Goodbye Kindergarten

Another whole school year is over.... How does that seem to go so fast every year?!

These littles have brought so much JOY and wonder to my days. As much as I'm ready for summer, I can't help it that I will miss them! And knowing that I will not be returning to the classroom next year makes it that much harder to say goodbye. 

Class photo. I love these kids.

Last day all around.

It's bittersweet to transition into being a full-time student - I really don't know what to expect - but it's with anticipation and expectation that I leave this school year and run head-first into summer. (After this week of grading and in-services, that is...). 

Goodbye teaching Kindergarten, hello re-learning how to be a student. As always, the adventure is in the unknowns.

Around the Table

A few months ago, I received a mystery package in the mail containing a book I had been recently eyeing. After exhausting the list of all my mystery suspects, I accepted the gift as a crazy act of God. A few weeks later, I was on the phone with Mikey discussing food & community... how much of my life is centered around those 2 things. Only a brother would be so thoughtful as to send me a book without any semblance of knowledge of how much I love both this author and her latest read. So, in honor of Bread & Wine and Michael returning to Chicago for a week, I threw a dinner party in our backyard. Mango curry chicken, Christmas lights, fresh flowers, and a splash of wine (/ rum)... Community happens around the table and it is life-giving.

Friends and Food
My two favorite things

The best.

{photo cred: iphone by Todd}

"When you eat, I want you to think of God, of the holiness of hands that feed us, of the provision we are given every time we eat. When you eat bread and you drink wine, I want you to think about the body and the blood every time, not just when the bread and wine show up in church, but when they show up anywhere - on a picnic table or a hardwood floor or a beach. Some of my most sacred meals have been eaten out of travel mugs on camping trips or on benches on the street in Europe. Many of them have been at our own table or around our coffee table, leaning back against the couch. They've been high food and low food, fresh and frozen, extravagant and right out of the pizza box. It's about the table, and about all the other places we find ourselves eating. It's about a spirit or quality of living that rises up when we offer one another life itself, in the form of dinner or soup or breakfast, or bread and wine."

Shauna Niequist :: Bread & Wine

Week's End

As these last few weeks of school dwindle down to only a few more days,

it's hard not to switch into Summer Mode.

Thankful for the long weekend to give life a little summer tease.

Favorite little theater... we saw The Place Beyond the Pines here last Friday.
And it was SO good.

Last weekend, we beach'ed all day on Saturday. It was perfect.

"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness."

:: John Steinbeck

Travels with Charley : In Search of America

"As far as one journeys, as much as a man sees, from the turrets of the Taj Mahal to the Siberian wilds, he may eventually come to an unfortunate conclusion - usually while he's lying in bed, staring at the thatched ceiling of some substandard accommodation in Indochina... It is impossible to rid himself of the relentless, cloying fever commonly known as Home. After seventy-three years of anguish I have found a cure, however. You must go home again, grit your teeth, and however arduous the exercise, determine, without embellishment,  your exact coordinates at Home, your longitudes and latitudes. Only then, will you stop looking back and see the spectacular view in front of you."

:: Marisha Pessl (Speciality Topics in Calamity Physics)

life with family is the best kind of life.
It is Home.

Decisions & Books

Besides an endless countdown of days until the classroom door flings open and sweet summer freedom filters into the lily, the past few weeks have lent unusual amounts of time to be lost in the world of a brilliant novel, coupled with seeking the wisdom of God and friends for the best step into What's Next. While some transitions in life feel doubtlessly perfect in timing and being, others are meant for wrestling and weighing the options... for fully pro/con'ing my path to finally acknowledging the peace that says Yes, Do It.

The first round of summer life...

Such has been life in April and May... and this new adventure of graduate school is one I embark upon with great expectancy... with also a healthy dose of fear. Because the truth is, God has been drawing me to an interest in spiritual formation for the past three years, leading me to this degree at Wheaton College since meeting a professor (the cutout version of my "someday self") during an inservice at CHA... and this year, He provided a way for me to go. Unexpected- yes; terrifying- no doubt; a leap of faith-definitely. But, as my brothers so often remind me, with every risk brings reward. And though I can't see the direct reward from a master's in spiritual formation of child/family at this moment, I hold out my hands knowing God can use anything... and often we don't have the eyes to see it until it happens.

This.book. "Specialty Topics in Calamity Physics"
Gripping in the most unforeseen way!

As I finish out these next few weeks with the Kindergarteners, it feels strange to go about the routine knowing I will not continue next year. Because so much of the teaching career is a trial-and-error basis with the end goal of perfecting classroom management or lessons or experiences "for next year," it feels odd to not have a next year. As it is when most seasons comes to a close, I am quick to pick up on the daily nuances of the moments I will miss - the love of the children being so beautifully unconditional, the way they approach each day with newfound innocence, and their capacity for new ideas and experiments sponge-like in nature.... I know I will deeply miss life as a teacher. It has also never felt more right to pursue a new depth of my heart.

Dinner party to celebrate a truth-giver and freedom-liver... my dearest Betsy.

With this leap into something new, I remember who He is and how He is faithful, "Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading... It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing WHO makes us 'go'" :: Oswald Chambers :: 

It is a strange Rest; the one that blindly trusts God to go where He goes... but the blind Yes's are also the ones that allow opportunity for Him to receive the glory... to look at a situation knowing it had to be Him Alone.

So next year, when I'm no longer buried in novels or decisions, rather overwhelmed with papers and deadlines and timelines and library books... I will return to this season and remember the feeling of Right. I will remind myself that where He leads is Good. And the craving for a new challenge brings the hope of growth. 

Stepping into grad life alongside this sista will bring many hilarious adventures for us both...

Spring Spring

brother + books

rain for days.

little goat & da bullz.

Today was most unglamorous of days.

A day that I would rather just fall through the cracks of memory, not needing to acknowledge [or admit?] it even happened. Because - hello - bad days are just bad. And that's their story, yes?!

It's the messy moments I so often want to ignore and forget and pretend never happened. And in my feeble attempts to shun it all out, I recall the words spoken by some wise women at a conference I attended this past weekend at an incredible church in this city. They spoke of beauty from ashes. They reminded me of the beautiful in the mess. Still, He is here.

So, at the end of this day I stand - though still waiting for the beauty to come through - clinging to the comfort in those words. And I rest in His Grace. Which is always and forever enough.

returning to this california sunset by kayak in my mind today.

A Note

Here's a portion of a newsletter I sent home with the children in March. 

In celebration of spring & newness of life, here it is:

"On Tuesday, I was alerted on the playground to shrieks of delight as the children gathered in a circle to spy on something in the grass. Thinking it was a bug, and praying it wasn’t an injured child, I hurried over to the location of the anticipated surprise. The children were squealing and laughing and excitedly pulling my arms to bring me closer to the watched object. Through their exuberant shouts, I could barely make out their individual words, but as I got closer I could hear them chatting about the tulip bulbs we had planted in the fall. Thinking they must be mistaken, I dropped to the grass to uncover it with my own eyes. There it was – a tiny green stem beginning to sprout from a bulb under the earth. The whole class was now gathered around the tree, staring at this piece of nature in awe and delighting in the beauty of growth. Could it be that spring is really coming after all?!

There are so many important lessons to teach children as they grow, but then there are things you simply cannot teach. The independent discovery of the miracle in nature brought fascination and curiosity to the students in a way nothing else can. When we planted the bulbs in October, I told them they would grow into flowers in the spring – but telling and discovering bring two different outcomes. To see excitement and laughter organically rise in children over something so simple as a tulip bulb is the sheer blessing of working with Kindergarteners. Giving the children a lens to see God’s beauty is something I hope to inspire and model for the children, but I am reminded that it is also the guidance of the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of each child’s heart. He is cultivating a new perception in which to find Him in the everyday; to approach life with childlike wonder is a gift I desire to live out more freely. The more children uncover the mysteries on earth, the more they see God. And that is a lesson even the greatest teacher on earth cannot teach, and brings me to my knees to worship the one true Creator God."

:: Kindergarten Newsletter 3.15.2013

Sunday Afternoons

The sun peeked its way through the winter sky into our living room today, providing the perfect formula for a good read + nap. If it was any other day, it would be difficult to get over the sense of guilt I often feel in watching the daylight hours pass by.... but I learned at an early age that Sunday afternoons are sacred. On Sundays, you throw away the must-do, get-done, shopping list mentality. You stop. You pause. You slow down. 

Sunday is the gift of being lazy, getting cozy, and breathing deep before the week.

Lying on the couch with my face to the sun beams, glancing at Ashley curled up on the couch across the room, I returned to that sense of safety I often felt when I was young during the precious hours after church and before family dinner on Sundays. 

On Friday, I was chatting with some friends about the difference between being nostalgic and sentimental. Though I'm often a sentimental person, it rarely swings into a sense of nostalgia. But today I felt nostalgia return in its purest sense, remembering those slow Sunday afternoon hours spent at home with my family - dinner and resting - a feeling of peace that sprang from knowing we were all together. 

And for me, togetherness is the best kind of feeling.

And sometimes it's the simple things - a Sunday afternoon of doing nothing special - that show me there's really no other place I would rather be but here.

One Coast to the Next

After a 2 week hiatus from winter via coastal escapades in California and Florida, today I officially return to real life, with a countdown of 59 days until summer break. My heart is so full of the best friends I got to spend time with in the past two weeks... and I'm also exhausted more than I ever thought I could be. How does that always end up happening on vacation?!

Bridesmaiding on the beach in FL.

Rehearsal.

My sweet Jackie, who is now Mrs Arnold!

My glimpse of sun & beach have caused my thoughts to drift over to summer... those lazy mornings and slow afternoons... to the taste of sweet freedom and the joy that comes with it. A friend told me recently that he thinks I am my best self over the summer... and I think that's probably true.

I usually hate countdowns because I feel that it takes away from the beauty in the day-to-day... But in this case, it's necessary. April then May then June, sweet June...