A devotion during Lent, written for the church I attend.
Galatians 6:2-5 “Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Let each person examine his own work, and then he can take pride in himself alone, and not compare himself with someone else. For each person will have to carry his own load.”
In one of the schools where I work, a little girl – she can’t be seven – kicks a teacher. She kicks a teacher, and then runs to the library. This is my territory, where the stories are, not the territory of discipline, and what to do when a child, still pudgy from toddlerhood and carrying so much anger and pain and fear that all her little body knows to do is kick it out.
I’m not interested in the discipline and procedures I believe I must master first in order for me to hand off stories. I just want to hand off the stories. I want to give children stories so they can handle their own; so they can see the beauty and wonder in the make-up of their character, their plot lines, their conflicts. I want them to use stories to build their own arcs – colorful, miraculous, and filled with promise after a storm.
I don’t care about anything else, but this child has hurt a teacher, and the teacher is standing in the doorway of the library, visibly hurt, and something needs to be done. I know the teacher doesn’t want to be angry or in pain, either. I know this is not what she dreamed up when she signed her contract.
“Can you take her for a minute?” The teacher asks and I nod, and the teacher closes the door.
It is just the girl and I now. She and I are standing on a giant, colorful carpet and the sun shines heavy on us from the glass ceiling above, and I’m thinking one of us must make a move because I can’t stand this heat. I inhale to suggest a story, but she bolts from the light of the sun and screams, “I’m not reading no story!”
I want to leave the light too, but I stand still because I don’t want her to think I’m chasing her. I won’t chase her. I won’t keep her here.
If she would stay though, I would show her the book Bloom, about a fairy that was told to leave the kingdom because she made such a mess of things. But what the king hadn’t realized, or didn’t want to acknowledge, was that the magic could only happen if a mess happened first.
The little girl and I, we would sit on the comfy couch, or the beanbag chairs, or at a table if she likes, and she would read to me, or I’d read to her, or we’d take turns each reading a page. We would draw pictures of the fairy and the kingdom. I wonder if she’d like that. I have brand new crayons, and they’re triangular shaped – I guess those are supposed to be easier to hold on to than the circular ones, the edges more sturdy – I would offer her those.
Maybe we’d talk about the messes we’ve made. Like the time I said “butt” in first grade and had to come in at recess and write a note about swearing to my mom and dad. Or the time I ran to my fifth grade teacher, breathless from anticipation because we’d taken a math test, long division – the devil’s math – and I’d studied and studied, and I knew I’d done well. I knew I’d get a sticker. I asked her how I did, and she looked at me and broke into laughter so beastly I forgot she was my teacher. “Awful,” she told me. “You did awful.”
Later, something sad would happen to her. Not tragic, but sad, and she would tell her class about it, and she would start to cry, and I would return that beastly laugh, forgetting who I was and not for a second feeling sorry for her.
We could share these messes we’ve made with each other while we draw pictures of castles and fairy wings; while we dream up a kingdom where messes are usable.
Instead, we face each other motionless; each of us trying to figure out how to bloom where it is we’ve been planted.
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