Month: June 2011

Writing Wednesday: Collision Course

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As much as I wanted to delve into book 2 in the Game of Thrones series (A Clash of Kings), I reluctantly set it aside to focus on my required reading. My education policy analysis course is evaluating the No Child Left Behind initiative, which I was surprised to discover is another rehashed version of Johnson’s education efforts during the “war on poverty” era. It would seem that one President to the next seldom offers wholly new ideas; they just tweak previous ones and give them new names.

(You can find the book on Amazon here, though I must admit that when I did a search for “Collision Course,” a couple of novels with saucy covers showed up in the listing that looked far more interesting than a diatribe on federal education policy!)

It is helpful to learn about NCLB and its impact during the Bush administration and onward, because it puts into perspective the discussions at the federal and state levels about how to handle expectations of performance and juggle the budget, in the process. I do hope that we will touch on education policy beyond K-12, though, because my personal interest is largely in higher ed.

Monday Musings: Day camp

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I dropped off the three little youngest boys at day camp today. No. 3 went last year, so he is the leader of the pack and has been telling Nos. 4 & 5 all about it for weeks. They were SO excited to get out of bed this morning and were ready to walk out the door a full 15 minutes before we needed to leave.

They are looking forward to a summer of swimming, field trips and plenty of play time. I’m looking forward to them being tuckered out when they get home! :p  In honor of their first morning at day camp, here is this week’s poem:

Hugs but no kisses –
You are big kids now; I know!
Growing up so fast

Not your everyday preacher (Prayer devotional for the week of June 5, 2011)

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Have you ever looked in your pantry or refrigerator at shelves full of food and mumbled, “There’s nothing to eat!”? Or, pushed aside clothes on hangers in your closet and groaned, “I don’t have a thing to wear!”?

Imagine, if you will, that instead of having a cupboard full of groceries that you simply don’t feel like cooking, you ate only locusts and wild honey … that you caught by hand, no doubt – crunch, crunch, mmm! Or, instead of donning the latest Coach clutch, your accessory was a simple leather wrap for your camel skin tunic … I feel itchy just thinking about it. Now, you are eating and dressing like John the Baptist, as described in Matthew 3.

Centuries before his arrival, the prophet Isaiah foretold the coming of John the Baptist (Isaiah 40). The Bible explains how John hung out in the wilderness of Judea, far from the hustle and bustle of the big city (Jerusalem). He didn’t lead a megachurch in the center of town with his picture on highway billboards, three televised Sunday services, a New York Times best-seller and his own podcast (not that any of those things are bad … just that John didn’t have a marketing department). Instead, he preached out in the boonies about the stuff that we don’t like to hear: sin and our need to repent from it. And guess what? People flocked to him! People came from Jerusalem and the whole region of the Jordan River to hear him preach and be baptized in the river. John even baptized Jesus! Wow, can you imagine? Check out Matthew 3 for the whole story.

Today is our annual baptism and anniversary celebration, and we have so much to praise God for these past eight years! Think about your own family and how Crossroads has influenced it. Look at the folks seated around you in the worship service this morning. So many people in our church family have come to know Christ in a personal way because of his work through this fellowship. God is good, all the time! So, let’s focus our prayer this week on sharing our praises. Praise is a type of sacrifice that we can offer God, and I reckon that the more we focus on praising him, the less we’ll notice our frustrations.

Compartmentalizing emotions

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Sometimes I find myself purposely not thinking about something sad because I’m afraid that if I do, then it will overwhelm me and I’ll break down into tears. Once I start thinking about one sad thing, then another comes to mind, and another … There is so much grief around me this week, and I don’t feel like I’ve been a very good friend to people who may need me because I’m not allowing myself to think about it much.

A dear friend is grieving for a Stage IV cancer diagnosis/brain tumor of another friend of hers. I am praying for both of them, but it breaks my heart so much, I don’t want to dwell on it. She is a young mother of two. 😦

One of my uncles died of a heart attack a few days ago, and my two cousins are taking care of the arrangements. My heart breaks for them, and then my mind wanders to the prospect of dealing with my own parents’ death someday … and not having my brother here to help me. At least my cousins have each other. Then, I feel guilty for thinking that, because it sounds heartless; they have each other, but they lost their dad! I must sound terribly selfish.

Today, a friend from church posted a prayer request for her uncle, who has sepsis and acute renal failure — both diagnoses are fatalities waiting to happen, from what I understand. I know that God is still in the miracle-working biz, but sometimes – for reasons I will never understand – my prayers don’t get answered in the way I would like.

In a different sort of grief/stress, I have a close friend who has been out of work for months, and I hurt for her — I know too well how difficult that is.

I needed to get my mind off of those things, so today after work, I rearranged the laundry room and reclaimed “my” room (the “pretty” room where the piano, fireplace, curio and my porcelain doll collection are … the room that was never supposed to have toys, laundry or clutter … my testosterone-free haven from the chaos) by moving all of the laundry baskets into the LAUNDRY ROOM. Fancy that! Tomorrow, I will clean the bathrooms and tidy the study. Now that school is out, we can sort papers and file away the special ones to keep and recycle the rest.

Housework can be a stress reliever, and it’s a relatively simple way to see a tangible result for my efforts. It can also be stressful, seeing as I don’t have a lot of time to do it, but when I carve out the time (like I’m planning to this weekend), then it helps to divert my thoughts and keeps me from wallowing.