A Passover Poem

 Psalm 118:24, Matthew 26:26-30

Carefully braided candlelight
shadows dusty men
licking breadcrumbs from their fingers
Clueless but celebrating

Four sparkling cups of wine
– To history, legacy, promise, future –

Communion of companions:
  Twelve travelers dreaming
– of money, honor, power, redemption –
Crowning the Chosen One

He who now breaks bread
reciting lines written for him by ancestors
Courageous in his contradiction
Hear him sing: “This is the day –
let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Maundy Thursday, 2015

Merging Stories

“It won’t stay on my head,” I whisper to Ellen as I try surreptitiously to pull the headscarf back up higher, succeeding only in pushing hair into my face. How had the others all tied it? And how are they sitting so perfectly with their knees tucked under them? I squirm as softly as I can, shifting to a new position. My movement brings the attention of our B____ hostess who gestures at the tablecloth on the floor before us, filled to the edges with tea, naan bread, shredded carrots, pickled roots, Russian candy, wafer cookies, and liver. “She says ‘Eat,’” our friend translates. “I figured,” I smile back, mustering up the gratitude in my heart for getting to be here. I drink a big gulp of tea and hold a chunk of liver and naan in my hand for a while, as I had been coached, only shoving it in my mouth when I am prompted to eat again. It’s a pattern. 

Sitting around the table on the plush mats with the flower designs are four women from a people group with an estimated 4,000 members worldwide. My mind still cannot fully comprehend what that low number means - for a language, a culture, the next generation. Their origin is shrouded in such mystery that they don’t even know for sure where their ancestors came from, but they seem mostly content living here on the edge of a former Soviet city at the foot of the mountains. Out the window we can see the shell of the home one of the women is building with her husband, and her two sons who come in and out of our room are all smiles. These five women are actually more than content, for they have found a hope that will outlast even the extinction of their people group.

Our friend opens the Scriptures to Mark 9 and begins to read at v.14, and the women lean in. The baby girl with the massive eyes starts to fuss a little and is passed around from one lap to the next, but she doesn’t deter their focus from the story they are hearing of Jesus healing a demon-possessed boy. They nod because they know. They have faced oppression of many kinds, legal, physical, communal, spiritual, and they too have found Jesus to be stronger and worth it all. 

The liver in my hand is heavy and cold, and I work to tuck it under the rim of the teacup while I marvel at the faith of these beautiful people. As the discussion of the passage comes to end and we move toward prayer, our hostess points to Ellen and me to start. Following their example, I hold out my hands before me, palms up, while my mind races, “Do I have adequate words?” Thankfully Ellen goes first and in her prayer reminds me that this story we’re living in our vastly separate worlds is not the end. In fact, they will merge. One day I will hug these women again, and we will speak the same language, and they will no longer have dreams that frighten or neighbors who want to stop their building projects or children who cannot get medical treatment. Truly they are my sisters in Christ, the completion of all our stories. 

The men join in for the final prayer of blessing, and I manage to escape having eaten only two bites of liver. I shrug up my headscarf again, searching my pockets for a bobby pin, as we are passed from hug to hug next to the car. One of them holds me close and speaks words I don’t understand. I respond with my own words, a blessing from the Old Testament, and somehow it feels like we may have just said the same thing. What a gift that our stories intertwined in this brief earthly moment.

Two Years Later

I tend to blame this thinking on the fact that I’m a history teacher, but I very often like to reflect back to where I was and what I was doing exactly 1 month ago, 1 year ago, 10 years ago. There’s actually been a lot of that going around this particular weekend as everyone remembers back to 2 years ago and one of the most stressful weekends in BFA history. It was March 13 when we were summoned to an All-School Assembly and told about remote teaching/learning that was about to descend upon us. Dorm kids were instructed to take everything home as Res Life and parents were currently booking planes and trains for all 108 of them. On March 14 and 15 I was scheduled for three train station runs, though in the end I only completed one of them as the others had canceled flights or were informed that they wouldn’t be allowed into their countries. By March 16 we were cleaning out lockers to discard food and hauling books and projects home in our cars, and on March 17 when the doors locked, we stared at our laptops wide-eyed and set our clocks to 18 time zones as our students suddenly spanned from California to Korea.

That spring we hoped a lot in “two week” increments as Lockdown slowly stretched into seven. Even that seems like a short span now. But the sun shines brighter two years later, despite the fact that we still squint at it over our masks. The proof is in the collection of pictures from this recent weekend!

Marking the past and seeing where we are in the present has always been valuable to me, and that’s not just because I’m a history teacher. I think it’s biblical. We see it when Joshua and the Israelites set up stones of remembrance. There's the annual visit Hannah makes to the Temple to thank Yahweh for her son, and that's on top of all the festivals the whole nation was asked to keep - to recall God's goodness to them. So if remembering draws me toward gratitude and worship, then I will constantly look to the past.

Today I praise him for the chance to cheer at soccer games, for students who invite my inner child to play improv games with them in my living room even as I invite them to drink my tea, for the Middle Schooler whose sole aim during laser tag was to keep me alive, for the first in-person recital I've attended in over 26 months, and for the girls currently squealing on my floor and working on my birthday puzzle. Two years later, I recognize the gift it is to experience human touch and resume the intimate living we used to know. Praise God!

7th Grade Laser Tag

First soccer game since 2019

Cast Tea Party

Recital Song "Give Me Jesus"

Evidence of God's Love

I have nothing new to add to what anyone else is saying. Like most of my friends, I watch the headlines, scroll past pictures in my newsfeed, and just don't know what to do besides pray. I'v never been to Ukraine, but I have people there whom I love. Several of her children have passed through my classroom or fallen asleep in my arms as I babysat. When I tell the story of seeing the Northern Lights from an airplane over the Atlantic, I usually tell them how the two Ukrainian kids in the seat next to me followed me to the galley window while their parents slept - I had to lift up the little girl to help her see - and despite our language barrier, we enjoyed that most beautiful phenomenon together. 

Then there are all the people whom I love in Russia. Several of her children have also passed through my classroom, laughed with me sipping tea on my couch, patiently taught me the Cyrillic alphabet before I moved to Kazakhstan, and generally helped me appreciate the beauty to be found in that massive country. As a 10-year-old girl, I remember staring up at the colorful walls of the Winter Palace and belting out Anastasia songs as we crossed the Neva river. If it hadn't been for Covid, I would've gotten to revisit those museums with a new appreciation in the Spring of 2020, and now I wonder if I ever will.

I'm angry and grieved and disheartened and struggling to find my own stance. The Ukrainian people deserve to be the deciders of their own government and freedoms. Scripture is clear that you cannot walk all over victims because he will fight on their behalf. Yet, I also know what it's like to love the aggressor. Growing up in a country whose heritage was not only being on the losing side of both world wars, but also to be the birthplace of both men who started them, I wrestled with the question of why God would ever want to extend salvation to an Austrian. It was through my own deep-rooted passion for the people that God convinced me he still had love for these people. So, even though I hurt, I stand convinced that He loves Ukrainians and Russians because he has put a love for both into believers everywhere. May my own love grow.

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater" - J.R.R. Tolkien

a gift from a Ukrainian colleague

In the Light

 

I walked into the room and had to laugh. There, on the table, were my tulips - which I had just arranged that morning and fluffed to look full and bouquet-like - all leaning hard to the left where the sun was pouring in the window. They looked like they were simply starved for the light. Which is probably not that surprising in the winter months of north-west Europe. Their colors also shone all the more luminously and stunning, with their yellow and orange hues, the petals almost transparent.

The High School Play opens in 2 days, and I’m in love (yet again) with the cast, the crew, and the overall production. From my “perch” backstage I get to prepare the various props, pin flowers to lapels, and give encouraging fist bumps before reminding students to remove their masks and sweep out onto the stage with volume. Then I peer through the flats and smile as the characters from the script grow transparent, and the students I love shine luminously and stunning, complete with their grayed hair, self-grown mustaches, and cucumber sandwiches. 

And then I wonder what I look like in the light. My Bible study is deep into 1 John right now, and these verses from Week 1 are still rattling in my mind: "God is light. ... If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1: 5b, 7). I don't want to be a liar, comfortable with my facade, because if I live like that, I will continually avoid the light for fear of being exposed. I want to be like my flowers, transparent for the true light to shine through me! I guess that is only possible if I remove my mask of outward behavior and keep leaning into and craving the true light.

A Good Day in Middle School

 People often ask me why I like teaching Middle Schoolers, and beyond my standard answers of "they're so much fun" or a lengthier explanation of how they still have enthusiasm for games but can finally think beyond the concrete, I like to give examples of the kinds of lessons that bring me joy. Such as the one last Friday.

My 8th grade History class is currently in the unit on the early Americas. So far we have covered the Olmec and Zapotec (with hints of the Maya and Aztec to come), and one of the earliest, consistent archaeological findings we have from all four of these cultures is the Mesoamerican ballgame. If you've seen the 2000 movie The Road to El Dorado, you may remember the scene in which this game was featured. In the past, this is the Olmec/Zapotec achievement my students have found most interesting, so I decided this year to make a whole lesson out of it.

First, they spent 20 minutes completing a Webquest, in which I gave them links to a couple of sites and videos. They had to read or listen to the information and pick out the answers to 10 questions I had for them on a worksheet. Once they had finished gathering information, they spent the rest of the 20 minutes designing their personal version of the Mesoamerican ballgame. 

Next, I shared with them a version I came up with and brought them out into the hallway where I had set up 2 hula hoops and a rubber ball. In teams of 3, they had 30 seconds to try to score as many points as possible without using their hands or forearms. Honestly, I had no idea how it would go, especially as these particular 8th graders have a reputation of being incredibly competitive. But we had a blast! They cheered for one another, and of course celebrated every one of their own goals.

Following those 15 minutes of play, we returned to the classroom and ended with a discussion on the harsher topic of the Mesoamerican ballgame - whether players were actually sacrificed after a game. And whether those sacrificed players were the losing or the winning team. At one point, when I asked for arguments why some historians believe it could be the winners who were sacrificed, a student raised the idea that sacrifices should be perfect, blameless, the best anyone could offer. Another student chimed in, "Like Jesus was." I practically shouted, "Ooh, yes! Let's talk about THAT for a moment." So we did. And while we could all agree that human sacrifice was a horrendous practice, I think they left the lesson with a slighter higher appreciation for what Jesus accomplished, the most perfect and complete sacrifice in history.

I love Middle School.

Memories of KAZ

The car was barreling down the two-lane highway, mostly in the left lane passing trucks and other taxis heading for the border. I distinctly remember feeling the lack of a seat belt hugging my body and using my hand to brace myself on the back of the driver’s seat, knowing full well that it wouldn’t save me or my friend Jamie from being crushed by the full weight of the vehicle when we crashed. I was imagining my mangled body out among the poppy fields when Jamie nudged my shoulder. “He’s taking a picture of the speedometer now; we’re over 200 km/h.” My prayer life doubled. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever exited a vehicle as quickly as I did that taxi when we arrived at our destination, Jamie hot on my heels.

That wasn’t the only adventure I had with her in our overlapping three months in my favorite Central Asian country. We went hiking in the gorgeous Tien Shan mountains with the destination being a wooden Orthodox monastic site. We had to carry skirts with us to pull over our hiking shorts when we got close so that they’d let us in to view the building. But what was far more interesting was the character we met in the middle of nowhere who has been building himself a bonafide castle for the past two decades and thinks he is about ⅔ of the way there. He gave us a proud tour while we followed the stench of his cigarettes from one dark room to the next, his personal lair decorated with pictures of a certain former Soviet despot. 

Of course, I was really in the country to volunteer at a partner school and teach a couple classes, thus lightening the load of some overworked colleagues at that point in the year. One of those classes was 8th grade Geography. In an effort to broaden young minds and help them think beyond their borders, I assigned a country report that had to be given orally in class along with pictures and details about culture, maybe even food. Sweet Darla (name changed to protect the innocent) chose Lebanon, and I’ll never forget in her presentation when she got to the food portion and announced that she would not be subjecting us to their disgusting food. I was a bit confused as I personally adore Middle Eastern delicacies. She quickly put up a picture of hummus on the screen. “This mash,” she said pointing at it and leaning away, “is made from chicken pee.” I generally try very hard never to laugh at students, but the guffaw was across my lips before I could stop it. “I think you mean chickpeas,” I said with as straight of a face as possible; “it’s a type of bean.” Darla’s face scrunched in confusion. After thinking about this new information for about 2 seconds, she pressed the clicker, and we moved on to Lebanese dress.

It hurt my heart in the last week to watch streets I once traversed empty but for the trucks with men and guns, to see the President’s palace abandoned and charred, to not be able to get through to the friends I still have because power lines had been severed. I knew it as a place of free-flying eagles, of caring old mommas who helped me buy fruit when I couldn’t communicate with the seller, of students eager to clean up their communities, of goats that regularly blocked our drive home but made me laugh every time, and a country God loves very much. Well, at least that part is still true.