To tell my story.

I just returned from Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers or ECET2 as it's called by those in the know. (SHOUTOUT) It was a weekend conference hosted by The Gates Foundation in San Diego. I was celebrated as a leader in my field and treated like my voice mattered. As you can see by the picture below, we were treated very well!

Nothing like palm trees to make you feel important. San Diego is such a gorgeous place!

Teacher's salaries don't often allow for seaside resorts and balconies. 

My first time seeing the pacific!

I learned so much about maker spaces and social justice and empowering young men of color, but the main thing I left thinking about was raising my voice as an educator. Telling my story. 

But I'm stuck. See, no one wants to hear my story. I can share my story about how I ended up teaching well. I can make you laugh and make you cry with narratives about students and antics over  the last seven years. I've perfected it to a lovely dinner party appropriate 5-7 minutes. But that is not the story I want to tell. Those are stories that are really not mine to tell. 

I'm reminded of my garden club of boys with emotional disabilities learning how to love and nurture through planing and growing tomato plants, but isn't that their story instead of mine to tell. Isn't my job as an educator to teach them to tell their stories instead of telling it for them? I don't know.  I'm hoping to start telling my education story soon. I'd like to start sharing it here on this blog, but I have to do the hard work of telling my story in a way that will help inspire and motivate other teachers. However, I'm not willing to steal the narratives from my students. Their stories are amazing tales of resilience and passion. Fantastic tales of struggle and woe. Boring tales of relatable mediocrity. But, ultimately not mine to tell. As I start to extract their stories from my own, I ask to to follow along. 

To condemn my "heritage" and love my neighbor.

I still remember how badly I wanted a specific t-shirt when I was in school. It was grey. It had a bucolic country scene with hound dogs and an old farmhouse. It also had a confederate flag and the words “Dixie Outfitters” across the top in old west typeface. They sold them at a small flea market near where I camped with my family and it seemed like a lot of people at school had them. (I’ve learned that perspective when you are 12 can be extremely distorted, so who knows if my memory on this is accurate.) My father said no. A man who very rarely had an opinion on what I did, where I went, or whom I was with, flat out denied my ability to buy this shirt. I only remember him strait up telling me no on a couple of occasions, so I just trusted him.

It has been a decade and a half since the last time I remember my dad putting his foot down. It took me a long time to understand, but I think I do now. I argued about heritage and freedom of speech and enthusiastically supported the move to add the confederate flag back to the Georgia flag. My father patiently endured those efforts, but when it came to plastering it on my clothing. The answer was no.

I know now what I didn’t know then. My associations with the confederate flag had never been tied to race. It was cultural symbol in my mind, a link to my past, a link I saw many around me desperate to hold on to.

What I didn’t see at the time was the world my father had lived in. My father lived through a time where it was the symbol of those who would do harm. (A time that I can no longer convince myself is over based on the events of the last few months.) It stood beside burning crosses as an omen of things to come. It was held up by those preaching that they were superior simply based on the amount of melanin within their skin. My father tried to help me see. He told me of a trip to the courthouse as a child. He had looked up to his father and asked him why the water fountain was marked “Whites Only.” His father explained to him what segregation was and why it was so evil. As he told me this story, he reminded me once again that everyone is made in the image of God and must be treated with the respect and dignity deserved by someone who images the almighty.

And now I sit here watching the news of a massacre at a predominantly African American local church. The man who did this had a “Sons of the Confederacy” emblem on the back of his car, the same flag that I wanted to wear on a T-Shirt. I’m so embarrassed. I realize that my “heritage” is one that is marred by painful, oppressive injustice. Injustice committed and defended by those that held that flag and I know that my father was right. This particular part of my heritage is something I should remember only as a warning to not repeat it, not as an emblem of pride.

I realize that, only by the grace of God, I do not have to bear the weight of the sins of my fathers. I realize that, only by the grace of God who gave Christ to die on the cross for my sins, I do not have to bear the punishment for my own sins. I do not have to pay the penalty for my failure to love those made in God image by defending a symbol of oppression and hate.  I realize that my own desire for conflict and entertainment led me to defend South Carolina waving said flag at their state house, and it was a sinful manifestation of a heart that desired chaos over order. Much more tangible than that was my desire to avoid parts of the city that I deeded unsafe because a concentration of people that didn’t look like me lived there. The harsh words I have spoken about entire groups of people that I had never interacted with are an embarrassing testament to my own sinful heart that seeks to put myself above others. My heart is one that would seek to make myself look better by making other look worse. I have a heart that would rather ignore the image of God placed in all people that is a means to bring God glory. A heart that, I pray, is being transformed to be more like the Christ who has bought it with his blood. Jesus didn’t allow ethnicity, gender, or past transgressions to get in his way of loving his neighbor. He didn’t hold his Jewish pedigree over the head of the Samaritan woman when he sat down to speak with her. The Samaritans and the Jews did not have a story of peaceful race relations. They were rivals, but Jesus endured scandal to make the Good Samaritan the hero in his story. He collected those that lived on the periphery of society around him.

I do still believe that individuals have the right to fly a confederate flag. In the same way I believe that they should be able to tattoo a swastika on their forehead if they really want to. But the Christian should know that it is sin to consider your own opinion of what it means above a brother or sister who is hurting. For me to obey the command to love my brother and sister, I must lay down this flag. I don’t want to tarnish the name of Christ who I claim to follow by intentionally aligning myself with a symbol of hate and oppression. For this reason, I write my apology letter to those I may have hurt. My defense of this flag was public, so now is my grief over it. To those I may have hurt in the rebellion of my youth, I’m sorry, please forgive me.

To plant a garden.

Several years ago, a dear saint came to me after church saying I should plant a garden at school. Little did I know what that would spark. I love watching my kids eyes light up as they taste the watermelon that they just pulled off the vine. I love hearing the excitement as they discover a praying mantis for the first time. Both terrified and intrigued as they realize the diversity God has made in his creation. I love the smell of fresh figs as the kids are tentatively tasting the strange looking fruit. I loved the taste of the fresh salsa the kids were excitedly begging everyone in the building to just try. After an amazing summer of sowing, harvesting, and feasting last year, I find myself a little scared.

There is so much faith required in sowing. I plant the tomato seed. I test the soil and buy the right fertilizers and make sure it gets sunlight and water. But I can do nothing to make it grow. There are no guarantees  in the garden. So much is outside of my control. Then you add the variable that is gardening with children. My garden club right now is entirely made up of 12 and 13 year old boys. Some of my boys come from situations you could only imagine. It reminds me that only God makes anything grow. When sowing requires a child that can barely read and doesn't really do chairs to read and understand the directions on the back of the seed starting kit, you never know what's gonna happen. But, despite the fiercest odds against them, I come back from the weekend to 16 lovely, but fragile tomato seedling about to bust the lid off the little container.

So many Biblical stories are about planting and growing. My response to fear in the garden is over planting. If all my tomato seeds grow, I'll have thirty or forty tomato plants to find room for. My sowing the word should be similar. Sow widely. Sow where it doesn't look like anything should be able to grow. Water even the weakest plant. I don't know where God will choose to grow anything. He chooses the weak things to shame the wise. So I pray that my garden will grow. I pray that my desire for evangelism will grow. I pray that Christ's church will grow here. I pray. I need to persevere in prayer. I pray for more faith in the sowing. I pray for the courage to pray for even the most desperate situation. The ones that have already been written off by statisticians and politicians alike. I pray for my gardening club. I pray the act of sowing and reaping would create a wonder for God's miraculous creation.

To learn to remember.

I've found myself taking a step back and asking myself how I got here a lot often. I'm getting to the point in my life where there are enough years behind me to get lost and distracted in regrets. I find myself swirling in discontent. I sit and let the waves of what could have been crash over me until I'm nearly drowning. Once I get to that place I find it very difficult to drag myself from seashore to go on living my life.

It's so easy to sit here and imagine what amazingness would have befallen my life if I had known I'd still be single and had gone to medical school. I wonder what my life would look like it I had gone to the University of Georgia instead of George Washington. What if...

But as I was lecturing my sister today about trusting that God's grace is sufficient for what she has been given today. Reminding her that she doesn't need to regret yesterday or fear tomorrow because the only two days that actually matter on the calendar are today and that day. I, just a few hours later, find myself needing the same lecture.

I find my faith weak. I find it quite difficult to praise God that "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." Because the boundary lines of my life right now actually feel quite difficult. I'm finding myself taken by surprise when there is much toil in my work. I'm finding my mind and body wearier and wearier as the days of the year toil on.

But as I read the rest of Psalm 16, I find my God kind in his comfort. David's words are not being sung out of confidence in his circumstances. David's words are being sung out of confidence in his God. "Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure."

I can look back and see that my level of discontent seems to rise inversely as my time in meditating on the word and the gospel ebbs. I see the way out of this seemingly hopeless swirl of discontent in my circumstances. My God has placed me precisely where he wants me. He knew exactly how difficult it would be, and he calls me to depend more and more on him as my circumstances seem to get more and more difficult.

My anger at the toil in my work is rooted in laziness and a lack of self-control. Sins I should be actively fighting and praying for deliverance from. Instead I feed them with excuses, excess, and limitless procrastination.

So how should I remember? Why is it so easy to remember the parts of my life that are hard and still raw wounds, but God's faithfulness in answering prayers and providentially leading me to places I never would have chosen but have been great places for me. When I think about the past, I think abou

Psalm 16

"A miktam^a of David.

1Keep me safe, my God,

for in you I take refuge.

2I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;

apart from you I have no good thing.”

3I say of the holy people who are in the land,

“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”

4Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.

I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods

or take up their names on my lips.

5Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;

you make my lot secure.

6The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance.

7I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;

even at night my heart instructs me.

8I keep my eyes always on the Lord.

With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

9Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;

my body also will rest secure,

10because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,

nor will you let your faithful^b one see decay.

11You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

So I take a moment to remember God's faithfulness. God answering prayers. And ultimately, God's supreme kindness at the cross. 

To be suprised by toil.

I'm not sure how it keeps taking me be surprise. It's something that has always come with work. My earliest memories of working involved toil and ample frustration. One of my chores sometimes in the fall was to rake leaves. It seemed like every time I'd almost be done, the cat would jump in the pile and scatter it out a little. Later, the wind would blow and the cascade of leaves that flew across the yard was beautiful, but it added toil to my work. (Of course, sometimes, I was the one jumping in the pile to add to another's toil.)


In college the work was different. Instead of the long hours outside trying to tame the weeds that sprung up as the curse fell on Adam, I found my self hours and hours into papers in the dark basement of a library. The effects of toil on work in that basement looked different. The frustration of the power flicking when you forgot to save that last page of a paper. Crying over spilled milk because it landed on the laptop that you knew you couldn't afford to replace. I wrote more than one paper on my old blackberry because I couldn't get my laptop to turn on and the work had to be done.

Every job I've ever done has had toil and frustration to accompany the work. But it still takes me by surprise. I keep forgetting that I lived in a world marred by the effects of the fall. I live in a world that is so messed up by sin that it should surprise me more when things do work.


So when my work seems unproductive, when my voice goes out right as I'm starting to feel like my class is working, when half the class fails an exam that I just knew they were going to ace, when I realize it's been two weeks since I had a planning period, when schools get consolidated right as we see progress, when class sizes balloon to 32. Why am I surprised? In a sinful world, entropy rules. It takes work to simply maintain the current level of disorder. To bring things from a state of disorder toward order requires significantly more work.  I feel like I'm failing to simply maintain. Progress seems impossible. But my God is bigger than even the laws of physics. My God can take something from disorder and move it toward order. My God can change sinful hearts, even of the confusing hearts of 13 year old. I can't.


So I work, and I toil. I don't work with the assurance that anything will change, but I do work with the confidence that God is good and he's called me here. I do work with confidence that one day, when this world is no more, I'll know what it means to work without toil. I pray that God would allow the toil of my work to point me to that day when I'll no longer feel the heavy weight that sin had placed on this world.

"O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day."

          - Ro­bert Ro­bin­son

To sell a dream.

"At this point I've taught them everything that I can. Two more days of review isn't changing anyone's test score. Right now I'm just selling the dream." -a coworker of mine right before standardized testing last year

As we just marked the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech, I've been thinking a lot about dreams. The last time I read that speech was in college, before I had any idea what it really meant. And to be honest, before I realized the King's dream was not yet a reality. But that's a different post for a different day.

When you are in middle school, as I perpetually am, you think a lot about the future. I'm still not yet 30, but I still have a lot in life to look back to. I think about great losses and great triumphs that I've already accomplished. But for the 12 year old, everything that matters, at least in their minds, is still ahead of them.

So how do you teach a child to dream. I may have been a more reflective child than most, but most of my middle school years were spent thinking about who I would one day be and how I would get there. Maybe it was all the times my dad sat me down and told me not to ever let anybody tell me I couldn't do something great with my life. Maybe it was all my teachers saying how bright I was and how excited they were to see where I ended up. I don't know. But I need to figure it out, because I want my kids to dream. I want them to honestly believe that "smart" is not out of their reach.

Maybe it's the little things. Subtle hints about keeping grades up because you'll need to get into a good high school to go to a good college. Maybe it's sweeping lectures about how "you're better than you're showing me right now." Maybe it's convincing parents that even though the high school is across town doesn't mean it's not a good choice for the kid. Maybe it's the big things. Maybe it's raising a stink that all the "good" high schools are across town. Maybe it's in asking harder taboo questions about race and culture and urban poverty and violence. Maybe it's all above my pay grade.

But I've seen the good that selling a dream to a kid can do. I've seen kids steeped in violence and restlessness worry more about their math grade than their street cred because they had been sold the dream of a specialty arts school. I've seen what a dream can do for a kid, but I'm not a natural sells man. I've never been a peddler of any sort no less the stuff dreams are made of. I've never mastered that art. But it's a big part of my job.

So I pray. I pray for my kids. I pray for their parents. I pray for my coworkers and the authorities here. I know not if I'm changing anything, but I know that God is good. I know he's placed me here. I know that he is sovereign. My job is to work and wait.

To make good use of the time.

Our day today involved:

1. A steam mop. 

To clean the basement floor. 

2. Two trowels 

To level the basement floor 

3. a canner

To make pickles with some of the 50!!! Cucumbers we picked this week

4 Two trips to target. 

one to return the hammock and a second to return the two chairs we bought that wouldn't fit in the car

5. a large pair of tree trimmers

to tame the backyard jungle.

6. A trip trip to the grocery store to buy pickling salt (instead I bought three types of peppers)

7. A trip to the garden

For a quick photo shoot and to pick 15 more cucumbers and 5 more squash 

8. Making lasagna using squash for noodles

9.and... About 6 episodes of white collar.