Marriage and ... making babies

On Friday in 8th grade, the issue of marriage in the Middle Ages came up. The great Christian king Charlemagne had 5 wives and at least 5 known mistresses, so the point I wanted students to understand was that the institution of marriage was different then. They seemed to get it, all nodding as we talked.

Then in the 3-second pause that followed, a very shy student raised her hand. "Why do you always hear of a man having 5 wives and never of a woman having 5 husbands?"

Snickers from the class. So I turned it back on them. "What do you guys think?"

After one or two comments, they were able to come up with the fact that men inherited the money, so they were the ones providing for the wives, not the other way around. Then here's where I went wrong. I said, "Yes, that's a very big part of it."

Another 3-second pause. The same first girl raised her hand. "Well, ... what's the other part of it?"

I could feel everyone's eyes on me, and I'm pretty sure I began to blush. The room got hot, and I cleared my throat. "Well, ... the other part has to do with ... making babies."

More snickers and a couple of raised eyebrows.

I forged ahead. "1 husband and 5 wives means that this guy could technically be having 5 babies at once. 1 wife with 5 husbands, and she can still only be having 1 baby at a time." An awkward silence followed while some students ran the math, and then there were even more giggles. I opened my mouth to add the issue of not knowing whose baby it even was what with parentage being a high medieval value, but then I closed it again and chose to move on ... to something else. Got to love Middle School.

Grandma's Cinnamon Twists

Sweet sticky cinnamon-sugar

Softly sprinkled onto rich dough

Succulent, lusciously sublime

Harshly twisted, wrongly wrenched

Tightly shaped, truncated

Heated beyond bearing

Rescued, oven-released

Heaven’s aroma, adorned

Consumed, purpose achieved

We'll miss you Grandma Jake! See you on the other side.
March 12, 1930 - January 25, 2011

Go hug a tree!

I was trying to teach my 6th graders about the debates Traveling Thinkers in Ancient China would have. This was after we'd briefly looked at the philosophies of Confucians, Daoists, and Legalists, so I was using their viewpoints as the basis of my lesson. The point I was trying to make was that within debate you can have solid arguments, and you can have pointless arguments that add nothing to the debate. In fact, those arguments can get so off topic or become accusing of the people rather than the subject. So here's a snippet of the monologue I performed.

Confucian: Leaders need to be virtuous. If a leader has nothing good about him, people won't follow him, and what good is he then?

Legalist: I'm fine with a leader being virtuous, but that's not the most important characteristic. A leader needs to be strong and enforce the law. People will follow that!

Daoist: Ah, you're both plain nuts. Forget leaders! Go hug a tree!

At this point, the entire 6th grade dissolved into laughter and stayed there for the rest of the period. Not exactly what I had intended, but one of the moms told me today that her son got it. He recounted the entire thing last night for them at home (including the positions of all three philosophies) and then ran around the house yelling "Go hug a tree! Go hug a tree!"

So you had a bad day, ...

Actually, try bad week. 4 vaccinations on Monday that made me sick Tuesday, dentist Wednesday, all my technology in my classroom failed Thursday, broken pitcher Friday, and a bunch of other uncool stuff in between. Come Friday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk with a pounding headache and trying to get a head start on my lesson planning when a red gummy bear went whizzing past my head.

I whirled to the right only to see Rachel staring at her computer screen unable to contain a smirk on her face. Sneakily, I reached down into the printer (where it had gone), scooped up said gummy bear and turned to hurl it back at her when a white one came flying at my face.

This was war.

Within a couple of minutes, colors were flying through the air, and we were both ducking and squealing around bookshelves, chairs and doorways. I successfully locked her out twice to give myself time to collect all the loose bears, but then she got three students on her side to help attack me. My History 6 textbook worked great as a shield, I have to say.

When we were finished, we set up all the gummies into a battlescene to represent our scene. Sorry if it's a little graphic for children. Thank you God for some fun in our week!

Why I loathe going to the dentist

First of all, can I just point out my maturity in no longer saying "I loathe dentists." I try to be very careful and specify that I actually loathe "going" to the dentist.

It all began at the lovely age of 6 or 7. Baby teeth are supposed to be those nice, soft, pliable things that fall out in order to make room for the hard, sturdy adult teeth to last you (most of) the rest of your life. I think my mouth got the order mixed up because some of my baby teeth refused to fall out. And thus it was that six of my front teeth had to be pulled. Many tears were spilled, though oddly enough, I remember the six stickers I got - one for each tooth pulled.
Current total of teeth pulled by the dentist: 6

Somewhere in the next year or two following, all four of my corner teeth (not sure what they're called in English) had to be pulled to make room the new ones that were already growing in and were, so said the dentist, going to be crooked and warped if we didn't immediately extract the ones in there. Whatever.
New total: 10 teeth pulled

Very shortly after this, I had another dread-filled appointment, and the dentist peered into my mouth aghast. The wrong teeth were growing into those holes. The side teeth were coming in, so four more teeth fell prey to the pliers.
Total of teeth lost to the man in the white coat: 14

Apparently, my mouth is very small because at the very next visit, he shook his head profusely and declared that now the teeth from the other side were growing in. Or perhaps two teeth were growing into the same hole at the same time. I don't remember exactly. All I know is that three more had to go.
Gasp: 17 teeth!

Surely, I thought, I can finally keep the few I have left. And yet, at age 20, yet another well-studied man in the lab coat pronounced my mouth too small. A couple of months and one surgery later, I'd lost my wisdom teeth and spent over a week recovering, nearly two of those full days with blood-soaked gauze in my mouth and barely keeping enough Vicodin in my body to stave off the pain.
Final grand total: 21 teeth pulled!!!

I say: rip 'em all out now and give me dentures.

Nostalgia: 2010

I'm easily sentimental, and after watching Toy Story 3 last night, I'm in a very reflective mood. The verse in my devotions this morning was from Psalm 118:24. "This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." The highlights were also in the book like that. So I thought: What better day to look back on my last year than this day? And to rejoice!

God chose to lavish another 365 days on me in 2010, and it has been good.

The month of February was dark at BFA as we underwent an emotional time and had to deal with several wounded students on campus. But God brought healing, and in May we saw 17 students baptized. Victory!

In June, he blessed the Custer family with the birth of Olivia Marie, the happiest little niece on the block, and we found out that another niece was due to arrive in January (any day now). It's such a strange and wonderful feeling to see your family grow and multiply.

This summer saw me back in the states trying to raise the necessary support in order to be back at BFA by the Fall. It held moments of rest, complete panic, worry and fret, joys, humbling conversations, scary presentations, encouragement, frustrations, and in the end, the overwhelming truth that God provides and works all things out in his own timing! What a privilege it is to be on this journey with him.

August found me in the classroom. In some ways, 10 years of study and trying out all kinds of jobs and positions seemed to culminate as I "arrived." Now I can laugh at that and say "hardly!", but it still is a blessing to be teaching full time in my very own classroom.

This last week has to go into the Highlight List as well. I'm actually writing this from a hotel in Turkey where I'm at a conference with many other veterans of the faith from all over Europe. It's the physical rest and the spiritual feeding that I've been craving for the last couple of months all in a very historical setting that of course invigorates me like nothing else. :-)

Over all, the one thing that really stands out to me this year has been the RELATIONSHIPS: new people, old people, founding relationships, restoring relationships, deepening relationships. It's been at the center, and I've been so blessed by the people God has placed around me - on multiple continents. I rejoice!

Hope

Hearing the prodigal’s flailing roam

piecing by footstep the fragile path home

Opening weary arms with tender long

pierced to wash away yesterday’s wrong

Proving forgiveness is etched with pain

inviting the scar with promise for gain

Embracing security, enough to suffice

eternity safe through love’s sacrifice

(It's more of an Easter poem than a Christmas one, but the two do go together, don't they?)