fresh starts

The school year has begun and for the first time in 20 something years, I am at a new school, in a new classroom, with a new staff, and new students.

The classroom I am now occupying is awesome.  If it had a sink, it would be just about perfect, but I won't be picky.  I have 4 window unit air conditioners.  I have an area along one side where my computers are housed, a main room, a closet, and another room, which can be used for small group instruction or a time-out room.

I spent a lot of time in the closet.  It was a mess!  Days were spent before school started...trying to make some sense of it....

It is better.  Not perfect.  I still have boxes of my own to unload...and school started before I could get them all unloaded.

Did I mention that I love my students??  I have 7 of them right now.  I think we will get along just fine.  Complete strangers have come up to me and told me how glad they are that I am in this class.  Apparently the classroom atmosphere was different last year.

I am struggling to find my feet, but that is always the case at the beginning of the year.  Moreso this year, because I don't have experience with the curriculum that other teachers with this type of class use.  Going to spend the day tomorrow with a friend who teaches this class at another school.  Hopefully, that will help...

I manage my way to and from without the GPS, now.  And I found the nearby Dollar Gen...bought some cleaning supplies there one day.

I have two teacher assistants, and that has helped me to feel comfortable.  I also have a colleague from my old school who is here...a familiar face.  People have been nice.  But as I sat in the auditorium for a faculty meeting after the first day of school, I wondered how long it will be before I could count some of those people as "friends". Fresh starts...

It has been an amazing journey - the last 4 months.  A journey I never planned to take.  Sometimes God has been in the driver's seat....other times he has sat in the passenger seat and navigated.  There have been plenty of billboards along the way letting us know we are on the right path.  My supervisor shared with me that the job was open for "only a few days" before she heard that I had filled it.  It made me wonder what had happened if I had been called on the first day they started placing us...instead of the third.  Maybe this job wouldn't have been available.  I marveled at God's timing.   But now it seems like we are pulling back into the driveway.  The let-down feeling after vacation....when you have to go back to the real world, when you still have laundry and unpacking to do.

But in the end...I have a sense that I am where I am supposed to be...and that was my prayer all along.  Things will happen when they happen.  And all will be well.  I am blessed to be where I am.

a break in the clouds

This is long.  It is rambling.  And it is somewhat repetitious.  It is mostly a place for me to get things out of my head.  (Because there is already not enough room in there as it is!) The pictures are some I've taken this summer.  You can read as much or as little into them as you wish!

 The last year or so have had some rough patches.  But right now - and for the past few months - there seems to be a "break in the clouds" and I will take that for the gift that it is.

I have blogged about some of the events that have taken place in the last few months, but to do so as the tapestry is still being woven has left some gaps and missing threads.  I truly have felt like I was watching someone else's life unfold, and it has been amazing for me to watch.  

School has been bad for a long time.  It has gradually gotten that way, over a matter of years.  Our 'demographics' have changed.  A "failing" school nearby was closed a few years ago, and we absorbed many of those kids when we were already struggling to keep above water.  No one ever answered our SOS calls. The people I have worked with have, for the most part, been awesome, and that is one reason why I have stayed.  I think that happens in many struggling schools - the teachers band together and support each other because they don't get the support from anywhere or anyone else.  So while things were challenging, this school year was the first time ever in the 24 years that I had been at the school that I requested a transfer (requesting to transfer is NOT the same thing as actually getting a transfer...it just opens the door for you to pursue it).

This past year, I regularly calculated the amount of days remaining until retirement.  The formula went something like (3.5 x 182) + r, if r = the number of days remaining in the year.  I never purchase alcohol and rarely drink, but this year by the Thursday of testing week, I was rummaging in the kitchen drawers for a corkscrew.  I was sure the pain in my neck and shoulders would require professional assistance.  I could barely turn my head or tilt my head back to drink.  

Married life has also not been all sunshine and rainbows for some time now. Without dragging all of that out, lets just say that someone's expectations exceeded someone else's capacity to give.  And that some people seem happiest when they are miserable.  And that misery seems to expect company.  

In  mid April our principal stood before the school board and explained that she needed to be able to pick her own team of teachers and that she needed teachers that could teach these "children of poverty".  The school board, by a narrow margin, granted her permission to "reconstitute" her staff.  We would all need to reapply for our jobs and be interviewed if we wished to stay.  Having been told earlier in faculty meetings that we need to "own" the students' lack of achievement, it was the proverbial final slap in the face for many.  All of the blood, sweat, and tears we had given for years was so unappreciated.

I assumed that I would stay.  I had my reasons.  I had *only* 3.5 years remaining.  I didn't want to start over somewhere else.  I didn't want to move.  Better to stay with what you know than to go with what you don't know.  But truth be told, you can boil those reasons down to two:  fear and laziness.  

The pain and stress in my shoulders and neck intensified.

Nearly a week later - on April 23 - I was at daily Mass at the church near my school.  The first reading that day was from the Acts of the Apostles, and the first few sentences were something along the lines of the good that happened because of those who were scattered by persecution.  The Gospel spreading because of those who were persecuted.  This resonated with me, because by that point, it had become apparent that many on our faculty (good)  were going to choose to leave (scatter) because of the attitude and treatment (persecution) they had received.  

It was NOT a lightening-bolt moment.  It was just a quiet, "hmmm, that's interesting" moment.  I was at a point where I didn't even realize that I had a decision to make.  I just assumed it would be made for me.  If the principal wanted me, I would stay; and if not, I would go.  There is adoration after Mass on Tuesdays, and I had a few minutes before I had to be at school, so I stayed.  I jotted a few questions in my journal.  I said a quick prayer to be open to God's plan.  But I wasn't planning on making any life-changing decisions - at least not that day.  I had no idea what opening the door just a little bit had done.

When I got to school, I chatted with a co-teacher friend about 8th grade math and inquired about her plans for the coming year.  She was not returning.  I went on about my business for the day.  I can not explain what happened, but sometime before lunch, the thought formed in my head, "You do not have to come back here next year." (Was it that quiet whispering voice of God?)  By the time I went on lunch duty, I heard those words coming out of my mouth, "I'm not coming back here next year!"  And it felt good! 

As I drove home from school that day, I noted that I could turn my head without pain.  That, alone, was confirmation of my decision.  It has been nearly 3 months since that day, and that pain, that stress has NOT returned to my body.  One of my co-workers noted later that it "sounded like a healing".  Maybe it was!

I walked into my house, dropped my keys on the counter and said to my husband, "I'm not going back there next year."  "Good," was his reply.

The next day I went to Mass at my own parish.  I am sure the homily was not very memorable to most who attended that day, but all I could say when he finished was "wow!"  My good priest, had chosen to preach on how we hear the Spirit.  It starts as a seed planted in the Liturgy (just like at Mass yesterday).  Then it is nourished by prayer (staying for Adoration) and in talking with others (like my friend before school and other teachers during the day).  "We seldom hear God speak to us in a booming voice" (I sure didn't), he went on.  The Spirit works through ordinary things.  The more he said, the bigger my smile got.  It was as if he had been following me the day before.  I had to email him and tell him "thank you", even though I'm sure his homily was in no way intentional...more like following the Spirit.  More confirmation.

As I told my co-workers of my decision in the following days, I received responses ranging from high-fives to sadness to questioning if it was really God that I was hearing.  One of my favorite responses was from our 80-something year old clerk...the only person who has been there longer than me.  "Good for you!" she said.  The next morning, I found a fortune-cookie sized slip of paper in my box from her.  I taped it to an index card and stuck it on the door to the cabinet behind my desk.

As the year drew to a close, my co-workers and I began to dream of what might await us beyond our current situations.  There were a huge number of resignations and retirements during the school year throughout our system, so chances were excellent that there would be some desirable positions available.  If we chose to be displaced, we had to be placed somewhere, and we had first choice of what would be available.

"Don't work for a woman." (that piece of advice from a woman)
"Get off of this side of town." (From our campus cop)
"It's a matter of you choosing who you want to work for."
 "Don't go to a 'D' or 'F' school."
"You might like a mild/moderate class."  (from my friend who taught the mild/moderate class at our school)
"I think I might like a school where children actually bring pencils to school."
"My dream school will have its own Brainpop account," I messaged a co-worker one night.  "Way to dream big," she replied.
"I want a  good boss," I had texted one of my old [good] bosses.

"Where are you going?  What are you going to do?" people would ask.  "I don't know," I would reply with a smile.  "They have to put me somewhere and I'm sure God has a plan that is better than mine.  I'm sure wherever I end up, there will be a reason."  I stuck with that line throughout.  "God has a plan."  People would tell me that they were praying for me to get a "good school" and I would ask them to simply pray for me to know the "right one" when it presented itself.  But truthfully almost anything had to be better.

On May 6, ironically the first day of Teacher Appreciation Week, at a faculty meeting that lasted past 5 pm, as a huge roach crawled across the ceiling in our library, we were given papers to sign indicating whether we would (a) reapply for our jobs (b) voluntarily be displaced or (c) resign or retire.  Nearly 2/3 of the faculty checked the second option.  Only 6 core teachers of 19 asked to stay, and one of those has since accepted a job in another system.  Words like "blindsided" were whispered in the coming days, but I don't know if that was really the case.  However, I am glad the task of filling the shoes of those that chose to leave is not mine.  Other schools are gaining some wonderful teachers.

The next day, I returned to Mass at the church near my school.  "Sometimes it is better not to stay," said the pastor in his homily.  The Biblical reference was to the Ascension of Jesus, who could not stay with His Apostles,  but the application to my life was too obvious to be missed.  I had to hug him after Mass.  After 24 years, I had chosen not to stay.  More confirmation.

Married life continued to limp along.  Things were seemingly calm on the surface, but the anger and resentment leap out of any writing I did at that time.  My good confessor had told me months earlier to offer the anger to God every day.  He said it wasn't wrong to be angry, but to offer it so that Jesus could help me channel it.  And every day, to ask God to help me be as patient with   as God is with me.  And so I did.  About mid-May, with all the other stresses of special ed paperwork and moving and planning my last Honors night, my frustration with married life was overwhelming.  "I can't fix it. Only God can," were the words that ended a long, ranting journal entry - I guess that is where I channeled the anger.  Those are true words.  In our weakness is often when God's power is shown.  

Maybe it was that day, or maybe it was a few days later, I stood in front of the tabernacle in the quiet, empty church, and told God the same thing:  "I can't fix it.  You show me what I need to do, but you are going to have to handle the rest, Lord, because I am fresh out of ideas. You made him.  He's yours.  You fix him."  I think sometimes God gets right on those prayers...the prayers of desperation or surrender.  It didn't take him long before he showed me what I could do.  It was something I knew already, but haven't done nearly enough of.  I have had the sense for quite some time, that "this kind only comes out by prayer."

Later that morning, I met up with one of my favorite substitute teachers at school.  She is an older black lady, and there has been a connection from almost the first time she subbed for someone in my classroom.  We have had good conversations, and I love talking to her.  So that particular morning, I went out of my way to visit with her while she was standing outside of a classroom.  She started to tell me about a book that she had gotten the night before from her church library (where I had just visited hours earlier)  that she could NOT put down.  "The Power of  a Praying Wife," she said.  "Please, you HAVE to read it," she begged.   "OK, God, I hear you," I thought.  When I got home that evening, I dug out the Amazon Gift Card I had gotten for Christmas, downloaded the book, and began to read.  It was good.

Sunset over the Mississippi River 7.9.13

The school year was wrapping up.  Packing picked up steam.  The week before Mother's Day, I had placed a box on one of the desks in my classroom and labeled it "Give Away Box".  I explained to my students that they could take anything they wanted out of that box. Two items that were placed in there early on were a half burned candle in a cute container, and a kind of ugly yellow flowery coffee mug that I had used to hold pens and pencils.  Things I neither wanted to throw in the garbage or move.  Two different kids plucked them out of the box, and each kid asked me if I had some wrapping paper.  They were so proud to have something for their moms for Mother's Day.  It was sad and sweet all at the same time.

The Give Away box became two, and then covered a couple of desks, too.  I have a friend starting her own homeschooling business, so her husband came and picked up much of it.  I emptied filing cabinets (except for one drawer I had no idea what to do with).  I bagged the contents of my desk in ZipLocs and wiped out the drawers.  The closet gradually emptied.  I threw away so many things.  Finally it was done. The room echoed. There was a little twinge of sadness, but mostly relief.

I had heard about a potential opening at a middle school 4 minutes from my house.  It met one or two of the requirements on my list.  It was a mild moderate class in the back of the school somewhere.  I dropped off a resume and a cover letter and even interviewed with the principal, but the teacher who was leaving had not yet resigned.  I did what I could to make that job happen, but it did not.  So I assumed God's answer on that one was "no".

When Human Resources began to make the long-awaited phone calls, I once again found myself in the quiet church.  All along, I had prayed to know the right job when it came along, but now it was crunch time.  "How will I know?" I asked out loud to the good Lord.  There was silence.  But I clicked open my journal (it is on my iPad and is one of the best things ever).  I made 2 lists:  Jobs I Would Say Yes To and Jobs I Would Say No To.  There were 4 on each list.

Finally, I called HR, because they didn't seem to be calling me, and they started fumbling around for openings I was qualified for.  There were not many.  A self-contained class at School J, I automatically dismissed because it was "too far" to drive.  Others I said "no" to because they were worse than what I had left.  Nothing on my "yes list" was offered.  There was one more - one that I had put on my "no" list. But it seemed like the lesser of the evils being offered.  So in the heat of the moment, I accepted it.

When I met with the principal that afternoon, I found out that I had not gotten the whole story from HR, and that I would also be teaching 2 regular subjects in addition to 2 Special Ed classes.  I regretted the choice almost immediately.  The planning and paperwork would have been epic.  The next morning, June 21, I set to work trying to find out if the spot at School J was still available.  I emailed the principal.  I called.  I put the address in my GPS and drove to the school.  Took the chance that someone would be there, and ran into the principal and another staff member.  It felt right.  By that afternoon, the change had been made and I was elated.

As the weeks have passed, I have had time to process it, and check the items off of my wish list.

• Male principal. (Don't work for a woman.) Check.
• On the other side of town.  I think it is the furthest point away from my old school.  Check.
• Not a D or F school.  It's a D, oh well. (Editing to Add:  In October new "grades" came out, and the school improved to a "C")
• A Mild/Moderate class.  Check.
• In the back of the school, out of the drama. There is a garden outside my door.  Check.
• At a school where kids bring pencils. To be determined.
• With its own Brain Pop account. I checked it out, and it worked!  Check.  
• Principal with a soul.  I have heard promising things.  Check.
• Decent supervisor.  Again, I have heard good things.  Probably a check.  (Editing to Add:  Check.)

When I look at that list and see that God answered my prayers, pretty much down to the most ridiculous detail of having its own BrainPop account, I am in awe.  (There is still something in the back of my mind that thinks that may all go out the window when actual people show up, but for now, I am going with gratitude and answered prayers.)

Sometime in the midst of this, things began to be better on the homefront.  It is a superficial kind of better, but I will take that for now.  It is a happier attitude, acceptance, a smile.   I do not know why.  I don't know if it is prayer, or medications, or a reaction to my lack of stress.  But whatever the cause, it is something to be grateful for.

I am looking forward to the coming school year with hope, instead of dread.  God is so very good!

11/29/13 Editing to add:  When the "School Report Cards" were issued in October, my new school moved up from a "D" school to a "C" school.  Now even that can be checked off of the list.  Everything I asked for, I received, through no merit of my own.  Glory be to God!

  

done

 It's been a few weeks since I locked the door for the last time and left the keys in my box.

Twenty-four years worth of stuff sorted through, purged, and packed.  We relived a few memories along the way of kids who had come and gone.  We made many trips to the dumpster.  We hugged some kids and wiped away a little snot the last day of school.  Some of them loved us...

This is the sign that was on my door for the last few weeks of school.  One afternoon, the bathroom, the copy machine and the coke machine all had Out of Order signs on them.  I decided to join them, and trust me....it was v.e.r.y out of order in my room!

The days at the end were bittersweet.  I have loved the people I've worked with.  I've loved my cozy room.  I've even loved the kids.  But in the end, it was mostly relief that I felt.  We had a deadline of 9 pm on our last workday to have everything out, and we made it with hours to spare.  The later it got, the more we threw in the garbage can.  When the room started to echo, I knew that we were close.  

This was my corner of the room.  I took pictures when we were finished, but for some reason, none of them came out.  A friend took these for me a few days later, and my desk has been pushed against the wall and the student desks pushed to the other side.  The red cabinet door - a previous owner had painted them, and I thought the red was awful.  So we kept them covered with blue paper.  

The view from my desk.  I will miss my Promethean board.  

The side with my assistant's desk, the kids' desks, and the computers.  

The view outside my door.  Unique architecture for a school, but I always thought it was pretty.  Our custodians kept it nicely landscaped and clean.

I have defined "done" in different ways...the empty room, the boxes stacked in my garage, the pile of clothes that I won't wear in public again...

They say when one door closes, another opens, and I am looking forward to that.  I have had one interview, but hiring is frozen in our system right now.  Some teachers are waiting to retire/resign, so it is hard to get an accurate picture of what is available.  

The last five weeks of the school year - when I knew that I didn't have to go back - were the best ones of the entire year.  It feels great not to be stressed and to be able to turn my head without pain.  I feel for the people who chose to stay.  

In the end, I packed what I wanted and disposed of the rest.  But the most important things that I took didn't fit in a box.  Each and every person that I worked with touched my life in some way...and that is the real treasure of what I took away.  

it opened

Going off of the last post....I knocked; the door opened.

I have been so extremely stressed about the goings on at my school lately.  Even if I try to avoid it, my body knows what is happening and the knots in my back and neck and shoulders give it away.

I met the whole "reconstitution" issue with a rather neutral frame of mind.  No real feeling one way or the other.  And then mixed feelings.  Almost immediately after it passed, our principal began drafting her new "team"...meeting with the teachers she would like to stay.  Many of them are choosing to leave in spite of her offer. Thursday and Friday passed with no contact from her (and so have the first 3 days of this week).  Monday she was out (interviewing our replacements at a job fair).

Monday, after speaking to my sister-in-law the night before, I had posted the St. Michael prayer as my Facebook status.  St. Michael and I are pretty good friends - he has gotten me through some tough times before.  On Tuesday, I woke up like any other day.  I went to Mass at the church near my school.  The first reading caught my attention.  It was from the Acts of the Apostles and spoke of the good that was accomplished by those who were scattered as a result of persecution.  I know they weren't talking about middle school teachers, but that just stuck with me.   The people at my school have always been a family, and now we are being scattered to the four winds.

They have adoration after Mass on Tuesday, so I stayed for a few minutes, wrote a few questions in my journal about it, asked for guidance and the openness to know His plan.  I thought about my integrity as a person and how much I am willing to put up with.  A flash of the staff member that gave me so many problems a few years back had also visited me in a dream the previous week.  (I'm not much for putting a lot of stock in my dreams, and I seldom even remember them, but that seemed to remind me that her return to our workplace was a possibility.)

I arrived at school and ran across one of my friends on the sidewalk.  I followed her to her room, and we chatted about 8th grade math and her plans for next year (she is leaving).  Nothing dramatic.

I do not know what happened. But by the time I went on lunch duty, I heard the words "I'm not coming back here next year" coming out of my mouth.  I don't know where they came from.  I've been at this school forever - I've taught the parents and aunts and uncles of the kids I teach now.  I have always joked that I would die or retire there.  Lately with the stress - dying seems the more likely option.  (An assistant principal and another teacher left last week on medical leave.)

As I drove home Tuesday afternoon, I noted that the stress in my shoulders and neck was gone!!  That was confirmation enough for me that the decision was the right one.  Where will I be next year?  Not a clue.  What will I be teaching next year?  I don't know.  But I do know that God has a plan, and it is better than mine.  Will it be some piece of cake dream job?  Probably not.  But there will be a reason why I am where I am.

I didn't really need any more confirmation.  But the next morning at Mass with my own good priest, I sat in amazement.  In his homily, he detailed the very process that I had walked through the day before when we "hear" God.  The "seed" planted in liturgy;  the prayer and discernment; the conversation with others; the fact that it seldom comes in a huge booming voice, but often a quiet whisper.  He likened it to the process of how the politicking that went on before the pope was chosen...the Holy Spirit moves in ordinary things.  It wasn't a particularly memorable homily, but it was a WOW! moment for me.

And if I needed any further thumbs up, the fight that I broke up between 2 brawling 13-year-olds in the middle of 3rd hour math class did it.  I maneuvered one - the one who was 'losing' -  outside of the classroom while the other teacher called the office for assistance and kept the other kid inside the classroom.  The kid I had in my grasp broke away and stood outside banging and kicking and screaming at the locked classroom door.  There's the door thing again!  After our campus cop and an assistant principal arrived to take them away, the other teacher looked at me and asked, "reconsidering your decision yet?"

So my focus for the next couple of weeks is to finish the never-ending paperwork, as much as it can be finished and then to sort and pack.  My prayer is to know the right job when it appears on my radar.

The only other person who has been at my school longer than me is our 80-something year old clerk in the front office.  I whispered my decision to her yesterday.  Today, I found a fortune cookie sized slip of paper from her in my box.  It made my heart smile.

 True words.  He makes all things new.

Editing to Add:  The disappearance of the horrendous stress that was weighing down on me has been signal enough for me that the decision is the right one.  Everything else on my plate has remained....but the stress has not returned.

Last Monday, I signed the paper to make my decision official.  I did this as a humongous cockroach inched across the ceiling in the school library.  I said that I would like to be "displaced".  I will be placed somewhere else in the system.  On Tuesday, as I sat at the same church where the seed had been planted a few weeks earlier, the theme of the priest's homily went along with the Gospel "sometimes it is better not to stay."   I could have hugged him.  As a matter of fact, I did, after Mass.  

And one more...because the confirmations keep coming.  On Monday, I was spending a few quiet moments in the church by my school (same church) before school.  I was looking in my "Courage to Change" book from AlAnon for readings about some other issues (there is a reading for each day, but an index of topics in the back), and I figured I would start with that day's reading.  What should I find, but this?

COURAGE TO CHANGE
I find it much easier to risk making decisions when I stop thinking about suffering the consequences and remember that I have the option to enjoy the consequences. Since coming to Al-Anon, I make my choices my conscientiously. I do whatever footwork seems appropriate and then turn the results over to God. The results are often quite favorable. Even when they aren't, I can still celebrate the fact that I have done my part.

For a long time, I avoided decisions because I was sure that there was some magical "right" choice that would get me what I wanted, yet I never seemed to know which choice that was. I waited until the last minute to decide and never felt good about my choices. Today I know that choosing not to decide is to decide.

It can be very liberating to make a decision. Once the choice is made, I can trust that the consequences will unfold as they should. With a slight change of attitude, perhaps I can await them with excitement and hope instead of fear and dread.

I have to think that my recent acquaintance with this group - though I have not been on a regular basis - has given me the courage to at least make this change in my life.

God is good!

doors

It seems that doors have been slipping in and out of my thoughts of late.  Kind of random, I know.

Last Saturday, as I quietly entered the adoration chapel, I took note of the door.  A keypad on the outside.  Then carefully, slowly, closing the door behind me as I entered, so as not to disturb the others.

It reminded me of the way I enter the confessional, minus the keypad.  Stepping inside and quietly closing the door behind myself.  And in both cases, it is Jesus who waits on the other side of the door.   In the Chapel in the Eucharistic Presence.  In the confessional, in Persona Christi –  in the person of Christ present through the priest who offers counsel, mercy, absolution.  Grace and peace available in both places – overflowing grace and mercy and peace.

During the Triduum and sometimes during Communion at Mass, I am struck by the open tabernacle.  It was about the doors again.  During the Triduum, the Tabernacle is open, empty.  When Mass begins on Holy Thursday, the Tabernacle is empty.  After the Eucharistic procession, the Blessed Sacrament is placed in the Tabernacle during Adoration, but the end of the appointed time, it is removed, and again the Tabernacle is vacant.  There is a feeling that all is not quite right in the world.  On Good Friday and on into the Easter Vigil, the Tabernacle is empty and its emptiness in there for all to behold.  When finally, at the end of the Easter Vigil Celebration, the Eucharist is placed in the Tabernacle, and the door is closed, there is a sense that order has returned to the world.  During Communion last week, it occurred to me that the empty Tabernacle is rather like the empty tomb.  Jesus is among us.

The weekend after Easter, the Gospel is the one for Divine Mercy Sunday.  The one where the  Apostles are gathered behind locked doors.  My priest chose to concentrate on the "locked doors" for his homily.  We all hide behind "locked doors" of some kind.  Whether its a locked door of impatience, unforgiveness, fear, addiction, anxiety, etc.  God is with us - as he was with the Apostles - behind the locked doors.  Later that afternoon, I emailed my pastor about the possibility of blessing the Eagle project detailed in the previous post.  He knows my struggles and my situation well, and I signed my email with something along the lines of  "unlocking doors, one deadbolt at a time".  He replied that he would indeed bless the project and that I could "start with the hinges if the lock was very difficult to turn".  This made me smile, and I thought for a minute, that maybe he was talking about someone else in my life who is very difficult, but then I realized that I don't have the keys to that person's locks.  It must be my own hinges that I need to start with.

There is a door that I often stand in front of.  It is the door to the tabernacle at a church near where I currently work.  There are images of wheat there.  The Bread of Life within.  Me, just a grain of wheat.

Sometimes, when no one else is in the church, I feel myself drawn to the Tabernacle.  I kneel in front and try to open myself to the graces He has to give.  Sometimes my prayer is, "Lord, fill me."  So much strength and peace comes from those quiet moments.  When school is out, and I am no longer in that area on a daily basis, I miss these minutes very much.

I began this post a week or so ago, and tonight another door image floated into my consciousness.  It has been a very difficult year at work.  We changed principals at midterm and our new principal proposed that she be allowed to "reconstitute" the school.  Last night her proposal was approved by the school board. This means that all staff must reapply for their jobs.  Most are seeing it as an opportunity to leave.  I am viewing it with mixed emotions.  I have been at this school for half of my life.  The friendships I have made there will endure, I think.  People have come and gone, but we have always been a family.  There is the feeling that the door on this chapter of my life is clanging shut a little sooner than I would have liked.  I have 3.5 years to retirement.  But, I have confidence that God will put me where I need to be.  When one door closes, another tends to open.

Knock, and the door shall be opened.

bread of life

Reconciliation and laundry.  That could kind of sum up my weekend.  All in all, I think a lot was accomplished.

Got most of the laundry done!  Yay!  Got some paperwork from school taken care of.  Unnecessary, but required.  Special Ed progress reports are the most useless piece of paperwork that we do.  (Report cards should be enough of a progress report, in my humble opinion.)  You want to know how useless they are??  I didn't do them for years...and the world did not come to an end!  No child was harmed.  Education was not impeded.  But now with the computer age, Big Brother can check on us to make sure they were done.  So they were done.

You remember my penance from a couple of weeks ago....the one about asking God to show me how to be Compassionate Shepherd, Bread of Life, Giver of Hope in my life?  I had one long conversation with the Lord about that, and it left as many questions as answers.  The advice from my good priest was to "keep talking and keep listening."  So I have been listening with at least half an ear.  One thing that I found interesting was that nearly every day (this Sunday being an exception) I have come across at least one of those words in the Scripture readings of the day.  I was wondering if the string would continue throughout Lent.

But in the conversation, I had kind of skipped over the whole Bread of Life thing.  I figured that was the Good Lord's job.  How could I possibly be the Bread of Life??  But this weekend, I was reading Mother Teresa's Come Be My Light (excellent!!) and I came across an answer to just that!  She wondered at "the greatness of the humility of God? in making Himself the "Bread of Life", and believed that "our live must be woven with the Eucharist"...that we must give ourselves just as totally to others...especially since Christ makes Himself present in the poor.  We are to become "bread" to feed the "hungry Christ".

And really...that kind of makes sense.  Especially when we consume the Eucharist...the Eucharist doesn't become part of us...we become (or should become) the Gift that we receive - Jesus.  We are a Eucharistic people...blessed and broken for others.

One thing that I have been working on for a while is the Ad Altare Dei religious award with a small group of Boy Scouts.  We have 4 in the group - 2 of them mine.  We are working through the sacraments one at a time, and today we finished up with Reconciliation.  I don't think that I am wasting my time, but with 4 teenage boys, there is a good bit of goofing off, and  I sometimes wonder if we are accomplishing very much...if anything is sinking in.  It has a lot of book requirements and discussion questions, and sometimes the discussing is very limited.

Each sacrament (chapter) ends with some type of prayer service.  For Baptism, I think we washed each other's hands and re-lit our Baptismal candles.  For confirmation, we did something about recognizing each other's gifts.  For the others, I used the suggestions in the leader's guide, but this one I did myself.  I think it turned out nicely.  The two other moms had good things to say about it, and sometimes I do think they think we are wasting their time. 

We started off with a song courtesy of my iPad...Matt Maher's "Every Little Prison", because, you know, sin is like a prison.  This particular song was based on the Litany of Humility.



Then we lit candles off of the one representing Jesus in the middle and recalled how at Baptism, our candles were "lit".  After a prayer and a reading of the Prodigal Son with a little explanation thrown in about how it relates to confession, we blew out the candles and went through an examination of conscience for teens.  I modified it from this.  We took turns reading and commenting as we saw fit.  Then it was time to say an Act of Contrition and relight out candles (which is what happens in confession) to share our light with the world.  To finish up, I played "Only Grace" by Matthew West. 



Maybe some of them will be encouraged to go to confession during the Lenten season.  Maybe someone reading this will be...  GO!

Life is good and the weather is awesome!

locked down

Friday morning dawned with a cold, wet rain falling. 

One of my sons had an overnight guest because Thursday night was some kind of Beavis and Butthead great event.  (B & B can only be enjoyed by teenage boys, I think).  He did not have the proper documentation to ride the bus to school with my sons on Friday, and the cold wet rain really made standing at the bus-stop unappealing, so I told them that they could just come to Mass with me and I would drop them at school afterwards.

You can imagine how excited 3 teenage boys were about going to 6:30 a.m. Mass, but they knew better than to protest too much. 

They must have prayed, though, because when we got to church, there was no Mass.  Our sacristan was in the parking lot, sending people on their way.  Father was sick (food poisoning, my altar server sons told me tonight). 

So we continued on our way to High School.  I haven't dropped them off since the first day of school, and it was daylight then.   But at 6:30 this particular morning, it was dark, dark, dark, rainy, and cold.  (They start school at 7:05).

We noted a few buses arriving.  The gate in the front where I would normally drop off (I dropped off a lot more often last year, when we lived 5 minutes away) was locked.  So figuring that we were just too early, we pulled into the parking lot on the side where the teachers were arriving and decided to wait a few minutes.

After the requisite few minutes, I decided to drive them to the front and drop them off - there appeared to be activity there.  Imagine my surprise/aggravation to find myself locked in - a gate across the street - locked.  It's raining and dark, still. 

The boys and I made our way into the building.  The halls were patrolled by bright-eyed teachers directing the boys to go to the gym.  I explained my predicament and I was sent upstairs to the library where the administrators were holding forth for some reason.  I was met in the library by a posse of police and various school personnel who seemed to be on their way out and into action.  Something about a bomb threat.

The posse of police didn't really alarm me - I knew a couple of them from my own school - which is a really sad commentary right there.  They periodically gather to conduct random searches (another sad fact).  And a bomb threat - well, when  was the last time you heard about a school actually blowing up when someone called in a threat?  I just wanted to get out.

I explained my situation again, and they said they would send *someone* to unlock the gate.  When I got there, the gate was indeed unlocked and additional cars trying to drop off children had turned in.  But there was someone out there locking it back....telling those of us who were now locked in - that we would have to go out "the other way". 

What other way?  "Follow those cars," someone told me.  And all was well until 2 cars went straight and 2 cars went left.  I stopped and waited.  It was wet and it was dark.  Those that turned left seemed to know where they were going, so I eventually picked that.  Wrong!  Ended up on a soccer field or something.  Turned around and headed back the other way.  All the way to the back of the campus, around the back of the stadium, and back along the other side of the school.

I had thoughts of calling in sick if this was any indication of the way the day was going to go.  

By the time I was free, I had missed my chance for 7:00 Mass, but was able to make 7:15 at another parish.

Missed my workout.  Shucks!  Heard later in the day that our Curves is closing....like Monday.  :-(

Later in the afternoon, I crossed paths with the SRO at my school.  He said he had been at my sons' school for the operation there - someone had written a note the previous day threatening to come in and shoot up the place until they ran out of ammo.  They take such things seriously.  Had I known that was what the real threat was, I probably would have packed up my kids and taken them with me. 

Thankfully, the rest of my day did NOT go like the morning.  The rain cleared, though the sun never came out.  My fifth graders - who suck every ounce of patience from me on a daily basis -  were a pleasure to work with - rare occurrence that is! 

My children came home safely.  Life is good.

keep calm and carry on....

Maybe life will slow down a bit.

We moved the last bit of stuff out of the old house this weekend.  (not out of the shed or storage area, but out of the house.)  That is good, because now I can focus on putting away stuff at the new house, instead of trying to keep the balance of moving stuff out and moving stuff in.  Maybe sometime around Christmas we will actually be able to park our cars in the garage.

Our renter moved in yesterday.  My stepson's mother.  My husband's ex-wife.  At first it was really a weird proposition. Kind of ironic.  But I think it will be a good arrangement.

Sometimes our priest uses the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer of Reconciliation.  In part it says...

Your Spirit changes our hearts: enemies begin to speak to one another, 

those who were estranged join hands in friendship...

Your Spirit is at work when understanding puts an end to strife, 

when hatred is quenched by mercy, 

and vengeance gives way to forgiveness.

When I hear that, it makes me think of this current arrangement.  Things were not sunshine and roses 20 years ago.  But the Spirit is at work in the world and in our lives if we allow it.

Just when I think that I've seen everything at school - teaching in a middle school for all these many years - something happens and I know that I have not.   Yesterday my student with autism was freaking out because he had missed his bus.  "Take a deep breath," I told him.  So he did.  And then proceeded to blow the whole thing in my face.(I wonder if that's what it was like when Jesus 'breathed' on his Apostles!)  If there had been a birthday cake with a 100 candles on it, he would have surely extinguished them all!  Ewwww!!  I politely wiped the mist off of my face with my shirt.  Keep calm and carry on. (I saw that on Suzette's blog a while back....so appropriate!)  One of us freaking out was quite enough.  When I got home, I found my pro-biotics.
 

I am frustrated with part of my current situation.  There were many cuts in my department last year.  We lost three teacher assistants and a teacher.  Now there are just two of us who remain, but we have about 50% more students spread throughout 4 grade levels.  There are simply not enough minutes in the day for us to provide what they need.  I have three fifth graders (of the 8 who are assigned to me) who are reading below a first grade level.  I know that what little I am giving them is truly not providing what they need.  They NEED to learn how to read.  I am failing them, but even more, our system is failing them.  

I suppose my next step is to start calling parents to let them know that we cannot provide what their IEPs say that we must.  My supervisor's solution is to double-up grades...teach the 5th graders and 6th graders together for example.  But putting 16 special needs kids in a room with one teacher really does not meet any needs, either.  It just lets them say that they are "providing services".  I refuse to play that game...

Sigh.  Keep calm and carry on.

show me the good

This post has been in the back of my mind for a couple of months...  And since nothing else seems to be in my mind... indulge me.    It kind of feels a little bit like one of those "specials" in the middle of a season of Survivor...where they just hash over old stuff...with a couple of new scenes.

Last year, at the beginning of August, I was d.r.e.a.d.i.n.g the start of school.  The previous year had not ended on a good note and the climate was just toxic.  And so because I figured I needed all the grace I could get, and because it was probably just "time", I went to confession, bringing with me the fear and the mistrust of the coming year.  I blogged about it here.  My penance was so, so perfect.  I know the Spirit works through his servant here.  Pray, he said, for God to show you the good He wants you to become.

So, I did.  It was simple, but I knew it would be good.  What I didn't count on, was that God would answer it literally and quickly. 

By the end of the month, I had two answers.  One came in the form of a lady that attended daily Mass, sitting across from me.  She was the unmistakeable sister of one of the people at work who was giving me so much grief.  I thought it was a bit humorous, that God sent a visual aid to remind me to pray for the woman.  But I had asked, "Show me the good You want me to become."  And He did.  "Pray for those who persecute you."  This lady attended Daily Mass at our parish for several months, but eventually I stopped seeing her there.  I asked her sister - by now we were on speaking terms - if she was OK.  She said she was...but sometimes she liked to attend Mass closer to where she worked.   But she was there as a visual aid when I needed her.  She may never know what purpose her presence there at Mass served. (Remember that if some days you don't know why you are at Mass or you don't feel like you are "getting" anything from it. God may be using you to impact someone, and you have no idea how!)

The second answer was my red-headed co-worker.  We met at our beginning of school faculty meeting, and hit it off almost immediately.  She was a good 10 or so years younger than me, the extrovert to counter my introvert tendencies, the mom of three children under five while my two were entering the teen scene.  She had been teaching long enough to know what she was doing, and to be quite good at it, but not so long that she had ceased to think she could make a difference.  She did not accept "because that's the way we've always done it" as an answer and she did not accept less than their best from and for our students.   She was a breath of fresh air for me, and I learned from her.  And she was a friend.  She was "displaced" at the end of last year, and I miss her dearly this year.  I miss our secret knock, the someone to bounce ideas off of, and our lunchtime conversations.  But I know that God sent her for a purpose.  An answer to that prayer, "Show me..."

Lord, continue to show me the good You want me to become.  Let my eyes be open to see it.

finding the rhythm

School is out for summer!  (Hearing bits of that Alice Cooper ditty playing on my boys' iPods...)  I've enjoyed a whole week of that freedom, and it surely does go fast! 

But just for the record, I did devote one entire day to a Promethean Mini-Conference that was an example of Professional Development done right!  Wondering what Promethean is??  It is about the most wonderful thing to hit the education world since computers!  I love my Promethean Board; I use it every.single.day, but there is so much more that I could do with it, and it was good to get ideas. 

I also did go visit with my principal one morning.  I wanted to see what the schedule looked like for next year, and find out the status of my room and the "consolidation".  He said for now, my room is "safe".  That is some consolation, though I know never to count on anything such as that.  However, I am done with it until I have to show up again in August.  I have spoken, he has heard, the rest is out of my hands.

My priest is taking a break this week from being a "fisher of men".  I think he's spending time in the Gulf of Mexico fishing for real fish.  And as such, there have been no Masses at all at our parish since last Sunday.  Lucky are we to have other places where the Lord waits for us. 

Every year, I see summer stretching ahead of me with great potential for getting things done.  And then, only a tiny fraction of what I envisioned actually gets done.  What happens?  For one thing...summer heat.  It just saps your strength.  Especially when anything involves being outside.  It's not even summer yet, and our temps are hitting the upper 90's.  Arghhh.  Besides the heat, the pace just seems to slow.

The priest on Tuesday mentioned that this is a season of reflection/mediation, education (read some of the books in this library...that was at the church that burnt that has daily Mass in the parish library), and service.  Frankly, that sounds like a pretty good use of summer for me, and the slower pace lends itself to some of that....especially the reflection.

During the school year, I found a great rhythm.  I would drop off my kidlet at his school and then proceed down the road to the church near my school.  There I could have 20, 30, maybe 40 minutes (if there wasn't a Mass) of time with the Lord before heading into the world of work.  It was an awesome thing, and it was time that would have been otherwise wasted with shuffling papers or idle conversation.  Now I find myself still wanting to spend that time there, but it doesn't fit into my schedule in quite the same way.  I have to go out of my way to spend that time, and I feel guilty.  It reminds me of the Martha and Mary story...wanting to sit at the feet of Jesus, yet feeling the need to be busy about so many other things.  I found this little bit of validation a couple of days ago...on Facebook of all places...posted by The Word Among Us....

Every moment of prayer,

especially before our Lord in the tabernacle,

is a postive gain.

The time we spend in having our daily audience with God

is the most precious part of the whole day.

~Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Who am I to argue with that little woman?

Still looking for the rhythm, though!

the end is near

The end of the school year...and of spring, it seems.  There are 11 or 12 days left of school.  Every year, this is easily the most stressful part of the year.  This year, I thought I was doing good.  I held my last IEP meeting today.  I picked the date for Honors night a month ago, and sent out the papers for teachers to list their awards a couple of weeks ago.  Yet everything comes to a point at the same time.

Our annual scout po-boy sale is this weekend.  I must remember to order 1100 buns tomorrow.  Honors Night is Wednesday and there are still cakes and trophies to order.  Paperwork at school is due.  Stuff that has slacked throughout the year has to be caught up.  Grades have to be inputted.  My 8th grader needs a haircut before graduation.  Paperwork needs to dropped off at the credit union so our loan can continue on its merry way.  Grandkids are coming this weekend.

I had a faculty meeting this morning.  They could have just emailed me all of the dates and saved me the trouble of being there 40 minutes early.  I missed my time with God this morning.  I thought I would go this evening, but my child needed help with his English paper.  The phone has been steadily ringing and now my offspring is in my room, playing Words With Friend on his iPod one moment and texting on his phone the next.  

God and I did continue our conversation yesterday...the one about what He wants for me to leave behind...  It was a little clearer to me, but I think it will be an ongoing conversation. 

A couple of spiritual nuggets:  Let us seek the God of all consolations, rather than the consolations of our God. ~ St. Augustine....in other words, Seek God for Himself. ~ Good Monsignor

And a few things that I thought were noteworthy from a Mother's Day Prayer Breakfast that I attended on Saturday:

The Four Stages of Prayer

• Talking AT God....ready-made prayers like the Rosary
• Talking TO God....sharing our hearts with God
• Listening to God...through scriptures, friends, good homilies, etc
• Resting in God...wordless contemplation of the holiness of God

You must SIT with God every day. (not walk, not drive, SIT)

As long as I agree to be with God, God agrees to be with me.  (Pretty sweet, isn't it?)

So, tomorrow, since I don't have any stupid meetings, I will agree to go and be with God, to sit with Him....listening, maybe resting. 

Lord, help me finish it all. 

work space

This morning, at school, I found this in my box. 

 

There was no accompanying explanation.  My assistant suggested that it looked kind of like a very small toilet.  And maybe the brush was for...well, never mind.

I thought that maybe the brush might be useful for brushing off a keyboard, so I tried it out this afternoon.  And since I had my camera out to take pictures of the thingy above, I snapped a few pictures of the things on my monitor.  What's on yours?

St. Clare has been there for quite a while.  

My best friend is a Poor Clare, so she has St. Clare keeping an eye on me, I suppose.

Above the dear Saint is a sticker with the phone number and email of the poor person that I call when I have a "Special Ed" computer problem.  We don't communicate nearly as much as we did when we had the old wrteched program.

Yes, there is a castle.

One year one of my co-workers, whom I really do like, was a little outdone with me for things beyond my control.  I was told that she referred to me as "the queen".  Hence, the castle.  

One side is the Good Shepherd, which is an image I love. 

The other side of the card is my sweet student, Cody

Sometimes it is on the Good Shepherd side.   Other times it's on the Cody side.

The prayer to St. Michael has a prominent spot at the top.

For a while, I didn't know the prayer.

But now I know it, and I know that St. Michael could have a full time job at my workplace.

Taped on near the bottom is a quote from the Letter of James.  

We were supposed to memorize a Bible verse each week.  

Key word - supposed to.  This one if from week 1.

A sticky note with some book information for one of the many useless forms we have to fill out.

This is actually on the door of my microwave.  I picked some of my favorite Bible verses.  Food for the soul.

I think this is what the thingy is for.  It sticks to the top of your computer (not very well when your monitor is slightly rounded).  The brush is, indeed, for cleaning your keyboard.  I guess the little hole is for a pencil, and it will hold a piece of paper at the bottom.  Interesting.

So what's in your work space?