Canna Bulbs

     This morning I spent some time digging canna bulbs out of my little raised garden bed.  As you may know, this summer was not good for cannas.  It turned way too hot, way too fast.  Only two bulbs produced blooms all summer and the rest of them sent up these sick looking stems with leaves which wilted and dried out in the summer heat, even though I watered them as much as I did the tomatoes growing a few feet away.  This was the first year for these bulbs as I bought them "new" at Valley Feed and Seed.  One hot morning last summer my brother stopped over, and looking at the sorry state of the cannas said, "Well, this is the first year.  They won't do very well."  He was making a good effort to console me. 
     So today, I decided to dig them up and winter them at his place because the bulbs are not winter hardy for this area.  He's going to store them for me in exchange for a few of them to plant in his own yard.  Next year, I have a different place in mind to plant them, so I'm going to give it another go and see what they do.
     What's the point of this rather boring post?  Well, it is this:  As I was digging them up, I noticed new growth.  There were new shoots coming from new bulb growth - they looked like they thought it was spring and they were ready to greet the new season.  I was surprised at how the bulbs had grown underground, how many deep roots there were, and how they had multiplied the number of points that stems will come up next spring.  All this was happening right under my nose and I didn't know it until I got out there and unearthed them.
     In many areas, I think, we are surface examiners.  We take things at face value without knowing what's underneath, and our greatest tendency is to do that with people.  If someone looks a little different and talks a little different, we form our judgements.  If someone has mental health issues God forbid, we are quick to determine if they are a worthy employee, or, worse, a worthy friend.  If someone is homeless, we wonder what's wrong with them and why they can't have a roof over their heads like "everyone else".  With every person you know, there's a soul, a spirit, and many times, a creativity born of original thinking that we do not realize is there because we don't bother - and we don't bother because our prejudices have already spoken.
     Don't be like me, someone who was surprised about the canna growth that took place underground where I didn't bother to look until now.  Be a gardener in the dirt, yes, but be a gardener of people too.   
     
    
    

To Think

     Do you believe, generally speaking, there's a whole culture in this country of people who do not know how to think?  The art of thinking is not really talked about much, at least in my little tiny corner of the world.  Maybe where you live and function people know how to use their brains productively, but I postulate that people many times surrender the task of thinking to others to do it for them.  This is true in many arenas - politically, in the workplace, and of course, in religion.  Why do we seem to have a lack of great thinkers such as C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, A.W. Tozer and Oswald Chambers?  Or are they out there, and I just don't know where to look?
     I have started listening some to Bott Radio Network, 94.3.  A variety of speakers present programs, some are thought provoking and some are a little like cotton candy.  I have found that I enjoy thinking about, and listening to the challenges presented by people like Alistair Begg, Erwin Lutzer, and Ravi Zacharias.  In fact, his show is called, "Let My People Think".  On his website, he lists some beginning reading materials for those who are interested in apologetics - or, "the art and science of Christian persuasion: communicating the relevance, coherence, and reasonableness of the Christian Gospel to skeptics, cultural influencers, and critical thinkers across the globe."  (from Ravi Zacharias' website,   http://www.rzim.org/about/.  
     
John Bunyan, Pilgrims Progress
Daily Light on the Daily Path (collection of Bible readings)
Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters
J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Roger Steer, George Muller: Delighted in God
John Stott, The Cross of Christ
John White, The Fight
Brother Yun, Heavenly Man
Ravi Zacharias, The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us through the Events of Our Lives

Have you read any of these? 

     Anyhow, my son gave my husband a book called, "Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God" by John Piper.  The purpose of the book:  "This book is a plea to embrace serious thinking as a means of loving God and people.  It is a plea to reject either-or thinking when it comes to head and heart, thinking and feeling, reason and faith, theology and doxology, mental labor and the ministry of love.  It is a plea to see thinking as a necessary, God-ordained means of knowing God.  Thinking is one of the important ways that we put the fuel of knowledge on the fires of worship and service to the world."  (From the introduction, Page 15). I'm interested in this book, and in learning how to think.  I'll let you know how it goes.  In the meantime, I encourage YOU to sit somewhere, and just, "think".  Who knows what may happen next...

Weekend Comfort

     I did not feel very well this weekend.  I'm fighting allergies, running nose and watery eyes, sneezing, etc.  Everything I take for the symptoms makes me tired and groggy.  Blech.  But, one must move on with life, musn't one.  I took TWO, count them, TWO naps on Saturday, and still went to bed at my normal time and slept all night.  Waking up today - I felt better, so off to church, lunch with kids, etc.  There is comfort in routine, isn't there.
     So let's see - took Lyd to the dog park on Saturday where she promptly got into a tussle with Rebekah's dog, Zowie.  This after she had done so well there before with other dogs she didn't know.  My daughter, the dog whisperer, is going to see if she can get them to get along - I don't know if I can watch or not. Their next session is next Saturday.  Anyone want to come and watch?
     Coming up this week we have conferences and early release at one school, but a normal schedule at the other.  Then the next week, it's the opposite.  I hope we have a good parent turnout for conferences.  It does my morale good to see concerned parents come in and have intelligent conversations with school staff about their kids. 
     So there's "stuff" going on everywhere I live.  "Stuff" with family, "stuff" at church, "stuff" at work.  Reminds me of this song:
This is the stuff that drives me crazy
This is the stuff that's getting to me lately
In the middle of my little mess
I forget how big I'm blessed
This is the stuff that gets under my skin
But I gotta trust You know exactly what You're doing
It might not be what I would choose
But this is the stuff You use

     Hope the week ahead is filled with blessings, and not just "stuff" for you.  God bless.

Organized Birds

     So after arriving home from work this afternoon, I let the dog out, and followed her out the back door to my yard.  It was cloudy and cool and as I sat in the lawn chair and breathed in the fresh air, I tried to let the day's activities fade into the atmosphere above me.  I became aware of an increasing noise of bird chirps and calls - and I realized that the two trees in my neighbor's yard had filled with roosting cawing birds.  It seemed like hundreds of them were perched among the branches and as the throng noisily settled among the leaves, I wondered if could be as many as a thousand. 
     All at once it was quiet.  The entire flock suddenly and without warning took flight, swooping, gliding, and making a flowing black river in the sky.  I wished I had a video camera to record the patterns - and then, they were gone.  How did they all decide to suddenly fly, and what precipitated their departure?  They headed west - and were out of sight. 
     Nature simultaneously baffles and amazes me.  These birds with brains the size of walnuts somehow instinctually have a plan and excute it flawlessly.  Is there one leader for these thousands of birds who makes this decision, or do they just somehow know what to do and can do it together?  I wish we humans were as coordinated, with a singular plan and purpose.  Just think of what we could accomplish. 

Not a boring Tuesday

     No, not boring at all.  Today, I was informed of a pretty severe case of cyberbullying some of our 5th grade students were involved in.  A student set up a Facebook page titled "I Hate ______", and filled in someone's name from his/her grade.  The student was savvy enough to protect the page so that it could not be found easily, and also invited others to join, which a few did.   Adminstration found out about this from one of the members of the group who decided to spill the beans about it.  The steps that must occur when this happens are very important, and "downtown" gets involved, but they culminate in making contact with someone at Facebook, who then will delete that page.  I was told today that the parent of the child who set the page up made him delete his Facebook account, as did some of the other parents of the kids who had joined.  This, I'm afraid, happens far more often than we think it does.  We MUST have severe and immediate consequences for these crimes, and yes, they are crimes. My question was, why do 10 year old kids have Facebook pages, but then I was informed that even 2nd and 3rd grade students have them.  Well ok.  So much for Facebook's assertion that kids under 13 cannot join. 
     Additionally, earlier this week a student also in an upper grade (but still in elementary school)engaged in explicit and purposeful sexual harrassment of a teacher.  You might tend to think that elementary students do not do that, but I've got another think for you.  In elementary schools all across this district, cyberbullying and sexual harrassment are addressed in classrooms on a regular basis.  I sometimes cannot believe what we have to talk to kids about.  They weigh all of 90 pounds and stand about 4 ft tall, and they are participating in some of the most disrespectful behavior toward their peers and authority figures that you've ever seen from a child.  A CHILD.  I told someone today that if this were my son,  I can tell you that I would have taken drastic steps immediately - even hospitalization and intensive treatment to try to figure out what was going on.  These children are  drowning and they need immediate lifesaving measures - whatever it takes - but, I'm afraid parents are having drinks on the beach under the canopy.  A sad, sad commentary on what's happening today in our culture. 

Post 30 days

     I signed back on to Facebook last night, and as I scrolled through a couple of pages, I realized that I didn't miss the "big" things. Instead, I sort of missed the minutia of people's lives.  I missed my friend posting a picture of an art work made with BACON of all things (which I immediately reposted for my son in law), a friend who had "minor" surgery but is recouperating, a picture of a dessert someone made, a casserole recipe someone else is going to try, etc.  These are the exact things which drove my other half right off of Facebook a week after he got his account set up.  They make him nuts, they make me feel connected.  Makes me think twice about talking with him about the minutia of my day.  I really try not to do that, but I find that he likes sharing the details of his day with me.  That's ok. 
     It was a hard day at school.  At one building, a teacher sorta lost his-her marbles and blew up in the office, a kid said and wrote some disturbing things but talk was that it will not be handled correctly by those in charge, another kid I went to the classroom to retrieve for some testing melted down in sobbing tears when I appeared because, and it took a long time to figure this out, he thought I was taking him to the nurse (for some reason, he panics about that), a long meeting resulted in - no results, a parent who happens to be a lawyer had, um, issues, etc etc - it just piled up all day long.  I was supposed to go to Wichita Chorale practice, but I just couldn't do it.  I stopped by Panera, got a salad to take home, heated up some soup, put on my flannels, and enjoyed the evening.  There ya go.
     The women's Bible study I'm attending is starting to look at Nehemiah this evening - Yeah, you wouldn't think of Nehemiah first, maybe, for a Bible study, but there's something, or maybe more than one something I need to learn from that book.  In the first chapter there's a prayer by Nehemiah that's bold, specific, but yet, our author says, it's not outcome based.  Too often we pray and in the prayer, we tell God how to make things happen for us.  We give him the plan and the details of how to accomplish it, when, we need to let Him figure that out - that's why we're praying in the first place, right?  Have a blessed day-