It isn’t an ordinary evening at Maugenhard dorm. The seven oblong tables, typically arranged side by side in the dining room, have been pulled end-to-end into a long table, and every chair in the house has found its way upstairs to this mega-table. The boys come to the table, giddy with anticipation, wearing shirts and…
Tag: future
I Carry It In My Heart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) E.E. Cummings The Friday night recital has more people than usual, the perfect confluence of no other scheduled events and the novel introduction of clever advertising by an enterprising strings teacher. So we know who’s playing tonight, and the many of us too weary to…
Moving In
We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can’t remember. But what I remember most is moving a lot. Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street We finish just before lunchtime, then prepare plates…
Back Again
We didn’t fly much when I was a kid. We were a road-trip-and-camping family. These road trips were long affairs–typically way down to California and back–but they were for sure on the ground. That’s why flying always seems like a miracle to me, and a bit like cheating. Driving takes time, but it makes sense. You…
Of Graduation, Extravagant Gifts
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 (italics mine) “I think, I think, we can keep it under an hour. It’ll be tricky,…
Outward Spirals
It’s never too late to change the pace. Oh, how the days creep up on you, But the goodness is something you don’t have to chase ‘Cause it’s following you. And all you’ll hear is the music. And beauty stands before you. And love comes back around again, It’s a carousel, my friend. Vanessa Carlton,…
Miss Gruwell and Miss Potter
Like all good teachers, I went to see the 2007 film Freedom Writers as soon as it came out. As some people are with sports or science fiction movies, I am with teacher movies. I love them. Long before I was a teacher–even when I was struggling with teaching as a calling–I would watch Dead Poets’ Society or,…
God of All Seasons
Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 3:3 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate…
About Tomorrow
And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But…
Rooted and Grounded in Love
“… And that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19 Since my own high…
The Way Home 