Saturday, January 23, 2010

Timeline

Monday: No school.
Tuesday: First day of Midterm Exams. Rain, thunder, wind. The first two are great. Wind, however, makes me incredibly tense. Part of the reason I left Oklahoma.
Wednesday: Second day of Midterm Exams. Rain, thunder, wind, and OH, YEAH! A tornado warning! Wind still makes me tense, and tornadoes are on my short list of things that truly scare me. Another part of the reason I left Oklahoma. Colleague's car gets crunched by a loon driving way too fast by the school.
Thursday: Midterm hiatus, minimum day, also my 100-minute prep that comes twice a week. Lighter rain, only a little bit of thunder, and the kids didn't really talk about the tornado. Would have been an easy day, except for the 2 girls whose families decided to jump into their middle-school drama. Seriously, people, you're adults, they're adolescent girls. Let them work it out. You REALLY want to press charges? Okay...I guess I'll call the officer on campus...who is off in 5 minutes... Behavior like this is one of the reasons I left the school in Oklahoma. Wait, WHAT, officer? You're blaming ME for this??? You obviously have no clue what goes on at this school, how hard we work to maintain a culture of safety and respect. We've been working with these girls since they joined the school last year. You might have noticed that this is the first time you've ever had to come over to this end of the campus! Don't blame me because you ended up staying an extra hour.
Friday: Midterm Exams day 3. More rain, without the wind, thunder, tornadoes, and drama. Stayed for the Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser, hobnobbed and took pictures, and may have convinced a few more parents to send their kids on the Washington DC trip. The fundraiser was a HUGE success, and I came home happy.
Saturday: 12:41. Still in sweats, under a fleece blanket, with my cat on my lap. Played two rounds of Age of Empires III, then messed around in Photoshop before it froze. Ignoring the 6-inch stack of grading, even though report card grades are due Monday. Or are they? Maybe it's Wednesday. Husband brought me hot chocolate before going in to the office, and I peeled myself out from under the cat long enough to grab some oatmeal. Was this really just a 4-day week?

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Jesus Rifles

When I was a kid, learning how to be religious, I made myself a cute little bracelet out of wooden beads. On some of the beads, I painted flowers, while others were festooned with religious symbols of a distinctly Protestant nature. To finish it off, every third bead was oh-so-carefully emblazoned with a Bible reference. I wore my bracelet with pride, imagining myself an incredible witness for Christ, sure that everyone would notice the beads and want to talk about them, and expecting that the references would remind me to be a better person.

After a day or two, I learned a hard truth.

Obscure abbreviations coupled with numbers separated by a colon mean nothing.

Sure, many people recognize John 3:16, even if they don't know the verse or why so many people care about it. People on both sides of the Prop 8 debate know that there's a book called Leviticus, and every apocalypse theory buff loves (or hates) Revelation. No, not RevelationS. (Just like it's not "SafewayS," but that's another issue.).

But there's nothing magical about a few letters and numbers, be they on a wooden bracelet created by a kid figuring out her religious identity, printed on the bottom of a cup that happens to contain one of the greatest fast-food shakes in America, or engraved as part of a serial number on a rifle scope.

Yeah, people actually do that. The verses in question reference light, which apparently has something to do with how the scopes work, although I'm not sure how shooting people has anything to do with following Christ.

Now, many religions recognize that objects can be blessed, set aside for a purpose, imbued with something extra. Sometime in the near future, my priest will come to my home and pray and fling water about the place, and will somehow extend the grace of God into our home.

Ancient rituals and prayers can convey grace. I'm pretty sure that other actions or objects can bless something, as well, but Scripture references? I don't think they do any more to rifle scopes than they did to my soon-forgotten beads.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Back to the Future

Our children are our future.

I'm going back to the children tomorrow.

Therefore, I'm going back to the future.