Mulling things over...

Donavon Riley

"Baptized you are baptized into Jesus’ death to new life. You are not baptized so you can reflect on your relationship with yourself. When you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim His death until He comes to wake you from death. You don’t eat and drink to announce what you’ve chosen to do with your time until you die. Your life is hidden with Christ in God."

I want to spend some time thinking about this quote.  I am intrigued by the last line, " Your life is hidden with Christ in God".  As opposed to what the Salvation Army was handing out on their card I got yesterday.  

It was all about choosing to let God into our life. 

 We don't chose God.  He chooses us!  It's all about the Holy Spirit!  There is NOTHING we can do for our salvation.  It has been done in Christ's death!




And Chad Bird does it again!  Nails it to the heart on the door.

http://birdchadlouis.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/god-the-heart-breaker/

I also so don't know what is going on with my blog template.  

Wow is all I can say

and I wished I would have figured this out sooner- like 45 years ago...

Sane Sex The Truth about Men and Women
by Terril Clemmons


"Mutual and total self-giving, strong feelings of attachment, intense pleasure, and the procreation of new life are linked by human nature in a single complex of meanings and purpose. For this reason, if we try to split them apart, we split ourselves."


"The dual purpose of sex—procreation and marital unity—is firmly rooted in natural law, and everything works out better when our sex lives are cultivated ­accordingly. But alas, we dwell in a valley of destruction. "Errors about sex cause such terrible suffering," Budziszewski writes. "The worst is the suffering of those who no longer know they are in torment, for it is simply a lie that everyone is happy who believes himself happy, a slander that nobody is suffering unless he thinks that he is." When sexual behaviors and attitudes that are contrary to the human design are indulged in, they produce vandalized souls and a numbed populace that is blind to its sexually split personality."



http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo22/sane-sex-the-truth-about-men-and-women.php



I pray I get it right next time.

So why do I have to be right?

So nothing from the lawyer who said the judgement would be done last week.  I knew it would not happen.

Meanwhile I am haunted by memories.

Tim turned 27 today.  I wonder if he has even noticed I am gone.  I will not compete with Pat for the love of my children.  Nor will I beg for their love.

It is a 4th commandment issue.  It is between them and God.  You either love and respect your parents or you do not.

Here I stand , waiting for them to contact me.

Daddy Death

The wheat, radiant rays,
seeming to the sun,
dazzled our eyes.
Out of corners, grasshoppers
dodged, fwipping the air
with their wings.
We laughed
at the dog who led
our passage
through rows of chin high wheat.

Sentinel dog,
jumped so high
to stay the course.

The horizontal landmarks:
tree, fencepost, wire.
The tree to catch the clouds,
the fencepost to nail down the grass,
the wire to conduct electricity.
All to keep us and the cows
in the field.



II.


The tree squatted in the ditch,
cooling its haunches in the silty brown,
from clouds tangled in its branches,
leftovers from the thunderstorm the night before.

Our toes cradled  in the muddy bottom,
water lapping at our belly buttons.
Sentinel dog with lolling tongue,
watching over us.


Later, clothes drying on our sun burnt bodies,
mud caking between our toes,
we'd march militant
in the rows of wheat,
keeping time
with hidden cicadas.


Southward to the border,
field rimmed and wired, grounded
in a metal pole
with porcelain earrings.
A silver strand,
a spider's bite
humming in its veins.

We could straddle,
crawl, 'neath the barb wire,
evade sand burrs, musk thistle, devil's claw.
This.
This wire was forbidden.

"Did Daddy really say?"

"Would it really...?"

"Do we dare...?"


Could death be so easy?
A touch?

Like our ancestors we'd reach to grasp
the silver line,
shimmering in silence...

We felt the bite,
disobeyed our dad.

The sting was not yet death,
but almost death.

Death came not to girls
in Kansas sun.
The disobedience
was a warning for our future.
It only emphasized
the final outcome.

III.
The passage
is in the rings of trees,
the till of soil,
a child's laugh,
a dog's bark.

That ghost of sentinel dog,
vaporized between the stalks of wheat.
Our feet became large and clothed.
The fence corrupt,
corroded.
The disobedience of death in a father's words,
and the obedience of a son
to take the sting
of electric fences
and forbidden touches,
to raise the bodies.
dead in disobedience.

lawyer

When I called him last week he was suppose to have the judgement done by Monday or Tuesday.  It is Thursday night and not a word.  I could have predicted this- no action.  Still in Limbo....

Bad Teacher Moment

Ok, bad teacher moment today:  I am doing number corner and calendar and in walks my math coach and new principal to take a data snap.  We are discussing the new calendar  piece which is a yellow children's crossing sign.  I asked the students what shape it is and I get the answer trapezoid.  Of course I am so focused on what I am doing to "impress" my principal and I go for details of what makes a trapezoid.

First answer I get is it has 5 corners. We discuss this for awhile and I am oblivious to the obvious when all of a sudden I notice my math coach is standing next to me showing me this yellow note.  I'm used to this because she knows I am open to coaching at any time. I look down, confused.  She whispers in my ear,

 "5 sides is a pentagon. "

I'm mortified. It's not a trapezoid, it's a pentagon.

 So gathering my wits I ask the class if they agree that it is a trapezoid?  I get  the thumbs down from a student and ask him why he disagrees with that and why?

(Meanwhile another student points to the poster"Critique and debate")

"I know it is not a trapezoid because it doesn't match the one on the wall."

 I point to the poster "Mistakes and sticking point. Perseverance"  and tell my class that even adults make mistakes and I made a mistake.

Yep that's me -transparent in my instruction.  Just a bit humiliated that I did it in front of my new principal.  But hey it's math studio time and I am used to feeling  humiliated. (My perception- not reality.)

Math studio is messy. It is ugly.  We bare our practise to other adults and de-privitize our practise so our students can learn.  It makes me cry a lot of the time. It is worth it though to see the outcomes with my students.

Girding up my loins for tomorrow's math studio.