shouts of joy

We don't need a reason to pause and reflect on our humanness. Yet, maybe we do. Because it is important. If we're not searching our hearts and cleaning out the dust how will we see out the window? Or invite someone in for a cup of tea? I'm aware that as a society, we function by means of techlations (a term I've invented for relationships in the form of technology). We can't possibly sit in silence for 30 seconds while we wait for a prescription to be filled, no, instead we are building stronger techlations through hundreds of social media opportunities. Might as well move to a hot-spot cave where we can focus on our techlations and not feel so burdened by external (real-life) relations. In fact, my heart is heavy because I'm not sure what happened to real-life relations. I'm not sure why I can't find a face to engage when walking through the grocery store. I'm saddened when I see parents on their phones while their kids run unruly and seemingly unsu...

Here we are at #teachersummercamp. Two of my teacher friends, Sonya and Chelsea, also took summer classes this summer. Sonya is a teaching principal at a small school in Oakhurst, CA and Chelsea is a teacher/chaplain at a school in Sacramento, CA. They are some of the best teachers I know with huge hearts and a passion for teaching about Jesus. I have enjoyed our #teachersummercamp adventures even though Sonya was at another campus several hours away, we've kept in touch. And every Monday we share/exchange articles, YouTube videos, or stories that we found entertaining or intriguing. These two women have been lifesavers over the past year. We started #teachersummercamp 6 weeks ago and have finally finished. They will start school again in just a couple of weeks. I'm glad that they are allowing me to stay a member in the teaching club even though I will be taking classes this year and substituting instead of teaching full-time. They bring sunshine to a cloudy day. Bes...

Balancing is an act for those who practice it right. Because we know that practice doesn't make perfect, but practice makes permanent. And what we know today, is that nothing is permanent. Permanence is a thing of the days before the unexpected. Before two towers collapsed in the great NYC. Before beautiful, young girls were kidnapped from their families and sold to strangers. Before the deadly waves of Allison, Sandy, or Katrina tore us apart. Before our unity broke. Maybe this act of balancing has been misunderstood. Perhaps we spend our lives searching for a perfect balance of purpose, love, and put-togetherness that only disappears as quickly as the ocean foam that disintegrates as it blows across the sand. Balance makes me feel safer than anything. Solid. Peaceful. Accountable. Responsible. Beautiful. Worthy. Unfortunately, I can't quite absorb that balance, nor what it feels like to be any of those things that come with standing in one place on just one foot, while the ...

I am loving teaching girls PE this final semester. Mostly because I always wished I'd had a safe place to experiment with and practice being kind to my body. I wished I had a safe place where I hadn't felt stared at and compared to. I love our girl conversations about femininity and modesty. I wish someone had told me in high school about modesty, how modesty doesn't limit your wardrobe, but gives a girl a beautiful backbone to stand tall instead of lowering herself to the desires of others. I wish we'd sat down in a circle where peers and teachers identified and encouraged our strengths, and told us that we might be tempted to seek our strengths from the love of boys, when we deserve to believe in and trust ourselves. I wished we'd had a place where it was safe to talk about our weaknesses. Where it was cool to be yourself, because after all it is in our weaknesses that the Water of Life runs deep. I wished someone sat me down and told me what heartbreak was like, ...

The year 2014 has contributed much to my education of the "real" world. Life in the "real" world is hard. There are too many decisions to make. Too many plans to finish. And far too much heartbreak. I'm rather disappointed. In fact, I'm so shockingly disappointed, that I'd consider calling it anger. I'm angry about all of these disappointments. It just doesn't seem fair sometimes. The other week my counselor told me I need to let myself feel angry and upset to prevent melt downs. This is practice. My disappointments anger me. I'm disappointed because I thought teaching would be more social and less isolating. I'm disappointed because my best friend and I don't speak anymore. I'm disappointed because I thought I was where God wanted me.  I've learned a lot about disappointments though. I'm reading from a book I received from The One Project last month. In it Pastor Alex Bryan shares a section on The Great Disappoint...

As I swam the other day, it was an easy decision to not use a stopwatch. After a couple of laps I seriously began to stress and internalize my fear of using the stopwatch. I denied it for another few laps, but with my fish-like movement in the pool I swam through a few of my own recent experiences with others who also could not try due to a fear of failure.  This must be what it feels like to be afraid of trying- easy to deny, but oh, so controlling.  I was afraid that the stopwatch would be too honest, tell me that I'm not fast enough, that I should stick to my day job, or maybe not even that. So in anger of my own fear I timed myself. Mostly, I'm convinced, I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't like the others, controlled by my own fear, and that I could indeed try hard and work for something, or simply that I could try and that trying isn't failing. So I swam and thought of nothing else except how to make my kicks more shallow, my strokes more full, and my breath...

The weeks add up so quickly, still I can still taste the faint molasses stick of others. I can't believe it's been 6 months since I moved to Oregon to teach. I can't believe it's been a month since my last blog post. It's been less than a month since I had breakfast with my girl friends. But I can't believe it's only been a week since I kissed my sister, my best friend, goodbye. It's only been a handful of days since I dropped the man of my dreams off at the airport and had to drive myself home. It's only a been a nights sleep since I felt together we could conquer the world. When I woke up this morning, just two hours ago, there was a very heavy thing sitting inside of me, pinning me to the mattress. A giant bolder, covered in molasses. And I'd like to offer myself a bit of self-pity, since I have nobody else to pull it from at this moment from where I sit here at my tiny desk in this dark corner. I am alone in this dark corner. Nobody else fe...

Rarely do I ponder how little my friends and family know me since I have begun teaching in this Northwestern rain forest. But today as I drove myself home after school I reflected on my poor blogging tendencies and I wondered if anyone misses the going-ons from this side. I can say that many days seem very similar.  And I wouldn't be the least bit offended if nobody took an interest. Class, lunch, class, gym, dinner, grade, bed. The scenes are in slow motion and repeat, yet somehow 5 months have been thrown into my lap. I'm learning so much. How grateful I am. Really. It's always fun to learn. The more I learn the more I can teach. And believe me I love having things to teach. You can never have enough. I'm learning a lot about teaching. Freshmen love stories, especially when they're personalized. But they must pretend it's a waste of their time so they can be swaggy. (But not secretly gay). Freshmen and Seniors (and faculty) all want the same thing. They wa...

The space in between two peaks lies a distance that seems dream-shattering. We look for the trail, the bridge, some kind of escape, but there isn't one. Our human eye can only measure a mean distance. The space is so far, the trek is so long, the goal seems out of any man's reach. But with time it won't matter, because it's the time that will bridge the distance, providing us a season to climb down from our peak, into the valley, through the abode and back up the next peak. It was just yesterday I sat in church. As I sat there I fought to hold in the bursts of laughter that wanted to escape during the reverence of the song service. How ironic that I, a lone high school teacher from Salem, would be sitting in a sanctuary in Portland in a row of seven of my own classmates from college. The boy on my left: a fond, old memory of camping trips, rock climbing, long weekends spent at Priest Lake, and a cousin of my best friend. There on my right: another kind of fond memor...

There are many days that go by that I wish my awkward teenage students would just sit down on the edge of their seats and selfishly drink in the words that I have to say. But not just take the words for what they are, but read in between the lines that will give a glimpse of my story. No,  our story. I wish they would read between the lines of a young 20-something girl who wakes up every day before the sun with a passion that she doesn't quite have figured out and goes to bed every night seemingly a failure, still unsure. But one thing she knows is that she wants to love consistently and be loved just the same, to have a family of 5 or 6, a devoted husband and a warm community to raise her children with, and most of all to understand the love and patience of the Savior. I wish they'd read in between about the girl who fights their same battles of accepting and loving herself before others, trusting the power of prayer, standing up for what is truth, living out grace, ...

Thus begins the search ... The middle, such an undefined locale. With no beginning and certainly no end. And in all reality, neither two exist. Just as a ship sets sail, the vision of it's departure remains a collection. For a goodbye, what a perplexing scramble of words; never quite tangible and never really gone. Yet, how lucky we are to have something that makes saying goodbye so painful. Changing what is left, without knowing what might become, then calling it good. So we continue searching, as was our first intentions. Love these faces.

My 6th graders are work quite diligently right now, which I'm very impressed with, on research papers on a possible future career they've so willingly chosen. The career research paper idea was generated from a conversation I had at the gym one morning with a former principal. That meeting in and of itself would produce quite a lengthy report. There's a lot on my mind right now as I watch them write quietly. They're good writers. They're deep thinkers, many of them. They're overflowing with revolutionary ideas. They have so much potential and I sit here in silence dreaming of what they will do one day that will make the world a super place. It's already week 9 of my student teaching. Sometimes, it seems like these 9 weeks have felt more like the slow defrosting of a wintery wonderland, but on bright days like today I don't mind the wintery wonderland and I'm not ready for the next season. This morning I felt inspired to show my kids this video. A...

As an Elementary Education graduating senior I think a lot about why I've been called to education. Is there someTHING I'm suppose to teach? SomeONE I'm suppose to teach? SomeWHERE I'm suppose to teach? I get the question, "Would you prefer private or public?" Right now, I feel very strongly about talking to my students about Jesus. I love Him. I want my students to know Him. This blog, in particular, tugged at my heart strings today. Please read it if you have a chance:  In Which I Pray That My Children Will Change The World Today, I had a student write me a letter. He's often times had a difficult time communicating in words, so when I see him struggling I've asked him to write out what he's thinking or feeling, that way I can read it and do my best to understand what he needs. Today his letter went like this: Dear Cristina. Why do you hate me?  Yea I don't like you.  Youre suppose to be nice to your students. Sincerely, A. I...