Surviving Wilderness

This morning Tandy is on a cleaning jag, and all I want to do is stay in my PJs and read.  I will pay for that mindset later at some point.  Maybe today or maybe tomorrow, but it surely is in the near future.  This week has seemly been emotionally hard as I have had to adjust my thinking to my past, future, and encounters of others around me.  I find that there are many parts of my life that I just "overlook."  In my overlooking, I realize that there are emotional connections that I have not completely dealt with.  Make no mistake, when we do this they will arise or show up at some point to be dealt with again.  And the pain that comes with it will call into question; Why did I not deal with this the first go around?  When you begin that circle of thinking, it starts a vortex of emotions.  The what ifs, the why nots, the I wishes, and the if onlys.  In the spiritual and Christianese world we call it the Wilderness experience.  Where all temptations happen to get us to go back. 

My friends have been leading a Bible study in their home,  because they have found many Christians are walking in that atmosphere as they too are doing the same.  It is not like they know the way out or pointing to others as justifying dictatorship as I know the only and right way, but it is more of come walk with me, because I am right there too.  Last night they handed me two books that they are beginning to study in their group.  How timely they speak of Wilderness experiences.  This week I am realizing we have many wildernesses in our lives.  We try to clump them all together as one and as we do that, we overlook the importance of the experience itself.  Resulting in the uprise of the overlook that WILL happen down the road.  We also typically focus on the atmosphere of the Wilderness itself and lose sight that the focus should be on the getting out.  There have been times that I like the scenery in the Wilderness and have stayed in that place longer than I ever should have.  It usually comes by depression and napping with me.  Let me just lay here for awhile. Shut down and shut everyone and everything out.  There is no searching in this place, mercy in this place,  forgiveness in this place, but there is lots of anger, hopelessness, justification, and ego.  The statements of "I do not need them, I do need this, or I can do this on my own" come to mind.  

I am learning the Wilderness is meant to break you.  Break you not in the sense of into pieces, though it can feel like that at times, but break you WIDE OPEN.  It is the only way to get out, to be broken wide open.  Some of us chose to stay in the anger, hopelessness, justification, with our egos and go on living in the Wilderness.  We encounter those in our daily lives. People who are bitter by life events and situations.  People who justify their behavior because of the behavior of others.  We all have done it, but it is our choice whether we continue to stay there.  There is a statement in one of the books that rings true if applied to any Wilderness situation,  "...weeping  for pain and weeping for joy, because the two are often linked more closely than we can imagine."  It continues with the thought of suffering leads to the saving.  The only way out is brokenness to the point of WIDE OPEN.  Define it however you want. Christianese calls it, "Worship or crying out."  Those outside of that thought call it, "Honesty with self and transparency about weakness."  No matter the definition, WIDE OPEN is the path out. 

  

The Other Side

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the other side.  At first, I wonder if the other side thinks about me.  Probably not. But it does not stop me from trying to understand the other side.  Who is the other side you might wonder?  We all have them.  Those people we have ideas about or those people that we have encountered at some point, yet no longer encounter ever... The other side...  Severance with groups of people have always disturbed me. They come with relationship breaks, fights, deaths, and even births.  They come with differencing views on civil rights, politics, theologies, morals, and ethics.  The other side.  One might argue life changes, people change and I can agree, but it seems our views of self inflicted ME FIRST mentality usually is the root cause of the creation of The Other Side.  We try to fit people in our box of thought, actions, and beliefs then yet cannot see just the simple pure value of the life on the other side.  Sad really how shallow we can be.  We hold grudges to the grave, never trying to mend. All the while, we wave banners of Christian, Good People as we taunt the other side with the ME FIRST mentality.

Today, I began to read about a man that was homeless, full of poverty in all aspects of his life.  He depended on hand outs for income.  When he was hungry he would eat raw foods.  He was ridiculed mostly by those that seemly had it all together.  Those driven by the ME FIRST mentality.  Some people thought he had mental health issues and believed he was a lunatic.  The end of his life was very tragic.  Basically, he was accused of a crime he never committed.  Witnesses were hired to lie to say, "He did it."  The jury was rigged. He had a dirty judge that needed some political gain.  In the end he was handed the death penalty.  What would have happened if people got to know the other side...Would his life ended the way it did? What if the other side had love to give?  Wisdom to give in-spite of his different quirky ways.  What if.... what if.... what if.... My new purpose to engage and know the other side, whatever that may be, and to respect the life that is there.

The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians, "I want to know Christ and the power that raised him from the dead."  Most of us like to refer to the other side as, 'dead to us.'  What if, what was dead to us was raised?  What would it take? Power? What is this power that Paul speaks of... my only conclusion can be love.  Love that reaches to the other side.  Paul goes onto say, "...forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.  Guess its not about me after all.  It is love straining to reach forward the other side of what lies ahead.

The homeless man that I read about today, did that.  Actually, that was the root reason they killed him.  He reached into the other side and changed the world as we know it.  He changed our culture, society, and belief system.  Whether we believe or not the story of him he changed the world.  It happened by loving the other side.  No matter your thoughts of real events, or faith based beliefs Jesus has made his name known.  A homeless man, who borrowed beds, mostly slept on dirt, who never thought of himself, yet valued the other side.  Even when they did not think about him, Jesus changed/and made history...in its simplest form...all for the other side.

#55strong

It has been awhile since I have blogged, but I can assure you that I have tried.  I have typed out two or three blogs then would just delete them.  The reason being, there has been so much to process in my head that there could not be just one focal point to communicate an actual point.  It has been and currently is like that huge ball of string all knotted up or the slinky that is tangled up.  You know when you see those things coming, you take a deep breath and think to yourself, "Not again," and then say, "I can figure this out."  That is where I am.  However, in actuality I am enslaved to the system. The systematic processes of the untangling.

I am involved in a movement of justice for the people, that actually I did not ask for, yet desperately need.  It is one of those times in life you do not realize how hungry you are until you smell food, or you do not see how poor you are until someone outside your poverty befriends you.   The history of that fight in this part of the country at least dates back to the Civil War.  West Virginians, the mountain people, never knowing how much we look like a third-world country.  Do not get me wrong, I love my home state.  Even while I type I have a WV sweatshirt on, now do not get it confused with a WVU sweatshirt, because I live in Herd Country, which could make some around me go into convulsions.  Yet, I am proud I am Alumni of Marshall University.  It was the school in West Virginia that use to be deemed 'the teacher school' back in the day when compared to West Virginia University.  However, I can whisper and say, "I like WVU sports"....sigh, I know.  In Huntington, WV that is blaspheme.

Lately, WV has made national and international news dealing with a Teacher Strike.  It is an awful place to be in terms of security.  Will I get paid?  How long is this going to last?  I have already paid for a beach vacation.  Fact is we are ranked 48th or 49th in teacher pay, depending on your sources.  I have a Master's Degree and I do not make a decent wage.  The cost of living has surpassed my wage and that is the cost of living in WV, which you know is not high according to any other parts of the country.  The cost of living has raised 4.9% and teachers are asking for 5% raise, which only continually puts us at the bottom of the barrel.  Are there times I have worried about feeding my children? Yes.  Have there been times that I worry about paying my bills? Yes.  Though those are my worries, I do realize there are others that have it worse off than me.  My thoughts do not take away their own poverty, but I have mine too.  I pay for the beach trips by my income taxes and go to the cheapest beach in America, which ALL West Virginians go to...Myrtle Beach, SC.  I use my taxes to pay off bills that I have gotten behind on throughout the year, because my wage isn't enough.  But what about your spouse?  Doesn't she make good money?  Ummm, no! She works for a program funded by the State.  She has two Master's Degrees and has been in  her job 25+ years and makes the same as I do.  In the real world our salaries together would equal one salary outside of the Mountain State, which still would be considered a low wage.  There have been times we go shop at Goodwill not because we want a cheap bargain, but I have growing boys and search for good clothes there.  We have a Goodwill located in Barboursville (outside of Huntington), richer people live there.  I can typically find name brands there.  When things get really tight I go through the boys clothes or things even we do not use anymore and sell them.  I do not say these things for pity.  I say them for reality.  Other states I could have public assistance.  Actually, I did.  When I first got divorced from my Ex-husband I moved across the river to Kentucky, and my college degree wage from WV got me on the system.  I had a food stamp card and the boys had a medical card.

My story is not uncommon.  I have never asked for hand-outs or even for money.  Actually there was this one time I asked my mother for money, and my sister, because I needed more money for a down payment for a car.  It was my first ever car to own by myself, and I had no credit.  You know how I paid them back...Student loan money.  However other than that, never.  Teachers have made their demands in this strike, 5% raise or we do not go back, and fix our insurance.  The insurance is on track for solutions, but the 5% has not happened for a multiple of idiotic and political gaming reasons.  Therefore on Monday I still do not get to return to my classroom.  The place where I am called to be and the place that reminds me why I even take a low wage.  Children.  The poverty of learning, or the poverty of the development of children.  My whole make-up, my happy place is always around children.

Teachers are survivors in the State of West Virginia, nothing has ever been handed to any of us.  We work hard to teach those same skills.  The true teacher drive will outlast anyone.  How do I know this?  I know it because we are the type of people that get a cussing in one breath by a 10 year old and then make sure they are fed by lunch time.  We move sometimes 20+ students along heading to a common goal everyday as we move them in UNIITY, no matter their development levels.  All eyes are on us to see our next move.  We will win this!  Once again I know this, because we have been taught to fight through.  Figure it out.  Find ways.  This game that is being played with our lives and the lives of our students is not anything new for us.  This is our daily job, as we barely have educational resources, like paper for our students (paper for teachers is gold currency).   Our slogan that is our driving force to continue is #55strong.  We will stay 55 counties strong in this, because we were 55 counties strong before this...Now everyone else in this country is hearing the screams and groaning of labor pains of this Mountain Momma... Take US home country roads...to the place where we belong.