A Reminder, and Amen!

"If you aren't free to fail, then you aren't really free."

--Madeleine L'Engle

(quote source)


Food for thought for teachers and the education system.  Hmmm.

Advent and Poetry

How wonderful to return to church today after a several-week absence. How wonderful is Advent, the beginning, a fresh start. How hopeful I feel.

I had my Madeleine-and-me day on Friday, which was perfect as we were receiving a day of desperately needed rain. We stoked up the fire, had it burning all day; I slept in till I woke naturally; I gathered a stack of Madeleine's books, both first reads and rereads, and I went to it; drank lots of hot vanilla chai; gorgeous day, one my soul needed.

I've reread Moon by Night, which I haven't read since high school. It's funny what I did and did not remember of it. I recalled the book cover, a shot of two teens sitting on a national park-ey stone wall with colorful buttes and monoliths behind them. I recalled the difficult relationship stuff between Vicky and Zach. I recalled some of the small offhanded-but-important things various characters said to Vicky. I had managed to completely forget that the setting of the book is a country-crossing road trip. How did I forget that? My family did that kind of thing a lot in my growing up days. I was surprised I had forgotten, is all.

I'm reading Wintersong, which is a collection of Christmas-related readings by both Madeleine and her dear friend, Luci Shaw. Some beautiful, striking, thought-provoking work -- I'll comment more specifically later, when the spirit moves.

Today I'm moved to talk about Mary Oliver. My first introduction to Oliver was, strangely enough, from the AP English Language exam. Students were given a prose passage from her Blue Pastures (which I've not yet read) extolling the beauty/terror of both the great horned owl and sand dune roses. Incredible, visceral, powerful piece of writing. My students totally don't get it. (It's prompted me to work on nature-writers unit, for clearly these city kids need this, not only for deepening their reading skills but also to hone their own powers of observation and to minister to their souls.)

In any case, I was prompted to look her up, and I found she's better known as a poet, and a Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning poet at that. So I snatched up three or four of her books on Amazon and I'm just now diving in. Wow. And again I say Wow.

I made reference in an earlier post to my partner's and my serious discussions of moving out of the concrete jungle to someplace beautiful...and our determination to do it while we're still young enough to enjoy it. Then I read Oliver's poem, "When I am Among the Trees," and my soul shouted yes!

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

--Mary Oliver, from Thirst

Amen, and amen.

thanksgiving, grading, madeleine

This here's a catch-all, since I haven't been meeting my goal of posting once or twice a week. [ahem]

Thanksgiving: Lovely time with parents, sis, and cousins (3) and cousins' kid. Somewhat scaled back; not as many casseroles as usual. While I missed some of said casseroles (and plan to make one of them myself this week, I miss it that badly [ahem]), it felt good to be a bit more moderate. We spent less time in the kitchen, more time hanging out and talking, and the post-dinner consequences were much less painful -- satisfaction versus stuffed.

School: Well, I've done no -- NO -- grading this weekend. Let me make myself clear. I've. done. NO. grading. And I am gonna pay dearly. I'm already behind in my AP class, both in schedule and in returning papers. My sophomores have finished a novel (bless Mockingbird), and they've done an absymal draft of a wretched paper that I dread even to read much less mark up with revision advice. I was supposed to decide this weekend how to triage this disastrous paper, and I am no better now than I was on Wednesday afternoon (except better fed and more rested).

I cannot make myself grade at home anymore; this year is apparently a rebel year. I spent this weekend eating, watching movies, decorating for Christmas, cleaning out my constipated closet, watching TV, watching nieces/nephews, taking a real-age survey (my 36 is actually 43 [sigh] -- exercise, flossing, and better nutrition, anyone?), and reading.

Madeleine: As desperately as I want to attend the memorial service this Thursday at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, I have come to terms with the fact that it would be financial folly for me to fly across the country just now. However, it is important for me, personally, to commemorate this her birthday and passing into the next life. She is too important to me -- to my development, my thinking, my sense of God and mystery. Therefore, I shall take Thursday off and conduct my own memorial day of reading, poetry, writing, reflection. It is a compromise, but I am satisfied with it.

Other news: My lifelong partner and I are making more than just ephemeral "someday" plans for moving. We crave a place with beauty, clean air, a dedication to nature and preserving our God-created environment. We want out of the concrete jungle. And we are making more than just a pipe dream. Planning is good.

Madeleine Rereading Update

I have now completed the entire time quintet, and I just finished A House Like a Lotus. What a delight to reread that one! I have such fierce memories of certain events and conversations in that book, but other things I had forgotten utterly. It was a pleasure to rediscover.

I'm still trying to decide what my next one will be. Perhaps my all-time fave, And Both Were Young, though I did reread it about five years ago, along with Camilla. Perhaps some from the Austin series. It's been a while for those. I'm not quite ready to broach the poetry or the spiritual non-fiction yet. My soul needs story just now.

In the meantime, I'm reading Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls. I needed a fairly light read for school. I'm not far enough into it to know what I think of it yet.

Rebellion, Part 2

So meetings at school have been tense and frustrating lately. This is not the atmosphere to which we are accustomed. New administration and new district personnel have dramatically changed the tenor of our working relationships. I'm sorry to say it is affecting morale; it is affecting my morale, too. Hence, rebellion part two.

I'm finding it difficult to leave a meeting without being angry, exhausted, toxic. Today's all-day staff-only meetings were no different. The good thing that came of today, however, was the coming together of our oft-contentious-of-late department. Together we confronted the administration on some of their vaguenesses and ambiguities and mealy-mouthed doublespeak. We've learned that we have to get things in writing from this administration; today we learned it's also okay to have things spoken in front of twelve witnesses who are taking notes. :-P

If the administration wants to turn this into an us-and-them situation, it's nice to know that we can still pull together and be an 'us.' This has not been a given over the past couple of years.

I shall continue to attempt to practice the law of attraction (The Secret, as some call it -- I've never read it nor seen the video). It's silly, but I make myself little mantras to breathe throughout the day. They are more for myself and my mindset than they are for the universe, of course. I consider them small prayers.

In other news, my cutter (the second one) is more than a cutter. She is in therapy, thanks be to God, but I'm beginning to grok what a former teacher of hers said to me a couple of weeks ago -- that she is the unfortunate offspring of parents who should have never procreated together. Really, the situations she describes are astonishingly ridiculous. I think it's what St. Paul had in mind when he admonished fathers to 'provoke not your children to wrath.' I believe this student will come out on the other end strong and wise, but it will be in spite of her parents, not because of them. I will seek to be a quiet refuge, a listener, a space-giver, a sounding board.

I've been enjoying rereading Madeleine's time quintet, as it's now referred to, whilst brushing my teeth. I'm now on House Like a Lotus, one of my all-time adolescent-hood favorites (after And Both Were Young). All those intense junior-high and early high school feelings return to my heart so quickly, as if it hasn't been decades since then. Well, Madeleine always said that we are every age we have ever been, and lord help us if we forget what it was like to be each of those ages. It makes me long to see Greece and sad to think about all the devastating fires of the past few months. I feel the same about New Orleans and NY's World Trade Centers. I suppose my sadness is partially motivated by selfishness -- I never got to see them -- but not entirely, I hope. I mourn the destruction -- needless, in every case.