upside down kingdoms.

on my much needed “mental health day” on friday, i went to go see “the king’s speech” on my own. i like to go see a movie by myself every now and then. there’s something oddly liberating about feeling comfortable enough inside your skin to see a movie alone. anyway…while i knew of all the acclaim it received in recent weeks, including winning the best picture award at the oscars, i always take movie reviews with a grain of salt. (exhibit a: i saw “black swan” and disliked it, despite all the praise it received. actually, it straight up made me feel like a crazy person.)

in short, it was a phenomenal movie. two hours had passed and i barely felt like it had been an hour. i actually wished that the movie was longer. and i was conscious of the how great the movie was even as i was watching it. and i remember thinking to myself, “i get why this movie had such widespread praise.” and then i took one step further away from the movie, and i started to wonder why people like to learn about how people who are kings and rulers and in positions of power also often have secret weaknesses and crippling challenges – the proverbial achilles heel. it’s as if people want to know that despite having power and authority, they are human just like the rest of us. that no amount of money or power can change the fact that we are flawed human beings.

and then i thought about how amazing it is that our God knows and understands just that feeling – that he was fully man and fully God. and it made me think about how it must just be a part of our human nature to desire that level of vulnerability and intimacy –  where you can lay out your weaknesses and shortcomings…we always want leaders who “understand the plight of the common man”. and we all know how things turn out when a mortal man tries to create a society in which everyone is equal and everything is equally shared.

while we all should strive to be humbler people, people who are more loving and considerate of one another, we all know that we place harsher judgment upon those who are in positions of power and authority or who possess more resources than the rest of us. and we all know that we desire to see a quality in them that shows that while they are abnormally privileged in one way or another, they still remember those who are not. which again leads me to all the more be in awe of a man who left heaven and power over all the universe to save and love us…

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

i often think…

…that i’d like to live the life of the artist. there is much appeal. but i think that the inherent “c’est la vie-ness” of it would eventually take its toll on me. as much as i’d like to while my days away in coffee shops, musing and pondering, the control freak that lives in me would rattle the bars of the cage.

or maybe even in saying this, i’m limiting what it means to be an artist?

*photo: simeon k.

heroes.

i was listening to npr today and they were talking about what defines a hero and some examples of individuals who would be considered heroes of our day. muhammad ali, mother teresa, eleanor roosevelt were some names that were tossed out. apparently, (and to my horror) oprah winfrey is considered one of the greatest heroes today. whether sports stars deserve to be considered heroes was asked.

the part that intrigued me the most was what character traits define a hero. the underdog. overcoming adversity. redeeming oneself from a troubled past. all mentioned, but always questioned. but the one trait i heard multiple times and most agreed upon was self-sacrifice. someone who accomplished something for the greater good at some personal cost or risk to themselves. i found it interesting that even amongst the secular, self-sacrifice is considered a heroic trait. and i thought about jesus and about how there was no one on earth, in the history of the universe, who did something for the “greater good” (quotes b/c it’s trite to say it) at the greatest cost that has and can ever exist. it just reaffirmed that creation longs for Him…

and then i thought about my friends in cambodia. the missionaries who have given over 10 years of their lives for the sake of bringing the Gospel to a country that has experienced genocide, poverty, and spiritual darkness in recent history. and the students they have worked so hard to disciple and train who are now going out to the far reaches of their nation as bringers of light and truth. THE light and truth.

i thought of the cost to these students…their families, social standing, careers, money, education, comfort…and they start out with so much less than and it is worth so much more in the end. these twenty-somethings take their message of hope to people who have even less than they, driving miles and miles on dusty roads by motorbike, taking only the bags on their backs, giving what they can, facing rejection, until they can find a man of peace who will give them access to a remote village somewhere in the middle of rural cambodia to reach an ethnic group that has never heard of jesus.

they could be hanging out with friends. they could be pursuing careers. they could be getting married, starting families. but there they go on a motorbike, on a dusty road in the heart of cambodia, because they know of the good news that cannot be contained…

…they are MY heroes.
and i miss them and the country they live in so much it hurts.

we are flags.

“our lives are like flags – flying for a short while, a stake in the ground, marking our territory.  we fly our colors – our history, belief system, culture, identity – but eventually our flag will wear out and return to the ground and someone else’s flag will replace our own.”

(b. fraser)

like drinking from a fire hydrant.

so.

so…

i’m just going to jump right into it.
teaching has been…overwhelming. tiring. fun. exhausting. fulfilling. challenging. exciting. tiring…right, i said that already.
despite how challenging it’s been, i know this is where i’m supposed to be.
when i used to work in the corporate world, i remember leaving the office at 5:30, already dreading having to come back the next day. i’m guessing that’s usually a bad sign. i don’t feel that way when it comes to teaching. at the end of the day, i’m exhausted and ready to go home. but i never dread having to come back.

at the same time, there are things that cause me to feel a certain level of dread? hmmm…that’s not even the best word that i can think of right now. i’m not going to lie. i work with a tough crowd. and it’s what i wanted. but there are days when it just sucks the life out of you. i will hide behind the semi-anonymity of the internets and i will say that there have been days when i just wanted to really shake students really, REALLY hard, and tell them to shut their pieholes. there have been a couple of moments when i wanted to just throw my hands up and walk out to take a breather (unfortunately, not an option). simultaneously, i feel a HUGE burden to be a good teacher, the best that i can be, to them. i want them to actually LEARN, not just regurgitate. all that idealistic first-year teacher stuff. i’m that person. i stay way too late. i get their unnecessarily early.

and then there’s the 3rd area of things…and this is probably not an area that most other people deal with in their first year as teachers. in those moments when i just want to shake them really hard and give them a swift kick to their behinds, i remember their stories. we ALL have stories. it’s something i firmly believe in. and it was because of this belief that i got this job. and their stories…i wonder if they should be called stories at all. broken homes. drugs. addictions. abuse. death. violence. and in their awkward little faces, i see glimpses of it. they can be SO infuriating, and there are moments when i pause to look in their eyes and then i realize…they had no say in the family and situation they were born into. this is their world. and it is in these moments i realize what it means to show “grace under fire.” and it makes me frustrated…not because i am agitated or annoyed with them, but because i can’t understand why there are such odds stacked against them. and if they are able to keep their heads above water now, i feel fear that they won’t be able to maintain it in the future when there is no one in their corner, encouraging and supporting them. and it’s in these moments i see who i truly am – the ugly impatient person who doesn’t want to deal with these issues, or the loving and patient person that can love them enough.

it’s SO tiring. exhausting.
and at this point, i sometimes don’t even have time to digest what i’ve been through during the day.
but i believe i’ll get there – to a place where i can chew and digest each day fully.

but now…
now, i sleep.