Why It's Good for My Kids to Get Sick Once in a While

I take some guilty pleasure in when my daughter is sick.

It's a terrible thing to say, I know; and I didn't realize it until this week. But it's true: despite the germs and the vomit and the scrambled schedule to stay home with her, I do find joy looking into those helpless, miserable eyes on sick days.

This realization was a process beginning on Sunday morning. I woke up a little later than usual, so instead of my customary trip to the gas station to get the Sunday paper and subsequent perusal of its myriad stories, I chose to forego it in favor of the opportunity to sit in our rocking chair and read to the girls. A morning full of good books and good snuggles beckoned. There was only one problem: neither of my girls wanted to read with me.

I offered. I waited a few minutes and offered again. I sat in the chair and displayed several of their favorite titles, attempting to entice them. They were otherwise detained. "Don't take it personally," my wife encouraged. But how could I take it any other way? One of the few "Dad" skills I have to offer, that of literacy coordinator, was being rejected as unnecessary.

With a pout and some grumbling, I pulled out Time magazine and tried not to mourn their independence.

In the middle of church, my 4 year old said she felt sick and went to the bathroom to throw up. She didn't throw up. At the end of the service, she went back to the bathroom. She didn't throw up. We got into the car, and then she threw up. I'm pretty sure she aimed for all the cracks in the upholstery to maximize the damage.

We got home, and the clean up began. Suddenly miserable and feeble, she needed her clothes changed and washed, she needed to be tucked in on the couch, and she needed a stuffed animal to clutch. I needed to eat lunch; instead I lost my appetite mopping up the car. That was pretty much the day.

How could I possibly find joy in that? Easy - suddenly Miss Independent could think of nothing she wanted more than to bury her head into my shoulder, listen to me tell her it was going to be okay, and let me read books to her.

I don't root for my children to experience pain and sickness. I feel bad for them when they do. But I don't feel sorry at all that it is an opportunity to remind them that I can be counted on, that I will protect and care for them, and that there are days when they just can't go it alone. It's not that they don't know all of those are true; it's just nice for them to feel that truth on rare occasions as well.

I get the feeling that God knows something of this as well. Wanting the best for us, I'm certain He realizes that there are times we don't want Him to read to us and we would much rather play whatever we feel like. There are times in which, despite the fact that we know better, we behave as if we think we can accomplish anything on our own, arrogantly celebrating our self-reliance.

I've been spiritually ill at times lately. I've metaphorically vomited all over a lot of cars, all as a result of the dual problem of catching the contagious comfort flu and shoveling sugary dessert after sugary dessert into my soul without any calories of substance. I've attempted to "battle through" the illness on my own, waiting passively to get better. But when I get sicker and sicker, fatigued and helpless, it is then I crawl on my Father's lap and ask Him to tell me it's going to be okay. And He does.

I know God doesn't want to have to baby me for long, just as I want my children to continue to grow to be independent in many aspects of their lives. I'm certain some of the messes I've made in illness have been rather foul to clean up. But I also feel He must smile knowing that it is in this state of disrepair that I often best understand our relationship.

My daughter is well again, running high octane through the house, conquering her pre-K kingdom, boldly proclaiming herself to be the queen of the universe. But she isn't too healthy to linger a few extra moments in a hug, or in a snuggle, or in my lap with a book. And that's the perfect kind of healthy for me.

Jonah, Love Actually, and Me

Twenty-eight minutes. No good.

Saturday night before I delivered the Sunday morning sermon at our church last week I was in my office giving it a final run through or two. The assignment was 25 minutes. A week ago it had been around 22. A few edits later, followed by flu days with no work, and there I was, polishing. And over time. Hoping I had just been slow, I went through again. I looked at the clock. Twenty-eight minutes. Time to cut.

I searched the sermon for what could go, what I could safely cut loose and not feel like had cost much to my message. There wasn't anything. I was emotionally tied to every piece in every section, and I felt the impact of losing every sentence whose worth I weighed.

But 28 isn't 25. Three minutes had to go. There just wasn't room for everything I wanted, and I could just imagine the yawns and clock-watching from a perturbed audience unhappy with the new guy's windy ways. So I cut. I didn't shave around the edges; I took out a knife and sliced a couple of whole pieces, pieces that I felt academically married to, some sentences and paragraphs that were there in my head and on the page long before there was any semblance of a sermon.

I liked the pieces. I liked them a lot. But I didn't need them. In the way of what mattered most, they had to go.

My wife and I watched the film Love Actually the other night. We've seen it many times before, but we never viewed the deleted scenes until that night. The director spoke in advance of the scenes, and he indicated that when they finished the movie, they realized that it was 3 1/2 hours long. They knew they had to cut to make it marketable. The final run time of the film is just over two hours, so it's clear they also cut deep. The director paraded out scene after scene, talking about how they initially absolutely loved it and couldn't imagine the film without it, but ultimately it had to go.

After watching several of the scenes, my wife and I expressed mutual feelings: we were thankful for the cuts. Frankly, we saw no loss at all. Knowing how much we enjoy the final product, we saw the value in seeing it pruned into only what was necessary and fruitful.

The cuts were hard for the director, just as they were hard for me with the sermon, just as they are hard for any writer in the revision process who must let go of prose that are perfect, just not for this occasion. You've got to cut to get to the essence of what really matters.

I see that reality in every season of my life. As hard as I want to try, I can't fit 28 minutes into 25. If I do, what I have is worse at each of the 28 minutes than if I just got rid of something. The something is usually good. I don't think cutting the garbage out of our lives is the hard part, Most people, when faced with the knowledge that something they are doing is a significant time-sucker with no real payoff are quick and even joyful to drop it. No, what's hard is when everything you have is good, or seems good. But you know it's not essential.

Everything you choose to do is a trade. You are trading that time and that activity for doing something else. Too often, it is choosing not to do better what's essential and fulfilling.

Let me encourage you to cut. It probably won't feel good, because there's not a lot in your day-to-day schedule, or in your holiday plans, or in your work day, or in your time with your family, that you don't think is helpful. But it's likely you're trading good for what's best.

Name what's best. Name what's essential. Then get out the knife.


***My writing has been primarily absent over the past month or so as I've spent much of my energies preparing for my Sunday morning sermon debut, a message on Jonah 3. My next several posts, therefore, will be either commentary about the experience, key passages from the message, or pieces I couldn't fit in but enjoyed writing anyway. 

Eighty Percent

Eighty percent of success is showing up, according to Woody Allen.

I've come to believe that it's 80% of friendship as well.

One of my favorite movies is Tombstone, primarily because of the theme of loyalty shown in the friendship between Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Whenever an important event for Wyatt is going down, Doc shows up. He's there for drinks, laughs, and shootouts. In Wyatt's darkest times and grandest accomplishments, Doc is there. During a particularly difficult and dangerous time, another character asks Doc why he's there.



Last Sunday morning when I stood up in front of our church and delivered a sermon for the first time, I had some friends show up. I invited them without an expectation that they would or should be there. Sure, I wanted them there, but only to share with them what I'd been working on for the past few weeks. I didn't necessarily think that their presence would make a huge difference to me. I was wrong. Their faces in the crowd at a time of risk and adrenaline and joy and priority for me was a distinct act of friendship. I'm not sure there are many greater acts.

For several of these friends, showing up was anything but convenient. For some, church is one of the last places they'd expect to find themselves on a Sunday morning. For others, it required a detour of sorts in travel plans. But they showed up anyway. With no real expectation of personal gain, they were there.

Friendship is no more complicated than that.

I remember when I used to coach and our team would play at a gym in the suburbs of Des Moines. Almost every time we came to that gym, I had friends from the area in the gym. They could have cared less about the teams and players on the court. It was a never a good basketball game. They had better things to do on a Tuesday or Friday night. And it wasn't like we could hang out and spend a lot of time together; I had a game to coach, after all. They were there for no other reason than that eighty percent of friendship is showing up.

You can't show up to everything. And I don't believe anyone expects that of you. But when you can, and when you do, you will be making a statement. And it will be a statement long felt between friends.


***My writing has been primarily absent over the past month or so as I've spent much of my energies preparing for my Sunday morning sermon debut, a message on Jonah 3. My next several posts, therefore, will be either commentary about the experience, key passages from the message, or pieces I couldn't fit in but enjoyed writing anyway. 

Why I Don't Want My Kids to Read the Sports Page

The sports page is no longer sacred reading space. It is no longer safe.

On a typical Sunday morning, I rise before the rest of the house, start a pot of coffee, and walk down to the gas station 2 blocks away to pick up a the Des Moines Sunday Register. Upon returning home and pouring the first cup, my habit, the same now in my thirties as it was as a teen, is to dig a few sections in to begin my morning with the sports page. While I do now get through every section, I always begin there. I don't like what I now am seeing.

In an effort that can only be explained by a desire to be "cutting-edge," The Register has regular full-length articles on what is being said about the beloved Hawkeyes and Cyclones on Twitter. Rather that analyzing another aspect of each game, a summary of social media activity is provided. All manner of passionate pearls of unfiltered wisdom are celebrated and given the recognition and distinction of being printed rather than scrolled through. Apparently I should care more about what former Cyclones have tweeted about the season, or about how "BonduHawk" and "SparrowHawk" would have coached the Hawks to victory. These words are worthy of ink.

This is made-up drama, ridiculous junior high temper tantrum-style venting that gives the speaker (or "tweeter") maximum exposure with minimum responsibility. It is foolishness. It is trashy. And it is littering my newspaper. This Northern Iowa Panther fan was none too pleased to see these two articles take up more space than the actual football game they played in which they took down the nation's longest winning streak. But even for the non-Panther, unbiased reader, I weep. For you have nowhere to go.

Lest I put this on The Register, I must include the fact that USA Today includes in their Sports Section the "Tweets of the Day." A quick perusal of the ESPN website now has 7 of their top 10 headlines not about actual contests played by teams or news directly affecting the outcomes of games. Instead we are pushed to drama: rumors, pouting, betrayal, and dollar signs. Professional wrestling has fewer manipulated story angles than does ESPN trying to promote their product. It is discouraging.

Drama sells. It sells so well that some people buy it, consume it, and try to sell it anew in fresh packaging, placing their own label over the old one. Substance is a commodity that is lacking; our society is too often told that just the facts are not enough to hold anyone's attention. To matter, one cannot merely go about quietly doing their job well; instead they must offer their reckless and half-considered opinions on the work of others and attend to reality and their own affairs only as a last result.

Social media is not the culprit. I'm using Twitter and Facebook to share this post. But my tweets are not news. And neither are yours. Nor are the ones that enrage you. And most certainly, BonduHawk's and SparrowHawk's words are hardly worth mentioning either.

Young readers, avoid the sports page at all costs. Do not buy what they are selling. You will be told that the game doesn't matter, only what people are saying about it does. You will be encouraged to lose yourself in assumptions and accusations. Save yourself the time and the paper and get all of this you want from daytime TV.

I've always believed thapt sports can tell us a lot about life. I still believe that. But I can no longer look in the sports section to find that. The comics offer a far better opportunity.

My Father's Hymn Book

Whenever one door closes, another one opens. Or something like that. Tonight I want to take another look at those closed doors we've rushed to forget.

When I was young I sat next to my father in church. Pinned between him and the arm of the pew, I was in the perfect position to A) not antagonize my sisters and B) receive a purposeful elbow if my behavior was out of line. I remember much about sitting in my God-ordained assigned seat each Sunday morning (and many Sunday nights): the unforgiving wood bench supporting me; the small communion cup holes I aimlessly ran my fingers through; the little loose divot at the bottom of the pew in front of us within subtle reach of my shoe; and certainly the hilarity and guilty pleasure I found in the occasional head nod, snore, and snap back to attention of Dad under the duress of a week's worth of farming fatigue.

I also remember the hymn books. Whether we were sitting (sitting for the 2nd hymn was a Dutch Reformed service standby) or standing, my father and I often shared a hymn book between us. No matter what had gone on during the week, or even during the Sunday morning preparation for church, we stood side by side with that hymnal between us 4-5 times every service. To share a hymn book meant that we stood together: close enough for our arms to touch, close enough to hear every flawed note, close enough to breath the same air. There are few other situations in my youth that I remember requiring that level of proximity.

I miss those old hymn books. For many churches, they have gone by the wayside in the name of progress, replaced with giant screens with lyrics projected. The more tech savvy churches, my own included, will even place vibrant backgrounds of pictures of the glory of creation to enhance the mood and the worship experience. There is nothing inherently wrong about that; it's efficient and effective, it allows for a constant stream of new music to be introduced to the congregation, and there is no cost for physical objects taking up physical space.

With progress, though, we've left something behind. We are no longer asked to share a hymn book, meaning we are no longer asked to share that space. While we do share a screen, there is nothing tangible between husband and wife, between parent and child. Before, if there happened to be any conflict, hymn book holders had to bury their anger, or at least put it on hold, in the name of praising God. Whatever fight may have occurred that morning or that week, it was not big enough to embolden enough pride to refuse to sing a hymn. Closeness, at least for a time, was restored. Or shared joy carried into the service became intensified in that space with a widened smile, a warm expression, or the simple pleasure of reveling in being together and on the same page in one more concrete way. Perhaps even more simply, it provided a rare opportunity for sons like me to hear a loved one's voice.

A friend of mine was talking about his record collection the other day. I asked him what the appeal was. Why, with the ease of an iPod, with the clarity of digital music, would he bother? "When it comes down to it," he said, "when you're hanging out with a bunch of people playing music, having records leads to conversation. There's something to handle. Something to share. Something to pass around that leads to debate. You're not going to do that with an iPod."

He's right. The same is true of the letter. Last year I made it a priority to write 25 letters over the course of the year. I received several back. They are not as convenient, as cost-effective, or as timely as email. But receiving that physical letter from a friend in the mail was an experience all in itself. It was a piece of paper that he had touched and that I was holding, full of paragraphs that I read with priority, not randomly punctuated haphazard sentences I fit in between pauses in other conversations, while waiting in line, or in between tweets.

I want my Sunday paper spread out on my dining room table, a different section in each individual's hands. I don't want it on my tablet. I want to share a meal, not hang out on Facetime. I want to teach and conference with my students, not point them to YouTube instructors. And I want to smell paper and ink and scribble in the margins and dog-ear pages and let a book rest in my hands like an old friend; that is greatly to be preferred over using my finger to highlight on my Kindle app and type out a note that no one will read in 30 years when they come across my literary collection.

Am I slow to embrace progress and change? Guilty. I still have a TracPhone as my only mobile device. And a land line. I only recently began texting. I have no idea what a DVR or TiVo even look like. There is still an analogue TV in our house that we use. I first opened an iTunes account this year. And I want my hymn books back.

They won't come back, of course. Progress says they can't. And that's fine. But that does mean that we must purposefully plan new and different ways to share the kind of space that my father and I shared many years ago. Because every minute spent there still means something unspeakable to me. And I want my daughters, who have long ago outgrown being rocked to sleep in my arms, to remember long into their adulthood how they shared that kind of space with me.

Playing Small Ball

As I write this, the Kansas City Royals are up 7-0 in Game 6 of the World Series. Barring a catastrophic collapse, it's looking very much like they will play in a final and deciding Game 7 tomorrow night to what has become a fantastic World Series end to a thrilling baseball post-season.

The Royals without a doubt have captured the heart of their city. Conversations with those living there, coupled with an onslaught of journalistic meanderings and vibrant video footage have made it clear this is no ordinary team. This is a team of the people, a team who the city has embraced as their own, a team of players who celebrate their fans almost as much as their fans celebrate their players.

In many ways this team has the caught the hearts of many around the nation as well. After all, they are the underdog. They haven't been to the World Series in almost 30 years. They spend less money and have significantly fewer advantages than the mammoth Yankees and Red Sox and even my beloved perennially underachieving Phillies.

To put it simply, they play small ball. They do not win with flashy home runs and big innings and high-priced players; instead, they win with fundamentals. They hit singles and doubles. They bunt runners over and hit to the opposite side and fill their roles when called upon. They pitch. In other words, they do the small things often and consistently enough to add up to an amount of runs that will allow them to win games. Underdogs who exhibit precise skill through discipline and hard work and remain humble yet enthusiastic provide an ever-widening bandwagon for baseball fans across the country just waking up to their winning ways.

Teams like the Royals who win like this are easy to root for because we want to believe that the regular guy who works hard can win, despite the obstacles. More so than that, though, they capture our heart because we want to believe in that image of reality, but few of us have the discipline to find out for ourselves over the long haul whether or not it will work in our own lives.

We want to believe it does. It sounds pure - work hard, do the little things every day, and you will be rewarded with great success. But few of us have the patience to play small ball for long. We'd prefer to hit occasional home run; we place our trust in some major event to save us rather than the every day, consistent grind towards our goals. We want a quick fix. We believe in small ball, and we're happy it's working for somebody like the Royals; we just aren't sure we can tough it out that long to see if it will work for us.

Last week I was struggling with one of my daughters. I though she had become much more mouthy, more self-centered, more confrontational with me. We had a string of not fun days together. And I thought all day Friday about what I could do on Saturday that would fix it. Just like that. Where could I take here? What big outing could we have that would straighten this whole thing out? I failed to remember what has taken me years to understand: there are very few home runs in parenting.

There are few home runs in education as well. My students want them badly. How much can I raise my grade with this paper? Where will this exam put me? Can I do some extra credit? Had they been playing small ball all semester, they wouldn't need home runs. And that makes sense to most adults. But why, then, don't we play more small ball in our own lives?

Believe in small ball. Believe in it in your own personal improvement. Believe in it professionally. Play small ball in losing weight, in working out, and in reading books. Trust that hitting enough singles and doubles daily in your marriage will help you both win a lot more than swinging for the fences once a month. And in coming out of huge disappointment or tragedy or loss, acknowledge that it will be many days of small ball before you even look like you're going to be ready to win again.

Believe in small ball in your faith journey. Do something small today. Don't put a conference on your calendar. Don't wait for a church service on Sunday to pick you up. Pray a little. Read a little. Talk to someone a little better than you.

Home runs are great. But they usually come after 10-15 strikeouts. At least that's how the Phillies do it. By the time the home runs come, it's too little, too late.

I scrapped my home run hopes with my daughter this weekend. Instead we talked together on a hike in the woods. We read together. We started a project. Nothing major. But this week I feel like I'm on the track towards winning again. And I want to stick with small ball for an entire season to find out just how many games I can win.

A Letter to My AP Students

This school year I've started a writing initiative for English teachers in the state by proving a writing platform and a regular "Invitation to Write" topic to encourage more writing and sharing among us. The most recent writing prompt is "Letters to Students." My friend Jennifer Paulsen submitted a moving piece last week, and I highly recommend you take a look at it.

Her piece connected with me in a way that pushed me to do two things: ask my AP students to read it, and then write a letter addressed to them myself. My letter has now been posted to our teacher writing page as well, but I wanted to share it here too. If you're interested. . .

To My AP Students:

Today I asked you to read a letter that my friend, Mrs. Paulsen, wrote to her students. I want to write to you now, and explain why we’ve gone away from the syllabus and the canon of classical literature here in AP class to read this letter.

Her letter is not to you, nor is to me. It is not about our classroom or about any poetry that we’ve read (until now). I believe it to be essential reading anyway. For in her words I see what is true, and I want to share that truth with you.

You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child you were expecting, but I do. You don’t know what it was like to be an adult and watch the Twin Towers fall, over and over again on TV, everywhere you went, hoping for a different ending every time; but I do. You don’t remember watching Bono at the Super Bowl, and you don’t still have some of the same chills every time you hear the song; I do. You don’t know what it’s like to be vulnerable in front of students, to walk that line between being a real person and being a bullet-proof god of academia, to share and to not share and to risk and to just pray that you won’t lose it, not today, even though a wound is bleeding more and more by the minute. Or what it’s like to be in Mrs. Paulsen’s classroom, to watch her with her students, to receive a glimpse of her heart in all that she does. You don’t know. But I do.

But there are other words in this piece that do resonate with you. I know there are, because it’s a great piece; it’s why I’m having you read it. For you know things that I don’t know. You’ve seen things that I haven’t seen. And you read her words, and you’re reminded of them all over again. They become real again. And that might crush you under the weight of emotion, make you jump for joy, warm your heart with the idea that you are not alone in this world, or simply make you turn up the corners of your mouth in a knowing smile. Or you will read it, widen your perspective, see me differently, and we’ll all be better.

The piece, when it was written, was not about you and me. But now it is. Now it’s in our hands. Now it enters through the eyes, worms its way around our brains, electrifying connections all over in times and places and emotions that we remember and even some that we don’t. If we let it, it keeps travelling all the way into our souls. It becomes ours. It speaks of something true that perhaps we knew but didn’t know we knew.

My class is better because of Mrs. Paulsen. And so I talk to my friends, my friends the English teachers, my friends the science teachers, my friends the accountants and the construction workers and the travelers and the parents and the jobless and the writers, because they are better than me. So much better than me. And if I can rub up against them, rub up against their life experiences and their lessons and take some of them back to you, then we all gain.

But that’s also why we do what we do in here. Yes, we are analyzing literature and finding meaning and breaking down authorial strategies in preparation for attempting to please the AP gods deciding your exam fate. But we are also helping you to live. For on some page, you will read about Elizabeth Bennett’s frustration or will or sass, and you will see your own. You will find your own goals and dreams and illusions of success in Gatsby and Death of a Salesman and hear about how they are a shiny, ghostly mess. You will read poems, new poems and old. They will speak to you about pain, about love, about how impossibly hopeless it feels to know that time and space cannot be manipulated, no matter how hard we try. You will find yourself somewhere in those poems. And while you don’t know it today, you will find the you that exists ten years from now, somewhere on that page. Some line, some phrase, some word will be yours. It will help you live. It will reinforce that you are alive right now.

And one day while we are writing in class, when I ask you to steal a sentence from another writer, make it your own, and see where your writing takes you, you will get it just right. Not the whole page. Not even the whole paragraph. But you will get one line or two just right, and you will share it with the person next to you. They won’t tell you this, but that line of writing will do for them on that day exactly what Mrs. Paulsen’s writing did for me.

We are in this class to live. Don’t ever forget that. In the middle of all the FRQ’s and the multiple choice practice and essays of analysis and the chapters of 18th Century literature that frustrate you, as you seek your “A” and the academic immortality of a high GPA, remember why we’re here. And I promise to work hard to remember that too.

Dykstra           

A Teacup in Kansas

This weekend I was gladly reduced.

This is a term that I came across this past week, and it runs counter to much of society and any semblance of common sense in my head. Much of what is inside of us begs that we be made much of, that we be put on a pedestal and valued and recognized as important. Something inside of us wants the spotlight. We want to be first in thoughts and minds.

Instead, sitting in church on Sunday morning, I recognized the feeling of being gladly reduced. In a building full of people, as one of hundreds of voices, I smiled as I embraced the reality of my place in the world.

In a speech in his series on Vertical Church, James McDonald makes the statement that if our galaxy were the size of North America, our solar system would essentially be the size of a teacup in Kansas. There are over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. We are, indeed, a very small piece of the puzzle.

Most Sundays I drive to church with my own concerns firmly entrenched: the necessary tasks for the day, the schedule for the upcoming week, the frustrations of the past week, my own mistakes. In church on Sunday, though, my cares for self drifted. I still had cares and concerns, but they were for issues much larger than my own. They were part of a collective concern, a shared burden as part of a joint vision and worldview. And I was glad.

To be gladly reduced is to recognize that you are not at the center of the universe, that you are not God, that you cannot and will not make it all happen or be okay on your own. To be gladly reduced is to lose yourself and your needs, and replace that consciousness and concern with connection and the understanding that you are a part of something bigger, something gloriously bigger and better, something that is far better than anything you can do on your own.

We all want to matter in this world, but what we want even more is to matter to someone. To matter to their needs. To matter to their joy. Personal fulfillment will not come when someone says, "Look at you and all that you've done! You're spectacular!" Rather, fulfillment will come when they say, "Look at me because of you."

This is the anti-I-am-too-busy-to-be-bothered way of life. To be gladly reduced is to live with the understanding that what you are doing today has no significance unless you are working for something larger than yourself. It asks you to take stock of your place in your family, in your community, in eternity. It asks you to serve.

The most unhappy people I know are talking about themselves. These are not selfish people; they are, however, self-focused people. And their self-focus is not serving them well. They speak of being wronged, or of their immediate wants/desires, or how the events of today have effected them personally. And they're right. They have been mistreated and inconvenienced, and they don't have that which they want. But acknowledging and sharing and focusing on these things has not brought them any joy. Rather than being gladly reduced, they are sadly enlarged. They have shined a spotlight on themselves and found that they have been let down. And I foolishly join them from time to time.

Being reminded that I am small, however, highlights my inability to be self-reliant.That is a freeing place to be. It is to rest in a truth rather than a desperate illusion fueling personal grandeur.

Be gladly reduced in your community, whatever that community might be. Realize that you are one citizen, but that you belong to a much larger citizenry. You are connected. You are in on some grand secret, and you are free to take a guilty pleasure in sharing it with the others who are with you.

In that congregation on Sundays I am a teacup in Kansas among a continent of other fine china. And it is there that I feel like I have found exactly where I belong.

On Bravery

At the Iowa Council of Teachers of English Conference last week, Co-President of the organization (and my friend) Jennifer Paulsen opened with an introductory speech on bravery, specifically the bravery it takes to teach and to teach well. One sentence from that speech that I wrote down as memorable was this: "Bravery is risky business."

That sentence rang true with me. First of all, it's hard to be brave - brave enough to do something hard, brave enough to be nervous, brave enough to fight the fights that need fighting. More than that, though, is that inherent in bravery is risk. It's risky because there is something to lose. Pride perhaps. Or self-confidence. Bravery is at a premium because the hero doesn't win every time. Jobs are lost. Lesson plans flop. Invitations are rejected. People die.

Yes, bravery is risky indeed. But that led me to ask myself, What does it take to be brave? What does bravery look like for a commoner like me, someone not in a war zone or surviving poverty or battling illness?

What I figured out is that sometimes bravery is simply starting.

Starting what? Starting anything. For I've found that the start is the most daunting. To start something is to state an intention, to clearly indicate that you want something and that you're going after it. To start means to finish or fail. It means that a pursuit has begun. And that means risk.

Start a book. Open its cover and read 5 pages. Now you're in. The book was safer on the shelf, or in the Barnes and Noble bag, harmlessly stiff in its unopened state, it boldly proclaimed you a book lover with noble intentions. But once you start, you can only keep reading, page by page, or face the prospect of admitting that you just didn't have it in you to finish something as simple as a book, especially a book that you yourself picked out.

Start a conversation. Perhaps with someone you don't know. You want risky business, then open the floodgates to that unpredictable scenario. You might have a friend for life, an annoying footnote to your day, or perhaps one more person in the world that you begin liking but who ultimately will end up letting you down in one way or another. One you start, though, you're in. You've sacrificed your silence for the unknown.

Start a reconciliation. Be the spouse to say "I'm sorry." Or just start by crossing that unspoken, invisible barrier, the barrier of touch, or the barrier of eye contact, those silly walls we put up in the middle of a fight to indicate that while we may be done arguing, I still will not submit or relent in my position. Risk losing the fight to win the war.

Start to quit. Whatever you do that you don't want to do, knock it off, shut it off, leave it alone, or say no. Just this once.

Start exercising regularly. Or losing weight. Or praying. It's easy to want those things. It's easy to dabble in those, saying that you're trying them out. But to actually start, to have a path and a destination drawn out and then to do the Day 1 requirements, whatever they may be, that's to say that wanting and doing are not the same and that you are a doer.

Starting to write this blog post required about as much bravery as I could muster tonight. To start it meant that I had to find something, go somewhere in my writing. It required that I not let the gaping hole in my thinking after the second paragraph derail me, that I not let my recent lack of writing productivity keep me from hammering away at the keys, required that I get words down and click "Publish" and risk that those words are no good at all, that they are, in fact, as bad and as stilted as they feel while I laboriously type one word, then another, then delete, then another. Starting was the hardest part. It was a commitment. And I'm glad I did.

Jenn also said in the speech that you've got to arm yourself with whatever it takes in order to be brave - a lucky shirt, your grandfather's watch, the encouragement of friends, a picture. Take whatever it is you're going to need to do that thing you want so badly to do and that also scares the hell out of you. Get armed, however big or small that act may be. But then start. Take one step. Because then you'll have no other choice but to keep walking.

If I'm Being Honest. . . Candy Corn is the Root of All Evil

If I'm being honest. . .

I want to write, and I've got nothing. No ideas, no passion, and no fire. At least not when I have a chance to sit down and write. I haven't posted in a month. It's been a pathetic excuse for a writing year. I just don't have it right now.

I want to pray, but it took a lot of energy and willpower just to shut off the TV tonight and go to my computer to type a prayer rather than watch just one more segment of one more show. I don't pray every day. I set a goal at the beginning of the year to sit down and type a prayer 200 times over the course of the year, and I'm not close. There's a week straight missing hear and there in the log. And it's become such a battle to get there.

I want to be in better shape, but I can't seem to just not eat junk. I work out often, knees screaming, just to maintain where I'm at. But that doesn't keep me from one more trip to the candy jar, or one more helping of supper.

I want to sleep but it comes on slowly and leaves me early. I walk around tired and wired from an endless string of cups of Folgers for the entirety of the work day. Exhausted by the end of the day, I repeat the cycle of not doing that which I want to do because I just don't have it in me to act.

I want more from myself. I want more for myself. I want the me I was created to be, the battler, the disciplined hard-worker who names what they will be and then does.

On the other hand. . .

I coached my daughter's soccer team tonight. She was fantastic. She plays with joy, plays hard, and listens when her coach is talking. We spent quality time together and will do so again in two nights.

Today I asked a future teacher who's been observing my classroom as part of his coursework what he's noticed. His response: "You take your job very seriously, and you know how to talk to kids." I'll take it.

I"m preparing this week: to present at the state English teachers conference, to officiate my sister's wedding, and to deliver my first sermon at my church in November. I'm excited about these opportunities.

My wife made tortellini tonight. It was delicious. And just about every other night we sit down as a family to eat, it's delicious. She loves to cook. She loves me. I win.

Tomorrow I will walk into a school where I get paid to talk about books. I will be greeted by friends who will make me laugh. The first cup of coffee will feel like a treat, not a crutch.

Pause. Stop. What have we learned from this post that began with nowhere to go and ended up here?

1. You will hardly ever feel like being the you that you want to be.

2. It is crazy what we allow ourselves to accept from ourselves on our own time as opposed to the time that's committed on our schedule or calendar.

3. Sometimes you just sit down and write and find out what comes out. Like right now.

4. Putting down the bag of candy corn led me to shut off the TV. Shutting off the TV led to prayer. Prayer led to writing. I hope writing leads to satisfactory sleep. Logic says, therefore, that candy corn is of the devil.

When Pigs Fly

While hiking at Lime Creek Nature Center this week, my wife and I took advantage of a situation that has become somewhat rare: the opportunity to talk to our daughters while on a hike. Since they've acquired biking skills, they vastly prefer the exhilaration and freedom of pedaling to our daily destinations. As we were trekking on muddy trails on Sunday, they had no other option but to walk next to us and tell us what's on their mind.

I love what's on Elise's mind.

Elise is our dreamer. She dreams in full-color, with bright, bold, certain strokes. Her mental paintings are never quite finished; there's always something to add to this corner, or a different color to mix here, or perhaps a better outline. But she is not afraid to paint.

She told us she's going to be an art teacher, no question about it. It's a mathematical certainty in her mind today. I offered my verbal assent, telling her that I was on board with that because it would make it easy to do RAGBRAI together if she had the summers off. But I was using the wrong paint-brush for this dream. No, she informed me. That wouldn't work. She'll be offering art classes that week for people who aren't on RAGBRAI. Probably kids. In fact, they'll be camping. She might have to borrow our large tent for them to all fit in, but it will be a week of art. And the plans kept tumbling out of her mouth, steady and out of order and bubbling, and I knew she could see it, see herself in it, this grand and specific dream.

I hope she draws a picture of this one. She usually draws a picture of the plan. Last year she started talking about this tree house her and her friend would build so that they could play there and keep the boys away. Again, this was a plan I could get on board. Then she showed me the drawing she had been working on.

You can see the strategic pulley-system, the rope ladder, and the list of supplies ready to fill it. The two of them have no tree big enough, no contractor on stand-by, no money, no materials, and no time. Yet there it stands. She's even made up formal invitations to announce it's grand opening to their friends. It's as real as anything I've ever built in my life.

My daughter is a dreamer, and it is perhaps what I love about her the most.

Adults like me need a dose of dreaming now and then. Maybe even more often that that. For a dream has life in it, much more so than do all the obstacles and limitations that we allow to fill our mind and dominate our sight. Dreams like Elise's dreams assume the best of the world. They are born of eternal optimism and are fed by a steady diet of images, fuzzy images, not entirely clear but real enough images somewhere in the back of our brain where we can see ourselves in this dream and we like who and what we see. 

Most dreams will not be discarded. Rather, they will fall by the wayside, unknowingly jostled out of the mind by this bump or that breeze, never to return to the journey. They will be replaced. They most likely will not come to fruition.

But the joy in painting in painting the dream! In speaking it and breathing it and sharing it, ignoring the critics and the obstacles and the laws of science and finance and the time/space continuum. I am unsure of the practical benefit. But I do know the effect on the soul.

I leave you with this. One of our favorite children's authors, Sandra Boynton, wrote a song in which the lyrics pierce right to the heart of this, and Ryan Adams was kind enough to provide the vocals. The video of the song, entitled "When Pigs Fly," is here. May we all look for the winged swine in our lives.

The Bear Towel

Last weekend my wife and I moved all of our baby stuff out of our upstairs closet and donated it to our church's upcoming Free Market for the community. It had all been just sitting up there, stacked and boxed neatly in some places, scattered in others - car seats on top of a pack and play leaning next to a swing - all of it neatly forgotten when hidden behind the dresser at the front of the closet. It's forgotten no more. We marched it out, piece by piece, and the closet now stands empty where once it was full.

The process was 85% freeing, 15% sentimental. It helped that I had claimed one set of boxes, our books, as untouchable. Those are the hours upon hours I spent with my babies. All the rest was just furniture and clothes, and it was time somebody got some use out of it after it sat dormant for years. I was fine until we opened one box. It was the box with the bear towel.

When they were tiny babies, we wrapped the girls up after their baths into this towel that has a hood on it like a bear face. They have similar ones now; they're just much bigger ones. It's not that big of deal. Except I saw it, and I saw how tiny they once were and that my babies aren't babies any more. And I remembered: that's when I started calling them "little bears." The name remains, many years later.

The bear towel was tough to let go of, and so was the collage of coaching pictures. Or perhaps the idea of it was. For many years, a framed shadow box of action photos of my basketball head coaching career put together by my sister donned one corner of our dining room wall. That came down this week as well. It was time. That period of my life is done, or on sabbatical at the very least, and the targets for my focus and energies has shifted. Down with the old, up with the new: a framed map of Steinbeck Country given to me by a friend who just visited the National Steinbeck Center now offers perspective on who I am and what I do.

As the old wall art has been replaced, and the old furnishings jettisoned, so too must I let go of the past. By nature, I'm sentimental about the passage of time and am keenly aware of losing what's in front of me as it's happening. I feel it deeply, often experiencing what should be appreciation of something great with a mix of foreboding squirrelled away in my gut.

But as always, losing the old makes room for the new. My babies are no longer babies, but if they were, they would not have enjoyed a trip to the Wisconsin Dells this summer, or camping, or the zoo, or any of the other places we've taken them. I wouldn't be experiencing the joy of listening to Elise read to me now. There would be no art classes and soccer games, no two way conversations at the breakfast table, no one else to wrestle our yellow lab. And I am no longer coaching; but if I were, I would not have been home for a picnic on Father's Day. I would not be editing a website of teacher writing. I would not have been on many of those morning bike rides with the girls this summer.

I still think about the past, and that won't change. On many days I still long for the simplicity of Sutherland, Nebraska and the two years we spent there. I find myself occasionally wishing for the time when my friend Steve didn't live hundreds of miles away, or my friend Chad didn't live several oceans away. And while I'm down to thinking about it for several minutes each day rather than several hours, I can't get out of my head the coach within me.

As much as I don't want to get sucked into a love affair with what's past, sentiment is part of the equation, I've come to believe. To recognize all the good gone by is hard evidence of a life well-lived. But today must be lived as well.

Summer is ending for me once again, and once again I feel deeply what I am losing. I clutch tightly to today, to casual breakfast conversations, to cuddles and books in the rocking chair in the morning, to long walks and Legos and playgrounds. To freedom. But I must clutch just as tightly to upcoming days as well. For the present in front of me then will be just as valuable - students to challenge, relationships to build, books to discuss, writing to fumble over or structure or just stumble upon. Those days will matter greatly as well. For everything there is a season.

Emily and I often read to our children passages out of Sally Lloyd-Jones' excellent book Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing. In one of the passages we read this week, Lloyd-Jones writes about how despite the fact that the Israelites were saved by God out of slavery from the Egyptians, they still grumbled about how they thought life was better for them in the past, back in slavery. Writes Lloyd Jones: "Sometimes we're like those ungrateful people grumbling in their tents about onions. That's what sin is - not seeing that every single thing we have is a gift from God."

And there lies the path to appreciating the path yet living the present: gratitude. If I am purposefully grateful and appreciative each day, if I recognize the people I see, the food I eat, the opportunities I have, and the air I breath (even in the harsh winter) as precious gifts, then today will always be sweeter than yesterday.

I began writing this with no answers, and I'm not sure I've found any here. Loss and gain, the passage of time, moving on: it's all too complicated to wrap up into a nice neat blog post. But these feelings are universal, I'm led to believe, and writing them down and sharing just seemed like the human way to approach them. Thanks for listening.

A Better Answer to a Daily Question

"So how was your day?"

In a week I will make my grand (though perhaps reluctant) return from summer break into the daily travails of my classroom. My wife and I are fortunate in that we are able to ride together to work on most days; and when she picks me up at 4:15 and I buckle in, one of us will ask the above question. We have ten miles to cover this topic before getting home and starting supper or playing with the kids or going through the mail, and it's important to both of us to share with each other a little about what we did individually in our work that matters to us. It's not such an easy question.

How do I answer? My district would like me to answer after looking at "the data" - student scores on a variety of assessments that I've given for the day - and base the quality of my day on their abilities. Perhaps I should respond based on the amount of relative ease or difficulty faced in doing my assigned tasks? Or based on the absence or mounting heaps of frustration encountered? On my affinities for the curriculum taught? On how much I got done?

Matt Perman's book, What's Best Next, has given me a better gauge. Writes Perman: 

"Productivity is about intangibles - relationships developed, connections made, and things learned. We need to incorporate intangibles into our definition of productivity or we will short-change ourselves by thinking that sitting at our desks for a certain number of hours equals a productive day."

Too often my answers have nothing to do with the intangibles. Or at least not the right ones. A good day is commonly when I can name all that I accomplished, got through a stack of student papers, avoided battles with students or with decision-makers, or got to talk about John Steinbeck. 

I enter this fall with a little better perspective on the question now. Rather, a good day of work is when I spend conversational time with students and co-workers, and not solely to complain about whatever is troubling me at the time. It's when I purposefully carve out time to do good, to smile, to encourage, to challenge, and to work hard to make myself better. It's when regardless of current student grades, regardless of my calendar of duties and meetings, regardless of how I'm feeling about the work, I do the job well and with a heavenly Master in mind, not an earthly one. 

And if this is the measuring stick of a good day, then I have complete control, every day, of whether or not the day is a good one. And so do you.

Tangible results look good. They feel pretty good too. But look to the intangibles for a real, lasting impact on how you spend your day.

****See below for other commentary on What's Best Next:

Postcards and Fruit Cups: A Better Path to Goodness

Obstacles or Opportunities: Why Organization Matters

Obstacles or Opportunities? Why Organization Matters

In a few weeks, most of my mornings will begin in this way: I will be at my desk getting ready for the school day, and a student will walk in and approach my desk. They will want something, and they won't be shy about asking for it. Whatever it is they want, they will want it now. What they want will be an interruption to what I'm trying to get done. I will either feel organized, prepared, and well-caffeinated and therefore ready to help; or I will still be trying to dig out from underneath the six piles of yesterday's randomness, with no real idea of what my 1st hour class, which will meet in 20 minutes, is going to look like. If the latter is the case, my help will likely be begrudging, rushed, and forgettable.

In his book What's Best Next, Matt Perman writes this:

One of the best places for efficiency is being efficient with things so that you can be effective with people. If you become more efficient with things (for example, by setting up your computer, desk, workflow system, and files to operate in the most efficient way possible), you will have more time to give to being effective with people without feeling like you are always behind on your tasks.

This is the best reason I've ever heard for getting organized.

I've been a student of leadership and motivation and personal effectiveness for many years, and there is no shortage of material out there about how to be better at doing whatever it is you want to do. But I've been slow to consider that the central purpose in getting better at getting things done is not solely for me. Yes, I can get more done when I'm efficient and organized in my tasks; more importantly, though, I can be more for those around me.

When I'm organized and effective, it doesn't feel like a burden to chat with peers in the hallways between classes. I'm not too rushed to share a cup of coffee and good conversation at the start of the day. I view students as opportunities, not obstacles. I have time to laugh and to think, especially with others. It's taken 12 years of teaching to figure out that my happiest days (because they have room for all of the above) are my most organized days. The days that go wrong, and in which I subsequently react wrongly to people, are those in which I begin scattered and maintain a state of rushed chaos as I limp to 4 pm.

And the same is true at home. I either am diligent and organized about what I want and need to get done, or I exist in the middle of 10 personal projects in various stages of completion and a mass of housecleaning chores I'm ignoring in favor of sitcom reruns. Why does this matter? Because my children awake looking for me to meet their needs. They want breakfast, and they want it their way. Some juice as well, and a Thomas the Train spoon. Then it's time for whatever activity they feel like at that particular minute, and they seek my help in preparing or participating. What they want might take a minute, ten minutes, or an hour. 

I have experienced the joy of serving them and being their provider and protector, and I have experienced the maddening frustration of wanting to get ten other things done (that should already be done) but instead being "bothered" by my chattering bundles of needs. I understand now that the difference is not them and their behavior; it's me and my organization.

So I resolve (once again) to better organize my activity. This time, however, I do so with the understanding that there is much more at stake than just getting things done.

(***Previous Post on What's Best Next: Postcards and Fruit Cups: A Better Path to Goodness)

Postcards and Fruit Cups: A Better Path to Goodness

Back to some sense of summer normalcy after a couple of whirlwind weeks away on various trips, I've started reading Matt Perman's book What's Best Next. This summer I've typically waited to write about what I've been reading until after a book is completely done, and the number of posts from me this summer reveals just how well that's been working. I've left at least ten posts in my head, waiting for a better time, a time that has never come. When I go back over my notes, the ideas from the author are still there; my thoughts in prose, however, are not. For this book, I intend to write as it comes to me. This is the first of several I see coming from this book.

The first idea that has struck me is that of planning to do good. Writes Perman:
The biblical call on our lives is not to do good randomly and haphazardly. Rather, God calls us to be proactive in doing good . . . We often think of doing good simply as something we are to do when it crosses our path. But Isaiah (32:8) shows us that we are also to take initiative to conceive, plan, and then execute endeavors for the good of others and the world.

While I'd like to think I'm someone who does good in this world, this passage makes it obvious that I am far from where I could be. For the good that I do most often is reactionary. It is in response to a need. If asked, I'm usually good for whatever favor is requested. Need help moving? Sure. An extra set of hands? No problem. Someone to listen or provide advice? I'm there. My wife asked me to water her tomatoes this morning. They're wet.

When I think about it, though, this pales in comparison to those like my wife who plan to do good and act before the need is in sight. She prepares and thinks of others before they ask. She writes postcards from home and sends them to friends and family, offering good cheer or support or encouragement without ever knowing if today is the day they'll need it. She cooks and bakes and cans so that she can readily offer caloric goodness at random. Craft projects are furtively tucked away in drawers, ready to entertain our children when the time calls for it. My freezer is full of a never-ending supply of fruit cups because she knows they are one of my favorite summer treats.

On the rare occasions when I do plan a good act prior to being asked, I often suffer from a lack of execution. There is still a card in my school bag that I meant to send to a friend in April. Letters and phone calls I've meant to get to just have not happened. Like so many blog ideas, good intentions and good ideas have gone to the graveyard via the "I'll Get to That Later" Expressway.

Being ready and willing when called upon is noble and good. Tragically, this type of people seems to be a dying breed, and I will continue to clutch tightly to the friends and family in my life on whom I can depend. However, there is a better goodness in all of us, a goodness that we plan ahead for.

It is not mighty acts of heroism in the face of adversity that we are each called to. Rather, it is simple acts of goodness, planned and executed, that will help us make our gospel-centered mark on the world.

One of the Best Questions I've Been Asked

Just like 20,000-30,000 others of the biking brethren, my excitement grows this time of year. In less than a week I'll join them on the highways and back roads of Iowa to pedal the days away, periodically stopping to gorge ourselves on Farm Boys breakfast burritos and pie and pork chops and good times. July is RAGBRAI month, and I'm ready to go.

This time of year, it is nearly impossible to be on a bike ride or even standing near your bike and not get asked the question, "Are you going on RAGBRAI?" Now that I can answer in the affirmative, I love getting asked that question. Saying yes means being in on something big, something newsworthy, something scores of towns are preparing for as I write. 

I heard a question I like even better the other day, though. 

Last Thursday I rode my bike from Nora Springs into Mason City to go meet with my group that is studying Biblical exposition. Naturally, seeing the bike led to a discussion of my upcoming participation in the festivities.

My enthusiasm led to being asked a question that I've now come to believe is one of the most important questions we can ask others in our lives, regardless of the topic. My fellow student softly, inquisitively asked, "So what's so great about it?"

After remembering that exchange (during the solitary hours of a bike ride, I might add), I realized the power in that simple question. By asking me that, this guy was inviting me to talk about something I loved. He was asking to hear me get excited, to describe experiences that I cherish, to bask in the memories and emotions of something on which I spend a great deal of time and energy. Frankly, it was an invitation for me to feel good about something that was important to me because it was an opportunity to share it. It's a brilliant question.

There was nothing for him to gain by asking it. He isn't going on RAGBRAI. I doubt he ever will. He didn't ask hoping for his mind to be changed about it or to get information for himself. The question was completely and totally asked for my benefit. And I now realize just how rare of a question that is.

Asking that question of our spouses, our siblings, our neighbors, and our coworkers I believe can transform those relationships. And even if it doesn't, asking it will at the very least transform that day for the person who gets to talk about what you asked about. What's so great about gardening? About soccer? About urban chickens? Or if I'm asking my students, what's so great about the game Clash of Clans? 

There is a more common form of this question that gets asked all the time. The words are the same, but the tone is different. Incredulity drowns the question, offering mockery rather than excitement. Asking, "What's so great about it?" in this way seeks to belittle and to justify not being interested in it, not getting caught up in it, not wasting your time on it. The question asked this way is for the benefit of the questioner, not the one being questioned.

Instead, find somebody this week to offer that question to. Then listen. Stand there, smiling, and let them talk. Resist the urge to jump into their dialogue with your own, "That reminds exactly of when I . . ." comment. There will be another time for that. I promise. This time, this question is just for them. 

If you want to surround yourself with positive, exciting people each day at work, if you want to spark some passion out of your spouse, if you want to reconnect with an old friend or begin a connection with a a new one, start asking the right questions. This one is sure to produce results.

Never Enough

An recent article about teaching from the Huffington Post discusses what the author feels is the hardest part about the profession that no one ever mentions. Writes author Peter Greene:

The hard part of teaching is coming to grips with this:

There is never enough.

There is never enough time. There are never enough resources. There is never enough you.

As a teacher, you can see what a perfect job in your classroom would look like. You know all the assignments you should be giving. You know all the feedback you should be providing your students. You know all the individual crafting that should provide for each individual's instruction. You know all the material you should be covering. You know all the ways in which, when the teachable moment emerges (unannounced as always), you can greet it with a smile and drop everything to make it grow and blossom.

You know all this, but you can also do the math. 110 papers about the view of death in American Romantic writing times 15 minutes to respond with thoughtful written comments equals -- wait! what?! That CAN'T be right! Plus quizzes to assess where we are in the grammar unit in order to design a new remedial unit before we craft the final test on that unit (five minutes each to grade). And that was before Chris made that comment about Poe that offered us a perfect chance to talk about the gothic influences, and then Alex and Pat started a great discussion of gothic influences today. And I know that if my students are really going to get good at writing, they should be composing something at least once a week. And if I am going to prepare my students for life in the real world, I need to have one of my own to be credible.

And the result? A perpetual reality dominated by this:

But every day is still educational triage. You will pick and choose your battles, and you will always be at best bothered, at worst haunted, by the things you know you should have done but didn't.

My first reaction to the article was an easy and comfortable agreement. It's not a begrudging or a "woe-is-me!" emphatic head-bobbing to secure my martyrdom; rather, it's a simple fact of the profession that I and others face every day. If you're not wondering what else you should be doing, you're probably not doing it right.

With a little time to think, however, I realized teachers should be careful to see themselves in an exclusive category when it comes to performing in this "triage" environment.

Most parents feel this every day. Blessed to be home with my children all day during the summer, I find the extra time produces more expectations and guilt, not less. I want my daughters to learn how to play and use their imagination outside of an officially scheduled program run by some saintly librarian, art teacher, or myself; they need their space to play. Then I worry I'm not spending enough direct contact hours, down on my hands and knees, getting dirty with them. There are scores of summer writing and math and reading worksheets that should be done, hundreds of books, and art projects galore. But shouldn't they be outside, grass-stained and streaked with sidewalk-chalk dust? We need to work on bike riding, on swimming, on socializing in the neighborhood. At some point they need to pick up their trail of destruction, maintain some semblance of hygiene, and learn to be a responsible, contributing member of the household team. And don't forget Candyland. Because I am home, I decide what we will do and what we won't. And the benefit of the responsibility comes with the burden of always leaving something out.

The same is true in my personal life. What do I cut to fit the rest in? Exercise? Reading? Friends? General household chores? Walking the dog? Whatever good activity I choose to engage in, I'm also choosing not to engage in a different good thing. It all should be done; it can't all be done.

No matter how much I write or work on the craft of writing, I feel behind. The house is clean, in places, but never totally and completely. The yard looks good, but not perfect. I called this friend, but haven't contacted that one in months. And wasn't I going to paint the porch this summer?

This feeling seems universal probably because it is. You and I will never be enough. For anything. For try as we might, there will never be enough hours, enough energy, enough will, or enough goodness. Good intentions? Yes. We have plenty of those. But we are not God.

And that's the point. We should feel like we can't do it, because it's true. It reveals our great dependence. I've always had a feeling, or perhaps a hope, that the day would arrive when I finally "got there." Where, I don't know, but the destination would include finally having figured it all out - prayer, parenting, proper fitness, professional glory and accomplishment, personal fulfillment, and the perfect family led by a father and husband with all the right answers. That day will never come.

My choice, therefore, is to see God in all that I do, and rest in the knowledge that I belong to Him who is all-sufficient; or I can try to do it all, be all, accomplish all, for me and by me, never ever being quite enough.

For you and for me, teachers and non-teachers, parents and non-parents, we most likely will share some daily form of what Greene describes in the article. Expect it, work hard in it, and then accept it. You are not enough on your own. And you weren't created to be.

In the Watches of the Night

I am not an easy bedfellow.

When my mind is not at ease, I rage in my struggle to fall asleep. The concerns of the day (real and imagined) grip me. Trying to shake them, I roll from my right shoulder to my left, then flat on my back, then back to my right. I creep closer to my wife, hoping her slumber is contagious; I turn away, attempting to change my luck once again.

If sleep does finally overtake me, it isn't long before my anxieties interrupt once more. I then get into full battle mode, cursing audibly the sleeplessness, punching my pillows into submission, rearranging, yanking the covers up, then off, fueling anxiety with anger, commanding my disobedient wretch of a brain to just fall asleep already.

I suppose the thoughts keeping me awake are not unlike those that keep you awake: uncertainty about the future, mistakes I've made through the day, anger, disappointment. Reliving all of game day was another common trigger for me. For whatever reason, these thoughts have a way of establishing a stronghold in my consciousness in the long hours of the night. And if I do luck into falling asleep in the midst of these, they are ready to enter my heart once again as soon as the alarm announces a new day. Typically, the negative has staying (and waking) power.

In the middle of a long spring of many sleepless nights strung together, I came across this from Psalm 63:

     My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
     and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
     when I remember you upon my bed,
     and meditate on you in the watches of the night (v. 5-6)

Rather than being kept awake by the earthly, the temporary, and the unpredictable, here is an offering to find satisfaction and joy by instead remembering the Source of all hope and goodness.

When I mess up, lose control, and say or do something that I regret, I can lie on my bed obsessed with the sin or the Forgiver of Sins. Angry over perceived wrongs, I can stay disappointed over flawed humanity or count on the One with a flawless track record since the beginning of time. I can be afraid of the temporal or comforted by the Eternal.

It doesn't seem like such a hard choice.

Oh God, may I remember You and meditate on you in the watches of the night.

Infield Chatter

Tradition in baseball calls for players on the infield to talk constantly. Because there is time in between each pitch, and therefore time in between each play, ample opportunity exists for players to communicate to each other. The number of outs, anticipated plays, and defensive calls are spoken and repeated constantly to ensure that everyone is on the same page and everyone is in position to make the right play. Good teams do this.

Most important in my eyes, however, is talking to the pitcher. Mostly, the guy who is directly responsible for every play needs to hear that the other guys around him are there. In fatigue, struggle, adrenaline, and success, the steadying source of calm are the guys behind him letting him know that there's nobody they'd rather have on that mound right now than him.

As a high school umpire, I see all kinds of teams. Not many are good at this. At this point in the season, a lot of them have simply given up on chatter. The season has been long, and they are bored. They've won some, lost more, and they've found it's just not worth their time to be supportive for a sustained length. Silence is easier. More comfortable. Another type loves to talk, but it's talk to entertain. Mostly, the audience is themselves. Rather than helpful talk, it's sarcasm-laced, full of mockery, often in falsetto voices. Sometimes they mix in monkey or hyena screeches for fun. They are idiots, and they advertise it. Being funny is better than being good.

During my senior year of high school, our baseball team was bad. Special bad. One win all year bad. I pitched for that team, though I'm not sure you can call someone with my ERA a "pitcher." Still, what I remember from that year isn't the misery of twenty-something losses. Instead, it was the infield chatter, specifically from the Matts.

Matt Kain, our catcher, and Matt Nikkel, our 3rd baseman, were incessantly positive. Gregarious and funny off the field, they carried that personality between the chalk lines all year long. I was easily combustible on the mound, often allowing the frustration of a turn-style array of batters every inning to multiply my frustration. Whether the home runs I was giving up were the cause, or the error-plagued defense filled with 8th graders, the Matts kept me steady with encouragement and support.

It couldn't have been easy, staying positive in the midst of miserable innings inside of a disastrous season. They were, after all, losing as well. They didn't have control over the pitching; they were essentially waiting and hoping that I would do my job and find outs.

Or maybe it was easy. Maybe they simply made the decision to do it: Let's have fun playing baseball. Pouting isn't fun. Self-pity isn't fun. Effort is. Talking is. Supporting each other is. And so they did. As I said, I look back with a lot of joy on something that could have included anything but.

Umpiring now, I see that it's easy for teams to talk when they're ahead. It's second-nature to chat it up when you're winning. More fun for me to see, though, are the teams who communicate and cajole when they're down, when the game of inches is going a few feet in the other direction.

I realize now that infield chatter has gotten me through challenges throughout life. I've been blessed with a great infield, at my job, in my community, and in my family. I know the infielders I can count on, because they were talking me up even when I had my head buried in frustration. The score of the game didn't matter to them; they just knew playing at life was better for them and better for me when they were willing to chat between pitches.

Arrange your infield well. Find some Matts to play on your team. And learn to chat with them, whether you're winning or not. At the end of your season, you'll find the score didn't really matter much anyway.

When Offering a Crown

In 1st Samuel 8, Israel asks for a king: "There shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles." They reject God as their king; He is not visible to them, and His kingship over them makes them unique from other nations when they would prefer to be lockstep with them.

They are warned by Samuel of the result of choosing a human king over God:

• He will take your sons (v. 11-12)
• He will take your daughters (v. 13)
• He will take the best of your property (v. 14)
• He will take off the top from what you have harvested. (v. 15)
• He will take your servants (v. 16)
• He will take your animals (v. 17)
• You will be his slaves (v. 17)

Yet they are adamant in this desire. They go through with it, knowing what the consequences will be. It's hard to believe that they didn't see Samuel as credible; no, they had all the facts and chose to give up their best in their desire to be subject to something tangible. They made the deal none of us in our right mind would make. Or would we?

I think there's a clear and relevant lesson here. 

If you want to serve something other than God, want it at the head of your life, with power over your emotions and your schedule and your energy, you've got to expect it to take your best. What do you trust and serve more than God? Where does your hope lie? Money? Your job? The fate of your college football team? A relationship? Your child's youth sports career?

it's going to cost you. And what it will cost is your best. It will cost something of your family, of your kids and your spouse and everyone who is a part of your household. It's going to require resources from you that you won't even question giving, whether those resources are fleeting funds, or the more precious commodity of time. You may be ready for it to bring you enjoyment, but are you ready to serve it? Do you know that you already are?

Serving God as king is going to heavily influence the best of your family and finances and time and property as well. But it will draw all of those heavenward, firmly planted in a solid foundation. It will bring true and lasting joy.

I've made a lot of things king in my life that weren't God. Coaching. Reputation. Tangible success. I could have made them acts of service under the kingship of God, but I'd be kidding myself if I said that was always the case. I gave them a crown and got out of them exactly what I thought I would. Yet it was never as good as I thought it would be. And there was always a steep price - usually the best I had to offer.

Choose your king wisely. 

Why I Hope My Students (and I) Don't Get It

I don't get it.

It's certainly not shocking to anyone that those are words I hear early and often as a teacher. Students are quick to say it - some after much work, some after little at all - and teachers are quick to respond to it. We jump to attempt to "fix" the situation in one way or another, drawing from our bag of tricks in an effort to make sure each and every one of our little darlings "gets it."

As a literature teacher, I hear "I don't get it," probably more often than anybody, except perhaps math teachers in their insistence to make letters actually mean numbers that actually represent abstract spots on a plane or a graph or a circle or trapezoid that gets spit out by one of those impossibly too large to use calculators. You see, in my classroom I introduce students to the great "I don't get it" multiplier: poetry. Its first cousin "symbolism" makes frequent appearances as well, and their neighborhood friend "irony" also demands student attention. Whether it be these entities or others (the language of the Dark Romantics, religious allusions, Transcendental philosophy, 19th Century British romantic rituals), frequent complaints of being lost in the dark while handing the subject material clang in cacophony from frustrated students.

Adults are not immune, of course. We complain about what we "don't get" all the time as well. The American political quagmire, macroeconomic theories, and the popularity of Justin Bieber confounds the masses. I, for one, shout epithets of frustration trying to understand anything mechanical, most educational reform efforts, and my youngest daughter.

I'm more convinced than ever, though, that if we don't get it, we are exactly where we need to be. Mortimer Adler writes about this in his classic text, How to Read a Book. In his common sense approach to those who quit or get frustrated by the books they don't immediately grasp, Adler offers this: "We can only learn from our betters." If a book has nothing new to offer you, it doesn't make sense to read it. Rather, we should seek texts that begin with what Adler calls an "initial inequality in understanding" and work hard to bridge that gap as much as possible. If we do in fact not "get it," by tackling it anyway we are well on our way to coming to an understanding that we never had before. And a steady diet of this leads to a life well-lived, or at the very least one well-improved.

This is true in relationships as well. How often have you wanted to shout, "I don't get why you ___________," to your spouse, your co-workers, your kids, or your friends? Rather than wallowing in the quicksand of frustration, perhaps what you don't get about them is something that deserves to be explored. Now you're learning about them. They may make no rational sense whatsoever in your mind; however, if you want to go deeper into the relationship, you've got to learn about that which you do not understand. And then you may just be forced to accept it, rather than find a way to fix it.

There are many aspects of my wife that remain a mystery to me. They are a mystery worth tireless exploration. I don't get all the symbolism in the book of Revelation, or why some of my students show little desire for success, or where my career is headed. I don't fully understand the paradox of free will and predestination or the purposes of some of Steinbeck's minor characters in his early works. Getting my iTunes account to work all the time also befuddles me and my best efforts. But I want to find out. Not getting it is exactly where I want to be.

Read a poem. Read a novel. Ask questions, especially about the people important to you. Go after that which is just out of your reach. Risk it. You may just find yourself reaching a little higher next time.

A Father's Identity

As I transition out of being a basketball coach, what I am perhaps most afraid of is the loss of that as an identity. When I think about how other people see me, I know that "Coach Dykstra" is a big part of the image they see. I've always liked that. It's what people feel comfortable talking to me about. I like being known for that work; people who know nothing else about me have known when they see me in the grocery store or at church or in a restaurant that I'm the guy on the sidelines. There are blessings and curses that come with that; regardless, it's skin in which I've become quite comfortable. As I lose that aspect of my occupation, at least for now, I feel I'm losing my identity, or that part of it any way. I'm unsure of what other people will see now when they see me, and in some ways I fear that by extension I will struggle with how to see myself.

This is immaturity, I know. I am not a job. My identity must be and is much more than that. But emotions are rarely logical, and throughout the entire process of wondering where this spring would take me, I've allowed myself to become intimidated by this reality. It displays a weakness in my character: I've let my identity come from how others see me.

Today I realize that to grow, to face this weakness, I need look no further than my father.

I understand now that I never saw Dad in relation to a job or occupation. And I never really thought about how other people saw him or defined his identity either. It didn't matter. He was (and is) my father. The end. I knew he worked, but what I saw there was a man providing for his family, not a man defined by how.

He was the one who played catch with me before his church softball games, or watched Walker, Texas Ranger with me on Saturday nights. He's the one who was always okay with a surprise attack from me, jumping on his unsuspecting back and attempting to wrestle him into submission (though I never could). He's the one who asked more from me than I wanted to give sometimes, and he's the one who showed me how to do a job even when you're tired. We worked together and played together, listening to Jim Zabel call Hawkeye football games on the radio during Saturday farm work and Paul Harvey on noontime drives. He loved me and cared for me and worked hard for me. And he does all of that now too. That is the identity he's spent a life creating.

He, like most other men, has undergone changes in "profession" throughout his lifetime. The type of farming and the size of farming. Factory work, construction work, maintenance work, wood work. The source of his paycheck has changed. It is common. But I am still a young man, unaccustomed to the realities of long-term living. I know better in my head, but my heart and my pride have not yet caught up. I'm scared to redefine what I do, because I've placed so much of my identity on that.

When I look at my father, though, I know this is foolishness. His identity is locked in elsewhere. His children see him as a Christian man, a hard worker, and their father. And that has been a rock-solid identity for over three decades.

I'm sure that part of my identity to my children in the past has been as a coach. After all, I haven't been home for Father's Day the last several years because I've been coaching. Today, instead, we went to church together, took a Father's Day picnic, and played on a playground. I read them books. They treated me to M&M's, peach rings, and grilling equipment.

Today, I am one step closer to having them see me in the same light that I see my father. I am one step closer to defining myself in that way as well. And that is an identity I am becoming more and more comfortable with every day.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Thanks for a legacy of hard work, Christian living, and being my father.

Notes From Camp 2014: A Response to Good Enough

This is the 2nd post in a series connecting incidents from a recent "camp" experience with English teachers to daily relevance. The initial post can be found here.

In one session at English Camp, many of us were lamenting the fact that we have many students who write mechanically for a grade, rather than from the heart in order to communicate something real through their own voice. As we discussed ways to move them from half-hearted prose seeking their currency of increased GPA to actual writers, a wise question arose: What moved you?

And we stopped and considered - what had changed the game for many of us who knew how to play school well, get our beloved grades, and "meet assignment requirements"? What caused us to change into people who clearly cared about writing, attempted to do it for fun every once in a while, and knew the distinct difference between their own written voice and robotic, lifeless declarations?

What I noticed was that more than one person referenced an English teacher, usually when they were a senior, who simply told them they weren't good. Some were more polite than others; but essentially, the message was the same: good enough isn't good. And what you're attempting is good enough.

I can only imagine what my English teacher thought of me by the time I reached senior year. I had a high GPA, and I confused that with actual knowledge and skills. As I've said many times off the record about some of my own students, I had great confidence in skills I didn't possess. And I had no idea. She changed that. In biting, sometimes sarcastic, always supportive and intolerant comments, she pointed forward to where I could and should be, not where I was.

A consensus did not result in the session that these ideas were discussed. Some, like me, saw this approach as instrumental to their development. Others viewed it as dangerous. The object of this post is not to establish perfect English teaching practices.

What I am trying to say, though, is that somewhere in each of our lives, there's a need for a person who will challenge us. That's especially true in areas we have the most confidence in ourselves. The experience of realizing you're less than awesome at something is not fun, and I suspect that is why the common response to teachers, pastors, parents, co-workers, spouses, and friends who tell us that good enough is not good is anger. But we've got to push past that anger if we're going to move forward with whatever it is that we live to be good at in our lives.

I remembered the first time my English teacher knocked me on my proverbial butt, and I remember being on the offensive all year long in an attempt to get back up. By the end of the year when I finally was able to, where and how I stood had changed considerably. 

You can't face criticism all day about all things. But if you never face it, you better start wondering just how much you might be missing.

Lessons From (English) Camp 2014: Speak Up and Be Quiet

For the last couple of summers, I've put together a somewhat popular series of posts about lessons that transfer well from the basketball camps in which I've coached to life in general (see 2013 posts, 2012 posts, and 2011 posts).

Though I find myself out of coaching this summer, I am not out of camp lessons. This past weekend I attended ICTE's English Camp in Cedar Falls. Though this sounds ultra-geeky to my non-English teaching brethren (and perhaps it is), it was rewarding to gather with a group of teachers from around the state, including several old friends, and share stories and battle strategies. Also, I got to enjoy a beer and a burger over lunch with Jeff Finn, which all good camp experiences should include.

The "Lessons From Camp" series will continue, therefore, beginning with today's lesson: Speak up and Be Quiet.

The camp format allowed us to come in as a large group to begin the day, declare what topics we wanted to discuss throughout the camp, then develop a schedule based on those requests. The instructions were simple: if you want to talk about it, volunteer to lead a session on the topic and facilitate the discussion. Ask, and you shall receive, so to speak. And so we did.

There was much to receive, and a wealth of resources from which we were fed. I don't know if math teachers get charged up bantering about the quadratic formula and the intricacies of pi; but it's clear that if you put some language arts teachers in the same space and ask them to talk about literature and writing, the hours fly by.

Jeff led a session I particularly enjoyed which he succinctly titled "Home-Runs." We got in the room, and he told the group, "Look. I just want to hear one idea from everybody of something that really works for them. Tell me one home run you've hit in your classroom." And so we did. He wanted to hear good ideas, so he asked for them.

In life, it's not a lot more complicated than that. Speak up. Ask. Let people know what you want. Timidity, while perhaps peaceful, is not practical, not if you want something. At some point you've got to stand up, proclaim your desire, and see what happens.

I don't think many of us ask enough of the people in our lives, mostly out of an assumption that we are bothering them in some way. And we're dead wrong about that. Every time I ask a fellow English teacher about what they do, I hear great energy and enthusiasm. When I ask my parents or grandparents about past life experiences, adventures, and obstacles, they smile a little, tell a story, and then smile a lot. The same thing occurs when I ask my friend what he thinks of a Steinbeck novel or his South American travels, or when I ask my wife about her garden or her writing or her new batch of jam.

Ask for ideas, ask for stories, ask for advice. Most people can't wait to tell you. And in the listening you are enriched, whether it be from advice you'll follow, entertainment from a good story, or the joy you share with that individual while you're sharing space and time with them while they share something that matters to them.

After you ask, though, you've got to be disciplined enough to shut up and listen. As much as I was excited to talk about something that had gone well in my classroom during the "Home Run" session or add on to what others were saying by talking about my variation of their idea, I realized that wasn't what I was there for. There would be a time for me to share, but that time should be dwarfed considerably by the time allotted to be quiet.

Too many people ask questions, quietly hoping the answer they get leads them to get to talk about themselves. It doesn't work that way. If you ask and you're in a hurry to talk while listening, you'll probably just end up getting more of yourself in the process. You get enough of that already. You will not walk away better, and you will probably not see the magic of an energized peer crafting a careful response about something they care deeply about.

Speak up and ask questions. How's your baseball team doing? What's your kid learning in school? What cookies do you make? What book are you reading? How do you teach the Great Gatsby? How did you handle a major professional change? Then sit back and soak it in. Learn. Grow. Share.

You'll both be better for it.