Lessons

I do not understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.

Anne Lamott

From eight to three, five days a week for 130 days in Room 309, we’ve exchanged our stories—some wrought with loss and grief, others joy and adventure, and oh yes, there is plenty of story to go around for these young souls.

We’ve exchanged words—some soft and raw, carved on the page, others fashioned into misguided daggers that pierced right through and still others only read on the pages of the pupils that glisten with defeat.

We’ve shared photographs of smiling families near and far, kimbap and chocolate chip cookies handcrafted with love, inside jokes and wild laughter, knowledge and warm understanding.

So much hard and good has passed between these twenty-one sets of hands, eyes, hearts.

This one who was supposed to know something knows so very little of life and everything is in process. I’ve become a student of endurance, patience, the battle for peace and this training ground called a classroom is a training ground for teachers too. It’s taken two full years to even reach the surface, observe. Some things are forged slow.

In the midst of assessments and deadlines and proof of progress, I’ve come to hold high the idea that there is always time. To watch that clip about the giant squid or put everything on hold for a conversation that could soothe an aching soul or give brains a break and just dance. Work will be there in the morning, but moments to love, really love well, are often fleeting.

Oh, and “everyone you meet has only got this thin membrane between the world and their soul” and every single one of us, from peasants to palaces, needs reassurance, encouragement spoken over us. So give it—freely and intentionally.

I’ve learned that to be human is to forget—homework and meetings and God’s never-ending, never-giving-up love for us. And not just once, but time after time after time. And after you forget, you must breathe and show yourself grace and others grace and don’t worry, it will happen again.

These and so many more, they're still happening-- lessons, habits, cognitive corrections, adding new and releasing old. Grace, she is a kind teacher and we are never the same!