06.23.07
Social commentary from the preschool level…
In an environment populated by 2-4 year olds, I see startling social commentaries in the children’s interplay every day. These manifest themselves in little sketches carried out, seemingly unobserved. Two boys play that they are being ‘taken away by the cops’. A little girl asserts that she likes herself, after being told that a friend doesn’t like her.
There are times when worldviews manifest themselves in conversation with teachers. Recently, with my sunburn, a little girl asked me if I felt good.
I replied, ” No, I don’t feel good right now because of my sunburn.”
To which she immediately lisped out,”Did you take your meds?”
Startled and hoping I had misunderstood, I questioned,”What?”
She explained,” If you don’t feel good, you should take your meds.”
If I were a wise young woman, I would have been able to turn this into a teachable moment, where I would have hopefully explained that just because I don’t feel good, I shouldn’t necessarily turn to meds first. However, I just stood there gaping in shock and pain as she toddled off.
At a business meeting, we were lauded and encouraged because ‘we get paid to play with kids’. I don’t feel that way. I feel like I am drowning in a sea of 10 to 17 parentless children who are being catered out to me for six hours a day.
We are just teachers who cannot take the place of parents. I cannot really help any of them.
06.22.07
Of Tides and Sunburns…
Well, It looks as if our lady had both a positively thrilling few days at her favorite spot, and a negative reaction for the last couple days.
As she recovers from the worst sunburn of her life ( and her skin has been severely traumatized in this way more than once ), words such as “gently!”, “oatmeal baths” and “OW” spatter her vocabulary in volumes unprecedented. She walks around in a minimal amount of clothing, ape-like, in an effort to minimize stretching of her swollen and inflamed legs. Areas she has never burned before show themselves with actions such as making the bed or attempting to put on shoes.
Besides this somewhat major caveat, the trip to the ocean was wonderful. She was able to read about the sea running from the presence of God while looking out at it. The Pacific has always, in a unique way, brought her mind to the expanse of God’s faithfulness. The tides go in and out, in prescribed form, according to His plan.
She stayed home from work today and looks forward to teaching piano this afternoon…of course she can’t do her hair, or wear anything too constricting to the shoulders. She wonders if she can convincingly use a tablecloth as a muumuu. Hmmm.
Editor’s Note: Before we get a rash of skin cancer warning comments, please be aware; now that her husband has seen what the sun does to Rachel, he is about to go on a sunscreen buying kick, the likes of which has rarely been seen by any wives in this area. Her only way to prevent this is by promising to go by a double pack at Costco with a solemn vow to wear it every day. Fear not for her future.
Editor’s further note: For the skeptics who maintain that writing about one’s self in the third person is a sign of insanity (e.g. Richard Nixon) – it is.
06.14.07
My Posy of Problems (which I like to think of as learning challenges)
Our lady feels the necessity to apologize for her lack of writership. She completed one very exceptional (she thought) and thought-provoking (she hoped) entry, to find the computer deleted it (not her computer) (which was provoking).
In the past four weeks, groups of challenges have come her way.
Week One: Her washing machine broke down, her lights exploded and broke down, their car broke down.
Week Two: She survives lice exposure, gets car back, gets new washing machine.
Week Three: She survives lice exposure, takes husband to get a shot in the neck, gets healthy.
Week Four: She falls prey to illness, misses vacation, notices her car’s water pump has exploded.
We look forward to keeping you updated on the coming week!
The editors
Tea and Psalm 105
Mr. Murray M’Cheyne has provided a ‘scripture schedule’ which I am attempting to follow.
I say attempting. There are multiple times where I get focused on something specific in one of the prescribed four passages and never make it through all of them before 5:40 hits. Accordingly, yesterday’s reading was in Psalm 105. This chapter reflects and glories in the strength and power of the Lord. Verse 4 says, “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually.” Matthew Henry’s Scripture excerpt on this verse reads “seek his face evermore.”
He comments,
Seek it while you live in this world, and you shall have it while you live in the other world.
Charles Spurgeon exhorts,
It must be a blessed thing to seek, or we should not be thus stirred up to do so. To seek his face is to desire his presences his smile, his favour consciously enjoyed. First we seek him, then his strength, and then his face; from the personal reverence, we pass on to the imparted power, and then to the conscious favour. This seeking must never cease – the more we know the more we must seek to know. Finding him, we must “our minds inflame to seek him more and more.” He seeks spiritual worshippers, and spiritual worshippers seek him; they are therefore sure to meet face to face ere long.
I drink my Red Lychee and reflect.
