Evaluation

I was able to view my student evaluations today. The feeling of cuing up those tabulations and comments is a little bit like going to the dentist for a routine check-up and then being told that it's time for a root canal and we're fresh out of anesthesia. Ohmygoodness. Hold me.

I read them and they were as expected. Full of warm praise for that which comes easily for me, and plenty of humble pie for the things that so elude me in the classroom.

But then I remembered that I had already surrendered these evaluations.

A few weeks before the end of the semester, I was convicted in my heart for obsessing over what the evaluations might say. The same old song with the steady refrain of What if they don't like me? I had to surrender that. Because I don't serve evaluations. Evaluations cannot be first in my life when I am trying to serve the Lord.

There was so much freedom in the surrender, but making the surrender stick is not easy, especially when you just want people to like you.

This is not to say that there was no value to the evals. The feedback was excellent food-for-thought, and it sobered me up about what I need to do for my second semester of full-time piloting at the podium. Not that I ever use a podium. Not that I can see over a podium.

The feedback also reminded me very much of our spiritual walk. There are always a few comments about how the teacher didn't seem to give good directions. Because you don't. You don't explain things. Why would you want to explain things or be clear about expectations?

It's clear from where these remarks derive. More often than not, you can guess they are from the students who whose attendance record was not so sparkling.

And aren't we all the student who does not Show Up enough in our walk? How easy is it to blame God for making everything so hard when we haven't even prayed with any sort of intention? How accountable do we hold ourselves to studying up and writing on our hearts what God offers us daily. And what about those blessings, new every morning, that we just leave on the table, like extra credit points that hold no luster for us?

What I know is this: my report card in every realm of my life is nowhere near as good as it could be. But I held my son for many moments today, and I sang to my daughter, nestled in her bed tonight, and the sweetness of all that was really off the charts.

Resolution: Priorities

Someone mentioned New Year's Resolutions and my anxiety started whirring roadrunner-like and I couldn't remember what year was ending and which was beginning and day-yannng shouldn't I have some goals? You need goals to have resolutions, yes? Resolutions are heavy tools, especially if you are not someone who regularly uses them, e.g. measuring sticks and other instruments of precision. If you prefer to eyeball it, to just pull that slingshot back as far as you can muster and hope your little ambition soars and lands you in relatively the right spot, then resolutions are mighty intimidating.

But lo, I remembered how my old man said that resolutions should be reaffirmations of our priorities.

Bladowwww! There ya go.

Herein I reaffirm my priorities, as I enter 2012.

1. I reaffirm my love for God's word, and my desire to specifically understand Scripture's counsel for teachers.

2. I reaffirm my love for these beauts.

3. I reaffirm my priorities of bill repayment, including and especially my student loans.

4. I reaffirm my desire to say good-bye to our Boston real estate, for once and for all, if the Lord would ordain it.

5. I reaffirm my desire to have my non-fiction manuscript represented by a lit agent by Summer 2012.

Other desires include fitting back into particular pants and attending a writer's conference this summer.

Dudes, I'm excited for the '12. You?

Metaphor

My friend Selena sent me this picture. My new friend, Selena, whom I keep running into. Our surprise encounters are precisely timed, at church, at the pool, walking on the local path. Today, at the carousel downtown.

Selena snapped this picture of me and when I saw it, my chest sank.

This photo captures perfectly the metaphor of this season.

Because there I stand, firm, while the rest of the horses and smiles and oompa music whirs around me.  I am incongruous, not even supporting my baby on the pony bobbing up and down. She is dressed in her Halloween costume because I woke up thinking today was Halloween. And then I hauled her and her brother all over town wondering why no one else was in costume. I am smiling, waving like a homecoming queen, on a carousel, merry horses bobbing up and down around me, their heads arched forward, but never advancing further another inch.  I stand, I smile, I wave.

The flip am I doing?

What do I do each day?  Bounce around a room, point, yell, draw circles around words that form ledes that form ideas that form furrowed brows in the eyes of my audience.  Sit in my office, point, click, circle, sigh. Drive, arrive, pick up, put down, the horses and Matchbox cars and trains rumble around me. I stand firm, I wave, I smile.

I don't know what I am doing here, in the conserva-patch of this orbiting globe, in this season where I don't know if it is November yet and does it matter since I'm still sweating, in this body where I play grammar guru and puppeteer and kitchen witch and lover all in one day.

But I know I am supposed to be here.  The eyelashes on my eyes, hiding behind sunglasses, are all numbered.  Each and every encounter with each and every person here on the carousel is precisely known.  I will stand firm while the ponies bob and spin. I will smile and wave, and wonder who let me out of the house with those socks.