Birthday Blessings

Happy Birthday, Dad.

As you enter this next year, may God's blessings wash over you, wave after wave, refreshing your soul and inspiring you in new and creative ways.

You are a person with more energy, more creativity, more courage, and more humility than most people I've ever met. You can run circles around me, and you have so much charm that even the ducks are drawn to you. (Dear blog readers, there's a story there, and it's coming).

I sure do love you, and I am thankful--as always--for a dad like you.

Enjoy your day--and happy, happy, happy, happy birthday!

Jana

Poem for Children

I think I've posted a part of this poem here before, but I came across it again today and decided it deserved a repeat performance. (By the way, Ina Hughes writes for the Chidren's Defense fund).

"We Pray for Children" by Ina Hughes

We pray for children
Who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
Who like to be tickled,
Who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
Who sneak Popsicles before supper,
Who erase holes in math workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can't bound down the street in new sneakers,
Who never "counted potatoes,"
Who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead in,
Who never go to the circus,
Who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who sleep with the cat and bury goldfish,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money,
Who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink,
Who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who can't find any bread to steal,
Who don't have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
Whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who shove dirty clothes under the bed,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don't like to be kissed in front of the car pool,
Who squirm in church and scream on the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who are never spoiled by anyone,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children
Who want to be carried
And for those who must,
For those we never give up on
And for those who never get a second chance,
For those we smother.
And for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind
enough to offer it.

We pray for children. Amen.

(We pray for Children, 1995, William Morrow publishers)

Pictures of Hollis Woods

I have had the pleasure this semester of reading books from one of my favorite genres--young adult literature. I have had the opportunity to re-read some old favorites (ricocheting me quite pleasantly into my own upper elementary/junior high days) and to be introduced to some new favorites.

If you haven't read Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff (and if you like this genre), put this one on your list. A Newbery Honor book released in 2002, this book is geared to 4th-7th graders, but as one reviewer noted, probably only an adult will appreciate all of its layers. (I think that statement is true of a great deal of YA novels, which is why they are so fun to read now).

Abandoned at birth, 12 year old Hollis Woods has lived in too many foster homes to count and just wishes for her own family. Moved from home to home, she finds her heart in the home of the Regans, whom she eventually leaves due to a horrible misunderstanding (trying not to spoil anything here). She finds solace in the home of a retired art teacher, Josie Cahill, who sees the beauty in Hollis Woods and encourages her gift of drawing. It soon becomes clear that Cahill is becoming increasingly forgetful, and Josie becomes her caregiver and rescuer when the foster care people began to investigate. Her life with Josie is interspersed with flashbacks to her home with the Regans, memories and images that Hollis captures in her drawings. These two stories come together in a surprising and hope-affirming ending. You are rooting and cheering for Hollis as she finds her way home: "Here I am, Hollis Woods, a heap of trouble. Hollis Woods, who doesn't deserve to be in a family . . . tough Hollis Woods. Look at me. Now I belong."

Enjoy the read!

I'm really back this time

This poor blog. I've been treating it like a housplant--giving it a few drops of water occasionally under the mistaken notion that it will stay alive (and stand upright and put out blossoms!) with just this littlest bit of attention.

But I'm back, and boy howdy, I'm ready to blog.

Part of this is due to my Abilene friend, Sarah Stirman. She has been passionately pursuing her writing dream, and I've been watching the process evolve through her blog and on facebook. She is bold enough to get out there and pursue what is in her heart. So she writes and she writes, even on the days she might not feel like it or might feel she has little to say--because that's what writers do. They write. (I secretly want to be her and I've already told her I want to be in the Coffee Group in my next life. She told me to get my own Coffee Group--so takers, anyone?! :-) She is a sweetie.)

I'm also ready to blog because I've got some stories to tell--stories that have been knocking around in my head and need a place to go so that I can move on and think about other things. I can only hold so much up there at one time. (The amount seems smaller than it used to, but still).

My first story has to do with a small 5 year old boy at our neighborhood park. His mom is on drugs, his dad has disappeared, and he is living with his great grandmother. He also is going to be a cowboy when he turns 6 and is practicing now by brushing his teeth with grass, because cowboys don't use toothbrushes. He told me that he could speak Indian, and showed me by enthusiastically pronouncing the word "grande", which he correctly identified as being big. Yep, the boy knows Indian. He was at the park with his great grandmother, who showed no signs of loving this boy, but who seemed very put out by her emerging cowpoke. He stayed by my side, visiting and visiting, until Rob rode up on his bike--Luke and Rob got him interested in a game of throwing the football, which clearly delighted him. It was also clear that he had never thrown a football IN HIS LIFE.

I wanted to scoop him up and take him home with me.

We can always use another cowpoke around the ranch, and my kids don't brush their teeth, either.

There are so many children with stories like his. I don't know what to do about them all, so I just keep loving my two and praying and hoping that God will intervene and make their little lives right and good. I hope I make myself available when He calls on me to do just that. Yesterday, all I did was listen and act maternal, with a few "attaboy" and "good job!" and "wow, you're strong!" thrown in. It wasn't enough, I know.

The Shaping Power of Narrative

Betty Sue Flowers, who is the Director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, is one smart cookie. She was the keynote speaker at the recent conference I attended, and among other things, she spoke about the power of the stories that live around us--that we shape our personal story to the larger life stories that emerge around us.

She suggested (my paraphrase here) that we give ourselves a choice--we can write/tell our story as a heroic one or as a victim story. The way we cast ourselves in our own stories will largely determine how we live and how we think.

I am very intrigued by that comment, and I have been thinking about it ever since. When I think about the story of my own life, do I cast myself as a heroine or as a victim? Think about the implications of that answer.

How do I get my children and my students to re-write their stories so that they see themselves in the shoes of the hero? How do I encourage them to see their stories connected to the greater story of God?

We have a choice. We either see our lives and stories as a reflection of God's greater story of triumph and redemption, or we frame our stories in the context of meaninglessness and purposelessness and loss.

I'll keep thinking about this.
Jana