No commentary from the peanut gallery on this one, just a word from Elizabeth Elliot that HITS HOME in the wilderness.
"The only way she could learn trust and obedience was to have things happen which she could not understand. That is where faith begins-- in the wilderness, when you are afraid and alone, when things don't make sense....She must hang onto the message of the Cross: God loves you. He loved you enough to die for you. Will you trust him?"
E. Elliot
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Saturday, July 13, 2013
well-said, Steinbeck
It's time to write. The thoughts from the first days in Montana are welling up in me, ready to spill out.
John Steinbeck wrote of his travels west, “I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”
I’m in it.
When I am in a new place, I am in a constant state of “figuring it out.” I bet our brains are always in figure-it-out-mode, whether or not we're aware of it. I try to understand the people, what are they like? And so I start categorizing (cringe). Here's what I mean: People in D.C. are typically highly motivated individuals who work a ton and love meeting for "brunch" on the weekends. People from Maryland love blue crabs. Or, further from home: I found the people in Scotland to be warm, hospitable, and upbeat. As broad as these generalizations are, I confess, these are all conclusions at which I have arrived.
This summer in Montana, no doubt I am gathering information for my mental files and adding to a working definition of this stunning landscape and the people who call it home. The West has always captivated me. I’ve been in love with the idea of it since I was 12 years-old and bought my first real cowgirl hat. We were driving across Wyoming, and that stretch of southeast Wyoming must have been a defining experience. It seemed so then and now. I had never encountered so wide a prairie or so vast a sky. My 12 year-old heart skipped a beat; and has ever since.
Montana endears itself to me daily. I love the ever-changing clouds over the mountains and the brilliant sunsets. I love the thunder rumbling and the rain on the roof as I write (and getting rained upon on every hike I take). And of course, in addition to “reveling in the beauty” (a phrase my roommates won't let me ever live down, and for good reason) of wildflowers and wildlife and mountain streams, I love the people I’ve met here. I feel more at home here in two weeks than 2 years in D.C.. Hm...
And now, to toot some people’s horns-- I’m privileged to work alongside some individuals who have impressed me. Their giftedness and resourcefulness coupled with their occupation/passion is pretty inspiring. Allow me to introduce you.
I met a friend of a friend who has a pretty unique livelihood. He hunts for elk sheds (when their antlers fall off in spring) and semi-precious stones and pieces of hundred year-old junipers and all kinds of treasures in the mountains. He sells them in his own shop in Bozeman. It’s a workshop unlike any I've ever seen.
Then there’s a wrangler at the ranch who is pursuing his masters in education. In his spare time (ha!), he markets his own leather-working crafts—belts, chinks, and other custom jobs. He’s opening his booth at the Farmer’s Market this week for the first time. During the off-season, away from the ranch and without his leather working tools for a few months, he started making jewelry out of horse-shoe nails and coat racks from old horse shoes. Re-Source-ful.
I also admire my crew-leader, an outstanding horse-woman here at Lone Mountain Ranch who wrangles children and horses with amazing skill and dedication. She’s a rock-star.
All this to say, I’m impressed, Montana, not only with your beauty but also the people I’ve met here. I love the way they use their gifts, and use what they’ve got.
I’ll try not to make any sweeping generalizations as I have before. I can’t label Montana or its people in any one way, nor do I want to. These mountains don’t fit inside any of my mental files any more than any person could.
I can’t put this starry Big Sky in a box. So I’ll take a page out of Steinbeck’s book, and won’t try to analyze love when I’m in it. This is a gift. And love feels a lot like gratitude. I am grateful.
John Steinbeck wrote of his travels west, “I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”
I’m in it.
When I am in a new place, I am in a constant state of “figuring it out.” I bet our brains are always in figure-it-out-mode, whether or not we're aware of it. I try to understand the people, what are they like? And so I start categorizing (cringe). Here's what I mean: People in D.C. are typically highly motivated individuals who work a ton and love meeting for "brunch" on the weekends. People from Maryland love blue crabs. Or, further from home: I found the people in Scotland to be warm, hospitable, and upbeat. As broad as these generalizations are, I confess, these are all conclusions at which I have arrived.
This summer in Montana, no doubt I am gathering information for my mental files and adding to a working definition of this stunning landscape and the people who call it home. The West has always captivated me. I’ve been in love with the idea of it since I was 12 years-old and bought my first real cowgirl hat. We were driving across Wyoming, and that stretch of southeast Wyoming must have been a defining experience. It seemed so then and now. I had never encountered so wide a prairie or so vast a sky. My 12 year-old heart skipped a beat; and has ever since.
Montana endears itself to me daily. I love the ever-changing clouds over the mountains and the brilliant sunsets. I love the thunder rumbling and the rain on the roof as I write (and getting rained upon on every hike I take). And of course, in addition to “reveling in the beauty” (a phrase my roommates won't let me ever live down, and for good reason) of wildflowers and wildlife and mountain streams, I love the people I’ve met here. I feel more at home here in two weeks than 2 years in D.C.. Hm...
And now, to toot some people’s horns-- I’m privileged to work alongside some individuals who have impressed me. Their giftedness and resourcefulness coupled with their occupation/passion is pretty inspiring. Allow me to introduce you.
I met a friend of a friend who has a pretty unique livelihood. He hunts for elk sheds (when their antlers fall off in spring) and semi-precious stones and pieces of hundred year-old junipers and all kinds of treasures in the mountains. He sells them in his own shop in Bozeman. It’s a workshop unlike any I've ever seen.
Then there’s a wrangler at the ranch who is pursuing his masters in education. In his spare time (ha!), he markets his own leather-working crafts—belts, chinks, and other custom jobs. He’s opening his booth at the Farmer’s Market this week for the first time. During the off-season, away from the ranch and without his leather working tools for a few months, he started making jewelry out of horse-shoe nails and coat racks from old horse shoes. Re-Source-ful.
I also admire my crew-leader, an outstanding horse-woman here at Lone Mountain Ranch who wrangles children and horses with amazing skill and dedication. She’s a rock-star.
All this to say, I’m impressed, Montana, not only with your beauty but also the people I’ve met here. I love the way they use their gifts, and use what they’ve got.
I’ll try not to make any sweeping generalizations as I have before. I can’t label Montana or its people in any one way, nor do I want to. These mountains don’t fit inside any of my mental files any more than any person could.
I can’t put this starry Big Sky in a box. So I’ll take a page out of Steinbeck’s book, and won’t try to analyze love when I’m in it. This is a gift. And love feels a lot like gratitude. I am grateful.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
In which a Butterfly is Patient
It must be caterpillar season. My students have been finding caterpillars outside, left and right. I was determined to keep this one alive over the long weekend. Despite the abundance of caterpillar discoveries by well-intentioned Kindergarteners, we didn't have the best track record for keeping them alive. Naturally.
Before leaving school for the day, I was mindful of our caterpillar. I desperately wanted this one to live. I envisioned his whole life cycle unfolding before our eyes. Perhaps Monday morning we would arrive to find a cocoon, and by the end of school we would witness the metamorphosis from that little green worm into a breathtaking monarch. A miracle.
I decided he had a better shot at life if I moved him from the plastic container (borrowed from our play-kitchen) into something a little more sustainable. I gingerly transferred him into a giant mesh butterfly house. I pictured our little transformed caterpillar, soon-to-be monarch flitting around in there before we released him outside to pollinate our garden.
I had heard from a reliable sixth grader that caterpillars drink from a cotton ball soaked with water. (???) I was attempting to do so, when...where was he? He was hard to find in all that foliage, camouflaged for survival. I looked all around that butterfly habitat but couldn’t find him anywhere. I was puzzled. He couldn’t have gone far in such a short time. He must be hiding out inside, I thought as I went to zip the top closed.
And then suddenly, I made a terrible mistake. I zipped a fateful ziiiiiiiiip. There he was, on the top edge of the butterfly home. On the zipper. Rather, in the zipper. I was horrified. I had zipped him and killed him in an instant. There was no saving him.
In my very effort to keep him alive (at least until Monday!), I had killed our caterpillar. The irony was too much.
What would I tell the kids when they asked where he’d gone? I imagined the conversation we would have, explaining matter-of-factly, "I was moving him into a bigger home, and I didn’t know where he was, and I accidently zipped him in the zipper.” Perhaps this would lead to a greater conversation. Life is fragile.
I’m making light of all this now, but in that moment, I was crest-fallen. I couldn't believe what I had done. Moments later my teaching partner Emily came in. I told her what happened and how it was all my fault. She hugged me and spoke words of comfort, like any loving parent or teacher would comfort a child. Then she said, “Let’s go find one outside! They’re all over!”
Please take a moment to imagine the sight-- the two of us digging in the dirt around the playground, peeking through the leaves at the edge of the woods. I didn’t even know where or how to look for a caterpillar. Somehow caterpillars seemed to leap into our students’ hands. Kids have a special radar for small treasures.
Emily was convinced we would find one, as the caterpillars were “everywhere.” We eventually gave in, hopeful the kids would find another one tomorrow.
The story is a simple one, right? It seems everyone has a tragic butterfly story. Just ask my mom about the butterfly release she once had with a group of Kindergarteners. (Unreal.) Or, one of my professors in college shared a story from her days teaching elementary children, when they released the class butterflies only to watch birds gobble them up a moment later. Horrific, but also hilarious. (In retrospect.) If not butterflies, its some other vulnerable and treasured creature. Moms, dads, aunts and uncles, babysitters, anyone who spends time with children, you know what I’m talking about. Whether a hamster or baby chick, we’ve all known one beloved pet whose tragic end has devastated a small child, or ourselves.
I don’t really have a point. I don’t even have a lesson or a spiritual application or at the very least a verse to counter life’s disappointment. I know I should have one. The point is that in an instant, I came to the shocking realization of one of life’s truths: sometimes caterpillars die of unnatural causes before they’ve had a chance to turn into a butterfly. I’ll let you turn that into your own metaphor.
This is not really about a caterpillar at all. I simply must accept that life can be hard and know that God is bigger than our disappointments (no matter how big or small) and that moreover, He UNDERSTANDS. He knows when my heart is sad. And thankfully, he sends dear friends who come running alongside to enter into the sad things. Friends who say, “I’m so sorry you just killed your class caterpillar. Let’s go find another one!” Seriously, who does that?
One of the things I know God is teaching me these days is summed up in the title of a beautiful children’s book I highly recommend. Coincidentally, it’s about butterflies. And it is called, A Butterfly is Patient. I want to be like a butterfly. One who weathers disappointment, who waits through long weeks in a dark cocoon until eventually, in time, a miracle happens. A butterfly is patient.
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Before leaving school for the day, I was mindful of our caterpillar. I desperately wanted this one to live. I envisioned his whole life cycle unfolding before our eyes. Perhaps Monday morning we would arrive to find a cocoon, and by the end of school we would witness the metamorphosis from that little green worm into a breathtaking monarch. A miracle.
I decided he had a better shot at life if I moved him from the plastic container (borrowed from our play-kitchen) into something a little more sustainable. I gingerly transferred him into a giant mesh butterfly house. I pictured our little transformed caterpillar, soon-to-be monarch flitting around in there before we released him outside to pollinate our garden.
I had heard from a reliable sixth grader that caterpillars drink from a cotton ball soaked with water. (???) I was attempting to do so, when...where was he? He was hard to find in all that foliage, camouflaged for survival. I looked all around that butterfly habitat but couldn’t find him anywhere. I was puzzled. He couldn’t have gone far in such a short time. He must be hiding out inside, I thought as I went to zip the top closed.
And then suddenly, I made a terrible mistake. I zipped a fateful ziiiiiiiiip. There he was, on the top edge of the butterfly home. On the zipper. Rather, in the zipper. I was horrified. I had zipped him and killed him in an instant. There was no saving him.
In my very effort to keep him alive (at least until Monday!), I had killed our caterpillar. The irony was too much.
What would I tell the kids when they asked where he’d gone? I imagined the conversation we would have, explaining matter-of-factly, "I was moving him into a bigger home, and I didn’t know where he was, and I accidently zipped him in the zipper.” Perhaps this would lead to a greater conversation. Life is fragile.
I’m making light of all this now, but in that moment, I was crest-fallen. I couldn't believe what I had done. Moments later my teaching partner Emily came in. I told her what happened and how it was all my fault. She hugged me and spoke words of comfort, like any loving parent or teacher would comfort a child. Then she said, “Let’s go find one outside! They’re all over!”
Please take a moment to imagine the sight-- the two of us digging in the dirt around the playground, peeking through the leaves at the edge of the woods. I didn’t even know where or how to look for a caterpillar. Somehow caterpillars seemed to leap into our students’ hands. Kids have a special radar for small treasures.
Emily was convinced we would find one, as the caterpillars were “everywhere.” We eventually gave in, hopeful the kids would find another one tomorrow.
The story is a simple one, right? It seems everyone has a tragic butterfly story. Just ask my mom about the butterfly release she once had with a group of Kindergarteners. (Unreal.) Or, one of my professors in college shared a story from her days teaching elementary children, when they released the class butterflies only to watch birds gobble them up a moment later. Horrific, but also hilarious. (In retrospect.) If not butterflies, its some other vulnerable and treasured creature. Moms, dads, aunts and uncles, babysitters, anyone who spends time with children, you know what I’m talking about. Whether a hamster or baby chick, we’ve all known one beloved pet whose tragic end has devastated a small child, or ourselves.
I don’t really have a point. I don’t even have a lesson or a spiritual application or at the very least a verse to counter life’s disappointment. I know I should have one. The point is that in an instant, I came to the shocking realization of one of life’s truths: sometimes caterpillars die of unnatural causes before they’ve had a chance to turn into a butterfly. I’ll let you turn that into your own metaphor.
This is not really about a caterpillar at all. I simply must accept that life can be hard and know that God is bigger than our disappointments (no matter how big or small) and that moreover, He UNDERSTANDS. He knows when my heart is sad. And thankfully, he sends dear friends who come running alongside to enter into the sad things. Friends who say, “I’m so sorry you just killed your class caterpillar. Let’s go find another one!” Seriously, who does that?
One of the things I know God is teaching me these days is summed up in the title of a beautiful children’s book I highly recommend. Coincidentally, it’s about butterflies. And it is called, A Butterfly is Patient. I want to be like a butterfly. One who weathers disappointment, who waits through long weeks in a dark cocoon until eventually, in time, a miracle happens. A butterfly is patient.
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