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September 2, 2010

Let Life Come

When I was younger, I used to think – when I get older, I’ll _______. Lately, I’ve been realizing, well, here I am older. Most of the time I forget that. Most of the time I think I’m still waiting for life to start. But recently, I’m realizing this is life – in all its glorious moments, in all of its painful realities – this is life.

Sometimes, when I realize this, I begin to want to strive, to grasp, to try to make life what I think it should be. I should be married. I should have a “real” job. I should have children or at least a dog. But “should” isn’t really part of life; life just is. Life is in our attitude and outlook and our ability to realize we are where we are for a reason – for a reason that will, ultimately, work for the good.

As I was praying today, I was struck by the phrase, “Let Life Come.” If I can realize that I am where I need to be, that I am experiencing what I am experiencing for a reason, then, I can be content. And contentment – that’s what I need more than I need what I think I should have.

So here’s to “letting life come” in whatever form that may be. Here’s to knowing I will always have help to move through it. Here’s to knowing that my life has a purpose and is working for the good.

A Desert Cave

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September 1, 2010

Of a Childlike Faith

When I was a kid, I used to go to school and then ride home on the bus fully confident that my home, my parents, and even a couple of cookies would be there. I had absolute faith that all was well, even if I had a really crummy day.

Somehow, in the process of “growing up,” I have lost the ability to trust that all will be well at the end of the day. I no longer trust that home will be there when I get to it. I don’t have childlike faith anymore.

Yet, I need it. So much in this world is beyond my control. So much is past my ability to intercede or change. What I need to remember is that this is okay. I need only do what I am asked to do – go to school, take the bus to where I need to be – and God will do the rest. Ultimately, home, my family, and even cookies will be there when I most need them.

How do you cultivate childlike faith? In the vastness of glory, beauty, pain, and banality, how do you see that all will be well?

Childlike Faith

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Filed by Andi at 5:02 am under Andi's Book
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August 31, 2010

Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett – A Book Review

When I got my new set of classes this semester, I was asked to take on a literature class, and while I love literature, it’s been a while since I taught it. I thought I was up to the challenge and signed on. I’m so glad I did because this particular school allows professors to use smaller works – novels, short story collections, individual plays or poetry works – to teach rather than the standard “ginormous” anthologies many schools use. So I chose five books – How to Read Poetry Like a Professor by Thomas Foster, American Ground by William Langewiesche, The Book of Luminous Things edited by Czeslaw Milosz, Flash Fiction Forward by James Thomas & Robert Shapard, and Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett. I want a course that uses creative nonfiction as an equal genre to poetry and fiction, and I hope this set of texts bears that out.

The first book we’ll be reading is Patchett’s, and I had never read the book (the curse of a short hiring timeline is sometimes having to pick texts unread), so I started right in with the reading. Then, I couldn’t stop. This memoir is perhaps the most beautiful, tragic, simple, and gorgeous memoir I’ve ever read.

The book tells the story of the friendship between Patchett and Lucy Grealy, author of The Autobiography of a Face. Patchett describes their friendship of most than twenty years and takes herself (with us in two) through the pain and edged beauty of their love for one another. Patchett is able to convey their friendship honestly without “sweetening up” or demonizing Lucy or herself. As readers, we are able to see each woman as complex, flawed, and sincere in their love for one another.

The fact that the women are both writers gave this story another layer of power and import for me, and the book informed my idea of writerly friendships, the nature of love, and the power of relationship in general. I am profoundly changed by this book in the way that great writing shifts things subtly but substantially in our souls. I only wish I could read it again for the first time.

Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett – Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

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Filed by Andi at 5:22 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails
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August 30, 2010

What’s Beneath the Surface? -A Case for Compassion

This past weekend, I spent a few days with my family – my mom and dad, my uncle, and my grandparents – for my grandfather’s 90th birthday. Dave came along, and we had a really great time. We laughed a lot, and my grandfather told stories about WWII. It was a really wonderful time.

While I was there, I kept thinking about how much I don’t know about my grandparents. My grandfather rarely talks about the war – he came to Dachau shortly after it was liberated – and my grandmother doesn’t share a great deal about her Pennsylvania German upbringing either. We’ve asked, and sometimes – like this weekend – we get stories, but the stories never seem to capture the weight of their experiences.

So much of life goes on beneath the surface of experience, and so when we don’t even know the full extent of another person’s experience, we are left – largely – in the dark about what makes them who they are. We don’t know which pains have caused their stalwartness in the face of tragedy, and we don’t know which joys make their toes tingle. We really know so little about one another, even the ones we know and love best.

This weekend, I was reminded how powerful love can be – that even though we may not know all that makes a person who she or he is, we can love them with the force of a hurricane. Perhaps this is why we cannot know anyone fully – perhaps if we did, we would find our flawed selves unable to love truly.

Today, I am grateful for what I do know of the people I love, and I still long to know more. I am also praying for the compassion and wisdom to see people as icebergs – glorious, mighty beings who full existence rests beneath the surface. I am praying for the compassion to realize there is so much that I cannot see in each person I meet, and I am praying that I may know more and love more as I learn.

There is always more to humanity than we can see; think of your own life – what is going on “behind the scenes” in your existence that most people don’t know? If we have this much iceberg hiding in the depths, don’t those around us have at least as much hidden pain and glory as we do?

Iceberg

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August 27, 2010

Who Is Listening?

When we talk to people, we automatically adjust our word choice, tone of voice, and length of sentences to match the age, knowledge, and relationship we have with our listeners. In English teacher terms, we are “aware of our audience.”

Sometimes, though, when we write, we forget that a person is on the other end of that communication. This is especially true of online communication, like email, but it’s often true in more traditional forms of writing like business reports and memos. We have a standard format, and we use it no matter to whom or for what we are writing.

Maybe we do this because of the way we’re taught to write in schools, where the teacher is our only reader, and so we write a generic format that we’ve been taught to adopt. Hopefully, as teachers, we are moving away from these audience-less forms of writing and asking our students to engage more formally with audience analysis.

There are some great ways for us to think about writing for particular people or groups. We can look at advertisements and think about how those ads target a specific audience – how does an Old Navy ad differ from one for Folgers, for example? We can look at letters to the editor or email campaigns and see how the writers made choices for their particular constituencies. We can just think about our own communication choices – what would you say to your “BFF” that you wouldn’t say to your grandparents?

If we can be more aware of our audiences, we will be more compassionate, informed, and effective communicators.

Old Navy ad