Painting Chinese Trees

...
Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment....
Maybe I just don't have enough reasons to doubt my own abilities, opportunities to un-scaffold any construct on which I might hang the perception of competence.

I returned to Chinese class this morning.

I would like to think that the fact I missed the last two weeks contributes the entirety on which my struggles hang, but alas, nay verily... it is a far deeper cleft from which I murmer.
And it's a double-bind, too: I truly enjoy my classmates.. all three of them... co-strugglers in this quest of knowledge and cultural relevance; I truly honor, respect, and feel sorry for my laoshi who is persistent in trying to frame my contributions in a positive light... Lord, bless her. The problem is me: I am the worst adult student ever to have taken a Mandarin class in the history of Western civilization. Notice I clarified adult student... I teach high schoolers and have tried to engage in rudimentary dialog with those who are learning Mandarin, and even though I am quite certain my pronunciation and tonal use is spot-on, my attempts elicit a facial expression not unlike that of a cow noticing a passing car. And so in typing this, I come to this horrendous awareness that I am now comparing my acuity with a post-pubescent population; pitiful.

The new housemate JuJu asked, in the midst of a self-deprecating, non-actualizing intraverbal wrestling match of Jacobian proportion this week(though Israel's opponent was in a different League), aware that I had not only NOT studied any Mandarin this week but didn't really have time available, he sincerely asked an important question: "Jim, so why are you taking Chinese?"
It's an important question, and the answer is easy.. initially.
I would rather answer why I am taking Chinese class, than try to explain why I have not applied myself as much as possible.
Why study Mandarin?
I want to be able to talk to people wherever I go, and since China is taking over the world, they own America through our debts, and they have more students learning English today than WE HAVE STUDENTS, TOTAL, it seemed logical to be able to speak to our future overlords.
It also is connected to my trek to China a few years ago with the greatest people in the world, my students. The problem was I was completely incompetent to be able to 1) engage this amazing culture into which I was visiting, 2) be able to tell the cab driver where to take me, or 3) simply ask where the bathroom is located. Fortunately China has copied our US policy of providing information in foreign script so as to keep foreigners from assimilating, hence the bano could usually be found via public iconographia. But I wished I had SOME idea what the families were saying as we passed by, following the flag-lady-guide-person throughout the day.
So.. That means it's about control and wanting to be in it.
There is something humbling to have to ask the hostel's clerk to write a destination on a notecard, then wave down a cabbie, handing them the card like a deaf/mute before they begin to actually ask a question. I wonder if that is what a stroke victim experiences when they are re-learning how to communicate even though they know what they want to say?

I truly appreciate my laoshi, and all the time and energy she puts into the four of us adult learners. As a CBCD she and her husband are continuing to learn English, and her grasp of our language is excellent and ongoing. Her family worships in this bilingual Christian community, and her 2 children are ABCD and cut their teeth on Yingwen. I am one of two Anglo's in about 100 students in the school, and even David is married to a Chinese person; my motivation is not the same as many of the ABCD's around me, that's what I tell myself in order to rationalize why I am such a poor student. To be fair to Jim, almost EVERYbody else has family or intimate friends with whom they can converse, practicing not only speaking (I try that in the car when nobody can hear me) but more importantly listening, processing and responding: communication.

At this point in today's blog I am reminded of my pastor/friend who I will refer to as Goatee Sean, who once started off his sermon meandering through some unforgotten point and at 45 minutes... 45 minutes... said... out loud: "..which brings me to the point of tonight's message..", at which my terrified glance was reflected back to me by the Yetti in that mutual, telepathic understanding: "You mean he hasn't even begun his sermon yet?!"

Indeed, yet context is helpful. So today in class my brain hears for the first time what my ears have heard regularly before, when Luoloashi says something like, "Oh, yes, we have learned that before.. it is on page 135," and so our fantastic four flip our textbooks to some word that may actually have been glanced over 4 weeks ago en passe ... "learned"?
And then I remember.. all the times this was said: "Oh yes, we learned that 3 months ago..", and I suddenly felt really, really sorry for some of my biology students. Not because I was being unreasonable in expecting to hold onto their hard-earned understanding of dehydration synthesis, or the monomers of proteins (amino acids, for you former students)-- a teacher.... a laoshi... is supposed to have high expectations for his/her students. Students will most likely achieve what is expected of them, whether high or low, so I aim high.
So does my laoshi; she should-- she is good at what she does.
So then I am faced with this awful realization that I AM THAT KID watching the clock, wondering when class is going to end so I can go do something that helps me feel confident about being me.
But I also know that one-time mentioning it does not teaching make.

Teaching is not lecturing. If that is true, they should fire the lot of us, including college professors, and use tuition money to buy books on tape (or mp3). Or better yet, we just surf YouTube and Wiki our way through our curiosities, if that is what teaching is.
But it is not the same, is it. That idea would be the equivalent to comparing education to painting a mural on a wall using oil paints: once it's laid down, it's good to go.
I'm sorry, but that does not speak to my reality, how my brain works. That metaphor would be more accurate for me if you used colored sand on a windy day.
No, for me teaching is best described in the metaphor of planting an apple seed in hopes of producing a tree. A planting does not a tree always make. And this is especially true if the seed is resistant to surrendering itself to the process of tree-making.
For my species of tree, the soil is best aerated and prepared beforehand, and once the seed is planted at the appropriate depth, the soil covers it and is watered to begin this process of germination.

I guess that's the idea; knowledge is growth, whether biological or linguistic. It is not a point in time, it is an organic process. Following the planting comes watering and re-watering and re-watering. And cultivation of weeds, clarifying errors that have popped up.
And once it has taken root, it is destined to produce fruit.

And so to my classmates: may we prepare to the best of our abilities.
And to our laoshi's: may you work us and tend to us as the greatest of gardeners.

I'm done.

Rhythm

Today as MegaWeave, the Mermaid and your's truly stood outside the front of our building, we were startled by the roar of the nearby beltway.
We were preparing to continue a prayer-walk started the week previous for our campus under the leadership of Dawny, and Mega' thought we should start at the front of our edifice.
We all share our stories of how we use imagination to make urban reality go away, namely road noise, and I believe we all came up with water metaphors. Because she is the MegaWeave, her's was the most appropriate match: a waterfall's rushing sound. I believe mine was a close second: the rushing of a white-water river. The Mermaid, because.. well.. she's a mermaid, said it reminded her of the ocean. Because I'm a broken person I had to correct her, and let her know why I thought that was a close match, but not the best: "The ocean speaks with a rhythm, a tidal sound like the heartbeat of the planet; this noise is constant." Something like that. Sorry.
But I reflected on it for a moment, and I liked the notion: the planet has a rhythm like the ocean tide, in.. out.. like the relaxed breathing of my dad right before he slips off into slumber in his easy chair after one of Rosemary's meals.

Rhythm. There is this pattern, this... cycle? The seasons exemplify it, even now as
The green of Spring
Has sprung this thing
Called life;
Verdant in tenderness,
This season of messiness drips
Rain upon souls of men and beast.

Perhaps it's the bipolar personality of February in Houston; perhaps it's the scent of.. sight of
Spring things that
Sprout new wings or
Budding trees that prove
That there is Life inside,
Like an expectant bride whose beauty is yet to be unveiled.

Fritillaries, bobbing and weaving today through God's Garden as I check the status of my new bird feeding stations erected therein; orange and overlooked, they do not evade the eye of childlikeness along this Gulf coast. Fritillaries; as predictable as the amazing passionate inflorescence that completes them. Predictable like it's kingly cousins who flutter to Central America and back each season, like a tide in it's rhythm of migratory Adventure.

Rhythm.
This downbeat of time, somewhere between chronos and kairos, conjures more than austral migrants; it chants from a deep spiritual whisper things ancient, even eternal. Today was such a day.

She wore ashes as she bought groceries tonight.

Daughter

Mark 5: 21-34
I think it is beautiful, how Jesus looks into her eyes and calls her "Daughter".
In the pressing mob, sensitized to the plight of man and his daughter, Jesus speaks words of restoration.
And I love how she did not give up on herself; she just finally turned to the only one who could heal that unclean source in her life.
So cool.
Jesus, I love how you love.

A Pair of Docs

Last night as I snuggled into my Jesus-pillow in the chill of furnace-less night, it struck me how convoluted my life process is, how I can be blind to my own stuff-- or more likely: how I stucco this idealized sense of reality over my own crap.
To my inner circle this is not news, this is equivalent to saying: "Fire is hot," but when yours is the lens through which the scene is captured, it's not at all that easy. After all, I often have episodes of mental acuity not unlike the three-toed sloth... I need help.

http://www.facts-about.org.uk/images/three-toed-sloth.jpg

It's like: going out for coffee after eating healthy food and afterwards, perhaps a random tooth-check in the rear-view mirror notice a piece of baby spinach the size of Kansas perfectly, smoothly laid across incisors 1 and 2; and then you realize: you ate that thing hours ago; and then you realize you've flown that dental flag all through an entire social session?
 I remember a similar incident when I ended up confronted my beloved Coach Calculus in the faculty workroom with: "I thought you were my friend! You let me walk around with THIS in my teeth?"--pointing at my mouth's keepsake-- after we had gone out for lunch.
No; friends need to take note: true friends inform buddies of tooth boogers.

So as I'm cuddling up with my "Jesus" pillow, now freshly aware that I "should" do this because I mentioned it on eHarmony once (and thus my inner Pharisee tries to run the show), regardless of the joy and comfort I get imagining going to sleep in my Lover's arms, it strikes me: I like to cuddle.
And I'm interested in dating other women, I must be, because logically-- you don't sign up and pay eHarmony if you are not interested in dating women, so I must be interested, so why do I say I'm only dating Jesus, when I'm out there chatting on eH-mail? or am I cheating on eH-mail? Am I two-timing Jesus? Why can't I just admit it to myself? I'm such a pretender; dang it. Or maybe just a frightened little boy in a world of experienced women? It's inner dialogs like this that make Woody Allen seem a neophyte at introspection.
The Apostle Paul and Jesus both recommend staying single; am I unfaithful?
So then I have this inner-demon self-abasement [squirrel!-- I like hyphens] session where I'm wondering "..am I a spiritual slut to Jesus," because I want to explore the possibility of finding my perfect match online, and then I remember: Jesus is ok with sluts, in fact Jesus LOVES sluts in a pure, holy, redemptive, bride-honoring kinda way that only He can do, because those of us who have been intimate with Him know he will not take advantage of our vulnerability.
So I guess I'm a sorta spiritual slut that Jesus adores, because He's cool like that.
I don't know what my future holds. This whole single-thing-again is a weird gig, trying perhaps for the first time in my life to discover what would be the perfect partner for an imperfect me,  but life is good and I rejoice in it's contradictions. The Paddle Partner once reminded me of a wise old sage, whose thoughts I will conclude with here, conjured from the creativity of Margery Williams:



"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

[The Velveteen Rabbit, p.12-13]

May you join me in this awesome adventure of discovery called life.
Cheers,
Jim

Bird Nerd: update Feb19

Figures.
About the time I invest in a fresh new bag of thistle seeds for the myriads of American goldfinches that were attacking my thistle-socks, they've gone. Poof. Nada. Zippo.
I thought the last few days it must have been the abundant rain, which shut down most of my regulars except the white-wings, but with the sun in full-beam, my backyard is astir with my feathered buddies.

CrazyCreek chair at open back door, best seat in the house.

The pair of Carolina wrens that live in the woodpile by my back door are doing their usual circuits: fly over to my grey rainwater catchment (redeemed trash can), up to the suet feeder (currently loaded with cayenne goodness to thwart squirrels), occasionally landing at my feet on the back porch just to make sure I'm ok, and then back to the wood pile.

A pair of Carolina chickadees make their rounds, flitting between the 3 tube feeders suspended above the back yard, then up to the evergreen Ilex, over to the green ash (appropriately verdant with this spring's leaves already), then back to the feeders. One stops and fusses at squirrel that is licking the peanut butter off a stale loaf of french bread that is impaled on dead limb of my sickly Morus tree... my favorite tree in all my life, sick with fungus, yet never refusing to provide my most spectacular migrating visitors a spring meal of ripe, white mulberries: rose-breasted grosbeaks, orchard & baltimore orioles, waxwings, painted and indigo buntings. Dear Abba, in all selfishness I plead for more years of life for this beloved tree.

As usual my mourning and white-winged doves are swarming over every flat surface that might contain spilled seeds; my platform feeder is ridiculous about 8 am with a scene fairly equivalent to a Tokyo subway in bird-world. My neighbor kids me about it, because you can see from the street the 30 to 40 dove starting to congregate in the top of the Morus, waiting for the house sparrows to come in and give the "coast's clear" signal for swarming to begin. Today the male white-wings are quite amorous in their calling... the Fraxinus' auguries must be right: spring is in the air.

A pine warbler now joins an orange-crowned warbler that has been flitting between the peanut butter smeared on the tree and the cayenne suet by the back door. About the time I think the yellow-rumped warbler has also fled northward, a male catches my attention in the top of the Morus and flits its way downward, pausing so I can confirm it with my binoculars, it's back to the afternoon sun so that its yellow rump explodes with radiance that says: I AM SO COOL!... it's times like these I truly wish I knew what kind of camera to purchase for wildlife shots like these.

A pair of blue jays must have seen or heard the doves; they just came through in their typical, raucous manner, the second lingering with it's eery clicking rattle noise that has 'velociraptor' written all through it. They apparently are less interested in the food offerings, and more interested in harassing the pair of cardinals that were there before them. It's not long before the male play's the role of slut-monkey and starts courting every available female from the boughs of the prominent trees... in fact I hear one now, about a block away, shrouded by the calls of doves, including the mourning dove (who have now joined the white-wings's call "who's cook! are youu?")... with their name-appropriate call: "I'm soo, soo bluuuue."

...and not a single goldfinch. I will post it later if they were merely out on holiday this weekend, and missed being part of my backyard bird count.

Thrice since typing I've seen the orange flutters of butterflies, gone before I get a good look. Surely they were fritillaries and not monarchs. Right? What has happened to winter?

If April showers bring May flowers, what do February showers bring?
My guess: Spring.

May God be with you: the Creator, Redeemer, and truly good Father. You are his precious child. May you experience new life in all that Jesus has for you, like Creation awakens from the lull of Houston winter. May the sunshine of his love warm you from the inside out.
Blessings,
Jim.

Manna from Heaven: whiners?

...
Nine hours and counting.
...
Every year I read through my One Year Bible, and it doesn't take a whole lotta time before I really start getting frustrated with mankind.
To start with? God let us run around naked in a post-Pangean paradise, eating almost anything we wanted (note: vegetarians were not considered a bit off at that time), and rules were limited to only one biggie.

..and we blew it up.

And then there was Noah's generation, so nasty that the loving Creator decided to flush the whole lot.

But my greatest "Rrrharrr!" moments come when I read myself into the script of Israel's biography. Here is a people who are unreasonably nominated to be God's very chosen people, who He keeps from starving to death by means of jacket jealousy in this amazing convoluted, perfectly planned plot, who then decide to hang out in Egypt long enough to be considered immigrant workers, and are treated as such. The get tired of the Man, so God sends Moses to take them back to their homeland, but the employers don't want to give up their laborer class, so there's this jedi battle thing with toads and hail and gnats, which are apparently significant, and they finally cross the river, this time not even getting their backs wet. They wander toward God's goal for them in a land where Moses has previously led gregarious creatures, but it was a hard land, so God had to do some miraculous stuff to provide food and water for them.

But my favorite part is Manna: God makes some organic alternative to tortilla chips show up at breakfast time every work day... all Israel has to do is pick it up and eat it or cook it or whatever.

And Israel complains. They whine about BREAD THAT FREAKING JUST CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN SO THEY DON'T STARVE TO DEATH!

One of the greatest gifts God ever gave humanity was the reality that I'm not God and don't have access to the smite button.

Because after experiencing the worst drought in history to which we lost about half our forests, entire communities were placed on water-rationing, livestock perished horribly from starvation and thirst, and fires ravaged the tinder-like pineries of Texas...
... I would probably smite the next person who complains about this gift of rain, soaking us now for almost ten hours of replenishment.
Dear Jesus, thank you for showing us the Love of the Father. We have a long way to go, because we are no different from Israel during their walk-about, and we consider blessings to be curses-- that's how foolish we are. Thank you for understanding: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Boom.
Encouragement.

Rain: It Feels like Redemption

It's not even 8 am, yet the sky is dark with thunder. It's been a long time since I've seen a storm like this morning's, which may explain why I, still clad in my pj's,  sit in my open, front doorway looking at this refreshing performance. The coolness of winds pulled down from the birthplace of rain, the power and splendor and majesty of lightning, the sudden explosion of preflashed (and thus should have been  expected) thunder like a rogue cymbal player in a tranquil sonata, the rejoicing of plants, arms lifted high in adoration-- a close first choice to the  second of curling up is a cozy bed and missing the full performance.

Terrazzo is harder than crossed legs, so I submit to the complaints from my overburdened ankles and retire to my reading chair after putting on a pot of coffee, to best digest this waking thought: rain is redemption.

The notion is not hard on some levels, especially given that last year was the worst drought in recorded history, thus the 10 inches of rain this month makes up for what was withheld previously. On that note this recent December's rains celebrated the birth of more than one savior. With this winter's precipitation comes the promise of s'mores at public campgrounds, the cessation of water rationing and the refilling of our civic water sources. The pine trees of Houston feel hope again, where last season they saw almost a half of their family members and friends perish for want.

Ruth is a beautiful story in the Hebrew scriptures about a young lass married into an orthodox family from a pagan background. She is loved and accepted, yet as she approaches that time in which most young women yearn for-- that chance to participate in life-giving-- she is cut off. Not only does her husband die, but so do the other men of his immediate family, what would be "husband-redeemers" who would step in and take on the new widow, siring children to continue the estate of the missing. With no better alternative, she follows her mother-in-law back to the lands of Israel, a pair of widows now strangers in an old land. Naomi has her old friends who can connect to her past, perhaps how people rediscover each other on Facebook thirty years after high school, yet she is stuck in her pain, mired in what she no longer has... broken vision. Then Ruth finds favor with a distant relative of her late husband. Boaz is an honorable man perhaps twice her age. Naomi moves out of self-pity and uses her cultural acuity to show Ruth how to invite Boaz into her life. I love Boaz-- here is this honorable, hard-working man who sees this beautiful woman coming into his fields to glean with the poor, but because of his being a generation older he refuses his heart from considering the possibility of any kind of relationship. That is why the first step must be Ruth's; she must enter his world and overtly let Boaz know she is interested in him, because anything less than that he will assume he is being inappropriate. And he is interested; very. And she has a new life and is cared for. And she bears a child that bears evidence that she and Naomi and you and I have not been forgotten, because that child was ancestor of David and The Son of David... which is an interesting thought: unto us a Child is born because of a younger woman being proactive in her relationships. I thought men always had to make the first move, and women always "have to" be passive participants in their own courtship. I am repeatedly entertained how God's story does NOT fit our regimes of how things are "supposed" to operate, especially in suburbia: it's good the be the King. Dear Abby: never mind.

So as the rain starts up again, and I wind down my thoughts, I consider this: we are not forgotten. In the same way the rain brings hope of things to come and immediate relief from the dry weariness of daily life... in the same way God brings two cut-off widows into restored community... so we, too, are redeemed. Our loving Abba has entered into our drought and purchased our potential with the painful penalty borne on the shredded back beginning from Boaz's baby boy.

So when you see the rain, don't miss it: it is a love song sung on tin roofs reminding us to soak in the Presence of the One who loves us so much.

You are the Beloved,
Jim.