Achtung, mama

This morning my alarm was a perfume sample giver-outer standing in my path at Macy's. She did not want to be ignored. Wake up. Take the sample. Acknowledge me. Or I will not stop. I acknowledged her. I got up at an hour that rhymes with hix o'flock.

I got up and spent some time in Exodus, chapter 3. God was just hanging out...in some shrubbery...on fire...just having a deep and meaningful with Moses.

God was like the perfume giver-outer. The one who's got something to give does not want to be ignored. Can ya dig it?

***

No one with the exception of Little Man was in a jocund mood this morning. Baby Girl was flexing herself into some petrified scorpion position when we were trying to get her dressed and ready for school. Tears ensued. There was no time to put on my cosmetic face. I believe more tears ensued for my students because of this.

***

Class went well despite a student showing us a propaganda video about how textbooks are for cavepeople and soon every baby will come into the world, his parents having registered for a baby iPad with the Dr. Seuss I Can Read series locked and loaded. Not really but that's what one could project.

***

I hung out with Little Man at the campus cafe while Loverpants attended a networking event. Little Man yelled MAMAMAMAMMMMAMAMAMAM? MAMA? MAMA! MAMAMAMAMAMA! even though I was standing right next to him. One of my students said she admired how whenever she runs into my husband or me, we are always with our children. I explained that this was both intentional and incidental. They are, for better or for worse, very much a part of every fabric of our lives. I appreciated that she recognized this, however, since I spent four years of college reading Steinem and Woolf and thinking that children were a great idea. If you liked having a really lame life. And a purse full of crusty Kleenex.

***

I then got an e-mail from a person who holds our financial future in his pocket and that sent me into a tailspin.

*** I then got angry with my husband because of this e-mail from the person who is not my husband.

I then told my husband that he should leave me alone because I was about to say something really mean.

I then went for a run in the rain.

I then ran up a hill in the rain and rolled my bad ankle and fell on the ground and scraped up my knees.

A woman came running to see if I was ok and offered to drive me home which was so nice.

But I walked down the hill because frankly I like pain and crying and limping and walking downhill in the rain.

*** I am now typing here with a bag of frozen vegetables on my swollen ankle. I think this is where I need to be. I think I have been anxious for nothing lately. I think God really wants my attention right now.

Happy sabbath.

Evaluation

I was able to view my student evaluations today. The feeling of cuing up those tabulations and comments is a little bit like going to the dentist for a routine check-up and then being told that it's time for a root canal and we're fresh out of anesthesia. Ohmygoodness. Hold me.

I read them and they were as expected. Full of warm praise for that which comes easily for me, and plenty of humble pie for the things that so elude me in the classroom.

But then I remembered that I had already surrendered these evaluations.

A few weeks before the end of the semester, I was convicted in my heart for obsessing over what the evaluations might say. The same old song with the steady refrain of What if they don't like me? I had to surrender that. Because I don't serve evaluations. Evaluations cannot be first in my life when I am trying to serve the Lord.

There was so much freedom in the surrender, but making the surrender stick is not easy, especially when you just want people to like you.

This is not to say that there was no value to the evals. The feedback was excellent food-for-thought, and it sobered me up about what I need to do for my second semester of full-time piloting at the podium. Not that I ever use a podium. Not that I can see over a podium.

The feedback also reminded me very much of our spiritual walk. There are always a few comments about how the teacher didn't seem to give good directions. Because you don't. You don't explain things. Why would you want to explain things or be clear about expectations?

It's clear from where these remarks derive. More often than not, you can guess they are from the students who whose attendance record was not so sparkling.

And aren't we all the student who does not Show Up enough in our walk? How easy is it to blame God for making everything so hard when we haven't even prayed with any sort of intention? How accountable do we hold ourselves to studying up and writing on our hearts what God offers us daily. And what about those blessings, new every morning, that we just leave on the table, like extra credit points that hold no luster for us?

What I know is this: my report card in every realm of my life is nowhere near as good as it could be. But I held my son for many moments today, and I sang to my daughter, nestled in her bed tonight, and the sweetness of all that was really off the charts.

Resolution: Priorities

Someone mentioned New Year's Resolutions and my anxiety started whirring roadrunner-like and I couldn't remember what year was ending and which was beginning and day-yannng shouldn't I have some goals? You need goals to have resolutions, yes? Resolutions are heavy tools, especially if you are not someone who regularly uses them, e.g. measuring sticks and other instruments of precision. If you prefer to eyeball it, to just pull that slingshot back as far as you can muster and hope your little ambition soars and lands you in relatively the right spot, then resolutions are mighty intimidating.

But lo, I remembered how my old man said that resolutions should be reaffirmations of our priorities.

Bladowwww! There ya go.

Herein I reaffirm my priorities, as I enter 2012.

1. I reaffirm my love for God's word, and my desire to specifically understand Scripture's counsel for teachers.

2. I reaffirm my love for these beauts.

3. I reaffirm my priorities of bill repayment, including and especially my student loans.

4. I reaffirm my desire to say good-bye to our Boston real estate, for once and for all, if the Lord would ordain it.

5. I reaffirm my desire to have my non-fiction manuscript represented by a lit agent by Summer 2012.

Other desires include fitting back into particular pants and attending a writer's conference this summer.

Dudes, I'm excited for the '12. You?