Delight in the Gap

Delight in the Gap

Sometime this past fall an incident occurred at one of the schools I serve which illustrated a basic problem that I see with the whole “Close the Gap” mindset that has become the focus of special education at the state level as well as at some of my local schools.  Close the Gap is a mantra being chanted by the educational system that declares that the goal must be “to eliminate the achievement gap between general education and special education students.” (This is an actual quote by a representative of the state Department of Education to our agency’s opening meeting two years ago).

You may also recognize this Close the Gap thinking in the No Child Left Behind mandate from the federal government.  Simply put, NCLB has the goal of getting all children above the 40^th percentile on standardized measures of achievement in reading, math and science.  This is, of course, statistically impossible since as soon as the lowest student is at the 40^th percentile, that becomes the 1^st percentile!  But statistical reality has never been much of an impediment to government mandates!

I should say that I do believe that we can do a much better job of challenging under-performing kids to achieve at higher levels.  And I believe that improved achievement has benefits for the individual as well as for the community and society as a whole.  Students who achieve better, feel better!  What I take issue with is the prevailing standard of measure being applied to all students – or maybe even to any students.

At some point in the past, people began to believe that people could be measured and explained statistically in much that same way that it was possible to measure various naturally occurring events – this might include coin flips or the size and weight of chicken eggs.   As a result, the concept of the normal curve was applied to human characteristics such as height and weight and then to more complicated characteristics such as intelligence.  As the use of the normal curve began to be accepted as itself “normal,” assumptions underlying its use were rarely if ever challenged.  One of those assumptions is that characteristics such as intelligence and achievement have a “normal distribution” and that plotting it as such is desirable.  One of the results of this thinking is standardized testing that we all now take for granted in our schools.  And one of the consequences of standardized testing is gap thinking based on percentile scores.  The goal becomes to get everyone under the big part of the bell curve – to make everyone “normal."

Back to the incident in the school.  There is a little kindergarten girl at one of my schools who has significant disabilities physically, intellectually, communication-ally.  She has few words although she can definitely make her desires and especially frustrations known!  She walks only with the help of a walker.  She cannot navigate steps independently at all.  In fact, one of her physical therapy goals is to go up one step.  One day in the fall, she was working on getting up one step.  She could get one foot up but was struggling to get the other one up.  After several minutes of struggling, the paraprofessional suggested that she had worked hard enough for the day and that she could stop trying for now.  Julie would have none of that and informed the aide in the way only she can that she was NOT done trying to get up the step.  At that point, Julie’s teacher had joined in supporting and encouraging her.  After about 10 minutes, a group of second graders came down the set of stairs at which Julie was at the bottom continuing to struggle.  Coincidentally, they were waiting in line at the same time that Julie finally accomplished the feat of getting the second foot up to the first step.  The aide and teacher were sweating and exhausted, emotionally as much as anything.  The second graders cheered.  Julie beamed! 

But in Close the Gap thinking, this is a big “So what??”  Julie may only be in kindergarten but she is going to be a failure when it comes time to measure her reading, math and science and will be a part of why the school ends up on the failing school list.  She simply isn’t going to be “normal.”

I don’t think anyone would say that Julie’s achievement on the step is a failure or shouldn't be celebrated.  Seriously, there were tears in people’s eyes.  But the system values achievement only compared to the norm.  Julie is not going to be at the 40^th percentile in stair walking either.  Imagine if we made that her goal for the entire of her elementary school career?  Or her entire K-12 career?  We would be asking her to do something that she physically can never do.  “Walk the stairs like a normal student!”  My school psychologist friend Frank likes to tell the fantasy story of the kid with no legs that is forced to run the 100 yard dash until he meets the standard of the so called normal kids.  In his telling, Frank keeps yelling at the fantasy teacher/real system, “BUT HE HAS NO LEGS!!!!”

For sure, there is a gap between Julie and most of the other kids in her school.  If normal curve thinking is right, it must be our goal to close the gap between Julie and the other kids.  We have to focus on the gap and are continually faced in our thinking and programming with how Julie is inadequate.  But what if normal curve thinking is wrong?  What if instead of focusing on what Julie can’t do compared to other so called normal kids, we focused entirely on what Julie can do compared to herself?  What if instead of focusing on closing the gap, we began to delight in the gap as a way of seeing Julie for how special and important she is just the way she is?  What if the system could see that Julie getting up that one step was more work and more significant an achievement for her than going up the whole flight of stairs at the 40^th percentile (and above!) is for the rest of the kids?

And what if we applied this kind of thinking to every kid in the school?  There are so very many kids who feel inadequate at school because they don’t measure up.  Our system continually compares all the kids to each other with a goal, never stated but always present, that everyone should be the same with the smart kids being just a little more the same than the others (George Orwell – Animal Farm). 

As a follower of Jesus, I reject normal curve thinking because of my firm belief that everyone is created in the image of God.  Each has passions and abilities and limitations and interests that result in a unique individual who is capable of being the best person he or she can be, as long as they are allowed to compare themselves to themselves (Galatians 6:4).  When we put kids under the normal curve, we take away their uniqueness as we force them to focus on single measures which they may or may not be capable of meeting.  In Jesus’s day, disabled people were considered to have been cursed by God (see John 9 and the man born blind).  They were different than the norm and therefore there was something wrong with them.  If science is one of the chief gods of our age, it has not helped us move away from that attitude as one of the laws of this new god, the normal curve, has defined those beneath the 40^th percentile “cursed” because they are not the same as everyone else.

We can do better than this.  Julie’s achievement on the step was one of the greatest I have seen or heard about this school year.  Julie herself is a delightful young person with so much personality and drive and stubbornness.   She is precious right now and the next steps she takes, literally and figuratively, should be celebrated because she is moving toward becoming the best Julie she can be according to her abilities and skills and passions, not because she is becoming more like the “normal kids”.  Let’s find ways to delight in the gap.  We may even close the gap while we are doing it.  But for sure, it will be more affirming, edifying and just plain more fun than focusing on trying to close a statistical gap that will always exist if we continue to measure it with standardized tests that kids like Julie will always have trouble mastering.

Newtown Essay - 12/19/12

This was written immediately following the tragedy in Newtown.  I am repeating it here for those who didn't see it and as a reference for anyone that wants to share it.

Thanks!

Thoughts on “What Can We Do?” After Newtown, CT

Jim Ott

Friday was a tough day for those of us who are working in schools or who are parents of kids who attend school.  In fact, the whole weekend was tough.  Coming back to school on Monday wasn’t all that great either!  While I am far from Newtown, CT, and can’t begin to know what it is like for the residents of that community, I know that my experience in processing through what happened there on Friday was similar to many who work in the many thousands of other schools around the country.  It did not take much for me to change the faces on the parents and kids I saw on TV and think, “I know those people.  I know those kids.”  This could have been us.  That could have been me.

                At the same time, we know the statistics.  Schools are very safe and there are very few places where kids are safer from physical harm than in the school building during the school day.  I know that there is very little likelihood that I will ever have the need to intervene in a school with a crazed gunman. 

But I have to do something.

 The first response on Monday morning is what I saw happen in my schools.  “Remember to check your crisis procedures to ensure that you are making our school as safe as possible” memos were sent.  Door were locked that maybe should have been all along.  My ID was checked in buildings where it never was before. 

                These actions are understandable and make sense in context.  Schools want to do what they can to protect the kids.  But on some level, making sure the doors are locked and related security measures as a way to protect the kids from a malicious intruder is a bit like revisiting the way you pick the numbers for the lottery when you don’t win the big jackpot.  In a similar way to it being true that I will never win the lottery, the statistical truth is that none of the kids I work with are going to be threatened by a malicious intruder with a gun.  If it ever does happen, I pray that I will do what I can to intervene and protect the children and demonstrate the courage that the adults at Newtown did.  But I have already done everything I can do to protect kids from this kind of threat.  The staff and the students at Sandy Hook Elementary are worthy of a better legacy than making sure the doors are locked.

                So what can we do?  As educators?  As parents? As a culture?  The sudden impact of attacks like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School is what shakes our lives.  In less than a second, a foreign object entered a child’s body, did irreparable harm, and took away his or her life.  And it happened to many all at once, which is what brought it to the nation’s consciousness.  Certainly we know that kids are being killed every day in a variety of senseless ways from gang violence to drunk driving to simple carelessness.  Most of these children’s stories are never known outside of their communities perhaps, and sadly, because those stories have become too commonplace to be reported on a large scale.  Even in these cases, it is the immediacy with which it all happens that is difficult.

                I work as a school psychologist.  As I reflected on the implications of Sandy Hook for my own job, I realized that there is little I can do to stop incidents of senseless violence or accidents that take away children’s lives.  What occurred to me is that every day I go to school, I see kids dying slow deaths right in front of me.  I started thinking about the slow motion bullets that are killing children right before my eyes.  Many of these kids will not die physically but they are dying emotionally and spiritually, sometimes taking others with them.  Maybe we can do something about those bullets.  When people are shot but not killed, surgeons work with all their skill and passion to undo the damage that has already been done.  Maybe we can redouble our efforts to undo the damage that has been done to so many children by the bullets our culture has fired into the lives of so many young people.  Examples of these bullets?

• ·         Physical and sexual abuse
• ·         The prevalence of drugs and alcohol as the entertainment of choice not only for kids but for whole family systems.
• ·         The outrageous exposure that so many kids have to violence and sexuality through media and gaming.  When I have seven year olds telling me that their favorite game is “Call of Duty 3”, I feel like I have already lost the battle.  The sexualization of little girls in advertising and entertainment is another example.
• ·         A hierarchy based adult social world that promotes celebrity, “cool”, and popularity (think voting on American Idol and the like) which is modeled to kids who we tell that they should not live that way.  Many a parent’s most significant fear regarding school is not that their child will not do well but they their child will not be popular.
• ·         A culture of non-committed adults resulting in kids being raised in broken homes, sometimes broken several times resulting in a level of personal and relational insecurity that those working with children recognize all too well.
• ·         A bureaucratic and self-serving school system that far too often sees children as scores to be raised and data points to be plotted rather than precious lives to be nurtured, cherished and celebrated regardless of reading level or math skills.
• ·         Kids being raised by television screens, games systems, and computers.   A culture of technology addiction.  I saw a nice youth group ringing bells at a Salvation Army kettle this last week.  Actually the adult chaperone was ringing the bell.  Four of the five high school kids were staring at their phones.  The other one was holding hers apparently waiting for the next opportunity.
• ·         Parents who primarily want to involve their kids in everything, occupying their every waking moment resulting in little time actually spent with their parents and little ability developed on the part of the kids to occupy their own time and thoughts.
• ·         Disconnected kids who turn to gangs, fantasy, sex, drugs, anger, and violence in an attempt to fill the emptiness within.
• ·         Helicopter parents who never allow their kids to experience the reality of life and the consequences of their choices.  More and more kids for whom it is never their fault and someone else will solve this for me.

Of course, this is a partial list based on my own experiences and concerns.  But these figurative bullets are being shot into the lives of many children and doing incredible damage to kids on a daily basis.  They are slow moving and slow acting compared to bullets from a gun, but they are killing the lives of precious kids I work with every day.  For most of these students, I can’t go back in time and keep the bullets from being shot.  But I can spend as much of my energy and time as I have available to do as much “surgery” and I can to repair the effects.

Friday morning of the shooting, I was at an alternative high school and worked with several kids before I even heard of the tragic events in Connecticut.  One girl in particular symbolizes for me this whole concept.  She can read, write and do math just fine.  But she is dying.  She has talents and abilities and passions she has only begun to suspect.  But the bullets are killing her future.  Monday morning, I met with another young lady, a senior in high school.  Very similar story.  I can’t get in front of the bullets that have been shot into their lives, some of which are listed above.  But as an educator and a parent, if I am serious about saving kids lives, I can get serious about doing what I can to save those dying the slow death.  I can do whatever it takes to replace brokenness, despair and yes, even death with hope and promise.   It won’t bring back the students and staff lost at Sandy Hook.  But maybe it will be a small way to honor their memory and respect their sacrifice and the sacrifice of their families.

Jim Ott

Jmott30@aol.com

                

The Part of the Christmas Story We Don't Talk About

        Christmas is over but the season continues, at least for me.  As I write these words, I am at my parents’ house in Michigan near where I grew up and attended Adams Elementary School – new at the time but showing its age these days!   Thoughts of Newtown, CT continue to trouble me although not to the extent that they surely trouble those who live in that community.  As I consider the Christmas story as recorded in the book of Matthew in the Bible, I am reminded that there is a part of the story that is not included in any of our manger scenes and often not considered in our celebrations at home, in church or in the community.  From Matthew 2:16-18:

When Herod learned that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and gave orders to kill all the boys two years old and younger in accordance with the time learned from the Magi.  Then what was spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah

      weeping and great mourning;

Rachel weeping for her children

     and refusing to be comforted

   because they are no more.”

            If only Sandy Hook were something new.  If only this were an isolated, one of a kind of problem.  Unfortunately, the “slaughter of innocents” is a time honored tradition.  How are those who follow Jesus to react to an elementary school shooting?  Our hearts cry for justice.  Our faith demands forgiveness.  Our sense of fairness is compromised by a senseless act of insanity.  We are angry.  We are sad.  We want to act.  But no action we can undertake seems remotely sufficient to right the wrong or make up for the pain.

            As is often the case in such dramatic tragedies as experienced in Newtown, CT, predictable emotional reactions surface first.  And often they seem to take an agenda driven perspective.  Quickly, many people of faith posted comments indicating their strong conviction that the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary is evidence that our nation is becoming increasingly godless and tragedies of this nature are the natural consequence of our drifting away from our Christian heritage.

            Just as quickly, another group contributes their voices saying that this is what happens when a country allows people to own certain types of weapons and this is the natural consequence of bad gun control policy.

            These comments bother me.  Both groups of people are basically saying the same thing: “See, I told you so!”  They use an event of national magnitude but of personal tragedy to advance their predetermined explanations of reality.  There is no apparent attempt to learn from the experience.  Only to “teach” from it; and to teach that they were right all along and that this only proves it.  It seems very exploitative and not at all respectful of the individuals and families who lost so much.  It is vaguely reminiscent of the folks from that Baptist church that protest at funerals for military personnel killed in action, saying that their deaths are due to America’s tolerance of homosexuality.

            If you are in one of the above categories, you might be offended by this comparison.  “This isn’t the same thing!” you might say.   I agree that it isn’t the same thing in content.  But is there really any difference in process?

1.      I have an opinion about why things are the way they are.

2.      Some tragic event of public significance occurs.

3.      I can only see that event through my lens.

4.      I will use (exploit?) this opportunity to tell others that my view is correct and that others to need to adopt my point of view or more tragic events will occur.

Is there much difference whether Step 1 is a strongly held view about gun control or a godless nation or the intolerance of homosexuality?  All three groups use Step 2 in whatever form it comes to move through Steps 3 and 4 with passion. 

In the present context, it is not that I do not believe that tragic events like what took place in Newtown should not provoke us to consider important issues that deserve our attention from gun law to morality to mental health and so on.  But for those who are often so vocal in taking us with them through Steps 1 through 4, I don’t sense any desire to have real conversation about the issues.  I listen to the loud voices and don’t believe they have any interest in personal or cultural change unless that change occurs in someone else and the culture moves to their already established vision.  If for no other reason than to respect those who lost children, family members, and friends we have to do better than to simply use Sandy Hook as an excuse to have the same old arguments.

To my gun control friends, I want to say that I agree that there is a need to reopen the conversation in our culture regarding guns and who can own what and how guns could be regulated.  The second amendment to our constitution was important enough to those who wrote and passed it that they made it the second amendment.  But it was never about hunting!  Arguments that start and finish with “Why would someone need a semi-automatic assault weapon to hunt deer?” miss the original concerns that led to the second amendment; primarily safety and personal protection not just from other citizens but also from the government itself!  The second amendment was a kind of check on government power. Productive conversations leading to changes in gun policy will need to be aware of this issue – an issue which was clearly not a part of the Sandy Hook situation.  Similarly, the “slippery slope” argument advanced by second amendment advocates (If one kind of gun is regulated, what will be next?) is too simple to be useful in this conversation.

Beyond that, was Sandy Hook really about guns?  Would it have mattered if the weapon had been a knife or a sword or a baseball bat or even a musket?  Would we not have been just as outraged?  Would we not have been just as grieved?  If the gunman didn’t have access to an automatic weapon, would we have been less impacted if only six children died instead of 20?  The only difference in the conversation would be that gun control advocates would not have a forum to advance their Step 1 opinions.

      Yes, guns are important and there needs to be a sane conversation about gun law.  If there are some who are provoked to get engaged in that conversation by the events at Sandy Hook Elementary then that involvement can be a part of looking at solutions that can contribute to safety for people everywhere, not just in schools but also in theaters (Colorado) and malls (Oregon).  But for those who simply want to say, “See, I told you so!” I encourage you to let the newcomers take the lead!

     

      To my fellow believers who are decrying the fallen, godless state of our culture.  The position that what happened at Sandy Hook is evidence that our American culture has abandoned faith in God operates from an assumption that our culture was ever good at following God in the first place!  We live in a fallen world in which the brokenness of people is played out every day in every arena.  Our country was founded and established in part with a compromise that allowed the continued practice of slavery.  The destruction of native cultures and people was a part of making our country one that stretched from “sea to shining sea”.  We have been killing each other from the beginning and barring the return of Jesus there doesn’t seem to be much reason to think it will change any time soon.  To attribute Sandy Hook to “godlessness” is simplistic and disrespectful.

 Again, we have to do better than “I told you so.” and “This proves what I have been saying all along.  You should have listened a long time ago.”  People of serious conscience need to be thinking deeper thoughts rather than simply interpreting current events through the lens of their already established world views on gun control or godlessness or mental health or whatever else. 

There are many arenas in which to do this thinking, but the one that has been troubling me the most is how did Adam Lanza get to this point and what could have been done?  As a school psychologist, I am familiar with the Adam Lanzas in my own schools.  There really is no room for them in the normal social-emotional functioning of other students and sadly, often among the staff as well.  It appears that academic skills were not a problem.  When kids do not have significant academic concerns, it can result in the socially awkward kids drifting off the radar in a school system increasingly dedicated to academic standards normal curve based assessment.  Mental health concerns definitely take a back seat when No Child Left Behind status for school districts is based on academic scores alone.  A student can get help if they have mental health concerns AND are not very good in math or reading.  But God help the kid who is “crazy” but proficient in all academics.  There aren’t enough resources to address his or her needs.  A supervisor at my own agency made this statement within the past two years: “We will no longer be providing on- going mental health services in the schools we serve.”  It wasn’t that we weren’t supposed to care about those kids.  We were being told that the total priority for our services would be the raising of achievement scores among underperforming students. (More on this in another essay!)

Back to “God help the kid who is crazy.”  As a follower of Jesus, I am obligated to consider events like Sandy Hook from that perspective.  As I think about Adam Lanza and others like him,  a few of them known and many more unknown, I have to think about the astonishing example of Jesus in terms of whom he spent time with and talked to and touched.  He hung out with prostitutes (street people today?) and tax collectors (think systemic, white collar crime in today’s terms).  He talked to women – something almost impossible for us to appreciate in our day.  He touched lepers – the outcasts of the outcasts! 

One of the hallmarks of the early Christian movement was how the followers of Jesus dealt with the outcasts and rejected.  An example was the reputation that quickly developed of Christians literally picking up and adopting abandoned children in Rome.  The commitment to helping the helpless continued from the earliest days to the present.  There is a reason that so many hospitals have words like “Mercy” and “Samaritan” and “St.” in their names!

Putting all this together, for Christians today the easiest thing to do is to look for evidence of others not living godly lives and blame them individually and culturally for cataclysmic disasters like Connecticut and Oregon and Colorado as well as California and Arizona and others before that.  But it seems more useful to ask ourselves if we are following Jesus in embracing, including and supporting the marginalized.  What more could I do to identify and minister to the Adam Lanzas in my own life?  How could the Christian community in which I live out my faith be more supportive of parents who are dealing with challenges faced by their children?  What could we do to bring into community those who are pushed to the edges by the culture as a whole? 

We don’t have physical lepers in our American culture any longer.  But we certainly have figurative ones.  Adam Lanza is an example of one of those lepers. Sometimes they are referred to as mentally ill but I wonder if sometimes being marginalized doesn’t lead to so called mental illness rather than the other way around!   Physical lepers were isolated from the culture at large and shunned because if you caught what they had, you would die.  Leper colonies were the result.  Thanks in part to a Christian commitment to touch and heal lepers, we don’t fear lepers any longer especially in America.  But the figurative lepers?

Kids like Adam Lanza often get isolated from the culture as a whole.  On rare occasions, their “leprosy” infects others and people die.  We are afraid not only of what they have done, but of what they might do if they get too close to us.  We want to do anything to stop them from “infecting” others.  But we are most comfortable when we don’t see them at all.  They and often their families as well stay hidden in their own private little “colonies”.   When one of the “lepers” gets out of the colony and someone gets hurt, we often rush to explain it according to what we already believe.  But these situations are so much more complicated than the simple four steps which are listed above and which routinely get played out in the media.  It doesn’t matter what the perspective is from gun control to morality to mental health – too often the steps look the same and produce little discernible change.

I am challenged to consider the marginalized lepers in my own sphere of influence and how I can better imitate this Jesus that I claim to follow.  I am committed to thinking less about what is wrong with others who do not live or think the way I do and to begin thinking more about what I can do to make a difference in the understanding of those who are different.  I believe that more will be accomplished by accepting responsibility for what I have not done than by blaming others for holding opinions or beliefs different from mine.  I am hopeful that by adopting these approaches maybe, just maybe I can touch and bring healing to an Adam Lanza in my life and so save not only him but others that might have been infected by his leprosy.  I look forward to working with others who are doing what they can in their lives as well.

Jim

           

            

Grandpa Jack Died This Week - From the week of Christmas

Grandpa Jack Died This Week – A Christmas Story

(True story – names changed)

Grandpa Jack died this week.  It is hard to describe Grandpa Jack well, or nicely in the context of his passing.  He was not what we in education would call a supportive parent – or grandparent.  Grandpa Jack’s kids didn’t do well in school and often were not present at all.  At his passing, Grandpa Jack lived with one of his daughters and her three kids.  In the traditional “sins of the father” way, Grandpa Jack’s three grandkids had trouble in school also.  All three are great kids; kind and cooperative and they try hard – when they are there.  They miss a lot of school and their mom has lots of reasons why.

We special education people have been working with Irene, Ellen and Frankie in some combination or another for seven or eight years now.  The one who has worked with them most closely is my friend Pam who is a speech/language pathologist.  Their teachers and support people like us have alternately been frustrated with the kids and then felt badly for them because of their background, especially their living conditions.

I serve rural schools in my job as a school psychologist.  Stories of homes with less than the most modern conveniences are not unknown.  But Grandpa Jack’s house is legend.  No plumbing in the house.  Not clean.  And the sleeping arrangements are suspect.  I never had the opportunity to make a home visit but other school people had and they never had good things to say.   Only two beds in the house and both in the same room with an old chamber pot between them.  Due to attendance and observation of the home conditions, school people have contacted state child protection people on several occasions.  I heard second hand that the first responders who attended to the situation when the call came in that Grandpa Jack was dead were astonished at the condition of the house.

 

On Monday, Pam asked me, “Are you going to go to the visitation for Grandpa Jack?”

I replied with my first thought, “Why would we do that?”  It was the week before Christmas and there are still things to do at work before vacation.  I could not imagine why we would take time away from school to go to the visitation of a man we did not respect.  And I knew what kind of people would be there.   There wouldn’t be many that we would recognize or want to talk to.

Pam only had to ask me six or seven times, “Are you going to go to the visitation for Grandpa Jack?” before I realized that what she was really asking was “Will you go with me to the visitation for Grandpa Jack?”  Pam was thinking of the kids.  She and another teacher had gone together and bought little sympathy bears for the kids and she wanted to give them to the kids in person.   So Tuesday morning, we met at the school the kids attended and drove to the funeral for the visitation. 

I was not surprised by what we experienced.  I don’t think there was one good set of natural teeth in the whole place.  We dutifully entered and signed in.  We spoke with the kid’s mother and then had some words with each of the kids and gave them the bears.  We made some excuses about having to get back to school and left.  On the way out, I met Officer Friendly at the door.  Officer Friendly is a retired police officer who used to do school programs.  I didn’t know he was working at the funeral home now.  We talked for a bit while Pam was getting her coat on.  I talked more with Officer Friendly than I did in total with everyone else in the funeral home, and none of my conversation with Officer Friendly was about Grandpa Jack.

As we left the funeral home and descended the stairs to the sidewalk, we encountered a group of people standing in a circle smoking.  Actually there were several of these groups but this one was special because it included three people I knew: Tracy, Brian and Emily.  All three were former students at the school.  Brian was a cousin to the kids.  All three were now in their 20s and all three now looked like the adults in the funeral home.  Their teeth weren’t good.  Their clothes weren’t the best.  They were smoking.  But they were all so happy to see me.  Brian and Emily showed off Emily’s new ring.  They are engaged.    Tracy had gone to church camp with me when she was in school.  She had many issues and I never felt like camp had taken with her.  She ended up with two kids who live with her mother because she was unable to care for them.

 “What are you up to?” I asked. 

“Trying to get my life back together.  I’ve been going to church and reading my bible.  I’ve been wondering how I could get back in touch with you.”

I gave her my phone number.  We talked about how she had cut off her hair for “Locks of Love” and how my daughter had done that once.  We talked about the weather and the big storm that was coming. 

And as we talked, I kept hearing in the back of my head a voice saying, “These are the people Jesus came for.”  It was not a comfortable voice.  It was a convicting one.  These people have no voice,  no power, no status.  Nobody wants these people as neighbors or friends or employees.  They have nothing to offer.  THESE are the people Jesus came for.  People like you don’t “need” Jesus; you have done everything for yourselves.   

{Theologically, I understand that this is not true.  Jesus came for all people and at some point we will all stand before God clothed with our own righteousness (translate: completely exposed; naked).  It’s true for Brian and Tracy and Ellen and Frankie and Pam and me.  It’s true for Grandpa Jack.  We all need Jesus.  But in this context, I was acutely aware that I think I am taking care of myself and these people do not have the resources to do the same.  I think I deserve all that I take for granted because of my hard work or responsibility or self-reliance or whatever.}

Brian is a slight, hyper kind of guy.  He always had a smile on his face and was always glad to see me – or anyone for that matter.  He had some boundary issues socially and sometimes physically as well.  He was dressed in a suit that was at least a size or two too big.  As we commented on the weather, he took note of my trench coat.  I love this coat.  I got it eight or ten years ago from a fellow teacher who had been in the navy.  Government issue!  It’s black and has a removable liner.  It’s very warm and perfect for the winter. 

Brain said, “Can I have your coat?  I’ll give you 20 bucks for your coat so I can wear it when we go to the cemetery.”  He was only partly joking. 

I mumbled some reply about 20 bucks being less than I paid for it and then I’d be cold and we needed to get back to school.  Inside, I am thinking, “This is my coat.  I paid for it and have taken care of it and it is important to me.  I like it and I am not just going to give it away!”   Pam and I moved away from the group, got into my car and headed back to school.

On Wednesday morning, a group of men from my church get together at the local all purpose store.  They used to call these grocery stores, but now they have restaurants and gas stations and everything else you can imagine.  We have breakfast and a bible study.  During Advent, we have been reading the scriptures from the lectionary and discussing their implications.  Here are a couple of excerpts from the readings we read for this week:

“Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;

                shout, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,

                O daughter of Jerusalem!”          (Zephaniah 3:14)

“The Lord your God is in your midst,

                a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

                he will quiet you by his love

he will exult over you with singing.”         (Zephaniah 3:17)

“With joy you will draw water

 from the wells of salvation.”                     (Isaiah 12:3)

“Rejoice in the Lord always,

Again I will say, Rejoice!”                           (Philippians 4:4)

So after noting the theme of joy because of the coming of Christ into the world, one of the men asked this question:  “If Christmas is about the joy of God’s presence, why don’t we feel it more, and more often?  Why aren’t we always full of joy?”

When Jesus came, he gave up everything he had to live of life of having basically nothing.   “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich.”  (2Corinthians 8:9)  We are even challenged to live in the same way.  “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:5-7)  One of our conclusions was that we don’t experience constant joy because we are too busy worrying about our lives and taking care of our stuff.

There was another scripture for our reading.  It involved John the Baptist.  When the people came to be baptized, they asked him what they should do.  His first response as recorded by Luke (2:11)? “Whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

As I reflect on the experience of Grandpa Jack’s funeral, I can’t help but wonder if the reason that I do not experience the full joy of Christmas is that I did not give Brian my coat. 

----

May God bless you this Christmas and New Year as you celebrate with friends and family the birth of one who gave up everything for the sake of those who had nothing, even me.  May we all delight in the joyful experience of giving – not the seasonal mutual exchange of material things most of us don’t really need, but in the true giving of our time and money and yes, our coats.  In that giving is joy and fulfillment we have only begun to realize!  Merry Christmas.  Happy New Year.

Jim

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Matthew 6:19-21

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame” – Hebrews 12:2a

WELCOME - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

January 1, 2013

Welcome to Horsebread, my new blog which I have been meaning to start for some time and which some have asked me to start.  I am looking forward to sharing ideas and thoughts as they occur to me and hearing what others have to say in response.   Reply hear or send me an e-mail at jmott30@aol.com.

Happy New Year!
Jim