Psalms

My bible study is going through 1 Samuel and the psalms in order to see how David prayed his way through life. We wrote psalms during study...

Lord, I am tired, exhausted. 

I feel as if my body is made of stone. 

It becomes heavier to move each day. 

There is never enough sleep to get, 

Too much to still do, and never 

Enough time in the day. 

Never enough money in the bank. 

There just never seems to be

Enough. 

It's like my brain is being pulled in

Different directions, stretched too thin. 

I want to sing that all I need is you 

But my body seems to disagree. 

My body and mind are odds with my soul. 

How can these things co-exist and fight 

At the same time. So much trying to rule my life. 

I feel like I've been running for days straight. 

Why must it be so difficult? 

Why does it seem as if there's still not enough. 

Why? Why? Why? 

And I have to hold it all together because that is what everyone else is telling 

Me to do. Keep it together. Be an adult. 

But I really feel as if everything is falling apart. Slowly unraveling. 

Pull the string and the whole sweater comes apart. 

But I know, Lord, that you are enough. 

That you are greater than the things I lack. 

You are the provider and my strength. 

Lord help me to see this, even when sleep and stress 

Cloud my eyes. 

So I lift my eyes up to the hills. 

Know where my help comes from. 

My help, comes from you, my God. 

Maker of heaven and earth. 

When my soul is downcast, I will put my 

Hope in You. 

My savior and my God. 

Student Teaching Reflections: Week One

I just finished my first week at Santa Maria High School where I teach freshman and sophomores and believe me when I say, it feels more like a month has gone by than just a week.

Here is the conclusion that I have come to: teaching is one of the hardest professions that exist. I have now become responsible for at least forty 14-16 year olds in a short time (and when I become a full time teacher it will be more like 120 students). And I'm not even that mature myself but now I must muster every mature and responsible bone in my body to lead these students. What I'm finding the hardest to do is to keep composure in the classroom when my life outside the classroom seems to be a mess. For example, this whole week I've been getting a lot less sleep because of waking up so early and driving and work and Cal Poly classes - it just adds up to a lot of brain space and little restful sleep. Usually when I don't get a lot of sleep I become grumpy and frustrated but the moment I set foot on the high school grounds, I have to put all that aside for a few hours a day. These students look to me, as their teacher, to be a source of stability and consistency that they may or may not have home. I have to be dependable and on point every day because as a teenager, their own lives are crazy enough as it is.

What I've learned in InterVarsity is completely the opposite. I've always been told to be vulnerable and be open and honest with my struggles. It has been very difficult to watch these mind sets come clashing up against one another. Because high school is not InterVarsity and my students are not the audience for my own personal problems. I can be the audience for theirs, but they need not gain extra burdens in their life. It is a balance that I am learning to navigate and will still have to learn years past student teaching. This is where I take a deep breath and I'm thankful for three day weekends to catch up on sleep.

H2O Irony

A Water Haiku:

My house lacks water
The rain pours onside in heaps
I need a bucket

As the Ruin Falls

I just finished my 2010 blog Tre.Sie.Cinque: A Year in Photos where I took a photography journey through 2010. I have decided to continue my blogging journeys into 2011 and beyond. This blog has it focus through on finding the reality in the imaginative and the imaginative in reality. It is a journey of self discovery, pursuing past fear and into the "real world" past high school and college.

The title comes from one of C.S. Lewis's poems titled "As the Ruin Falls" which talks about how sometimes we use overly flashy words to describe things - our love, our fears, our problems. This is my focus for the year to get down to reality. It will be a collection of poems, of photos, of thoughts, of dreams, of whatever else I can find and use to express myself. Enjoy!

As the Ruin Falls

By C.S. Lewis

All this flashy rhetoric about loving

I never had a selfless thought since I was born. 

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: 

I talk of love -- a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -- 

But, self-imprisioned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught (but how late) my lack

I see the chasm. And everything you are was making

My heart into a bridge by which I might get back

From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains

You give me are more precious that all other gains.

The Return

Post FUI Update 

I’ve been thinking a lot about success since I’ve come home. I’ve had too much time to compare this FUI experience to that of three years ago, too much time to compare myself to how other staff interacted with students and in some cases it’s lead me down some roads I never wanted to travel. In general I think of my FUI experience in terms of successes or failure. I was a good process group leader or I was a bad one, I did well at my site or I did poorly, or I was an excellent housemate or I was a terrible one. With all these definitions of my project it’s been difficult to say what I’ve learned because I’ve been so busy tried to cram my experiences into a “success” or “failure” category.

But perhaps my experiences were just that – experiences. When I think it about it now, it makes a lot of sense. In the second week that I was in Fresno, my new small camera that my mom had purchases for me for graduation was stolen. I loved that little camera because it was something that my mom worked hard to get, I had wanted for a long time to be able to carry around with me (because my giant Nikon takes great pictures but isn’t portable), and was my favorite color (an awesome bonus). But when it was stolen one of the million emotions I went through was being forced to experience this project instead of just observing it.

I have been known to constantly observe life – even when I’m not trying to. It is the artist in me. I not only love photography but I also love writing. But both these forms of art can force me into an observation world, when I should be experiencing life instead.

I liken FUI to centering prayer. For those who don’t know anything about it, it is basically emptying your mind. While it sounds a little mystic the purpose is to step out of our minds because we can spend so much time in them. But the reason I compare FUI to centering prayer is you can’t judge centering prayer. It is not the type of prayer that was either good or bad – but it is something you do. And over time you see results. In many ways my time in Fresno cannot be described as good or bad and over time I will see the reason I spent the whole summer there.

Then I remember the book Theirs is the Kingdom.

“What went wrong? Why did we so miserably fail when our motives, our mission, our plans were all of high quality? Did we not listen carefully enough to God’s Spirit?

Behind my questioning is the subtle heresy that God will prosper any endeavor that is done according to his will. The corollary is that whatever fails was done somehow contrary to his intentions. The error is in the assumption that perfect communion with God assures flawless performance of his will. But neither perfect communion nor flawless performance is possible for human beings.

Success, I’ve learned, has little to do with the performance of God’s will. Sometimes we fail because of our own stupidity or shortsightedness, and we must learn lessons from our mistakes. Sometimes we fail because of someone else’s failure, or because there was too much rain or too little rain. In these cases, there are no corrective lessons to be learned.

Success is not an automatic consequence of obedience. “A righteous man falls seven times and rises again” (Proverbs 24:16).

We have a dependable God who made a trustworthy commitment that no matter what happens – success or failure – he will use it for our ultimate good.”

Believing Lies

FUI Update #6

“Val never yells at us.”

This is the phrase I’ve been struggling to forget for several days. It is like a poison in my mind, creeping up on me at unexpected moments. A piercing pain in my side that I cannot seem to get rid of. This one sentence sums up all my insecurities, my fears, and the feeling of inadequacy at my site. Because I am not like Val. I am not as good at my job as Val is nor am I good enough to be here. It would be better if the interns from the previous year were there – for they are better than me. Why did they not come?

These are the lies I face at my site. I deal with enough doubt and insecurity and then I had kids at my site tell me the very things I struggled to keep hidden in the darkness – that I was doing this all wrong. The disaster began on Thursday afternoon. One of my kids left a giant mess of paint in one of the back rooms and failed to clean it up when they left. Paint was left out and the couch now had six new colors on it. The room was a mess. Since neither Kevin nor I knew who had actually left the mess of pain, we decided that the kids needed to be punished as a group. The room was a community space and as a community they did not treat it was respect. No one was taking responsibility for the mess and when confronted about it, they all blamed each other. The punishment then was to take away computer privileges for the day

When we told them we faced screaming, yelling, and near cursing from almost everyone. They couldn’t understand why we would punish the whole group for one person’s mistake. They blamed each other, never taking responsibly for the mess. Then when they could no longer blame each other, they took their frustration out on Kevin and I. I was fine until I heard the potent words: “I wish the other interns were here, they were better.”

I tried to keep my cool but inside I was broken down. Little did that person know how much words can hurt, and especially myself I have developed a reputation for being blunt and I speak truth even when it hurts. But when lies are shot at me like bullets, I cannot escape their piercing sting. But this wasn’t the truth. No, these were lies and that is why they hurt so much.

Staying for the Need

FUI Update #5 

There is a part of me that wants to remain in Fresno for the need. Yes, after my last update it seems a little shocking that I would consider to stay in this place but the need draws me closer. Unable to ignore this consistent need, I am fueled by a passion to fix broken things. Because if I don’t do it, then who will? For many of my friends at FUI when they leave – their ministries will remain mostly in tact. For some of us, as we leave, so do the ministries. You see, after I leave FUI Light and Life Urban Ministries will cease to exist as it does right now. The current staff are following God’s call elsewhere. It appears that this ministry is hanging by a thread, these kids are left here, alone, and there is a huge need to love them. They will have to say goodbye to those who have spent so much of their lives investing in who they are now and deal with the reality that the structure of what they know is going to change.

When I first put all the pieces together of what was happening – I was infuriated. How could God possibly allow this to happen? Why would he not only call most of the Light and Life staff away – but not ensure anyone worthy to take their place? Why did he not call me – aren’t I qualified enough to keep this ministry going for as long as needed. Yes, I know the kids will have the free lunch program, they will have tutoring, they will have computers, and they will still have their friends – but will it be done through the love of Christ? That I cannot give an answer to. So it is up to me to stay here and keep the ministry alive – to do God’s work.

After I thought about this some more, I realized the problem was not the need, but the problem was the lack of trust in God. I can’t stay just for the need because there will always be a need. There will always be a need for Christians to love on their neighbors and I would never get anywhere in ministry if I solely stayed for the need. I would then fuel my life on the needs of other people. I need to be called here – by God and not by untrusting self. Because staying for the need alone means I don’t trust God to take care of that need. If I dropped everything right now, without the call from Christ to do so, I would be telling God that I don’t trust him to take care of the kids in the Summer Park apartments and that I could take care of them better than he could.

How arrogant and self-centered of me to even consider that I could do ministry better than God can. In reality, God doesn’t need me to do ministry, but he calls me into that I might benefit from it. I had forgotten that is how I ended up in Fresno for a second summer – that God called me to address a need. A need to serve students as well as a need to see more change in my own life.

But the needs of others are so overwhelming, I keep telling myself. Will Mariana ever feel the true love of a father who doesn’t disappoint her? Will Teshira ever learn how to love her sister and friends as Jesus loved his, will Andy learn to forgive his mother for leaving their family? Will Sandra learn to respect her friends? Will each of these kids I spend several hours with every day learn to experience the rich love of Christ, if I’m not there to show it to them? Again I can’t escape my own selfish desire to take ministry from God. For whatever reason I want to keep control over how these kids will experience God.

Paul faced the same struggle. He wanted to visit his brother Timothy but was unable to do so. “Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy…” (2 Timothy 2:4). It was his one goal, to see the man he spent so much time in ministry with – which he never saw happen. God refused to allow it to happen because Paul was not needed there, God was. Timothy had been sent there by God and Paul could only write to him. In the same way – I am not needed at the Summer Park apartments, God is. And God is powerful enough, and wise enough, to decide who he wants to help him there.