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“Ms. Wilson, I’ve read the little instagram devotionals you do. They’re really good. But you do use A LOT of commas.”

Ah, yes. After months of online school, I had nearly forgotten the average teenager’s unique ability to give a compliment that encourages and kinda stings at the same time.

I like to spend at least half of my lunches hanging out with students. Thanks to my stature and the pesky zit that seems to have taken up permanent residence on my forehead, when hemmed in by the usual small group of high schoolers, the unknowing stranger might lump me right in with them. Not every lunchtime involves a discussion about (or critique of) my punctuation tendencies, of course. Some days we sit in a group and pass around my coworker’s 40 year old guitar and a packet of worship music and sing together. Some days we chat about everything from Edward Cullen (how do they even know who that is??) to last night’s presidential debate, to ranking local thrift stores by how wealthy its donors are. Being a teenager in 2020 is a trip and the last thing they need is another adult who thinks they ‘get’ them but doesn’t. I’m at that age where I can quote their memes but I don’t have a Tiktok, so I’m not quite cool, but I’m accepted.

When I was in middle and high school, none of my teachers were particularly young. The closest thing we got to young was “cool” and those frisbee playing enigmas always struck me as inaccessible. I’d like for my students to at least know that I’ve been through what they’re going through now. And while this is also my first pandemic, I have felt out of place, too awkward, too shy. Part of me wishes they knew that I sometimes feel these things in front of the classroom.

Anyway, I’m teaching English now!

Of course, with any new role comes new opportunities for embarrassment–and my best one had to be the first day back to in-person learning. I had picked a favorite thrifted find of mine to wear for the first day/picture day: a navy chiffon INC dress that I intentionally wear backwards so the little pearlescent buttons face the front.

Well, the dress wasn’t a bad pick for a shoulders-up photo, but it was ultimately a mistake. I didn’t notice when I was getting ready, but a few of the bottom buttons must have peaced-out on my drive to work, because it wasn’t until parents started arriving with students that I realized that my outfit had gone from conservative to club-worthy. With the buttons from the bottom gone, the split, which blew wide open when I walked, came about three inches above my knee. Yikes.

With less than one class period to make my dress a little more Kate Middleton and a little less Miley Cyrus, I grabbed an extra jump ring from my keys and pulled the bobby pin out of my hair. I had to put a small hole through the fabric, but better that than greet parents and put a permanent hole in my reputation. The rigging looked a little ridiculous while sitting down so I just… didn’t sit at all. In fact, I felt myself trying to cover it up the entire day–with my lunchbox; with a folder full of syllabi; with a stack of books that I dropped and then awkwardly had to scramble to pick up while still trying to keep covered. It was a first day to remember for sure!

I’m lucky to have since avoided any more wardrobe malfunctions, but I have felt myself running for cover, embarrassed at my own inexperience. I’ve never taught English before. I’ve never actually taught the same subject or even had the same group of students two years in a row for the three years I’ve been in the classroom–and there’s a certain beauty to that. I learned different things getting 7th graders to memorize the Fruit of the Spirit than I did doing science experiments in the hallway and getting a Bible degree on the side. In a way things have beautifully come full circle. The high school class which got me interested in English and Bible in the first place was Classical Literature, and now I get teach it 5th period every day.

Now that it’s October, we’re deep in the trenches with Senior Thesis projects and Augustinian confession write-ups, but if there’s one thing I want my current students to learn, it’s that they’re not finished products. That God is still working on them and in them–because He’s clearly still working on me. When I see my need for His grace, I have more grace for them, even on days when I’m sure that particular reservoir has run dry. Their teacher is impossibly human, and sometimes she has to Wikipedia who Catiline is when Augustine mentions him or gives the wrong root for ‘predicate’ and remembers it halfway through class because oops, she took Spanish and not Latin in high school. But she’s trying. Oh is she trying.

It brings me so much joy when a 9th grade boy comes to me at lunch telling me he’s been making a model of Hector’s helmet at home because he’s enjoying the Iliad that much. But it brings me even more joy when I see the kid who has consistently counted himself out as a non-writer actually give himself grace and try again.

I’m sure that’s just God giving me a glimpse of how He feels watching me. 😊

Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Also, here’s the song that’s been running through my head for the duration of my writing this. What a great throwback!

We crossed the threshold of the sliding glass basement door, inhaled deeply, and let out a tandem “that smell!” kind of sigh. I’d say it’s a bit like pine mixed with dust and sunscreen. The pool table and crystal glasses atop the dusty bar were exactly as they were over a year ago. Upstairs, my grandparents and aunt were waiting, eager to share hugs after months and months of corona-induced distance.

My grandparents built The Cabin in the 70s, and I say you can tell in the most affectionate way possible. The cherry red carpet, dark wood, macrame accents and wooden ducks harken back to a time when my mother somehow rode around on the back of my grandpa’s motorcycle without a helmet and my Nana wore a swimsuit. Now the house is a family get-together spot for summer lake days and a retreat from snow tubing in the winter.

I climbed to the third floor “Jungle Room”—the third-story loft with three twin beds, tiger-print blankets, and safari hats and spears on the walls. On the main floor is a “Strawberry room” where my mom’s childhood bed and strawberry printed bedding have a permanent home. The ground floor, complete with pool and foosball tables, Coors signs, and a full bar comes as close to any bar I’ve seen, minus the people and actual alcohol. The main part of the house is the family room, and the theme is Cabin. Think brown wood-paneled walls, brown chairs and a brown sectional… basically, everything is brown, but stylish, and I’m in love with the place.

I checked the Jungle Room desk drawer for my sister’s (clearly) unsent letter to a friend from probably 2009. Still there, and still hilarious given that her promise of a daily report of events did not come to fruition (the events of day one are listed in detail while “Day 2” is a title and nothing more).

To be completely honest, I didn’t want to make the trip up this summer. A brand new class, plus prep work for the upcoming school year have been weighing on me, and I wasn’t exactly jumping at the opportunity to mix all of that with terrible WiFi. Still, I knew that this would be a good opportunity for my family to be a family. With Kenna heading back to Canada in a little over two weeks, me starting working full time, and the travel challenges Corona will inevitably create in the future, there was really no better time. Plus, I could read on the beach!

Time is passing more quickly than I remember it did as a child. Nana is 79, my sister is halfway through college, and despite the fact that it feels like it’s been five minutes since it began, my mom is nearly five years into her cancer journey. These nights of laughing over games of Apples to Apples and mornings watching romcoms like My Big Fat Greek Wedding over eggs and Keurig coffee are not guaranteed to come again, and I’m savoring them. My books, homework, and missing my sweet boyfriend as he backpacks in Big Sur are taking up space in my mind, but I’ve made an extra effort to be present in these moments that are not, and never were promised.

So, until Tuesday morning you can find me floating in the lake at Dunn Ct., or reading with Nana on the upstairs deck, or running the winding paths around the lake with Rooie, or playing pool downstairs with Grandpa. Grandpa and my dad had a blast (heh) at the shooting range this morning while we vegged out in front of the tv for a couple hours, and later on my mom took me to town to buy a dress for dinner because for once in my life, all this over-packer packed were my comfiest, rattiest gym shorts and some running shoes. I found a cute, black gauzy thing on a rack outside the only boutique in town, and it was only $19! Later on we had burgers and took sips of Nana’s (VERY salty) Bloody Mary at The PML Grill, which overlooks a lovely golf course.

• 

• 

What a gift it is that time does not stand still. I am famously not a fan of change, but I’ve learned that living wisely means expecting the changing of the seasons and walking in gratitude. So here’s to Grandpa playing 50’s hits while he and Nana make spaghetti in the kitchen. Here’s to bad WiFi and good conversations.

Here’s to savoring Summer’s end and all the blessings that come with it.

“There is a season, turn, turn, turn.”

It was the first day of Spring in English 101. My 9th grade English teacher (who was very cool for playing Sanctus Real during our exams per my class’s request) was evidently a fan of the Byrds. The Ecclesiastes-based tune bounced down the halls in the typical happy 60s fashion, proclaiming truths not even a group of moody freshman could deny:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

I’ve been feeling the changing of seasons this month. The coming of my 24th birthday, and my sister’s reminder of my approaching my mid-twenties reminded me that I am no longer that Freshman girl who lived in ripped jeans and Converse and hadn’t yet learned how to be brave and say what she was really thinking. Next month, my very long Covid summer ends and I begin teaching high school English, which is such a trip given the fact that I practically laughed in my mom’s face ten years ago when she asked if I wanted to be a teacher like her. Turns out that my English degree will be put to use and I will join the ranks of English majors with actual jobs. Take that, meany high school advisor.

In other news, three weeks ago I had my first in-person Bible study in months. The five of us sat out in the church parking lot, Bibles in hand, laughing so hard we made our fold-out camping chairs creak. I felt like a poor conversationalist as the tedious weeks of Zoom calls had made me accustomed to unnatural breaks in conversation from loss of internet (the WiFi in my town is pretty ghetto).

When we met in person, I didn’t know what to say or what to do with my arms, which longed to swing themselves around these people I had missed so much. There was no room to hide behind five minutes of, “Can you hear me now?” and let me tell you, that was so refreshing. It was the end of a very long season of being apart, and while I did feel like a jerk the whole time for bringing Hawaiian barbecue to our meeting (I got dinner a little late) it was still a lovely start.

Aside from my birthday and the approach of the school year, my trip to Gizditch Ranch is really what got me started on thinking about seasons. We showed up to the farm hoping to get some strawberries (you pull off to the side of a dusty road, grab a bucket, pick as many berries as you want, and then pay for your beautiful, fresh berries right there in the field after they’re weighed) but sadly, they were all picked out. The Come Back Next Season sign was a big, fat reminder of how I’m pretty much always late when it comes to berry season. Luckily, they sell frozen berries from their tiny store for the hopelessly forgetful among us, and those make just as good a pie as the fresh ones.

Anyway, the beautiful thing about missing strawberry season was actually the reminder that seasons do end; they turn, turn, turn—and the fact that they are finite makes the things worth savoring that much sweeter. I think back specifically to last summer when I worked on a dog ranch. My jobs ranged anywhere from refilling spray bottles with bleach, to cleaning mats of shedded hair from fences, to feeding puppies, to putting bark collars on some of the scariest boarding dogs, to the never-ending job of shoveling dog poop. It was undoubtedly the most challenging job I’ve had, both physically and mentally—but I look back and think of how I grew in that time, spending my long hours of cleaning and corralling dogs talking to God about how sweet the puppies were and asking for the grace when I felt mistreated by a coworker. I wasn’t allowed to have my phone on me, and workers weren’t supposed to socialize much. In the moment this solitude, mixed with eu de hot sun-on-retriever manure was torture. Now I genuinely miss that season for how much time I was able to spend in prayer.

I don’t always love the season I’m in, but it’s good to remember that there’s almost always something I can glean, or simply enjoy in it.

And now from my camera roll, some things I have been savoring this past month:

And finally, finishing my coop and getting my little hens!

God created us for intimacy with Himself. Why do we build back up what He died to tear down?

The trip down Howell Mountain was like a descent from heaven to earth, starting from above the blankets of cloud and finishing among the vineyards on the valley floor. In the ten minute ride down, you could see the best of the Napa Valley: the stalwart pines, standing tall and militant along the ridges; the winding forest roads, always green with moss; and of course, the vineyards, which occupied everything from the steep, mountain hills to neighborhood backyards and the endless commercial fields.

Strapped into the backseat of my family’s Honda Odyssey, I leaned by forehead against the window and stared out at the valley below. We had just visited church, but this wasn’t a normal Sunday guest experience. For one, it wasn’t even Sunday.

Prior to attending my Seventh-Day Adventist college to pursue an English degree, my family decided to take a trip to check out the campus, the music department, where I’d be auditioning for a scholarship, and the church—a reasonable move seeing how we weren’t even Adventist. That Saturday afternoon, however, some unfamiliar theology communicated in the message actually shook me.

At the time, I had been in the middle of my own Great Awakening and was on fire for God. I read my Bible constantly—not out of guilt, but with the sincerity and exuberance of someone newly in love. Having just figured it out, I prayed all the time and wept at the the idea that Jesus would give himself for someone like me. For the first time in my 18 years I felt right with God. Now, when confronted with things like food restrictions and celebrating Sabbath on the “right day,” I questioned whether I was right about anything I believed in.

These new teachings challenged what I had learned about God in the last year— and by challenged I mean that they reacted in my heart like baking soda does to a capful for vinegar. I walked out discouraged, closed off, doubting my salvation.

Untested and secure within the confines of my garden, I thought my faith was strong. But in this new arena of veggie bacon and 1860s prophetesses and “Happy Sabbath!” from strangers downtown, it only felt threatened. One church service and my developing faith took as many steps back as I had covered that year, and for a time, I shut out the God whom I now perceived expected far too much.

For a season, the question that plagued my mind was this: Was the God I was learning to love who I really thought He was, or had my heart been slowly warming to someone who was completely indifferent to me?

I didn’t dare run to Him. I was hurt. God didn’t like me, so what was the use talking to Him? Like a hospital patient in need of some privacy, I drew a thick curtain around my heart and with a flourish and put out a sign: Do Not Disturb.

Fear and Fig Leaves

Around Halloween 2005 I discovered the stash of King Size Reese’s my mom had bought at Costco for the slew of trick or treaters who would be swarming our small neighborhood in a matter of weeks. Having grown up without much sugar in the house, I took advantage of the situation in a way that any normal 8 year-old would.

For two weeks I woke up at 5am and enjoyed a modest 4 Reese’s cups while watching the news. Any and all evidence was carefully removed and stowed, not in the trash where my parents would see, but inside the rocking chair, between the couch cushions, and behind the entertainment center. I knew the Great Kitchen Table Judgement would happen eventually, but until then I was happy to give Elsa a run for her money, feigning the image of perfection and stuffing everything else away between the cushions. Turns out, I’m not the first one to try that. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve patented fig leaf couture when they realized they were naked:

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” (Genesis 3:7)

Sin has a way of making us feel exposed, and why wouldn’t it? Romans 6:23 warns us that the “wages” or payment for sin is death. Not one of us are righteous, and like the first humans, in our sins we feel exposed before the Lord.

So what happens when it’s God who comes near?

The Garden of Eden.

The Tabernacle in the desert.

The Temple.

All three scenarios were formed for the purpose of God dwelling with his people. And while the Tabernacle and Temple served as places where Israel could become right with God through blood sacrifice, they were not permanent fixtures, but foreshadowed the man who would both remove our sins and dwell among us. The prophet Isaiah prophesied this Savior 700 years before he was born, calling this man, “Emmanuel,” meaning God with us (Isa. 9:6).

This wouldn’t just be God in a cloud, or God hovering above the Ark in the Holy of Holies where no man could survive without being completely cleansed. This would be (as my friend likes to say) “God in a bod,” living among his people, touching their faces, healing their diseases, and bearing their shame for them (Isa. 53:4).

Into-Me-See

I once had a counselor break down the word “intimacy” into “into-me-see.” To achieve intimacy, you have to be vulnerable. And to achieve vulnerability, you have to be willing to share who you are, warts and all, with another.

Into me, see.

It’s terrifying, honestly. I’d much rather stuff all my not-so pretty stuff, not-so Christian thoughts and habits, and the questions I’m too embarrassed to ask God and others right down under the couch cushions like a wad of Reese’s wrappers.

But the issue is, without vulnerability, which leads to intimacy, we will never truly be known. And that’s the fear the whole world is trying to solve, one more shopping trip, beer, porno, or pay raise at a time.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 acknowledges our innate longing for a forever-love from a forever-God, explaining how God, “has set eternity in the human heart.” All our lives, we have this sense that we were made for something else, or somewhere else. A Garden, perhaps. Created with what Rick Warren calls “the God-shaped hole,” we desire to belong somewhere and to Someone; to know and be known, love and be loved. It is in our DNA and basic development (just look up the studies on children in orphanages suffering from impaired cognitive development, lack of growth, and other problems due to lack of parental nurturing.)

Our desire to be known and loved can only be fully fulfilled in Christ simply because we were designed to be complete in Him. There’s a reason the corner piece from my Statue of Liberty puzzle doesn’t fit into my Map of the United States puzzle; it was designed with a specific place in a specific picture.

Tearing the Veil

We were created by God, but also for God, a gift to himself. As it says in Colossians 1:16, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

Because of sin, we were separated from God. Yet, it is the story of the cross that flips our story on its head, turning tragedy to comedy.

In the Tabernacle and Temple, one could not enter into the presence of God without being cleansed, and even then, because God was so holy, there was always the possibility that this human High Priest could die. That veil, woven in purple, blue and scarlet and beautifully embroidered with images of cherubim, represented the separation between Heaven and Earth, sinful men and Holy God (Ex. 36:35).

Yet, that changed with Christ.

At the moment of his death, this very veil in the Temple was torn in two, from the top to the bottom (Mk. 15:38-39). While the earth shook and the dead rose from their graves, the line between Heaven and Earth was being broken; the Messiah had not only given himself to atone for the sin of humanity: He had made a way for man to be with God once more.

Bride of Christ

I read somewhere that the history of the bridal veil has less to do with fashion and more to do with preventing the groom of an arranged marriage from making a break for it should he not find the face of his never-before-seen beloved not so…uh…pleasing. The idea was to conceal that face until you locked him down and he couldn’t escape.

In my own walk with the Lord, this is how I’ve sometimes operated. Some passing thought, new theological teaching, or even more seriously, my own sin causes me to clamp up, shut down, and throw that veil up over my face before God can see what a messed up doubter I am. Like Jonah jumping into a boat on a sea that God himself created, I pretend I can outrun the one who oversaw my creation in my mother’s womb (Ps. 139).

It’s not that I want to be apart from Him, per se. It’s just that my veil feels safer, more secluded from the eyes that have every right to judge me.

And yet, in Christ, it is now my right to approach the throne of God with confidence, as unveiled as Adam and Eve were unashamedly naked (Heb. 4:16). It is the grace of God that saved me from death, and the love of Christ which assures me that I do not need to hide—not from the One whose grace allows for repentance and true intimacy.

Not from the one who gave everything to become Emmanuel.

Not from the one who died to carry me in His arms and bring me home.