nightmare. I made it work, but I was flustered, and irritated, and unhappy at the way I was having to teach, and of course trying to remain perfectly calm on the outside.

This was all going on when I showed my PowerPoint. Every year at the beginning of class, I show my students a PowerPoint that has pictures of me and my family, and tell them in Spanish about things like how old we are, what our names are, how long I've lived in Reno, how I studied in Chile, etc. The point is that if the kids are paying attention to what I say, to my hand gestures, and to the words and pictures, they understand all this information about my family even though I'm saying it all in Spanish and all words on the PowerPoint are in Spanish. These are first-year Spanish students who didn't take it in middle school, but most of them, by the end of my presentation, are able to get at least 80% correct when I ask them questions. This activity is usually good because they realize that I am not going to translate, but if they are paying attention, they will understand what I am saying.

Of course, this year, since the class was so into what they wanted to do with the time rather than what I wanted to do, the activity was quite a bit more chaotic than usual, with quite a bit more waiting, quiet signals, and giving the Mom Look. Outwardly I was still calm, firm, and pleasant; inwardly, I wanted to scream at them all and terrify them into submission. So, I was showing the PowerPoint to my students, and as I showed the picture of Ian, looking handsome with his bearded face and red plaid long-sleeved shirt, a student blurted out, in English, "Is your husband a lumberjack?"

He was rewarded instantly by laughter and the reactions of his peers. "Lumberjack! Ha!" "Of course he's not a lumberjack!" "That's a stupid question!" "Why do you think he looks like a lumberjack?" "Oh yeah, he's wearing lumberjack clothes!" It again became an eruption for me to calm down.

I was so irritated. Of course, I kept my calm and didn't show how mad I was at the student for his stupid question. Asking questions for genuine lack of knowledge or clarity is one thing; throwing out a question to entertain one's peers is another, and it kept happening the entire first half of class. I genuinely wanted to walk out. Worst of all, the kids all came in so agitated, like a bottle of soda shaken up, that I wasn't quite sure who had said it and I didn't know their names yet, so it made discipline hard. So I had to smooth everything out again and continue. But to be honest, inwardly I was furious. I hated that class and was certain they were going to destroy my life or, at the very least, my teaching career.

It wasn't until I was a few hours removed and was having a glass of wine at home that I suddenly realized how funny the question was. I was making dinner, and as I was suddenly struck with how silly freshmen can be and how angry I was and how I actually love how their minds jump quickly between random connections, I started laughing so hard I almost couldn't tell Ian the story. "Is your husband a lumberjack?" Such a stupid question.

In between the end of that terrible class and going home, I remember going to into the bathroom and almost crying in the stall. I was frustrated with myself, with the kids, and with the school district for increasing class sizes last year. Up to this point in teaching my biggest classes had had thirty-two kids.

"I can't do it..." I mumbled to myself. "I can't manage AND teach a class of thirty-seven freshman. I can manage them or I can teach them. There are too many. I can't do both."

But I remembered watching a video about using the word "yet" to create a growth mindset. As much as I just wanted to resign, I figured I would try it. After all, I already felt like I was at rock-bottom, so what did I have to lose? So I added that one little word to the end of my sentence: "I can't manage AND teach a class of thirty-seven students... yet."

Even in that instant, I couldn't believe the change that made in my attitude. Just adding the word "yet" gave me hope. It made teaching thirty-seven students a skill to be figured out and practiced and learned rather than an innate ability that I unfortunately hadn't been born with.

And so I decided to give it a shot.

The next few weeks were tough, but I was mentally prepared. I knew what it felt like to have thirty-seven attention-hungry kids in one room. I assigned them all new seats the next day, immediately. There were so many inappropriate behavior issues going on, such as talking over me and each other, blurting out, having conversations across the room, having side-conversations while instruction was going on... and what was frustrating about this group of thirty-seven kids was that it wasn't simply two or three kids doing it, like in most classes. It was more like twelve.

In the past I had taken a more gentle approach to behavior management, and it had mostly worked well for me. But I stopped giving warnings for behavior issues and went immediately to consequences. If there was a minor misbehavior that I thought might lead to a worse behavior, I removed that kid from the classroom and had a private conversation and took away ALL participation points for the day, which dropped grades significantly when there were only three assignments in the grade book. I learned their names in the first week because knowing and using their names helps with behavior issues. If their behavior was attention-seeking, I removed them from their peers. If they were yelling out answers, I purposefully ignored them and called only on those who were raising their hand. I called a few parents. I talked to some coaches. (It's amazing what the threat of not being able to play a sport will do to male athletes.)

And within a couple weeks, the class had calmed down significantly. Kids were displaying much more appropriate classroom behavior, side-conversations had nearly been eliminated, and the number of blurters was reduced to two kids who have impulse control issues that we continue to work on. But all in all, they became much more pleasant. I was able to make connections with some of my more difficult ones so that even when they were being disciplined, they understood why and liked and respected me enough that they accepted their consequences graciously.

This is not to say that the class is perfect. They are still an energetic, impulsive, attention-hungry group of thirty-seven freshmen (now thirty-eight) in the last and shortest class of the day, and I still have to be quick and consistent with consequences (which I should be anyway). But I like them and they like me. I've come to see how quick their wits are; they have an excellent sense of humor, for the most part; most are genuinely interested in learning Spanish and they try their best, and they are learning a lot. It is not perfect, but it is much improved.

A few weeks ago, I felt like my struggle had come full circle when we were learning about descriptions. I was showing them pictures and using actions to illustrate words such as "tall," "short," "thin," "brunette," and "weak." And when I acted out "strong" and started asking different kids if they were strong, I had one of my kids ask in his novice-level Spanish, "Is your husband strong?"

I smirked and nodded exaggeratedly and answered, "Sí, mi esposo es muy fuerte."

They all laughed and whooped, and then one of my blurters yelled out, "Of course he's strong, he's a lumberjack!"

I laughed too, and we moved on with the lesson. The first day, that joke would have resulted in a major disruption, and we would have wasted a significant amount of class time. And now I had the class under control to the extent that I could also laugh at the joke. I remembered how much I had despised them all the first day and how much I now look forward to teaching that class.

I had fought for it, and learned and grown, and they had learned and grown, and I had succeeded.

What Happened on Friday

Something unusual happened in one of my Spanish classes last Friday. This is a third-year Spanish class, one designed for heritage speakers - those kids whose parents speak Spanish at home, but who mostly grew up in the United States and thus have all their literacy training in English. They know Spanish vocabulary and can have a conversation in Spanish, but they haven't had much Language Arts training in Spanish.

Since day one of this school year, this class just hasn't clicked. An enthusiastic and productive atmosphere has been a struggle. They come in and just sit in their seats; they seem tired and listless most of the time; if I ask them to discuss a concept with a partner, they resist, not daring to open up and share any analyses or insights; some of them won't even discuss simple opinions, such as favorite foods. There are a few very chatty sophomore girls, and a few senior boys who are the complete opposite. These boys like to work (or sometimes, not work) on their own, and come with stoic faces, defensive or indifferent body language, and a silence that works as a kind of opposite downside to the girls' shrill sophomore laughter and constant gossip. (It's not that the males don't gossip -- if you get them going, they gossip quite a lot. But again, that's IF you get them going.)

The interesting thing is that I had many of these students last year, and last year the class atmosphere was positive. It felt like a close-knit group. I don't know if it's that more of them have senioritis this year, or if adding thirteen new kids to what was a class of twenty has changed the chemistry, or if the combination of personalities simply isn't working out. Based on their reactions to me and the way they talk to me, I am fairly certain that I have a good relationship with most of them, but they don't seem comfortable with each other. Some of them don't get along outside the classroom, but being what they call a "snitch" is the worst insult possible for many of them, so even if they have good reason to tell an adult, most of them won't.

All that to say... the classroom got so dull at one point that I realized these kids were going to need a lot more icebreaker and energizer activities: things to help them get to know each other, to trust each other more, at least within the classroom, and things to increase their energy levels at the start of class time. Otherwise, every class period was going to feel like an hour and thirty-five minutes of book work, even when it wasn't.

I decided to do an icebreaker on Friday: a game where you write a description of someone and others have to guess, and then you have to describe that person in one word while others guess, and then do an action to represent that person while others guess. High school kids like pretty much anything that revolves around them, especially if there's a social element, so I thought they would enjoy it. I had each kid write his or her name on a 3x5 card, and then I collected and redistributed them and told them that they needed to write a one-sentence description of that person ("and be nice, or I'm not going to read yours," I added).

So they did, and I gathered the cards once again, and looked through the descriptions. There were a few that included distinguishing features of their classmates, but for the most part, the descriptions were way too general: "This person is very nice and intelligent." "This person is athletic." "You're really nice and I like your long dark hair [not exactly an outstanding feature in a room with twenty Hispanic girls]." One person just wrote "He's a cutie," about one of the senior boys.

After I read a few to myself, I teased my students a bit: "Maybe we need to have a class on writing descriptions? These are really general." I said. "Let's just try it and see how it goes."

I actually thought it might be a good, teachable moment. I wanted them to see how little information a vague description actually gives, so I was going to read four or five and have them rewrite them after seeing how difficult they were to guess.

But then, something curious happened. As I read these vague descriptions, I started to see faces light up.

"This person is very intelligent," I read from the card. All the the kids started looking around the room and naming off the high achievers in the room. Even if the card wasn't describing them, those kids looked pleased that someone guessed their name, that someone thought they were intelligent. And when they landed on the actual object of the description - "Yep, it's L.," I would answer - that student would blush. "Aw, thanks guys," some of them started saying.

Again, the compliments varied, though some only slightly: "Very pretty and very kind"; "You're a really good friend;" even one that said, "You're super smart and your eyebrows are on point." (All of it was in Spanish, of course.) As I read these compliments out loud, more and more kids were smiling, and the body language relaxed: kids were sitting up straighter and uncrossing their arms, looking at each other and responding to each other rather than staring into space or looking at me. I thought it might be a good idea to give every single kid a compliment, but I didn't want it to get old, so I asked the kids if they were bored and we should move on, or if we should read through all them. "Let's read all of them!" was unanimous.

I know that some of the kids may have wanted to go through all the compliments simply to avoid any actual work or mental effort. But based on the changed atmosphere in the room, I think there was more going on. In every class, you have kids who come from homes or situations where they may not have had anything positive said to them that day - maybe even that week. Even the kids who come from highly supportive and encouraging families have to deal with the shallow, hyper-critical, self-centered world of high school students who usually don't give compliments except to close friends. Even between friends, put-downs are considered a form of humor and entitled complaining is a common way to bond. For most people, high school is rough, or at least has many rough days. And it felt like magic to see the kids light up as their classmates encouraged them and pointed out the positive.

So, I read all of them. And in the space of ten minutes, every single kid in my classroom got an affirmation from a classmate. The kids, though their descriptive skills were lacking (and they later realized they had kind of missed the point when they had trouble guessing someone), wrote very kind and encouraging words, and I was pleased that they had all taken seriously my charge to not be hurtful toward anyone.

Moments like these are not, I would say, the norm of teaching, at least on a daily basis. But what happened on Friday was one of those magic moments that makes teaching the best job.

On Watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids without You

I watched the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with my daughters a couple weeks ago. I was pretty excited when it appeared on Netflix, because it was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. The girls liked the movie and I was pleasantly surprised that it was just as fun to watch as an adult as it had been to watch as a kid. (Sometimes when you are an adult, the movies you loved as child fall flat when you re-watch them with your own children.) While I enjoyed watching the movie, in a way it made me sad. It reminded me of my brother Joe.

When we were kids, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was one of the movies we used to watch often. We had many of the lines memorized, and Joe had a special talent for not only memorizing entire scenes from movies, but also doing really good impressions of the characters. He did this often, and one summer we combined our talents with our chores.

We had a vegetable garden, and in the summer when the green beans were growing like crazy, one of our chores was to go out, following the vines which grew over almost the entire back of the chain-length fence in the backyard, and pick the green beans that were ripe. One of the things that Joe and I did when we picked green beans was quote lines from movies to entertain ourselves. And Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was a movie where we had entire scenes memorized. So when I was watching the film with my girls, many lines brought back a flood of memories, not just of the line and how funny we thought it was as kids, but also of my brother's voice quoting the line and imitating every character's voice and intonation, of sunny days in our backyard in the Arizona desert, of chores we did as kids and the things we would do for fun. I loved the memories, and it hurt a little when I remembered that I had nobody to share them with.

What I wanted to do after I watched the movie was call or text Joe, and reminisce about how much fun we had quoting movies and picking green beans together when we were kids (even though at the time it wasn't fun, because it was, after all, doing chores). I wanted to quote some of the lines that we thought were the funniest and talk about how it was a movie that hadn't lost its charm, at least to me, over the years.

After Joe died, one of my friends was telling me that she had heard the idea that every relationship we have with others forms part of our identity. The experiences and relationships we have with people are relationships that we do not share aspects of with everyone, so when someone dies, a part of you dies too, because you don't have that particular relationship with anyone else in your life. This made a lot of sense to me. I think it explains some of the loneliness that comes with death. I remember when Joe died that what I wanted more than anything was to be with my parents and youngest brother, and yet even while their presence comforted me, I still felt so lonely. I think that loneliness was me saying goodbye to Joe and missing him, but I think I was also facing the reality that part of me, our shared history and relationship, was now gone from the land of the living.

So I guess the point of this post is just to say that I miss Joe, and I miss the fun we had together. And maybe the point is also the realization that this movie now has a special place in my heart, because when I watch it, it's more than entertainment. When I watch it, I feel like it's giving me back a little piece of my brother and our childhood when we were best friends and used to quote movies together for fun.

Reflections After a Death

My brother died, and one thing I have always relied on for comfort is the Bible. In Psalms it says the LORD is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. How? I wondered. How do you feel Him when he is not physically present? And how does He save us when our spirits are crushed by grief?

There are so many questions in the midst of a tragedy. I wonder why God lets it happen. Does He love me? Does it mean someone has done something wrong? Are we being punished? Are things out of His control? Does He care about me? How could something so terrible possibly be good? Is He good?

These are all questions that I know, cognitively, the correct answers to. So I think my deep underlying question is more transcendent. Death shows me that I am not in control of almost anything, and my looking for answers is really looking for affirmation that life is not ultimately about me, about humanity; my looking for answers is really looking for hope in something greater. 

We know that we all die in the end, and if life centers around humanity and we all end up cold, silent, empty, separated from each other, then we can feel only despair. When we experience a death, we experience that cold, silent, lifeless separation. We miss the person; we grieve their absence and the end of their potential. So I turn to God and I start asking Him my questions, and I feel sadness and anger. Death is the Great Enemy, and it comes for all of us. The only hope we have in the end is to be rescued from this Great Enemy. And all my hope and the answers to my underlying questions, I found in Jesus, in a story about Him in John 11. In John 11, there is the story of some of Jesus’s friends: a family who lost somebody.

John 11 starts out: ”Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.... So the sisters sent to Him, saying, 'Lord, he whom you love is ill.’” They recognized that Jesus is God’s Son, so they thought to ask Him for help. “But when Jesus heard it He said, 'This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.'

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was."

The first time I really thought about this verse, I felt almost sick to my stomach, because it is terrifying. The part that stuck out to me is where it says “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So… He stayed two days longer.” This is scary because it contradicts everything we think in our American Christianity, that if Jesus loves us and we belong to Him, nothing bad will happen to us. Intellectually we know this isn't true, but it's so easy to believe that good things are evidence of His love and favor and bad things are evidence of abandonment. But that explanation is simplistic and not true. It is not that Jesus doesn't care about Martha and Mary and Lazarus. It is because He loves them that He doesn't come right away. He is in control; He could have come and stopped death, but He didn't. God could have prevented Joe's death, but He loves me, and He loves Joe, and He loves my parents and Brian and our other relatives, and so... He didn't. This shows me that there must be a greater good beyond the tragedy.

I think sometimes we think that maybe Jesus loves us, but He doesn't quite have as much power as we'd thought over bad things. But we know that Jesus's decision to wait to go to Lazarus was intentional. After Jesus stayed for two days, "he said to the disciples, 'Let us go to Judea again.' The disciples said to Him, 'Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?' Jesus answered, 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.'" (vv. 7-11)

These verses are metaphorical. Throughout the first half of John, Jesus refers to the fact that His hour has not yet come... that is, it is still His appointed "day time" to work and accomplish His purpose. And then later on in John, Jesus talks about how His hour is at hand; that is, it is time for Him to accomplish His ultimate purpose, which was dying. Jesus has no fear of the religious leaders in Judea because He knows that His Father is in control of every single little detail and every bit of timing. I find this comforting as well, knowing that God is sovereign over every single little detail of our lives. Regardless of our own purposes, God knew, from birth, how long Joe's life would be. He knew every choice Joe would make; He knew what Joe's strengths and weaknesses would be; and He knew exactly the best time to bring him home.

And yet, even knowing that God has a good purpose, is in control, and loves us, we still need a hope for beyond death. If death is our Great Enemy, and it comes for everyone, then how could we have hope? When Jesus gets to Bethany, you can hear the same doubt and a slight accusation of abandonment when He meets the sisters. Verse 17 begins, "Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.... [W]hen Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.'" This was my feeling at first, the first few days. It’s a question that is also a slight accusation: How could You let this happen? I was the feeling the same way Martha was: I know You are all powerful, so where were You? 

Martha needs a resolution, and even in her doubt she expresses hope, saying, "'But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.’ Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said to Him, 'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.'" This is what we need. We need hope for the future; we need to know that more awaits us than silent, cold, abandonment. It hurts to lose someone you love; it hurts to think that one day your life, your potential, will come to an end. So I have taken great comfort in knowing that Jesus has overcome death, our Great Enemy; that our physical deaths are not the end, that instead of our lives ending in cold, still, silence, we are transitioning to a celebration, eternally fulfilled and in the presence of the One who died for us.

God has used this passage over the last two weeks to answer my questions gently. I know that He loves me, that bad things happen in spite of and even because of His love for me; I know that He has everything planned perfectly in His sovereignty; I know that death is not truly the end for anyone, because He is the resurrection and the life, and anyone who hopes in Him, "though he die, yet shall he live." And later in the story, Jesus goes on to show He has power over death by raising Lazarus from the dead. 

And there is one more question that hurts, and that is simply the matter of dealing with how much it hurts and feeling abandoned. Has God left me alone in my pain? This is the most painful part of the "Why?" question. It is easy to know cognitively that God loves me (cause He's God, so that's what He does), and yet still feel as if He is far-off, distant, and is so aware of His own good purposes, that He forgets how much we can hurt while we are still living on this broken earth. So that is the last comfort I find from John 11.

Verse 28 begins, “[Martha] went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, 'The Teacher is here and is calling for you.' And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to Him.... Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet, saying to Him, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled." Jesus feels compassion for the people; His knowledge that He is going to raise Lazarus from the dead shortly thereafter does not make Him distant and unsympathetic. He cares when we are hurting; Jesus knows that God's original design for the world was good, that things are not supposed to be this way, that sin has wreaked havoc on our physical beings, on our inner selves, on our relationships with others, and on our relationship with Him. The Greek words for "deeply moved" and "deeply troubled" denote that Jesus was indignant and angry, agitated and disquieted in His spirit. He knows this is how things are not supposed to be, and when we are so hurt, He feels the same restlessness in His soul that we feel in great grief. 

Verses 34 and 35 say, “And He said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to Him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus wept." These verses reminded me that I am not alone. The most comforting thing in this time has been the people who are with us, who call and text and visit and show us by their presence and food and flowers, that we are not alone. And when I go home at night and everyone is asleep and I have to face my sadness and loss alone, this verse reminds me that I am not truly alone. Jesus weeps with me. What I need more than answers is Himself and His presence. He sees sin and knows how it hurts us and how life was not meant to be this way, and He uses a tragedy like this and all my questions and doubts to give me what I ultimately want and need, which is Him.

After Joe died, I felt empty and alone the first few days; I honestly wondered where Jesus was. I kept reminding myself that Jesus wept. One night, He brought to mind verse 5: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was." And then I cried, because I realized that even if it seemed like He was staying away right then, He was actually near me, and knew what was going on, and had a purpose for my family's pain. Jesus stayed away from Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, because He knew that a death would allow them to know Him better. Although Joe had his struggles, he never abandoned his faith, and so I believe that Joe’s death has ultimately allowed him to know Jesus better than any of us who are still on earth. I loved Joe very much, and since Joe died, Jesus has been with me, and I have seen more of His character, and it is good. My life, Joe's life, anyone's life, is ultimately about Him, and He is our hope.

The Man, Jesus

I was thinking the other day about how I rarely think about Jesus as a human. Since my childhood faith, Jesus has been a historical figure of mythical proportions, someone who has always been and lives as The Savior in some strange spiritual realm. But do I ever think about Him as a man?

Mentally I affirm my Christian beliefs, that Jesus of Nazareth, an actual person, was both completely God and completely human. Every once in a while I realize how crazy this sounds, and so I sit there trying to figure out whether I am the intellectual equivalent of a sane person who truly believes in the tooth fairy. However, most of the time I do believe this.

But I also don't think about Him as an actual breathing person. Even now, writing His name, I am thinking of His spirit and His personhood in the Trinity, but to picture Him as someone who, on the surface, was so ordinary that Isaiah said there would be nothing to attract us to Him, I can't think of Him as a man.

I look around me and I see men. Some are tall, some are short; they are fat and thin, fair and dark, muscular and flabby, down-to-earth and erudite. I believe that Jesus existed from eternity, and yet at some point in the history of the earth, while continuing to be God, He voluntarily put aside some of His divine characteristics to take on the dust-based flesh of creatures that He formed and breathed life into a long, long time ago.

He was a real infant. He was born in a tiny body, without the ability to keep His head from flopping over, without the ability to see clearly more than a couple feet beyond His face, without the ability to consciously use His fingers to grasp something He wanted. Utter helplessness. His parents had to flee their country just to keep Him from being killed by Herod (Matthew 2:13).

Jesus is His name in Greek, and that His name in Aramaic would have been Yeshua (where we get our modern Joshua), a much more common name. It would be like if the Messiah were American and born in the States with a name like Mike or Chris. A completely ordinary name, with nothing special, at least on the surface, to clue someone in to the idea that this Mike or Chris is actually God Himself.

Because I am a Christian, I believe that Jesus never sinned. But does that mean Mary and Joseph never reprimanded Him? Sometimes kids have to be reprimanded simply because they are children and are ignorant and foolish. So did Jesus have to be disciplined because, at four years old, maybe He asked a rude question at a solemn social function? I just wonder. He was actually a kid.

And if He was a human, that meant He probably thought about sex. He wouldn't have sinned in thinking about it, again, because the Bible says that He "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21) But He had hormones (I'm thinking of you, testosterone), and pheromones, and He would have been adolescent at one point, and actual blood flowing in actual veins. I am not trying to be vulgar or write things just for shock value. I am trying to begin to grasp the idea that my Savior is a real human.

He had a brain. He thought and felt via firing neurons. I do believe that God feels emotions, yet is perfectly in control of them and they are right and justified every time. So when God the Son was in a human body, did He ever struggle with feelings? Maybe at some point His blood sugar was low, and His perfect soul was battling with the chemicals and neurons in His earthly brain, staving off unrighteous sadness or irritation. And the fact that Jesus was perfect and occasionally sad or irritated means that those emotions are not, in themselves, wrong.

Hebrews says that Jesus "in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." (4:15) In every respect? Do I actual believe that Jesus can relate to the temptation to disobey God, or feel pride, or lust, or gossip about someone, or to wallow in anger; and what's more, do I not only believe that He can relate to those feelings but also never once sinned by giving in to those desires?

I was thinking about these facets of Jesus being human, and I pictured myself in front of the actual historical Jesus of Nazareth: someone who wasn't attractive, wasn't the fair, solemn, white man portrayed in old church portraits. He was probably not tall, bearded, dark rather than fair, plain, and essentially poor and homeless during His earthly ministry (at one point, He tells a potential follower that He has "nowhere to lay His head"). He was so clearly human that his disciples were terrified and surprised when He calmed the wind and waves, and John the Baptist tells the crowd that someone among them is the Messiah, and there is no indication that the crowd around Jesus has any idea who John is talking about.

I was reflecting on His humanity, and picturing myself prostrate before a Jewish man, and felt a sense of wrongness, of idolatry. And to fall down and worship any other person would be idolatry. Yet to cast myself at the feet of Jesus son of Joseph, of Nazareth, is to cast myself at the flesh-and-blood feet of God Almighty.

So anyway, that's all for today. It's still weird to me. If anyone else has any thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them.

This Guy

This is my husband, Ian Bullard. We've been married for nine and a half years now, and this month is his birthday. I was thinking the other day about how much I appreciate him. But the thing about Ian is that a lot of the things I appreciate about him are under the surface. I mean, obviously he's smart and good-looking, right? He loves God and he loves his family, and is organizationally-skilled and musically talented. But I think these things are apparent. And in honor of his birthday this month, I wanted to talk about his traits that not everyone knows that make me respect him so much.

(As a side note, I know that one difficulty with blogs and social media in general is that they tend to convey only the highlights of people's lives, making them seem unrealistically ideal. My intention today is not to seem unrealistically ideal, but to celebrate the positive things about my husband that, in all honesty, I forget about or overlook or take for granted many days.)

To start with: Ian is competent. This is the main reason why I married him. Meeting guys my age, back when I was twenty-one and twenty-two, made me realize that there were many people out there who did not care about or were not able to do things well. He is a hard worker and a good worker. When he has a job to do, he does it to a high standard. It doesn't matter whether it's filling in for higher management in a high-stress meeting or washing the dishes. I think that hard work and a commitment to excellence are easy traits to overlook, because people just expect that jobs will be done right, and only notice when they aren't. If Ian is going to do something, he knows that it's worth putting in the time and effort to do it well. If he's not good at doing something, he usually has the honesty and humility to acknowledge that someone else could do it better, and he defers to their skills.

Next: Ian really cares about people. I mean he truly, deeply cares about other people and their eternal souls. He was a pastor for a long time, and I've been part of the church world long enough to know that sometimes, whether they know it or not, pastors begin to care about people only because it's their job.

Everyone thinks that I'm the caring one in the relationship, because I'm usually gentle when I speak and I don't like to offend people. Ian is more abrasive. He often says exactly what he's thinking, which isn't always flattering, and his jokes are sometimes borderline offensive. The impression we give is that I'm the nice one.

But Ian has a depth of caring that many people don't realize exists until they get to know him well. Ian is willing to expend much more of his energy into the lives of others, maintaining both close and long-distance relationships in different ways. I tend to be much more protective of my personal time and space, and I am terrible at maintaining long-distance relationships. But if someone has a need, Ian wants to fill it. If someone needs a friend, no matter how awkward or annoying they may seem to others, Ian wants to be there for them. Ian is really good at seeing those around him as important to God, and therefore they are important to him.

I remember learning in a college class that although people with disabilities are gaining increasing acceptance in society in many ways, it is still very rare for someone with a moderate to severe disability to have typically-developed friends. Ian is the first person I ever knew who was friends with people with intellectual disabilities and Down's syndrome. He never seemed to think it was weird or awkward or an obstacle, and there was never any sense of pity in the relationship. He just accepted them as another human being and wanted to hang out with them.

So, while I'm less likely to say something that offends you, Ian is a lot more likely to reach out to you and want to invest in your life, regardless of how well he knows you or how much time you've spent together in the past.

And the biggest thing: Ian has taught me a lot about God's love for me over our years together, because loving me is something that he expresses every day. He forgives quickly and never holds a grudge. He accepts my faults as well as my strengths, and even when I annoy him, I know that his love for me is unconditional, because he made a vow to God and to me nine and a half years ago, and Ian does not break his vows. I am always expecting people to give up on me once they learn about all my flaws, and Ian has come to know my flaws better than anyone else (and has to put up with them every day!), and yet he still actively loves me.

So, thank you, Ian Bullard, for being a better husband than I deserve. To be completely honest, you are not the kind of person I always grew up thinking I would marry. But it turns out that God knew better than I did what I would need in a spouse.

I love you.

Teaching and Dealing with the Divine

For me, spiritual moments often happen at the most random times and in random places. They happen more frequently when I am in the middle of praying or reading the Bible, yet they are not something I can manufacture. In my life, they often hit when something makes me think about God, bringing His involvement in the world around me to the front of my mind.

This happened once when I was giving a test.

I teach high school Spanish, and teaching is usually kind of a frenetic activity for me, in a good way. Monitoring a room of thirty hormonal kids (all frontal lobes underdeveloped), explaining concepts and distributing copies of practice activities, noting who is behind and floundering and who is ahead and bored, making transitions flow smoothly, keeping a positive attitude (or at least a positive front) when discipline needs to happen, taking note of which activities need to be adjusted or dropped for the next class, making sure everyone is communicating for the most part en español, por favor; these take up pretty much all of my mental capacity on most days, leaving little room for deep inner reflection while I am teaching. Teaching itself is the time for heightened sensory intake and snap decision-making; reflection comes afterward.

But there was one time last year when I was giving a test. My thirty-two students were sitting concentrated, for once disconnected from their phones and from each other (at least externally), blissfully silent, staring down at the assessment I'd given them to do. They were focused; I was gazing around the room from my desk to see if they were all settled or if anyone had any questions, making sure no one was looking at his neighbor's test or at his palm or a phone or a suspect water bottle.

As I looked around the room at a group of diverse kids, different nationalities and races and personalities and backgrounds and strengths and weaknesses, all in one room, a thought hit me: "All of these kids are made in the image of God."

Really seeing people as image-bearers of the divine changes how you think about them.

It's not that I thought they looked like God. From what I understand, the Bible describes God in human physical characteristics so that we can understand Him better, not because He actually has hands and arms and feet (except Jesus does. But that's not the main point now). I understand the image of God to be more about characteristics of God that humans, but not animals, share.

Like God, I was thinking, these kids can set a higher goal; they can do things that don't make sense immediately for a benefit in the long run. They can use language, not just for factual communication but for so much more. They can analyze and understand their own emotions. They possess the ability to reason themselves out of their instincts, the ability to plan for forty years down the road. They can question their realities. They are deeply relational and desire community. They solve problems and are creative, making solutions and stories out of nothing more than the thoughts in their minds. They have souls, I thought. These kids, each one with a pencil in hand, staring down at the paper on his or her desk, are eternal.

What's more, I kept thinking, as goosebumps were rising all over my skin, is all these kids are individually precious to Him. He loves them; He knows their every thought and how many hairs are on their heads. He keeps track of all their lives, knows their comings and goings, and created them, carefully, for a purpose. Every single one of these thirty-two kids that I teach every week, only really getting to know a handful... He knows them and understands them and loves them.

It's hard to describe how something is felt as holy. I was thinking about God and His involvement in my students' lives, and a deep sense of peace, felt like a fog, enveloped me. It suddenly felt like God was in the room with me, communicating to me His love for all the kids.

When you love and are in awe of God, and you remember how much He loves the people around you, it makes you value them, because He values them. It made me want to be a better teacher for my students; I wanted to make Spanish the most challenging and fun class they'd ever had. It made me determined to keep calm even on rough days and, even in the midst of bad behavior and disciplinary moments, treat each child with kindness, dignity, and respect.

In a respite from the normal chaos and orchestration and rapid-fire decision-making that is teaching, I became fully aware of the great privilege and responsibility I enjoy every day when I deal with so many of His image-bearers. It was a gift.

Little Victories: #2

Victory #2: “Let no sin have dominion over me.”

We moved a little over a year ago. Ian was working sixty hours every week, and I was teaching a couple classes at the community college, and our girls were one and three years old. I thought the girls would have trouble transitioning to a different bedroom and household, yet for the most part they did fairly well.

I did not.

Ian was working so many hours that it was a struggle to get things unpacked and put away. He would help when he could, but I was home most of the time, managing the day-to-day stuff and caring for the kids and making decisions about where things should go. By nature, I am not a decisive person. It’s not that I can’t think of possibilities; it’s that I can think of several, all the time, for every decision, and I want to make the best one. Perfectionism is good for activities like editing. It is not good for household organization (at least when you’re not good at it).

So I made tons of decisions, in addition to all the little decisions made by me as a parent every day. The boxes and clutter in the apartment were driving me crazy. I was having a hard time, and was already frustrated by Ian working so many hours every day. And then… Alexandra got an attitude.

I’d heard it’s common for three-year-olds to test their parents; I was being consistently tested every day. She didn’t want to listen and obey; she didn’t want to be kind to her sister; she liked talking back to me and mocking me; she liked making huge messes and not helping to clean them up; she wouldn’t eat her food, which wouldn’t have been a big deal except that when she didn’t eat, she got even more grouchy and naughty afterwards. 

Also, looking back at my journals, I think that I was slightly depressed at the time and just didn’t realize it.

The combination of everything made me feel frazzled and harried all the time, and I started to lose my temper a lot. I would snap and yell at her, and though, by God’s grace, I’ve said very few things to my children that I regret, my tone and expression and my whole body, quivering with frustration, were terrible displays of how to handle anger.

It’s not that, in many cases, I didn’t have a right to be displeased with Alexandra’s attitude and behavior. She was genuinely being naughty. However, my response to it was completely inappropriate. I was out of control, angry every day, and throwing grown-up fits in front of my kids. Worse, I didn’t know how to stop. It’s true, I was feeling sorry for myself. But putting a halt to the pity party is easier when you have some time to regroup, to be away, to think and pray, and there was no time for that. I was too tired at night and I couldn’t get up early enough in the morning (my kids get up REALLY early). I would pray in the mornings that I would be patient that day, but somehow in the anger and frantic frustration of the moment, I would lose my temper again.

I think God helps lead us out of sin in different ways in different situations. Usually, when I think of conquering a specific sin, I think of prayer and self-control, of trying harder to be aware of what I’m doing. But this time, what God gave me was a verse.

I was reading in the Psalms one day and praying through my anger issues, and a particular verse stood out to me:

“Keep steady my steps according to your promise,

And let no iniquity get dominion over me.” —Psalm 119:133 (ESV)

Sometimes you are reading the Bible, and you really experience it as God’s living Word. That verse cut through all the circumstances and issues surrounding my anger and make me realize that although my sin had many effects, the deepest problem was that there was a particular sin, an emotion deep within, that was dominating me. I was unable to control my anger.

Anger in itself is not a sin, depending on why we are angry and how we handle it. In my case, the reason and the handling of it were sinful.

And here is where the gift of God lay, in that situation: God used His Word to help me defeat my sin. The verse that jumped out and cut right to my heart stuck in my mind for the next several days: “…let no iniquity get dominion over me.” More than just not wanting to yell at my kids in anger, I didn’t want any emotion to control my behavior. That verse got to the root of my issue and voiced a simple prayer. And I didn’t have to pray with more words or different words, and I didn’t have to exert superhuman levels of self-control. Those were not the solutions to my sin this time. Rather, throughout the day, every day, whether I was angry or not, that one verse echoed through my thoughts: “… let no iniquity get dominion over me.” It was a very spiritual experience, like His Word was communing with His Spirit inside me and they were working together to manage my actions. I honestly had to exert very little conscious self-control; it was like repeating the verse over and over renewed my mind and transformed my outward behavior, like it says in Romans. For that reason, referring to this as a "victory" seems inaccurate, unless I am referring to God's victory working in me.

I wish I would remember to do this more often, when I am facing challenges. While it’s good to pray and exert personal effort, to bring my struggles to God, it’s probably better to listen to what God has already told me in the Bible. If my actions come from my thoughts and my thoughts are dominated by my spiritual life, then letting God’s Word shape my spiritual life is probably the most important step of all to conquer sin.

And it’s not like I’ve lived a sin-free life ever since, or haven’t lost my temper here or there. But God helped me defeat that particular pattern of sinfulness that was taking over that season of my life, and, thank God, while I struggle with other things, that one hasn’t come around to dominate me since.