ForGIVEmas

When the holidays loom over us, it becomes uncomfortably clear that we have unresolved conflicts with family and friends, since the toxic ooze down inside our gut doesn't match the picture of peace on earth we have seen in the media since birth.

It occurs to me today that I'm in the mood to be happy. I'm motivated to cross the rickety bridge of vulnerability and take a final gigantic leap onto the solid ground of “I'm okay-You're okay”. I'm also simply tired. Turning 50 this week has been exhausting. People are deeply invested in making it a great big thing. I don't have it in me to remain angry at anyone for very long these days. It is not that I am reaching a higher ground; believe me, I'd love to wallow in the pits of resentment; it's just that I'm weary and I'd like to reserve all that energy for the next 50 years.

Anger and self-righteousness are rather gross, aren't they. I have lots of great reasons to be angry too. I've been abandoned, betrayed, cheated, fooled, and ignored. I've been laughed at, ditched in a strange land, demonized, misunderstood and humiliated. I've been beat up, stood up, neglected, hospitalized, rolled in a van, crashed into a cement culvert, broken, bruised and battered, held down, locked up, and locked out.

When we look back and see a world of apocalyptic destruction, it is easy to be angry. I have actually found myself on more than one occasion laughing maniacally – that is the sort of laugh that bubbles up unexpectedly in the midst of a desperate sob, when you suddenly realize the utter absurdity of your circumstances and how absolutely frighteningly hilarious the truth is. And there have been times, of course, when I have stared catatonic out the window from 3 am to sunrise. These are the periods of grief that nurture an angry soul. Or these are the periods of grief that propel you into something older and wiser; we actually get to choose, you see.

So I choose life. I choose joy. In the words of one Helen Schucman, “the truth does not need defending”.

This may appear to be a diversion from the topic of forgiveness, but I assure you, it is in direct correlation. The theory about forgiveness is that we hold onto resentments as a protective armor from further harm. We worry that if we “let it go,” it will boomerang right back into our hearts, and...well...we don't like pain. We hate as a defense. We know with confidence that we have been wronged, thus we remain rooted in “I am right. And to forgive you is to claim you are not wrong, or what you did is forgivable and therefore, not such an awful thing,” while we know that our raw wounds say it truly was an awful thing. Therefore, we hold tight to our judgment and likewise the poison it sends directly into our veins. The irony does not escape me.

But the truth does not need defending.

Ergo, I need not shout my truth into the enemy ear. I have another option.

I can be still and know that I am not God. I can step furtively around the muck and grasp that gentle reed of compassion for that child of God, my sister, my brother, my friend, my blood. I can listen for that heartbeat within them and seek out the pain in their eyes and open my throat just enough to let the whisper of love seep from my lips.

I can forgive and give for the healing of our souls which once, not so long ago, held each other in equal esteem. I can let go of the illusion that any of it even matters and rest now. God bless us, every one.

Avoiding the Big God in the Room

I wish to talk about what it is like to step way back every single day and not talk about God with my students – even though I'm pretty sure we talk about spiritual and religious matters regularly due to themes in our canonized literature– teachers have pretty clear guidelines on what is and is not appropriate rhetoric about our personal views. The American in me is offended when teachers do not adhere to this rule. I'm not writing today to discuss those teachers or to change the law. I'm not considering a change in jobs nor location of employment. I'm here to discuss the discomfort of hiding a major part of who I am as a human being while everyone else in the room is welcome to explore their own.  This would be no different from all those teachers who don't discuss their same-sex partners or recovery from any addictions. They can't risk the judgment and therefore remain more impersonal and continue the ridiculous notion that teachers live at the school and spend all their time grading and planning for the return of their students.

Sometimes I cringe not at the fact that my students have differing beliefs, but at the simplicity and ignorance of their statements. For example, some do not even understand that their Christian denomination is just that. They think some people are Christian and some are Lutheran. I have students who proudly declare that they have Native blood, but they have no idea from which tribe they came.  Some of my students think all ghosts are evil. They think a ghost is a demonic force while a spiritual presence is something else. One word there – media. Just two more words – negligent parents.

Some students are so concerned with fitting in, they do not acknowledge their beliefs and I cannot model this for them. I am free to help them define, clarify, reason and justify all day long, but I must be clear, I am not to share my own views on God. This is an understandable law of the public school system and I choose to work within it; however, I also feel challenged by it from time to time.

This was not an issue for me when I had no God in my life. I could listen and say or think, “Well, that is great for you, but I do not have a limit on my beliefs,” nor did I feel I was in any way at a disadvantage for it. That is how I was raised and I knew nothing else.

This was not nearly an issue for me when I followed the rarely understood Ojibwe traditions in the first part of my career, since it was only thought of as “cultural awareness” or I was simply considered a “native wannabe”. No one felt threatened; they considered me lost.

Nowadays, things have become a bit tricky. I follow a Christian path that I never in a million years would have considered until my late 40's. I follow a path known and shared with over 35% of the world.   It is one thing to be a closet Christian with my agnostic and highly secular family; they'd be far less comfortable with my assertions than any stranger. Yet, being a closet Christian at work generates a lot of frustrations for me.

First, I don't declare it openly, because the last thing I want to do is be labeled “one of those narrow-minded, judgmental Christians” by any of my students who are non-Christian. They might assume I am now against their beliefs.

Second, I consider myself deeply spiritual and profoundly devoted to becoming more spiritual by the minute. I want to share this spiritual experience while I inhabit my human form so that others can also find the peace, joy and wisdom it brings.

Third, I hate being anything but authentic and covering up these facts feels like presenting myself as a boy when in fact I am a girl – which is just an analogy by the way – but you hopefully get the tone of sincere angst.

I must respect that I have more power than I think – the power to influence my students - and that is why I must keep my mouth shut. I can't go around suggesting that one single religion is a choice I have made, because parents will resent their children feeling pressured to gain my approval via conformity.
The only thing that bugs me is that what I really want to pressure my students into is the act of being who they are and still showing amazing grace with those who believe differently. Isn't that what a Christian is supposed to do?

Perhaps it is for the best that I do not have to really say anything. I might have a lot more power never seeming like a particularly religious person but rather a spiritual being untethered by any specific label. I can't help it if I see people at church. I also can't help it if there are students who call themselves Christian and then go about doing horrible things.

I guess I will just leave my ego in the car and don my multicultural cape with a touch of Jesus-laced thread woven inconspicuously along the edges. No one will know, except of course the anonymous higher power of whose name we will not speak.

Denyhilation

Lately, I have been observing – and yes, reporting with regularity to my husband -  something I like to call, “denyhilation.” This is the act of denying one's irresponsibility to the point of annihilating the potential credibility and solid relationships necessary for a peaceful existence...here....and now....on this ever evolving and sometimes ridiculous planet called Earth.

For if a person wishes to be taken seriously, or a person wishes to be trusted, or a person simply wants others to believe he or she holds a shred of honesty, they hands down, without a doubt, with complete and utter totality MUST be honest about the trivialities, the little things, the small stuff, that which will never matter five years from now.  And in this way, we build the likelihood that the big things, the real crimes, the shocking and sometimes gritty and putrid acts, will also come to surface as bearing truthful admission.

If I still remain ambiguous at this point, let me specify with the realities of my own world and see if they relate to yours.

First, at least five times out of the last ten days, the exterior door of our home was left wide open for the Autumn air to intrude with a bitter and chilling blast. Literally, someone just walked in and walked away from an open door despite the fact that the furnace was running due to uncomfortably cold temperatures. But “intrusion” is so unfair a word when that nasty wind was granted full access to my home while no one was there to stop it. Don't blame the wind. Blame the thoughtless person who left the door wide freaking open.

Secondly, it is the end of October, thus the avalanche of candy consumption is upon us. This means an insidious and filthy habit will encroach upon my home – annually – almost likened to the last pine needle I will vacuum from the room which held that glorious Christmas tree 4 months prior – and this vermin will collect and blow about the floors of my home as if I am the only resident there with the gift of sight. This very embarrassment of which I speak is, simply,  the empty and wrinkled, albeit still shiny but partial candy wrapper. Combine all candy wrappers with the open doors and we have a mass of what I now term “the sticky tumbleweed.”

Finally, and this may be so rare that perhaps it truly doesn't happen anywhere but in my own home; however, in my house, things go missing. These missing items are not to be confused with those things that have been misplaced and will one day be found on the very same premises. I'm not discussing absentmindedness. I'm talking about nothing short of what appears to be an alien abduction of certain belongings, the very same belongings that have remained in the same place since the dawn of man. Then...suddenly....gone. The sticky tumbleweeds have not left, but jewelry, flashdrives, clothing and medicine have.

What do I do? I go through a series of responses.

First, I breathe a long and deep sigh of exhaustion. The situation, you can imagine I am sure, is tiresome.

Next, I wrestle with a very real conundrum. If I say nothing, it will build with the pressure of a volcano and likely emerge in the shape of a headache or a cold or a twitching facial muscle about which my students love to rudely and obviously whisper. If I say something, I first have to determine to whom and when and this requires further thought about identifying the possible deviant wicked culprit. Oh, was that redundant? Excuse my passion for investigation and an eternal search for justice. Thus, I delay the inevitable and necessary question, “Who did this?”

Finally, I cannot bear it another moment. I am powerless over my obsessive need to determine the scandalous criminal and the aforementioned inquiry bursts from my mouth typically with the tone of annoyance layered with a film of bitter resentment: “Who did this [VILE DEED]?”

The answer comes with repetitious predictability: “Not I!”

Uh-huh. To be sure, I am consequently and fantastically insane.

Gossip Ghouls...I mean....Gossip Girls

If a girl asks her friend, “Are you mad at me?” and the friend replies,“No,” you'd likely consider the issue resolved. Right?

Wrong.

You see, there are nuances. For example, did you know that the friend replied without any eye contact? And did you understand that the friend showed no concern for the girl's inquiry; rather she turned away immediately?

And did you know that the girl had taken the time to confront this friend the day before on how they had plans and the friend took absolutely no responsibility for the fact that she never showed up?

You see, girls are tricky. They have a secret (and one might even speculate dishonest) form of communication. It is what I call the no-win wicked web of female complexity, an abyss of slippery walls out of which a rare few can climb.  It doesn't take a normal human female to free oneself of the web; it takes a master, a demi-god, a champion.

Trust between females is built through the mysterious and giggly sharing of secret emotions and thoughts. They make themselves vulnerable and this is the path to intimacy. Women take great risks and therefore generate a far more intimate bond than the males would generally attempt. This is why two females can hold hands and hang on each other and playfully seduce each other by soft, caressing motions without it ever being considered a sexual thing. Women are like sirens in the ocean of our travels.

Nonetheless, I too am a woman and therefore must balance this dark and sinister truth with all the golden light of a true woman. You see, women are not just wicked, as they have been forced to be for the purpose of survival in an oppressed world. They are also innocent. It goes unexplained that the undercover female lives in her secluded bat cave because that is exactly where she was told to go by those who raised her, protected her and loved her.

For if and when a woman actually steps out into the light, expresses her truth with uninhibited shameless power, there is a mountainous price to pay. It starts with the following statements:

Wow, what a condescending bitch.

She sure thinks highly of herself, doesn't she?

Control Freak.

She needs to know her place.

She is no lady.

She is obviously crazy.

These are the exact sort of statements that take a woman by the elbow and steer her right back under ground. Now stay down there Sugar. Everything must be indirect, manipulative, defensive and distrustful. And most of all, Dollface...now listen carefully, don't, whatever you do, think for one minute that anyone is gonna love you, respect you or support you, if you speak too loudly, too confidently or are too self-assured. Take it down a notch. For goodness sakes, smile. Make sure everyone thinks you are more than humble, but actually inferior. This will make everyone feel much much more comfortable about themselves and then perhaps they will allow you into their fold.

Consequently, it isn't the ghoulish girls I judge. They come by it honestly. Their ways are ancient and necessary. They are just doing what they were taught from the first day of life. Go around the bush. Slip it under the rug. Stuff it down deep into your gut. Don't be too real. Someone might slap you right back into the slippery hole from which you finally emerged

Or you could hang out with me and walk the streets in broad daylight, a disfigured and proud threat to the insecure egos of the world. C'mon, you know you wanna. Let's jump that train and let the wind blow our hair and scream our power across the rooftops!

Le Femme In the School Ism

It was surprising to me to learn that the majority of my students today claim “feminism is dead” and finish this statement with a tone of “as it should be.” They seem to have a very different notion about the term than I do. I was raised with a single mom in the 60's. This meant many kids were not allowed to spend time in our home, even though my dad had left her and my mother had impeccable boundaries, was an intelligent, responsible woman who never even so much as kissed another man in front of us during her twelve years of singledom.  As a working woman, my mother had to kick and claw her way to the top of a man's corporate ladder in heels and a skirt no less.  She was beautiful, which was not necessarily to her benefit. My mom had little to no help from her parents in raising us, since she granted my father a divorce and that was against the rules. This gets me a tiny bit bristly.

I recall being told that I was the only planned child my father ever had. I was the 11th of 14 children he sired throughout his three marriages. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that my mom had twin girls and they were shooting for a boy. I ended up Kim instead of Scott. My dad left my mom and had two boys with his new wife. This formed the conclusion in my young head that boys were preferred and I got the short end of the stick. I wished I was a boy, so I could be the best. I was competitive by nature. But I was not a boy. So began my defiant journey for equality, righteousness and indignation at a world of Good Ol' Boys, future male bosses who would tell me I can't be a leader among my coworkers because I am also a single mom, and the years of boys who would give me the 'once over' every single time I stepped out from behind the podium.

If you google the term 'feminism' today, you will get a complex definition with layers of history that spans many, many centuries. As you pass the women's European and American sufferage at the turn of the century and into the 1960's and 70's more sexual revolution, you find yourself smack dab in the “Third Wave Feminists” which surfaced in the 90's for a shift in our use of language and media portrayals of women. From there, it all gets rather complicated and muddled with lesbianism and gender androgyny. I can see why my students are confused over why one girl might have burned her bra and another might hide her breasts altogether.

You see, first of all, I do not believe men and women are no longer unequal. Also, I find my students' views clouded in a rosy hue of ignorance. Plus, they weren't at the social gathering I attended last weekend.

Feminism is not dead.  It has simply changed due to the ever evolving human race and the fact that men and women are not the same – thank God! But women, like other minorities,  can be their own worst enemies.

Sexting, “Awkward”, Mtv, Victoria's Angels, liking Big Butts and 50 shades of literature are a lot of mediums with which to navigate while securing the sanctity of our daughters' strength, sacred bodies and respected minds.

I sat in a circle of friends discussing the bruises and paints splats they had endured in a game of paintball. The 21 year old woman took her fair share of hits and didn't seem to take issue with it. The young man had received a shot straight to his private and oh-so-sensitive testicles. The older gentleman next to him chastised the young man for his willingness to splat the young woman repeatedly. He literally stated, “You don't hit a woman like that! You give her a chance to win!”

Really? She showed up in full gear, ready to kick his butt and he's supposed to let her win? My eyes are rolling, my breath is heavily sighing and my students think this was all resolved in the last generation. I couldn't be more baffled.

What Bullies Need

"In every venture the bold man comes off best."  Homer's The Odyssey

I recall my single mom leaving for work before I walked to school in the 2nd grade. It was a solid mile to the elementary school. I learned quickly that if I cut through one way, the girl on the bike would try to run me over or smack the back of my head as she passed. If I went straight through, I had to contend with two brothers who would throw rock hard snowballs at me from their front yard.

I had to go around.

Walking around was longer but allowed me to view the large crates used by the local beekeeper. I didn't mind so much. Nonetheless, I can still feel the deep twist I had in my gut when I walked to school as a skinny little 8-year-old girl. I felt alone. I was afraid. I was also intuitive; it likely kept me safer than other kids.

Bullies have been around as far back as the cavemen. They still exist in the animal kingdom. They reside all over the world in every culture and every community. I suppose this is because we still hold a primal and sometimes sinister need to survive, thus the local bully has determined that this is how to do it. There are a lot of cruel names for bullies; although, a spiritual approach might require pity. We must acknowledge the bully's stinking little life and tortured soul after all. No one suffers more than a sinner.

When my oldest son was purposely humiliated the first day of 7th grade, he simply lost his temper. The boy picking on him ended up flat out on the floor, and my son was not bullied for another two years. The next time he was threatened, he held his ground and the bully, much larger than my son, stormed away. My son was willing to fight, even if it meant he would lose. But he didn't lose, and I admit, I was proud of his courage.

Still, to some degree, he was lucky. It could have gone a lot worse, and I've seen a high school boy with his jaw wired shut for the same response to bullies.

Bullies are not generally willing to reason. I guess if I'm going to go down, I'd rather it be with a fight.

I'd want people to know that I didn't run away or hide or walk around the long way. For me, today, there's a little tiny spark of an old, ancient idea. It's called honor. If my son were in a war, or called upon to protect his own family, and a bully stepped in to tear that security out of my son's hands, I'd want my son to fight. I'd want him to fight the good fight. If he lost a limb, or his mind, or his life, I'd want him to be remembered as brave and willing and honorable.

If my son was forced to kill another in order to defend himself, I'd say maybe that bully finally bullied one too many people.

Don't get me wrong, I'd far prefer the civilized route; I despise those who go looking for the fight. I'd encourage him to check out the beekeeper crates first, but if a bee or two also came after you, I'd say stay cool. Stand your ground. Be calm and be quiet. Bees rarely sting when you refuse to run. If you get stung anyway, know that losing the bee's stinger just caused its own death. God has a way of making things even in the end.

homeWORK

Word is, we Americans are behind other countries as a nation, progressively, technologically,  academically, economically – let's toss in spiritually while we are here. One might even suggest that we lack what was once a powerful, albeit somewhat ignorant pride, an ironclad morale and really an energy to PRODUCE.  That's right! I have absolutely no hard facts, but I have heard it again and again for quite a few years now. The message is that WE ARE WEAK, which is why we must do homework starting at the age of four and with increasingly more time per night with each grade.

I consider the image of a Chinese classroom with little uniformed soldier children standing as the teacher enters the room and greeting her with a round of identical words, then collectively sitting and folding their hands in unison in front of them. Their materials are already out.  They don't use backpacks; they balance all of it on their heads.

Gosh, those Chinese teachers have it made, don't they?

I cringe a tiny bit when I speculate that one small Chinese child might go home in tears today, since his Chinese teacher has found him to be insufficient in his progress with grammar. Perhaps he will not be returning at all?

Just how do they get those kids to be so well-behaved?

I imagine the Chinese child marches along the Great Wall for several miles in the snow with bare legs, (his uniform requires shorts to save money on material) and attends class without a break for a solid 9 hours, then after he feeds the chickens at home, along the Yangtze river, he must dutifully and silently complete his day with a solid 4 hours of homework, then off to bed. The parents allow a tepid but consistent head nod as an alternative for the bedtime rituals we know. There are no siblings to cause any disturbance, so that's good.

And that is how it's done in China – in my imagination – since we are the weak ones and they are threatening our very near future with superior work ethic and militant adherence to the Privilege of Learning.

This scenario is how I justify the minimum of 100 hours of English homework I'm going to demand of your child this year. Well, some of them will do more since they are not as bright, and some will do less since they are indifferent and slightly suicidal, but most will do their best and wonder how they will complete the 100 hours from the other subjects, causing them to tend only to the less merciful teachers and praying the more flexible ones will not punish them too severely.

I don't have a ton of choice here. Our PLC team listed the ELOs and LTs that must be completed, thus the year is now packed with solid in-class instruction, some structured brain activity, troubleshooting Q and A time, and a whole lotta' subversive texting.

I've been told that if I thought it was a good idea to spend time on anything outside of the Minnesota State Standards, I will have to leave it out now in order to make time for the listed curriculum.

I guess I could leave out the part where we get to know each other.

I suppose the love of the language is just fluff.

 Understanding word origins and the beauty of poetry doesn't seem all that relevant when it is clear kids are absolutely unsure of why apostrophes still exist. Theatrics, a once a celebrated method of studying literature, might be better served with a cold bowl of serious, robotic reading. I don't have time to teach them to enjoy it. This isn't about enjoying learning. This is about a global face off, and there are a lot of books to get through if your child wants to be ready for Harvard.

If they aren't ready, well, perhaps the NFL, or American Idol.

If I video tape what I do, they could put it on reality television, like the new one on working with cement, so my plan is to start a reality television classroom. I could make a killing! But then, what happens in my classroom couldn't stay in my classroom any more. Hmmmmm.

I guess we're doomed.