The Help

On our last trip to Canada, Phil and I listened to The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  It was unabridged which meant it was 15 CDs with 18 hours of story.  The actresses who did the reading were phenomenal.  They gave such expression and emotion to the characters that they came alive.  They skillfully used their voices to make the listening a moving experience.  I know many of you may have watched the movie (I have bought it but not watched it yet), but I’ll wager that the book is much better than the movie.  Books usually are.

The book highlights the lives of black maids working for white ladies in Jackson, Mississippi in the 60’s and 70’s.  It shows the good and the bad of these relationships.  Most of all, it shows how the culture you are brought up in shapes your life and your thinking.  The characters in the story challenge others to look at the reality of what they are doing, and to realize how those outside their culture perceive them.

I always know a good book by the amount of thinking it causes me to do.  I know that it is a powerful story when I’m still thinking about it weeks after I have read it.  It gave Phil and me so many things to talk about on our trip, and we are still having conversations surrounding it as Will is now listening to this on his many trips over the mountain.

One of the most profound things it has led me to think about is the culture I was raised in.   Growing up in a Christian home and going to church all my life has shaped how I think.  Mostly it is for the good.  But I realize that there are things I do, ideas I hold, that when looked at outside my culture seem strange.  And it causes me to want to look harder at what I say and do, and to be more aware of how those things are perceived by others outside my culture.

  

Transfiguration

This summer at camp we learned 1 Timothy 4:12 which says, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believer in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”  I’ve been thinking lately that I wish there was another verse that said, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are old, but set an example for the believer…”  In many ways, some of the older folks I’m watching are not setting a good example of what a believer should look like in the later stages of life.

In The Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight writes about Jesus’ transfiguration.  In the transfiguration Jesus reveals His glory to His disciples.  It is the glory that awaits Him when He returns to His rightful place in heaven.  But it is also the glory that awaits us …And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  (2 Cor. 3:18)

McKnight makes the case that, as we mature in Christ and as we age physically, we should be experiencing transfiguration.  He gives the example of  Hyung  Goo, whose wife wrote about his battle with AIDS and eventual death from the disease.  She watched his body fade away, but his spirit was being transfigured before her eyes.

“Maybe that was what I was seeing when Hyung Goo looked at me and all I could see was love.  I was not succumbing to sentimental imagination.  I was living with an icon, with a person whose face had begun to shine like Moses’ did when he came down from the mountain.  [She adds…] Hyung Goo was more whole when he died than he had been at any other time in his life."

Andrew Peterson has a song I love along these same lines.  Part of the lyrics to “Queen of Iowa” goes like this:

            I met the queen of Iowa

She was dying on a couch in the suburbs

And with all of the things she was dying of

She was more alive than the others

Her majesty was all ablaze

She was burning hot but not consumed

            Our shoes removed in that holy place

In the hallowed ground of the living room

As I drove to Indiana this week to help some of my elderly relatives, I got to see some spectacular displays of color from the fall foliage.  Some of it just took my breath away.  And then the thought came to me…”The leaves are dying, and yet they are ablaze and full of glory.”  Recently I read a post from Donald Miller that said, “All the trees are losing their leaves, and not one of them is worried.” 

That’s what I want when I grow old:  to be ablaze with glory, so much that it takes someone’s breath away.  I don’t want to worry about the things I may be losing.  God has a plan.  He is in perfect control.

Proverbs 4:18 (MSG) says “The ways of right-living people glow with light; the longer they live, the brighter they shine.”  I am praying that I find some elderly who are like that.  And most of all I am praying that I might be one of them, when the time comes, that sets an example for others to follow.

Celebrating Education

It is popular in a lot of the books and magazines I read these days to find impassioned calls for “social justice.”  These ideas proceed from God’s call in the scripture in places like Isaiah 58 (one of my very favorite passages in the Bible):

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. “

The church I grew up in was very cautious about this idea.  The fear was that emphasis on these social issues would overshadow the true need—the need to share the gospel, the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  As a result, Phil and I would say we were taught to be good, but not to do good. 

As we have matured, we have realized more and more that Jesus calls us to such work constantly.  All through the Gospels, He is doing this work and setting the example for us to follow.  Jesus cares about social justice.

One of the greatest social issues in our country and around the world is education.  Where people are given access to education, their lives improve in so many ways.  Where the right to education is denied, people suffer.

This past week a Pakistani girl was shot in the head by members of the Taliban this week for her outspoken advocacy for the rights of girls in her country to go to school. She blogged for the BBC about education and won the National Peace Award in Paskistan last year.  This story wakes me up to what education means to people, especially girls and women, in third world regions.

So I have been reflecting on my career as a teacher.  I have been a teacher for over 32 years.  I have spent my time working in some of the poorest schools in Tennessee, working with students who come from severe poverty in many cases.  And in doing so, I have been a part of bringing social justice to people in this area.  Public education is one of the greatest endeavors our nation has undertaken.  It is the way out of poverty for those who will take advantage of it and embrace the potential it brings to their lives.

I wish I had always looked at it as the great calling that it is.  Lots of times I just looked at it as a job, as a way to make money.  But education is a great calling.  It brings hope to people’s lives. 

So today I celebrate being a public school educator.  I am proud of being a part of an institution, which, although it has lots of problems and challenges, is the great equalizer, the great leveler of the playing field.  It is the best tool anyone has for digging themselves out of the pit of poverty. 

I am proud also of the many wonderful teachers I have had the privilege of working with throughout the years. They are underpaid and underappreciated, but they do us all a tremendous service, a service that will help keep our country strong in years to come.  Let me encourage you who are working in education with these words:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  Galatians 6:9

What We Did in Canada

I've been home a week.  We jumped back into "real life" with both feet...came home to school and car problems and all the real stuff that we don't deal with much in Canada.  But I wanted to let you know what we did while we were there.  Phil did some hunting and fishing, and we both enjoyed lots of beautiful scenery, but we also did some real work.

One of Phil's projects is making bowls for the benefit of the camp.  He has made some for Johnny and Becky to give as gifts to people they want to acknowledge.  He's also working on bowls that he can give to people who agree to give monthly support to Camp of the Woods.  Here's some of his work from our trip.

Learning to use woodburning

Moose bowl

Branching out

Teaching Becky to turn

Phil turned wood with several people while we were there the past few weeks.  He is a good teacher and it gives him a chance to have some one-on-one time with so many different people.  They seek him out, and if he weren't turning wood, I'm not sure that they would.  It has given him many opportunities for conversation and for him to be an encouragement.

We spent the first week getting ready to host a family day at camp which was quite successful even though the weather wasn't great.  Phil helped get a tent for outside and set it up along with some inflatables that were rented.  I just helped with the general set up of the lodge and any details that needed to be attended to.

This was a game I ran called Seek and Find.

Phil and Kaleigh ran the cotton candy machine.

The other two weeks I spent time helping with the home schooling, cooking some of the meals and we both spent time doing lots of reading and thinking.  The quiet time is always valuable even though it looks like you're not accomplishing much.  I also spent time on a year-long project, sending birthday cards to all the campers including a picture of them from camp.  

Another thing that can't be underestimated as far as its value goes is just the time spent in conversation and building relationships with those at camp.  I'm so glad we keep getting chances to encourage and help our friends who are there in Canada full time and dealing with all the responsibilities of the ministry.

While I was there I was also able to skype with my eighth grade students during their class and show them some pictures of the area and what it's like to be there.  That was fun.  And since I've returned I was able to show pictures of what I do as a missionary to the kids in Kids Club on Wednesday night.

So there it is...what we accomplished, and yet we left things undone and unsaid.  We left wishing we were staying, with thoughts of what we might do in the future and some plans to make them happen.  It is exciting and it makes us both very happy.