Finishing a good book...

I just finished Madame Bovary which I am kinda surprised I got through, actually. It is a good book, but not much really happens. It has a lot of description, a lot of emotional complexity and a lot of "thinking person's sex" (i.e. you may read right over the good bits without knowing they were good bits).

What intrigued me about this book was Emma Bovary herself. Here is a woman who is caught up in a marriage she didn't really understand (I can't imagine she was the only woman ever to have gone through that). Anyway, she has two major affairs that leave her devastated and broken, and spends enough money to make Marie Antoinette jealous and meets a rather tragic (and grotesquely drawn out) end. But Flaubert lets the reader decide whether Emma is good or bad. Is she a victim of her circumstances, or a woman without conscience?

Well, it is an interesting book. And it made me think of all the books that I have read and loved at points in my life. Here is a list of the highlights:

• Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. I read this book in college and loved it. The subject matter didn't initially appeal to me; Colorado history, mining, engineering, yadda yadda. But the way Wallace Stegner writes is so lovely. His descriptions of Leadville and the mining boom were so precise. He makes writing look effortless. There are places in that book that I can still picture in my mind. Excellent.
• By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept Paolo Cohelo. This book is hard to explain as are most of Cohelo's books. It is about a woman, a river in Spain, a man and taking risks. I read it before I went to Spain and although I did not find this river, Spain feels like this book.
  
• Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky. We read this in AP English my senior year of high school. I was captivated by the way Dostoyevsky wrote about moral conflict and the hard, icky questions of life. Again, not a book that would initially appeal, but I will never forget the scene when Raskolnikov kills his landlady. Hard to get into, but you will feel smarter after you read it.
• The Time Traveller's Wife Audrey Nifenegger (sp?). Is this a sci-fi book? Is this a romance? I think this is a beautiful love story that addresses not only the complexity of a relationship, but the added complexity of having a partner who time travels without warning. What controls his sudden jumps in time? How does he survive? One scene that stands out is when Claire takes Henry (the time traveler) to a party and he talks about music that he likes. It is one of those banal kind of scenes that actually says a lot. Sadly... tragically... obnoxiously...they are making a movie of it. With Eric Bana. Sigh.
• The Book Thief Markus Zusak. This is a book that all the students coming into my class have to read the summer before sophomore year. It another hard story to get into, but you will weep when you unpeel the layers of Liesel's life. It is about World War II and a girl who steals books. Read it with a box of kleenex, you'll need it.
• Outlander Diana Gabaldon. Okay, this is not for everyone. Scottish time travel historical romance. You won't skip over the good bits in this one ;-) It has mystery, romance, battles, passion, men in kilts... super cheesy fun. If Crime and Punishment is Grandmama's hearty beef stew, then this is a corndog from the mall.
• Persuasion Jane Austen. This is my favorite Jane Austen story. Anne Elliot should be a spinster at 27, but instead she gets a second chance at love and learns in the process of pining about herself and the measure of her own strength. Captain Wentworth's letter to her at the end is particularly compelling.

I think this list could be a lot longer, and I may think of some and add them later. But what about you? What is one book you will never forget?

I can fix everything that is wrong with education... really.

Okay, I can't fix everything that is wrong with education, but I had an epiphany over the weekend about being a teacher and maybe it can help. Sometimes I feel like a good teacher and sometimes I feel like someone is going to come in and tell me that I am a total fraud. But I have always felt as a teacher that I am purposeful and useful. I know that teaching is my calling (as much as I fought it). When I saw this video on The Rubber Room I became incensed and saddened that teachers are on the front lines of the war on public education. Some teachers need to be replaced, but no teacher deserves to be ignored.

Back to my epiphany... I think we can make it better, we can ALL take part in making education free and fair and challenging for ALL students. Not only do I think we can be a part of this change, I think we MUST be a part of it. Education impacts EVERYONE, not just teachers, students or people who make pencil sharpeners.

Here is my list of ideas (I am a ridiculous idealist... be warned). These ideas seem easy to implement and can build on what is already in place. I would love to hear your thoughts...

Relational teaching--I was a Young Life leader about a million years ago and what I learned from Young Life changed the way I teach. I was in relational ministry in YL. Instead of standing on corners or participating in debates, we as leaders would build relationships with students and share the gospel experientially. This is what makes teaching so valuable for me. I build relationships with my students; I try to come along side them and see where they are specifically. My understanding of where they are allows me to a) assess them more specifially and b) make them feel okay about asking for help.

Communication--I think every time a school board or administration doesn't communicate the whole picture to teachers, parents or kids, it breeds distrust between those entities. I am a grownup, I can handle tough news. There should be open communication between all parties so that people can feel valued. That also involves listening critically and knowing how to be an engaged listener.

Being PROactive instead of REactive--I am shocked at how much of what kills public education is a reaction to something. A big reaction. Like someone's hair is on fire. Once the fire is out, there is no discussion of what started the fire. Why is that? I learned how to teach by backwards planning (plan the assessment, then plan back from that) so why don't we do that for the problems that plague our schools? This might be a loaded question, but I do think schools need to be proactive instead of always reacting to the problems that plague us.

That is the list so far. What do you think will help?

Hope comes with patience

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions”-- Rainer Marie Rilke

So I was thinking about my last post and about hope and what my problem really is. I have hope in a great number of things; the return of the great Broncos, the fact that I will see Scotland someday, and that someday, somewhere, I will meet Matt Damon. It is easy to hope for those things because they are remote and removed from my deeper, more pressing heart issues.

The things that I hope for more closely seem to have an urgency about them. This sucks. The pain of living by God's timeline in 2009 is the contrary nature of instant gratification and the fact that God just doesn't work that way. We live in an instantaneous society. If we are hungry, we eat something out of our pantry. If we need five facts about Ghandi, we can google it. We live in a society designed for convenience. And in the same way, I think my patience level for the promises of hope has run out. I want it NOW, dammit. (Veruca Salt)

These larger heart issues that I bring to God daily are not easy to hold onto, but neither are they easy to resolve. I believe (sometimes) that God will fulfill the promises he has made me, but I also feel that it requires more from me than just a wish and a prayer. In yearning, in pressing after these longings, I find that God is continually wanting me to be PATIENT. Do I even know how to practice patience? Apparently, (I didn't know this) the word patience in ancient Greek comes from two words meaning literally "far away" and "anger". If I think about impatience as holding onto anger, I don't really want to be impatient. But being patient (like my mom, give her a good book and she could wait for anything) and practicing patience are two different things. I think practicing patience requires us to do a couple things:

• Don't give up on what you hope for--don't just set it aside and pretend like you never wanted it just because it hasn't happened the way you wanted it to (yeah, I didn't even want to meet Matt Damon, whatever).
• Recognize your perspective--if you are telling tales in your head about why it hasn't happened or why you aren't getting what you want, recognize that you are telling a story, and that you can write really good stories in your head (my friends hate me right now because I said something to offend them and now they think I am Lame-o Mc Loserton).
  
• Especially recognize any stories you tell yourself that involve rejection, jealousy, or fears--these are totally unproductive and just plain mean. Those stories will bring you down like a stone.
  
• Identify the facts--if you are telling stories, then what is the truth? What do you know for sure? What is the word telling you?

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.-- Romans 5:3-5

• Wait actively--don't let the waiting consume you. I am really bad at this. I get fixated on something and then like Gollum, I go towards it fiercely. "We wants the new patio chair..." "we needs a new, precious crockpot..." well, you get the idea. Waiting actively requires that you keep the hope in mind, but that you recognize what you already have. As Sheryl Crow sings, "Its not having what you want, but wanting what you've already got".
  

There may be something so pressing on your heart that you don't think you can wait another minute to possess it. But God is doing work in the waiting. I always have to recognize this when I am at my lowest point as I am usually totally dense about what God is trying to do. I am trying to practice patience today, but I am sure tomorrow I will have to read this again and remember again.

“Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All thing pass; God never changes. Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices.” St. Teresa of Avila

The Theological Importance of Castaway

Castaway is on tonight. I love this movie. The reason I started a blog is just so I can talk about this movie. Am I obsessed? Well... who isn't obsessed with Tom Hanks' natural charm and talent?

Seriously, I believe that God speaks to me through this movie. It has all the big ideas of Christianity; forgiveness, salvation, redemption, freedom, and my favorite... fellowship. How does this movie convey so much? I think part of it is in the silent, lonely meditation that Chuck, the main character, has to go through in order to find himself. It is through the forced loneliness that he discovers his will to survive and live. And also through that loneliness he finds that he cannot live without his Wilson. He creates a relationship and that relationship becomes so important. I always cry when he loses Wilson. I cry when he realizes that Kelly can't love him anymore. I cry when the only sound he hears is waves. There is something so awesome about the drive to keep living when all other hope is lost.

I think no other scene demonstrates this more than the scene when Chuck talks to his friend about why Kelly saved him on the island. He knows that the thought of Kelly kept him alive and that he was meant to live. And even though he couldn't be with Kelly, he knew she saved him. He had to keep breathing, keep living, keep spearing fish. Then one day, this port-a-potty wall came floating up onto the beach and he knew he had a sail and the means to get off the island.

Anne Lamott said two things about hope that I am clinging to right now. They are written on my mirror and etched into my consciousness...

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

“When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.”

We aren't always forced into deserted island situations, but we often feel like we are on a deserted island. That is when I believe God comes into our lives and reminds us that we keep breathing, we keep living, we keep loving others. This day, this perfect day, is exactly what God means for us right now. There may not be a boat on the horizon and there may not be a rescue near in sight, but the sun continues to rise and set, we continue to breathe and live and love. Who knows what the tide will bring tomorrow.

I AdOregon.

I just got my latest issue of Oregon Home. It is a magazine I have been addicted to for a long time. As I read it, I sit around drinking Stash tea, eating hazelnuts and dreaming of my own Oregon home. My mom grew up in NE Portland and now has retired to SW Portland which is wonderful because going is like a vacation, but also like going home.

I have been visiting the rose city since I was 6 months old, spending summers at my Gramma Mae's house playing lawn darts with my cousins, picking raspberries for my breakfast, and watching ice skaters at the Lloyd Center. People have asked me what I like about visiting Oregon... I should say people from Colorado wonder why on earth anyone would go hang out in the rain. Well as my mom says, I am a different person when I am in Oregon. Time moves slower, people smile more, and I feel at home. And I think after reading this list, you will consider a trip to Ol' Orygun;

1. It smells green--ferns, daffodils on the side of the highway, and that smell of wet cedar bark.. it seems like it is always spring in Oregon.


2. They have Trader Joe's--peanut butter filled, chocolate covered pretzels... nuff said


3. The Columbia Gorge--I used to love driving past Hood River and watching the windsurfers. Now I like hiking into these grotto-like waterfalls... it is Gorge-ous (ha ha ha, okay I will stop)


4. Powell's--der, but I like the annex in Beaverton best, it is not as charmingly stuffy (i.e. claustrophobic) as the one downtown. Also the guys who work in Beavo are cute.


5. The two Asian Gardens--the Japanese garden especially, so wooded and quiet, then you stumble upon the awesome tree-framed view of Portland.


6. Local Ocean--The best seafood on the coast. Mom and I eat there EVERY night when we are in Newport. Sit at the bar and watch them cook, or have a conversation (as I did) with the local fishermen who stock the place daily. Fish so fresh it'll slap ya.


7. The architecture in Portland--Drive around a bit, especially in Ladd's Edition--lots of great Craftsman homes and cottages, great walking place, particularly when the roses are in bloom... lovely.


8. They have IKEA--It actually feels like walking into Sweden. My mom had no idea what it was when it first arrived in PDX, now she goes weekly just to drool at the organized closet systems.


9. Nye Beach--my mecca, the pilgrimage happens twice a year. Sylvia has always put me up with peace, quiet and love, thank you Sylvia!!


10. The Minestrone soup at Amalfi's--We used to get family pizza from Amalfi's (canadian bacon and pineapple, cut into squares) and then one day mom and I stopped in there for some soup one afternoon. It was so good we got a pint to take home.


11. Rain--hello, it rains there and when you are from the high plains of CO, rain looks pretty good every now and again.


12. The Otis Cafe--Noah, the great pie guy, has left the Otis, but they still have good eats on the way to the beach. (Top secret... Noah used twice the amount of Marionberries in his pies...they weighed 20 pounds :-)


13. Silver Falls State Park--Go on a hike on a hot day and see 7-10 waterfalls.


14. Kennedy School--My mom actually went to Kennedy School when it was a school. Now it is a monument to McMennamin's development strategies. Tater Tots, the Brewer's Salad, and a pint of Ruby... the perfect meal


15. Visiting my family--You may not intentionally go to hang out with my family, but if you go, I will probably direct you towards a member of my family. My mom has been a tour guide for my friends and my aunt and uncle have even put a few up.

Well if you can't go to Oregon soon, then click on all my links and take a virtual tour. Bon Voyage!