Words for Monday Morning

Hello there! Sorry the blogging hiatus there; things have been pretty crazy leading up to the first week of school. But finally, at long last, it is here. Tonight is our Open House, and Thursday is the first day of school. And because this promises to be an exciting yet probably challenging week, I thought I'd share some of the words that are giving me comfort today, just in case you need to hear them too.

My God is the rock where I take refuge;

my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold.

~ Ps 18:3

He lifts us up, and in Him we can do anything! Join me in making this a great week??

A gorgeous Catholic shrine near my house in Wisconsin

Book 2: The Secret Garden

Back to the books! At this rate, it'll take me a year to tell you all about those ten books I'd like on my bookshelf. But, I hope you don't mind?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this Tuesday Teatime: Ten Books.

I don't actually have that much to say about The Secret Garden because it was circumstance rather than the story that really made it a memorable book for me. 

When I was five, I started playing 'school' outside, using a tree as a 'chalkboard' and a little twig as a pointer. My parents saw how much I loved it, so by the time I was seven, they had helped me set up a little school room in the house, complete with a chalkboard and easel, a globe, a little yellow student's desk that I used as a teacher's desk, and a plethora of accessories like chalk, a clipboard, and fake passes to the bathroom and the nurse. I would set up my dolls, or when I was luckier my sister and neighbors, and begin teaching whatever I had learned in school that day.

For whatever reason, The Secret Garden somehow ended up in this school room. Most of the rest of our books were kept in bookshelves in our bedrooms, and while I very easily could have gone and grabbed one, I opted for the path of least resistance and used the book that had somehow ended up in the room with me. So the children's abridged and illustrated version of The Secret Garden was the first book I ever 'taught.' I read it aloud to my 'class' and asked them questions about it; I dreamt up projects that they could do on the characters and plot; I made up spelling and vocabulary lists from it. And now, almost seventeen years later, I am a real English teacher. I'm not teaching The Secret Garden this year, but I know I'll get just as much joy from teaching this year's books as I did seventeen long years ago teaching The Secret Garden to my dolls.

I've come a long way from that little makeshift school room. Finally out in Wisconsin about to embark on my first real teaching job (no longer a student teacher or assistant teacher as I have been the past two years,) I had the true joy of seeing my classroom for the first time the other day. There's no little yellow teacher's desk, but I think I'll make do ;)

Tuesday Teatime: What are you learning?

Hi everybody! In honor of the upcoming school year, today I'm reflecting on what I've been learning lately and wondering what you've been learning.

To New Beginnings

Well, it's a new week, friends, and I'm in an entirely new and unknown part of the country. Would you pray for me as I take this leap of faith? And I, as always, will be praying for you - especially for any new beginnings you may be undertaking.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,

and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

2 Corinthians 9:6

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Goethe

Boldness, be my friend.

Shakespeare - Cymbeline

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

C.S. Lewis

Massachusetts to Connecticut to New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio to Indiana to Illinois to....Wisconsin!!

Favorite Things (and places!)

Brown paper packages tied up with string - these are a few of my favorite things! (Actually, this was a graduation gift for my friend. But I couldn't get the song out of my head...)

Long time no see, everybody! Sorry - that was my fault. Things have been a bit chaotic over here as I've been getting ready to move from Massachusetts to Wisconsin. The big moving day is finally upon me, and before I go, I want to share a few photos from the last few weeks that capture some of what I love about New England.

The pond by my childhood house that I mentioned in my last Tuesday Teatime video. Please kindly notice the upside down sign warning against feeding ducks on the tree. I feel like that sort of encapsulates the atmosphere of this pond.

A photo I snapped while I was in the center of town yesterday. There's something about the sprawling old cemeteries, stone walls and whitewashed gates, and centuries-old congregational churches that makes New England one of my favorite places in the world. I think a scene like this will always make me feel at home.

Also in the center of town yesterday. Gosh, it's nice to be back in America.

And without further ado, on to Wisconsin. I hope you're all doing well, friends :)

Knowing versus Feeling

A photo from Kensington Palace I snapped just before leaving London. I absolutely fell in love with the peaceful feeling of this garden.

Hello, friends. I had originally been planning to post about the second book of the ten that would be on 'my bookshelf,' but while praying this morning, I realized there was something more important I'd like to discuss today. So my new plan is to use those book explanations when I have the time to blog but feel like I don't have much to say (which has been happening lately).

In today's first reading, Moses returns from the mountains to find that the people have forgotten him and have forgotten God. They have made an idol of gold to worship instead. Take a look at this excerpt:

Moses asked Aaron, "What did these people ever do to you

that you should lead them into so grave a sin?"

Aaron replied, "Let not my lord be angry.

You know well enough how prone the people are to evil.

They said to me, 'Make us a god to be our leader;

as for the man Moses who brought us out of 
the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.'

So I told them, 'Let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off.'

They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out.

Exodus 32: 21-24

I was particularly struck by the people's reasoning. They had requested of Aaron, 'Make us a god to be our leader; as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.' 

Punctuation nerd that I am, I was staring long and hard at that semicolon. It implies that there is a logical connection between the two clauses. In this case, I'm interpreting it as a cause-and-effect connection. They tell Aaron, 'Make us a god to be our leader because we do not know what has happened to Moses, the man who brought us out of Egypt.' And then we can identify the underlying assumption as the people must always have a leader and someone to worship. As soon as their leader is gone, and as soon as they can no longer feel God's presence, the people create something new to lead them and something new to worship to fill the void that they feel.

I'm not sure about you, but I certainly don't feel God's presence near me all the time. There are many days that I feel directionless and far from God. I still know He exists. I know He is there. But knowing and feeling are two different things, and sometimes I'm like the Jewish people in the desert; I wonder where my direction has gone, and I quickly abandon ship.

But the thing about faith is that it's not all about feelings. It's about believing and continuing to act the way Jesus wants us to, even when we don't feel Him near us. Even when we're not sure where He has gone. Even when our prayer life has been feeling a bit dry and it's feeling really tempting to focus on money or popularity or career success instead. That, I think, is when it is most important to keep faith, to avoid the temptation to worship a golden calf, and to know in our hearts, even if we don't feel it, that God exists and is walking with us.

Book 1: Little House in the Big Woods

It just occurred to me that I never actually posted about the ten books that I mentioned in my Tuesday Teatime video a few weeks ago, and I really would like to share my thoughts about them. So starting from the beginning, here are ten reasons why Little House in the Big Woods would make my bookshelf of ten books.

First, this was the book that ignited my passion for reading. My grandparents gave it to me for Christmas in 1997, just after I had turned six years old. Up until this point, I had loved reading picture books with my parents and then had moved onto reading short 'chapter books' on my own. But Little House in the Big Woods was something entirely new. I identified with the main character. I delighted in imagining her life. I applied the lessons that five-year-old Laura learned in the book to my own life. My mother had been reading the book to me each night before bed, but before she knew it, I had finished the book on my own and was devouring the next in the series. 

Second, the book taught me about a strong work ethic and the importance of having a work plan and routine. (I'm not kidding. I credit a lot of my personality as a planner to this book and the rest in the series.) Some of the routines Ma, Laura, and Mary follow in the book are burned in my memory and influence how I work to this day. This passage in particular has had a very positive impact on me:

"After [the breakfast dishes and bed-making were] done, Ma began the work that belonged to that day. Each day had its own work. Ma used to say:

'Wash on Monday,

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday, 

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday

Rest on Sunday.'"

Clearly, I'm not spending my Thursdays churning or anything. But I do still try to give myself one main task per day with other smaller, less important tasks. So for example, this week, my main task each day has been to plan a certain number of lessons on Beowulf for the fall. Then I have a small to-do list with secondary tasks like emails to respond to, chores to do around the house, and phone calls to make. Also, the perennial wisdom that a sink free of dishes and a crisply made bed are good ways to start the day has served me well. Thanks, Little House.

Somehow I was lucky enough to find friends who also loved the series so much that they also found it fun to dress up in 'olden days' clothes, as I called them. We were nine here, I think. (And yes, I was tiny.)

Thirdly, and closely related to the previous point, the book introduced to me the concept that Sundays should be kept free from work. My parents didn't work on Sundays, and the day was always reserved for mass and family time anyway, but my parents had never actually told me they refrained from work on Sundays. It wasn't a concept that entered my consciousness until I read the chapter on how Laura and her family spent Sundays. At six years old, I didn't really have any work to refrain from on Sundays, and in high school, I was studying every spare minute I had in order to try to get into Harvard. But from college onwards, the idea that Sunday is the Lord's day really became important to me, and I even revisited the chapter in Little House when trying to think of ways to make Sunday special.

Fourth, the book taught me that I didn't need fancy toys to have fun. Laura had a corn-cob doll and a ball made out of a pig's bladder (okay, that one is kind of gross) and she always had a good time. I started playing with paper dolls and playing 'house' in the yard with my sister because I wanted to have fun the same ways that Laura had fun.

And finally, the silly little lessons I learned from the book have stuck with me for almost twenty years, and I think they'll probably stick around at least twenty more. Some gems include: (1) don't jump on a hornets' nest; (2) if you're advised to do something as quickly as possible, there's probably a good reason; (3) brown hair is just as pretty as blonde, and it's not worth fighting over anyway. Oh, and (4) if you don't have a ball handy, use a pig's bladder. (Just kidding.)

Happy Friday, everyone!

Quotation taken from Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House in the Big Woods. 1932. New York: HarperCollins, 1971. p29.