"I don't have a death wish...

...but I'm willing to go Home if I can take a truckload of you Home with me."

Those were Richard Ellis' closing words in his Thursday radio sermon, and they resonated like crazy with me. "I'm tired of this. I'm tired of sin. I don't have a death wish, but I have no objection to going Home..."

And that's how I'm feeling these days. This disease is slowly killing me, and I can't seem to find a way to retire without losing an income source. I don't have all that much time left in any case - either God will bring His Children Home very soon, or this condition will knock me out of the game soon. In the meantime, I'm trying to process how I'm supposed to make it between my cessation of work and the end of the five-month moratorium when the powers-that-govern would finally deign to consider whether or not I'm disabled enough to retire or not.

On top of that, there's the matter of medical insurance to consider. Once I stop working, my medical coverage ceases. Thankfully, I'm not a cancer patient or something else that requires constant medical attention, but I am on twenty pills a day, meds that would cost me about my monthly paycheck each month without insurance. 

I've expressed my frustration with my current teaching position - after a delightful career doing all sorts of good for eager students, I'm spending the last few terms of my career supervising parolees rather than teaching at all. Meanwhile, it exhausts me to do so, and I lose all quality of life with my children or fiancee after a day of teaching, assuming I made it through the school day at all, which ofttimes I don't.

The question becomes, why am I still here? 
However... what if I can't leave?
And...is there any third alternative?

Is it fair to call it the "Trump Effect"?

While I try to spend my time in this column on Christian topics, the events happening in Washington DC occasionally cannot be ignored. I've expressed my considered opinion that while God is always in charge, He had a very specific reason for placing Mr. Trump in the office of POTUS at this moment in history, and this link and this more recent one will explain it to the uninformed.

But the manner and (lack of) decorum which he brought to the White House has palpably changed the interpersonal vibe between individuals with differing opinions in this nation. There is no middle ground now. I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: several former presidents have expressed their regret that the partisan nature of two-party politics has whittled the "moderate middle" down to virtually nothing in Congress, and in much of political thought in the media and in the culture as a whole. (Former Presidents Clinton, Bush 43, and Carter have all said as much in my hearing, thanks to pre-recording.) George Washington spent his entire Farewell Address pleading with those that came after him not to go down that road; yet the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians did exactly that. The names have changed, the roles have changed, but the battles continue - and in 2018, they're as divided as ever.

But even more than that (as I started to say before wandering on that rabbit trail!), it's the decorum that's gone missing under the influence of a leader who possesses none of it. Courtesy and diplomacy have been replaced by "My nuclear button is bigger than yours" and "she was bleeding out of her...". 

And that seeps into our everyday life. My students are prime examples: conversation with each other or with their elders are indistinguishable for politeness or appropriateness. Word choice is questionable at best. Lying is de riguer. Insubordination is a regular occurrence in my classroom these days, from students whose likely success in their lives ahead diminishes with every poor choice they make.

Which leads to the motivation for this particular melancholy point.

Long before the "election" of our current President (thank you, Electoral college), the "dumbing down" of America had been in full swing. It's unfortunately far too easy to predict the political preference of an American by their apparent educational level, although men and women alike who went to college and absorbed nothing except perhaps beer while there may have to be factored in. When evidence is plentiful and yet one continues to believe a falsehood, it's fair to question the innate intelligence of that person. When logic fails to sway a person from a belief that comes from unknown and questionable sources, that person's belief system can be legitimately questioned. When someone can look at two different people who commit the exact same action and judge them differently because of (fill in the blank: political party, skin color, personal persuasion), their hypocrisy has a root; increasingly, however, it's not so much that it's intentionally malicious as it is a personal blinding to objective reason.

And that lack of self-awareness has transformed the landscape of America. It is the widespread virulent disease form of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the delusion of a person whose intelligence is too low for them to realize that there even exist things they don't know, much less what those things are. Our President, sad to say, is the role model for this. He honestly believes he knows more about everything in existence than everyone else in existence, and is occasionally brought to reality. It's why he refuses all intelligence briefings, preferring to rely on his own innate instincts (and Fox News). Think back to his 2017 conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where in ten minutes he learned that he didn't know much after all:

Then Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to his estate at Mar-a-Lago on April 6 — and everything changed. By the president’s own account, as told to the Wall Street Journal, the two men briefly chatted about the history of Chinese-Korean relations. The conversation rocked Trump’s world.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” the president told the Journal. “I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power [over] North Korea. ... But it’s not what you would think.”

Town (Jenny Town, Johns Hopkins University) called Trump’s approach to North Korea “naive” in our correspondence, and this is a perfect example of what she’s talking about. The president claims to have come to a profound realization about one of the most dangerous conflicts on earth after a 10-minute conversation with the leader of North Korea’s chief patron, which also happens to be the United States’ chief rival in East Asia.

 And that feeling long ago permeated the American populace, perhaps starting in force with the "Me Generation" era of the 1980's, where we were expected to rely on our innate skills and intelligence for the upward mobility of the only person that mattered. (As a Christian, you can probably articulate my rant of a response without my help, so I'll forego it for how. Suffice it to say, God would disagree.) Where it has brought us, in my 35 year career as a teacher which just happens to coincide with the time from that focus on "Me" to now, is the diminishing respect shown for education as a whole and the need for one's own education in particular. 

I have in my classroom as we speak about a half-dozen students (see yesterday's post for a more detailed description). Ostensibly, I am here to do more than just handle the administrative paperwork for them: I have decades of training in math and language arts instruction (admittedly, my music education training is far more advanced, but mostly irrelevant here), and am available at a moment's notice to assist any of these young men on any topic they have in front of them.

I've answered one academic question in two days.

In the meantime, I've dealt with a plethora of motivational conversations, imploring these lost souls to utilize the opportunity they've been given to turn their academic life around and get pointed back in the right direction, towards graduation. However, to be blunt, that doesn't interest any of them. So, rather than being a teacher, I get to be a prison guard instead.

When did school become a four-letter word? (Don't count letters - it's a metaphor.)

When did knowledge, education, and intelligence become dirty words? We look at the statistics about how many doctors and scientists we have to import, how many such students at our major higher ed institutions were coming in from outside the US (until we started making ourselves a pariah and putting out the "not welcome" sign), and bemoan the "brain drain" in this country - but it's exactly what we've strived for over the last few decades! The smart person on television is invariably the "nerd", the awkward dweeb stuck in the corner at the dance while the "cool dudes" who skip class all the time are lauded by their multiple good-looking babes on their arms.

It's far too late to meaningfully reverse these effects, in my opinion, before the Rapture comes and we have far more important issues to deal with (if you're still on the planet at that point). But it would be nice to leave behind a group of people who are able to read Revelation when it becomes relevant to their well-being.

Not that they'll read it then, either. That's too much of a "brainiac" thing to do.

Responsibility

Veteran readers will remember that my "day job" these days is still supervising alternative school students who for whatever reason can't be at the regular high school in our district.

Immediately after a change of semester, we always have a drastic reduction in the size of our population, as many students are sent over to the main campus to continue their education. Either they've "done their penance" for a temporary expulsion for weapons or drugs, or they've demonstrated the ability to attend class regularly and/or complete actual classwork, or caught up with missing classes that prevented them from moving on with their peer group.

The eight young men we have left this January are (ahem) a delightful bunch of children. By definition, they have not demonstrated the above growth, and continue to need our attention here for another semester. During this first week back from vacation, they're acting out about that.

How do we explain what you would think would be patently obvious to a teenager who blatantly refuses to acknowledge their reality?

The argument I just had with an otherwise nice kid about sleeping in class is a prime example. His position, as best I can recreate it, is that "sleeping is not a crime". Which is what he's been doing throughout class the last two days. It feels like I'm trying to convince someone who's holding his breath that "breathing is necessary". Have you ever had that argument with a three-year old? Why-why-why, and there is no end to it? You feel like you'll end up back at the nature of God from the initial question, "Why is that truck red?"

That's how this feels. Why can't I sleep in class? Um...because we have stuff to do? Because you don't get credit for just being here? Because you can't do that at any job or school or whatever? (Short of being a mattress tester, perhaps.) What do you say to the patently obvious?

Yesterday's argument was similar: I can say anything I want any time I want. Um...no, it doesn't work that way. Why not? I have freedom of speech! I can say anything I want! Um... well, ignoring the fact that you're a minor and that right doesn't even apply to you? No, you can't. We give up those kind of rights whenever we enter into a social contract like a classroom situation - but how do you explain a "social contract" to a student who's being so bull-headed that they refuse to stop speaking long enough to even listen to  your explanation?

Alas, that student is home for the day, explaining to his mother and grandfather why he can't say anything he wants.

But while he's home, he's not making any academic progress. Perhaps this is more important, though. Sometimes, we have to teach these kids the basics of life and reality. 

I truly wish I could simply preach Christianity to them. It may not help, if the Holy Spirit isn't ready to overwhelm them, or if they're actively rejecting Him. But it can't be worse than what they're doing now, can it?

A lesson from Paul

Today, I had to pray for the spirit of fear to be taken away.

I suffered from a sudden attack of introversion, paranoia, and confusion. It was a remarkably scary day - I couldn’t even look my beautiful Dana in the eye.

What else can one do then, but pray?

Pray for God to take away that spirit of fear, and replace it. “For this reason,” Paul told Timothy, “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2nd Timothy 1:6-7)

That doesn’t mean He made it easy on me. It was a struggle the entire day, and I lapsed back into paranoia at about 7 pm. But He strengthened me enough that I was able to survive a school day with my alternative students, as well as a meeting with the administration over next semester’s plans.

The moral? Well, there are a few, I suppose.

Trust God. That’s the first and most obvious and necessary one.

And more than that, ASK Him for what you need. Don’t assume that just because He knows what you need, He’s simply going to give it to you without your asking for it. Remember the scene in the Disney movie Aladdin, when Ali is thrown into the ocean and the genie tells him he’s got to SAY the wish before the genie can grant it? Yeah, God’s a little like that.

But even more than that, it’s like how He wants us to pray for our DAILY bread - not a month’s supply all at once, but to keep coming back for what we need daily. Well, God will provide what we need to make it... but perhaps ONLY what we need to make it. He knew how much help I did and didn’t need to make it through the day.

Christ never said life was going to be easy. But He did say it was going to be worth it.

Dana was admiring how I make it through each day given all the health challenges God has entrusted me with, and how she didn’t think she could stay as upbeat as I do fighting as much pain as I fight. But the truth is, we are all given our crosses, and He makes sure they’re never more than we can bear... but also that they’re not so light as to be meaningless, either.

Remember, His purpose for us remaining on this planet (in part) is to develop us into the most Christ-like beings we can become. And that happens through challenges, challenges that develop our character. So, as much as we all would like to shout, “That’s as much character building as I can take, Lord!”, the trust is that He knows EXACTLY how much we can and should take.

That’s why despite the fact that there have been several nights when my pain has been so bad I thought about short-cutting my way Home... I’m still here.

He hasn’t figured wrong yet, and He probably won’t. If I do short-cut some day, then I’ll probably be the one who was wrong, and I could have made it through.

After all, I’ve made it through every test so far.

A month of thankfulness, Part Four

I want to share these posts with you, to help you consider what you are thankful for. Perhaps some are identical, perhaps some are analogous, perhaps some are completely foreign to you. But the thing that should stick with you is having an ATTITUDE of GRATITUDE, always. Just this one simple change in your life, on its own, can transform you.

Some of the details of these posts are rather personal; obviously, I'm not revealing anything i don't want to reveal. At this late stage, my life is an open book for reading and enhancement of others. But it also means there may be things which don't make sense because you don't know my background. Hopefully it will be clear enough in context, but leave a comment if there's something that's unclear, and I'll clarify. May God bless you in this season of thankfulness. 

A month of thanks. No different than any other month, except the thanks are on here as well as in my prayers.

Nov 15. I am thankful for the mother of my children. Although in the last eight years she has tested the requirement I have as a Christian of "love thy neighbor as thyself" more often than anyone else, I was married to her for almost fourteen years, most of them successfully. She always had my back during those years, and was unwaveringly supportive of my career. We shared virtually all of our child-rearing philosophies, made a great team when it came to money, social life, and the like, and I've got to say, when the two of us were both in a good mood, we made the most uproarious comic duo in public or private. She was smart, funny, attractive, and with the exception of shoe purchases grounded.

And it's because of her that we have five living children who are unfailingly praised for every imaginable characteristic. Hamilton, Sutherland, Rutherford, Dorothy and Charlotte are as wonderful as I could imagine having for children; our late Emerson was just as beautiful and undoubtedly would have been everything else his siblings are as well. Her pregnancies were ferocious; she bore them (and the children) more bravely than I would have. Thank you, Wendy.

A month of thanks. It’s no different than any other month except that it’s on this blog.

Nov 16. I am thankful for the field of music education in America. Across thirty years, I was privileged to work with some of the most dedicated teachers and students the nation had to offer. Perhaps more than any other field today, music ensembles require a level of delayed gratification unseen in America. A concert, a marching show- heck, just to sound decent on an instrument takes months of practice before you can see the results. And so does success of any real kind in life.

My best friends were made through that career. Students from the 1980s are still on my FB feed. And the memories I have are many of the most treasured I have.

A month of thanks. Just like any other month, except that the thanks show up on here.

Nov 17. I’m thankful for modern medicine. I’d be dead long ago without it.

I would have gone to my grave a century ago, not knowing that conserving my exercise was the key to survival: TAM increases when the skeletal muscles are used, so unlike most doctor advice, I am NOT to stay fit to fight this disease. But without the muscle biopsy going into the electron microscope at the U of U five years ago, I’d never have known that.

And without the medicines available today to fight the pain and other symptoms, I’d be dead. Even a few days without the venlafexine knocks my gyroscope out of whack; if I’m out of pramipexorale, the spasms overwhelm my ability to sleep, and I can barely go a day without the pain meds before life is unbearable for me. It’s getting unbearable anyway, but I’d’ve been long gone without the morphine, gabapentin, and oxycodone which combine to fight the pain now.

A month of thanks. Just like any other month, except this month is sponsored by the Russians on Facebook.

Nov 18. I am thankful for all the students I’ve had the privilege of working with in my career. When I was twenty, I was helping my mother teach her band classes in Newcastle. One afternoon, she was too sick to be there, so I covered her class. (What goes around comes around - now I’m the one too sick to be in my classroom so my assistant covers for me. Funny, God. Funny.)

That particular afternoon, every child was of their father the devil - even sweet little Brandy. I was still young and terrible, not to mention a type A personality. I did a terrible job that afternoon, and it was the most miserable experience I’d yet had teaching.

As I drove home, still fuming, I felt ... really ... ALIVE. Puzzled, I went to where my mom lay in her bed, told her about the class and how I’d felt.

Her explanation has stuck with me: You feel alive because what you did *mattered*. Succeed or fail, at least you get to have the feeling that what you’re doing matters.

Which is NOT what I’d thought about working as a chemical engineering graduate from Caltech for a SoCal oil company, my assumed destination had I chosen to return there instead of staying home to care for my mom. That afternoon, after asking one question to each of my teacher-parents (“knowing what you know now, would you still have gone into teaching?” Yes.), I chose my lifelong occupation.

And it rewarded me no end. I don’t mean the handful of plaques for my work, or trophies from band contests, or even salary. I mean the literally thousands of young men and women who it has been my pleasure and privilege to instruct in life basics 101, Smith style. Oh, and an F# is second finger.

To all my kids who are no longer kids, thank you. (And I know we aren’t supposed to have favorites, but I’d take my Kuna class of ‘99 back in a heartbeat....)

A month of thanks. No different than any other month, except that it’s on this blog for a change. It’s November. Go figure.

Nov 19. I am thankful for the Internet and the worldwide media connections it creates. Because of such, I developed an interest in Japanese marching bands, the Canadian CFL, Brazilian music (and occasionally women), and most importantly Australian Rules Football (hereinafter referenced as “footy”).

Footy has been my sporting life blood for about 5-7 years now, although I’ve watched it for more than fifteen, thanks to getting Fox Soccer channel for a couple of years in Payette. Wendy and the boys would go to sleep, and I’d watch the game of the week at 11 pm or so Saturday nights, and then the highlights show on Wednesdays. Developed my first taste during the Brisbane Lions’ three peat in 2001-3, had an enforced hiatus for a few years, and re-caught the bug a couple of years later, watching the Swans/West Coast grand finals, Geelong’s three titles, and when live radio of every game became a thing about six years back or so, I began spending my Fri/Sat over nights for six months a year sleeping with the Internet radio on softly, so as not to wake Melissa first and later any children who might be up. (Dana swears she sleeps through anything, but it stays soft just in case.)

And having followed it semi-religiously, I’ve become enough of an authority that I write opinion pieces about footy for Australian readers! The Roar is an online sports mag down under which I write for (footy AND American college football), and the major footy source in the country, afl.com.au, is considering bringing me in as a “foreign correspondent for next season! Can you imagine any of that happening in the pre-Internet world?

(The funniest part of writing for Australia is that my editor has to correct my Yankee spelling! Think about the way the British spell, and you’re not far wrong.)

I hate my job.

No, seriously. I hate my job.

I used to love it. When I got too sick to be a band director any more, I was offered the chance to take over the alternative school, and I took it. As a new Christian, it appealed to me as an opportunity to save souls - to save the children who had "fallen through the cracks" of society and the school system. Over the first several years here, I felt that on several occasions - more often personal salvation than Christian salvation, but it's a start. The kids had been exposed to a Christian teacher, who had a Bible at the desk and in his heart, who was willing to share the Gospel when asked (I'm severely restricted about how I can proselytize, which is fine because I don't want false religions preached to these children either, and there are tons more of those out there than the real Jesus Christ. And when I was joined by a teaching partner in my third year, as my health began to deteriorate, and she turned out to also be a full-blooded, born again Believer with a capital B, that allowed for our conversations to draw in students who might have had questions to ask.

Good times, good times...

So what's wrong now? Well, several things - my pain is increasing, for example - but there's one element in particular that makes this job no longer the pleasure it once was.

We're no longer an alternative education facility. We've become an adjunct detention facility. 

The students we're being sent are almost exclusively kids who've been suspended or expelled from the high school or middle school, but because they're on a special education plan, they're required to be taught per state orders. So we now have a population of mostly troublemakers who have either no interest or no ability where learning is concerned, and if the remaining few students who actually want to learn are going to learn, it'll mostly be on their own because our time as teachers will be spent as prison guards, not as educators.

And that's not what I want to do with my remaining years, nor is it a useful means of utilizing my strengths as a teacher. Nor am I the right person to work with these kids, for that matter - they need someone trained in special education, which I am not.

So, right now, I hate my job.

But that's a transient feeling. Feelings come and go. My purpose on this planet remains: to share the gospel with as many people as I can. And maybe this is a good place to do that, and maybe this is a good set of children to share Him with. 

When it comes to making decisions, we cannot base our rationality on feelings. It must be based on Scripture, on what the Lord tells us. 

And in the end, it may come down to the Holy Spirit leading you - leading me - to where we need to be. And us being willing to both listen and do what He says.

My summer math class....

Tomorrow's the last day of summer school in our district, and I think XKCD (one of my all-time favorite web-comics!) has done a great job of encapsulating the precise atmosphere in my math classroom:

The Bible and Education

[For once, I wrote an article ON Facebook first, and now I'm transferring it over here for my blog readers to read! Not going to say it's never happened before, but I can't recall doing it this way...]

The Bible was used for the first 120 years of this country in the public schools. That would mean they stopped using it in the late 1800s - actually, it might have even been into the very early 20th century. School textbooks didn't exist until the MacGuffin readers came along (sp?). When actual educationally designed textbooks started becoming practical, the Bible was no longer as practical or as necessary in the classroom. None of us should have ever used it in school unless you're my grandparents' age.

Having said all that, it was apparently not a problem for the first 120 years of our country. That's because to the Founding Fathers, "freedom of religion" literally meant freedom from Catholicism and the C of E. They couldn't imagine a non-Christian country, so they didn't specify that; just as they couldn't imagine a non-English speaking country, so the language was never specified, either.

Reading the writings of the Founding Fathers, they to varying degrees could not conceive of a nation of democratic rule functioning without the God of Christ; even Jefferson and Hamilton took it as a tacit truth, and our first two presidents, Washington and Adams, expounded on it at length.

And a truly Christian nation would have done exactly what we did (barring the slavery, of course): welcomed immigrants from throughout the world, regardless of race, creed, color, or religion. There was always the underlying assumption that those coming to our country would join into our "melting pot", assuming our language and ways. But there were no laws explicitly saying they had to.

It's fascinating to wonder where the tipping point was to go from USING the Bible in schools to it being ILLEGAL to use the Bibles in school under the same Constitution. We have a governing document that was designed to be as flexible as possible to go with the times; it has only needed about two dozen amendments over more than two centuries to govern what should be the greatest nation on earth, the role model for more other national governments across the globe than any other nation in existence.

But it could not account for a government where there was a ruling collusion of men (mostly) who did not believe in the principles of Christ, regardless of their spoken positions, and whose primary interest was not the betterment of this nation but their own financial gain and the gain of those whose interests they support through being bought and paid for by those interests. NO government can. Only a strong and moral populace can overcome such a governance of criminals.

Would being a "Christian nation" have prevented this mess? Probably, but that ship has sailed. We stopped being a Christian nation about 60-100 years ago, given even a generous definition of the term.

Would being an ethical, educated nation have prevented this? Yes, and only if that vestige is still strong enough can it be saved. If either of those adjectives no longer apply to the USA, then this may very well be the last 4th of July worth celebrating, my friends.

(And if you're interested in a contrary reaction to this post, click the link to the original post and read the discussion on the first comment. Or don't. Your life won't be any worse for not having done so.)

Australian updates and more

I've not spent enough time in my writing to the Lord's benefit this past week - between assignments for my Australian account and simply being worn out, I've not done what I should. I'll do what I can to get back into the regular posts again as quickly as feasible. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, here are some pieces that went straight to the Act II Facebook page these past few days...

My White Christmas list for the Australian football fan - you'll probably get most of these in context, but I'll gladly expound upon request...

The AFL has come to an agreement with its players association regarding the salary pool et al for the next six years. As an American, it has several curious points - a 28% margin for the players' salary pool seems very low, and the lack of contentiousness that went on in negotiations (and then 99% of the players signed off on the agreement, so it's obviously satisfactory!).

I've been teaching for 34 years now. (OK, 33 - this is year 34 I'm starting this summer.) And never has the profession been so subjected to difficulty on all sides. It's no wonder that enrollment in teaching programs at colleges is down 35%! Who would WANT to be a teacher in this environment?