No Easy Weigh Out

I had my annual check-up today and, since I do have confidence in my doctor, decided to ask him a question about an issue that has been plaguing me recently. Weight.

You see, I have reached that stage of my life where–ahem–my metabolism appears to have slowed. Now, I have written about my devotion to exercise, and I do move around more than most fifty-something women of my acquaintance. Nevertheless, I had made up my mind to hold the weight line, and five to seven pounds crept on that are staying on. No matter what.

I griped to my son about this a while ago. He’s probably not the most sympathetic person to gripe to, considering what he had to do to bring his body under control in the Marines. Still, I have faith in his opinion. I told him about my cousin who just placed in a marathon at the age of fifty-four. She has had some success with weight loss this year, and what she said she did was control portions and up the exercise. I think I am eating better, but there’s only so much upping of exercise a person with rheumatoid arthritis can do, and I think I’m at my limit.

My son’s advice? “Eat less, Mom.”

Sigh. I know. I really do. It comes down to simple arithmetic. Calories in versus calories burned. But still, I though there might be a secret which is why I asked the doctor. Since he deals with women at my stage of life quite frequently….

The doctor just smiled. “If you find the magic answer, let me know. We’ll both be richer and thinner then.”

So…I spent the last three weeks drinking only water. No pop or coffee. I was trying to reprogram my taste buds. I guess the next three weeks, when I get up enough determination, will be spent not eating any meals out. And keeping a food diary.

I’m not obsessed. I swear it. I just want to hold the line against the damage I have seen done to my joints, and the weight thing is something I can control.

I think.

Many Thanks

My son sent his dad and me a card thanking us for having him, which I thought was sweet. (We are blessed with a wonderful son.) And we laughed. HOWEVER…it did get to be a bit much after a while. Click here if you want to see what I mean.

That was then…

Twenty-eight years ago, on Friday August 25th, my husband’s and my life changed forever when our son came into the world.

That was then.

This is now. At least it is fairly close to now.

The hubby and I did not expect twenty-eight years to go so fast!

If YOU would like to wish my son a happy birthday, you can do so here. I am sure he would appreciate it.

Downsizing Hits Everywhere

It’s official. Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

Pluto had a long run as a planet. It was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh on February 18, 1930.

The reason for Pluto’s demotion is that both it and its moon, Charon, are:

part of a sea of other objects that occupy the same region of space. Earth and the other eight large planets have, on the other hand, cleared broad swaths of space of any other large objects.

Less than five percent of the world’s astronomers voted on Pluto’s redefinition, so maybe it won’t stick. Meanwhile, I guess the mnemonic I learned for the planets can still be used. Mary’s violet eyes make John stay up nights… Yep, it’s still good. I just have to keep up on the news so I make sure the other eight planets still count before I teach it to the grandkids!

Reaching Out

The junior girl who quit school last year is back. I have her twice, once in study hall and again in her English class. Her story would break your heart.

In the same English class sit two pregnant girls, one of whom is due this Friday. What will that mean for school for them?

I have the senior boy twice, too. He couldn’t go to vocational school this year. He didn’t have enough credits. I think going there was what kept him around.

He wasn’t in English this morning. He got in trouble yesterday for his shirt, which said, “I came. I partied. I don’t remember.” It appears that that was enough to make him quit school.

They are all so needy. School offers a chance. I used to think that it was better if the kids who weren’t interested dropped out. Now I think that education is a way out of the hopelessness many of them feel, and we should do whatever we can to keep them in. The world is often an unfriendly place. At least in school they have people on their sides for a little while longer.

Frustration in English 12

I am in English 12 two periods a day. Today the teacher, who is thirty-one, was trying to explain the statement “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

A boy raised his hand and said, “I don’t get it. I thought it was doing good things that got you to heaven.”

The teacher’s answer was, “Well, it means that sometimes you try to do good and it all goes to pot and doesn’t turn out the way you planned.”

The boy still looked puzzled, and from my place in the back of the room I wanted to scream, “THAT’S NOT WHAT IT MEANS!! It means that a lot of well-meaning people who think that good works will get them to heaven are not going to get there. The only way to get there is belief in Jesus Christ.”

But

I work in a public school

so I couldn’t say that.

And then

the moment was past.

The Evangelism Board

I’m on the Evangelism Board at my church. Have been for a year. I was quite surprised when I was asked. And quite resistant. It’s not that I don’t believe in telling people about Jesus. It’s that, despite my years, I am still pretty good at being a wallflower, and evangelists, in my mind, are those people who find it easy to witness, those who go out and solicit people to talk to. And that’s not me.

I even asked my pastor why he asked me to be on the board. I told him what I just told you. And he told me that he had prayerfully considered me and knew that I had a heart for missions. Which I do. And because I trust him as a man of God, trust that the Holy Spirit did inform him of some ability I have of which I am TOTALLY unaware, I accepted the position.

The experience I have had on this board is not unlike what I have had when we belonged to a different church. Some people accept the position but never come to the meetings. Some people come to the meetings and give input. A very few do the work. And I suppose I feel guilty. I am somewhere between the input and the work. I do a little of both.

We are organizing another Friend Day for our church, and the pastor looked across the table at me and asked how I thought we could encourage our parishioners to ask their friends to church. My tongue would NOT move. I have asked people to church before, but it is hard to know when enough is enough. Sometimes they lose patience with you if you ask three or four times. Maybe the next time would be the one that would get them there. Or maybe it will be the one that makes them think that you are a pushy “Bible thumper” and turns them off forever. I never know.

The pastor said that we should think in terms of eternity for our friends. You know what I mean. If I don’t invite them to church, will anyone else? And if they don’t hear the plan of salvation, where will they be when they die? And what part will I have played in that? I do think in terms of that, mostly out of frustration for the things that I can’t say in school.

The best I can do is to enter the conversation when church or the Bible are brought up. Kids will ask me sometimes if I go to church. “Sure,” I reply. “Just about every Sunday.”

Or they will get angry because a piece of literature, say maybe HUCK FINN, brings up a Bible story. “I thought they weren’t supposed to teach that in school,” they will say.

“Well,” I say. “They are merely mentioning the stories in the Bible. For a long time, the Bible was the book that everyone had read, so everyone knew those stories.”

“Did they believe them?” they will ask. “We sure don’t. They’re stupid, anyway.”

“I believe them,” I answer. And that’s as far as it goes.

So. I feel guilty. I am not doing my part in bringing in the crops from those fields which are “ripe for harvest”(John 4:35). And hasn’t my Lord commissioned all of us, me included, to do just that? That’s the way I felt when I left the meeting this evening. That’s the way I often feel. I go because the pastor said he prayed about my being there. So did I.

And then I got to talking to the wife of the board chairman. Her husband is currently looking for a new job, and the opportunity which looks most promising will take them from Indiana to Iowa. Just a little jaunt. They ‘ve only been here two years. I asked how things were going, and then I asked if SHE felt comfortable witnessing. She’s a social worker; I figured maybe she had some insight into human nature that I didn’t have.

She has not always been Lutheran, and she thought that going out and “evangelizing” in the sense that most people think of it, the kind where you go knock on the doors of people that you don’t know or approach people at the grocery store, is something that probably comes hard to most Lutherans. I would tend to agree. I have often said that I am a Christian who goes to a Lutheran church, but maybe there is more in that background that works against me than I thought.

We continued talking, though, and she said she shared my frustration with how to share her faith at work. She said she clears it with her employers that she can bring up the Word of God, mention the name of Jesus, if anyone opens the door. But she had better make sure that door is open. Then she said, “But I try not to feel too guilty about that.”

Guilty? Really? Had she heard what I was thinking? Or was this particular conversation, like so many other things in my life, happening because God had heard me? I tend to think the latter.

She put her arm around me and said, “Our world is so closed off from human contact. And not everyone has the gift. Just pray that God will open your eyes when there is an open door. And maybe add a sentence or two to what you have said, something that will get the name of Jesus in there. That’s all any of us can do, I think. Pray to be open to the opportunity.”

Yeah. Now I know the Holy Spirit orchestrated that conversation. I do believe I have heard those words before. I Peter 3:15 says:

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…

Scripture says that I should be ready with an answer. I don’t have to feel guilty. I pray for myself and for those of you who may feel like I have about witnessing, that we will have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the people who are asking the question.

Machinery

I like to think I make my husband’s eyes light up. So does big machinery. He has worked outside with such machinery for more than thirty years. The current object of his mechanical affection is a Gyrotrac-25 Heavy Duty Mulcher. The Gyrotrac is currently cutting down the brush within 1500 feet of the crossings on my husband’s territory.

Last Saturday we took a cruise, and where did we go? Out to watch the Gyrotrac in action. My husband saw it cut down a tree 12 inches in diameter and make splinters of it. It is supposed to do the same to a tree of twice that size.

I do wonder what the man will do when he retires. A desk job would NEVER satisfy him. At least not one that required him to stay indoors all the time.

Living the Bible

As usual, my friend Martha has a good story to share.

His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans, and no shoes. This is literally his wardrobe for his entire four years of college.

He is brilliant. Kind of profound and very, very bright. He becomes a Christian while attending college.

Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative church. They want to develop a ministry to the students but are not sure how to go about it.

One day Bill decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. The service has already started and so Bill starts down the aisle looking for a seat.

The church is completely packed and he can’t find a seat. By now, people are really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says anything.

Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the pulpit, and when he realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the carpet.

By now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is thick.

About this time, the minister realizes that from way at the back of the church, a deacon is slowly making his way toward Bill.

Now the deacon is in his eighties, has silver-gray hair, and a three-piece suit. A godly man, very elegant, very dignified, very courtly. He walks with a cane and, as he starts walking toward this boy, everyone is saying to themselves that you can’t blame him for what he’s going to do. How can you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor?

It takes a long time for the man to reach the boy.

The church is utterly silent except for the clicking of the man’s cane. All eyes are focused on him. You can’t even hear anyone breathing. The minister can’t even preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do.

And now they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill and worships with him so he won’t be alone.

Everyone chokes up with emotion.
When the minister gains control, he says:

What I’m about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget.

Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some people will ever read!

Bullying

I have been a witness to some bullying for the past few days, and I feel the need to rant, so here goes.

I know that everyone has been the victim of some bullying. I used to show my junior high kids the movie ANGUS to show them that even the popular kids have such problems, but it does seem that the more vulnerable among us are bullied more often. The movie is based on a story by Chris Crutcher, some of whose books are quite controversial, and while I never would have even read the story out loud to my “kids,” the movie has proved its worth time and again.

I hate bullying in all forms. I particularly hated it when my grandson, RJ, was the victim of bullying. His bullying came from an adult, and there is something about that that seems particularly insidious. I was an adult before I realized that some wives are bullied by their husbands. Many women of my generation (and men, too) were raised to ignore bullies and hope they go away. I think one of the good things about kids nowadays is that at least some of them speak up. And some adults listen instead of telling the bullied kids to “have a stiff upper lip.”

My son was the victim of bullying by both children and adults, and what made his experience so unbelievable was that it happened at a parochial school. He had a concussion before his dad and I really had a clue, mostly, I think, because we just couldn’t wrap our minds around the fact that such a thing could happen at a Christian school. Yet it did. And my son was not alone.

Recently on Focus on the Family, I heard a talk by Dr. Wess Stafford, who is the president of Compassion International. Dr. Stafford tells a moving story of how it was to grow up as a missionary’s kid on the Ivory Coast of Africa. Sadly, that story includes his account of the abuse he received, both at the hands of adults and that of children, at the boarding school where missionaries’ kids were sent at that time. Dr. Stafford’s story is doubly sad because he presents the abuse he and his fellow classmates suffered as a case where Satan won, turning some children away from God forever.

With all that in mind, remember when I wrote about the Shrek Kid? Had I still been in school, being in class with him would have been my worst nightmare. I try to serve all the kids at school, but I will admit that I was relieved on the days that the Shrek Kid was absent. He could smell out vulnerability, and you never knew who would be the victim.

The Shrek Kid is in one of the classes to which I have been assigned this year. And he wasted no time in picking on one of the kids for whom I am there. Somehow, he managed to involve the whole class. The really sad thing about that is that, in this case, the whole class went along. And the butt of the teasing is one of the school’s most vulnerable students. I guess things haven’t changed that much, either. The first day, she just took the abuse and went home and cried. The teacher had done little, and I was not in a position to help her without making matters worse.

The second day, I intervened. While the teacher gave a talk about mutual respect to the rest of the class, I took the girl for a walk. I am an inclusion aid. Such things are really my job. And when we came back, she sat next to me. That might seem inappropriate to you since this is high school we’re talking, but like I said, this is one of the school’s more vulnerable students, and she has just as much right as the bully does to be in the classroom. Inclusion is now the law.

My reaction to the bullying was not the immediate thing that you will see if you read this post by Shannon at Wind Scraps. Shannon is talking about rescuing a chick from its mother, who would have pecked it to death:

I screamed “Hey!”, threw my trough to the ground, raced through the garden and around the side of the chicken yard, yanked open the door to the coop, dropped to my stomach (and I won’t describe what I laid on to do so), and reached out the open door and beyond the ramp, scooping up the dazed chick just as the hen was readying herself for another bloody blow.

Maybe it should have been. Like I said, it does seem to me that bullies smell out the most vulnerable among us, and just like the chick, in the aforementioned post, sometimes their “pecking” leads to worse things than the drawing of blood. I did, figuratively at least, scoop this student up in my hand. And I can keep her safe by me. At least for that class. But who is going to be there as she goes to lunch? Or to seventh period, where she will see the Shrek Kid once again?

Dr. Stafford says that the evil in society rolls downhill, that while adults may be hungry, for instance, it is children who starve. And maybe that’s where we need to start, to look at society over all. Maybe bullying is an evil perpetuated by Satan, as Dr. Stafford says, a kind of “poverty” in many ways, where Satan convinces a child to give up. Maybe the bullies are suffering from a kind of poverty of their own. Children need more than food on their backs or clothes to wear. They need to feel safe. Maybe bullies don’t. Maybe society needs to be wary of the warning Jesus gave us in Scripture:

See that you do not look down on one of these little ones [or even the not-so-little]. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. –Matthew 18:10

I am in the job that I am because of the kids. I feel God called me to it. And I don’t see an easy solution to the problem of bullying. Throughout the day, I have asked God to give me wisdom in this situation. And there have been no neon signs to point my way just yet. So I will do the only thing I know to do, to turn the problem over to hands more capable than mine.

I will pray for the girl that is being bullied.

And I will continue to pray for the Shrek Kid.