This is something real...

This is something real.

I am horrible with directions. I can live in a town or a city, and never learn the proper names for highways or streets that I drive on every day. I used to think that this was just because I have no sense of direction, but the truth is that I am not a very observant person.

Lately I have gotten quite a few rejection letters for graduate school. It's not an easy thing for me to admit. My whole life I have always believed that I was smart and that if I work hard enough, I'll get what I want... but that's not true. Some things are not meant to be. I do not necessarily think that is applicable to graduate school, but it might be the final answer on the subject... right now. For someone like me, that answer is pretty hard to swallow. I thought that graduate school was what I wanted, but I haven't really pursued the idea of it much in prayer or thought since I submitted the damn applications. I still hate the rejection. A good friend told me recently, "Do I need to remind you that you are ALREADY in graduate school?"

I guess she did.

I hadn't really stopped to be mindful about the fact that I've already been offered quite a few incredible opportunities. I was lucky enough to get offered a graduate degree (for free, no less), a great job (that I try really hard to do well), great friends. My life is pretty great, graduate school or no graduate school. I had lunch with a friend from high school last summer. I hadn't seen him in nine years, but he paid me the nicest compliment that I have ever recieved. He told me, "Jackie, you have a great gift. You have the ability to make people feel like no time has passed in the friendship. I haven't seen you in years, and I still feel like I can tell you anything. I've told you more about my life than some of the people I've seen every day for the past nine years."

I have heard that before, but at that moment it stuck with me. I realized that maybe that's why I love what I do and why I work with kids. I do believe that it is a blessing to be able to make people feel like you are a safe place to visit. My students walk in my room and every day, every class period, we laugh. They have a very cooky English teacher that tells them anecdotes to get them to remember things, that has call and responses like "Hillshire Farms: Go Meat!", and who tries very hard... even though I make mistakes.

I love my job. At a time when teachers feel as though they are underappreciated, understaffed, and overworked, I find joy in what I do. I look forward to working with my students and I love teaching English. I overheard a student I taught last year helping another student with some dual credit homework the other day in the counselor's office. He was helping him with an essay over The Things They Carried, a novel we read last year. The other child who was not a former student of mine asked him, "How do you know any of this?" My former student replied, "I had Ms. Son last year. She had us read it... it was actually my favorite book we read last year. I hate to admit it, but I really liked English last year."

These moments are pretty special to me. I have all of these big plans, but in the end, maybe my purpose is to make a difference with the kids I interact with every day at this level. Maybe that will be in a special library, or a classroom, or with my own kids that I hope to have someday. I want a lot of big things. Some of those dreams are going to come true and some aren't, but until I try I'll never know. I guess it's not so bad to try, to take a leap of faith. I did that with my job in Rockport. I didn't know anyone, but I moved here and I built a life and a relationship with the friends and students that have crossed my path. I can never really be sure that it has made any difference at all in their lives, but it has made all the difference in mine.

I do get lost a lot. I don't always notice the signs in life or when I am driving, but my mom always tells me, "Sometimes when you are lost, it is best to stay right where you are."

Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
Proverbs 19:21

Finding the rite words...

Today in church there was a baptism...and I cried. I cry during all of the sacramental rites: baptisms, ordinations, weddings, funerals, etc. I always feel as though I should be stronger than a person who cries in church. But then I started thinking that if a person is going to cry, church is as good of a place as any.

I don't even know the family. That never seems to stop me. When I was in high school and I would acolyte at weddings and funerals, I always cried. I rarely knew the people that we were marrying or burying. This morning though, I figured out what gets me. It's the words.


As an English teacher, I tell my students to use stronger diction in their writing. We study writers that use a lot of impressive language and syntax, and I understand that it's this language and style that formed them into the writer they became. Sometimes fancy words are necessary. Sometimes they aren't. I think that sometimes just saying what you mean is the fastest way to connect with an audience. Sometimes we don't want to wait fifteen pages to get to something that you could have said in three. Sometimes we don't want to wait a year to hear what you really want to say. And sometimes, people just need to hear simple words.

I was sitting next to the priest's wife and little girl, who is learning to talk. Annie can say things like "baby" "mama" ..."cracker". These are pretty simple words, but they get the message across. Right about that time we all stood to renew our baptismal vows with the family. This is what gets me every time. A group of people saying in unison, "I will with God's help".

I saw Scott Simon, a broadcast journalist for NPR, speak at a conference last year. He said, "People say that a picture is worth a thousand words. You give me a thousand words. I'll give you the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the last paragraphs of the speech by Martin Luther King to the march on Washington, and the final entry of Anne Frank's diary. And I wouldn't trade you for any picture on earth."

Sometimes, instead of hearing a lot of complex words and contrived ideas that make a person sound smarter, simple words will do. Things like: "I miss you" "Please" "Thank you" "I forgive you" "I love you" "Forgive me".

Assuming these are things you need to say or do for someone, I hope that their response is "I will with God's help."