King of the Jungle

There's this old Steven Curtis Chapman song called "King of the Jungle", and it is running through my head right now.

Well the day has just begun and I'm already running late

with too many irons in the fire and too much on my plate

I'd be pulling out my hair if I could just get one hand free

and I'd stop this world if I could find the key

My week hasn't even begun, and I'm already feeling buried! I took yesterday off to paint with a friend, and spent the whole day today with my family. It was refreshing and restful. But I know tomorrow I have to get back to the grind, and there's so much to do that, as I began to think about the upcoming week, I realized I was already double-booked for 8 a.m. tomorrow morning! Let's hope that's not a foreshadowing of things to come.

A Brief Thought

If you're considering making a cookie pizza, and you think about stuffing an entire jumbo-size roll of store-bought cookie dough onto the pizza sheet, don't do it. The flames from bits of dough that have flowed over the sides of the pan and caught on fire at the bottom of the oven will then consume the rest of the cookie pizza baking above it. Even those parts not charred by the flames will have an odd mingling of sweetness and smoke when you taste them.

You may have guessed by now that I just foolishly did such a thing, and you would be right. In fact, I think I might need to go outside (at least it's 70 out there) to avoid excessive smoke inhalation.

The State of Music Today

I'm not one who frequently posts links on my blog, but this one might be worth it.

If you're not familiar with Willow Smith and her "Whip My Hair" song, the video will not be as funny. Nor will it be as funny if you don't realize that what you are watching is in fact Jimmy Fallon impersonating Neil Young. In terms of impressions, it ranks just behind Larry Norman's take on John Wayne as a Roman Centurion.

Enjoy!

A Sea of Pages

I've been reading a lot more lately. Perhaps that's why I haven't blogged in a bit. But, to be fair, I was blogging at an insane pace for a while there, and it was mostly due to all the snow days when I was sitting around with nothing to do. But back to books. The list of what I am currently reading includes:

1) The Bible
2) Sum (David Eagleman) A neuroscientist give 40 snippets on what the afterlife might be like
3) Severe Mercy (Sheldon Vanauken) The story of a love...not a love story.
4) Rigor is Not a Four Letter Word (Barbara Blackburn) A book study for AP teachers
5) Never Work Harder Than Your Students (Robyn Renee Jackson) A book study for any teacher at CHS
6) An Arrow Pointing to Heaven (James Bryan Smith) Biography of Rich Mullins

For a while there it seemed like I had sort of forgotten how enjoyable reading can be. I should probably focus on one at a time, but I'm never quite content with that. For all my complaints of being busy, I guess I enjoy having much to consider and many ways to engage myself.

With the end of the season this past week, there was a let-down in many of my activities or goals for this year. I struggled to draw daily. I lapsed in my 6-week goal toward 100 consecutive push-ups (though this was also due partly to frustration, as I know I am not on track to make it). I slept in. I basically shut down.

But this week, I must prepare students for their upcoming art show. I have to continue to work and improve in all those areas of my life that I reflect on and think, "I could be better." It won't be easy, but I'm sure it will be good.

"Is There Anything I Can Do For You...Today?"

As it often works in my mind, there are several thoughts (and one is from a movie; another from a song) swirling in my head and mingling into a unified whole.

Every New Day (Five Iron Frenzy)
When I was young, the further I could reach was not so high, then I
thought the world was so much smaller feeling I could fly
I believed in what I hoped for, and I hoped in things unseen
I had wings and dreams could soar
I just don't feel like flying anymore

When the stars through down their spears
watered heaven with their tears
before words were spoken
before eternity

Dear Father I need you, your strength my heart to mend
I want to fly higher every new day again

(Man versus himself, man versus machine, man versus the world, mankind versus me
the struggles go on, the wisdom I lack, the burdens keep piling up on my back
so hard to breathe, to take the next step, the mountain is high, I wait in the depths
yearning for grace and hoping for peace, dear God increase)

Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again
Jesus Christ light of the world burning bright within our hearts forever
Freedom means love without condition, without a beginning or an end
Here's my heart, let it be forever yours. Only you can make every new day seem so new.

How much good can one man do? Depending on the intonation, that can sound like a question posed from a defeated perspective. I mean, really, I'm only one person--what can I really accomplish?
But from another point of view, it is a question touching on possibility: how much good can one man do? How many opportunities are out there, if I just watch for them? How many times a day am I presented with the possibility to treat someone with kindness, to give of myself, to act on their behalf because they are more important than I am?

I don't know if I need to tell you this, but I'm a very selfish person. I spend most of my day thinking about how I can make my life easier, how I can shirk responsibilities in order to pursue pleasure, how I can find enjoyment rather than fulfillment. That drives me crazy! I would think that by this time in my life I would understand that fulfillment always trumps all those other petty things, but then I wake up the next morning and spend the whole day yelling, "ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!!"

I love the movie "Groundhog Day." I started watching it again the other day on, you guessed it, Groundhog Day. I just finished it up tonight, and the point of the movie struck me in a particularly poignant way. The only thing that broke the monotony of the day was caring for others. The only way out of desperation and depression and loneliness and a lifeless existence was to live for others. Phil spend all his time (in the first half of the movie) tyring to enjoy every sensual pleasure. Then he tries to manufacture love (and, basically, tries to get in a girl's pants). Finally, when all hope is gone, he stops and articulates what he finds beautiful about that girl he is chasing: she is kind and good, treating others well. From that point on he thinks about others, bringing them gifts, encouraging them, helping them when they're in need. He stops living for himself and starts living for others, and in that moment--in living "in the moment"--he finds that he is truly happy.

This is a profound thing. I find that days seem to pass without number, that I go through the motions, that each day is the same, old, same-old. I long to "fly higher" with every new day.

I've been reading about Rich Mullins in this great biography on his life, "An Arrow Pointing to Heaven," and I was reminded about "the wreckless raging fury that they call the love of God." The grace and love of God are so great they go beyond our understanding. To be completely honest, I really struggle to believe that I'm worth receiving them. That was my prayer as I walked the dog this morning: the day was still wrapped in darkness, but the early morning glowed in the cover of freshly fallen snow, and as it fluttered down on me, and as I made fresh tracks in virgin drifts, I asked for belief in pureness and newness like this morning. I want to believe that God gives new beginnings, but I've asked for so many I feel like I don't deserve another. What it comes down to, I realize, is turning my attention FROM me and TO my wife, my kids, my students, the neighbors, and all the people who cross my path that need Jesus's love.

Coach Jesus

It's official: no school tomorrow either. We will have had almost a week of vacation due to a single snow "storm." Crazy.

Still, I've been enjoying (most of) the break. Certainly yesterday was a bit too eventful for my taste, but the other two have been very mellow and low key. The biggest blessing of being away from school for a week has been the break from basketball. With all the complaining and drama it's been awesome to have zero contact with players (and their parents). And being a JV coach, this week has basically been nullified. We likely won't make up the two games we will miss (having no school tomorrow will also cancel Friday's game), and we've had no practice (our district has a policy to have no extracurriculars when school is cancelled). Plus, this has been the last full week of practice, and so we'll just work out on Monday and conclude the season on Tuesday...and be done with it all. That is just a huge blessing.

But having read my brother's blog today, I was reminded of basketball in another way. He wrote about filling out tax forms as Jesus, and it makes me wonder if I've coached like Jesus. And I think about this a lot, actually, because of one girl on the varsity team. When I first started coaching, I was virtually unknown to the girls, but some of them did remember me from the previous year at Central as "the guy who looked like Jesus" (see above). The hair and beard were gone, but one girl took to calling me, simply, Jesus. This has persisted for two years, though she's the only one who does it. She recently told me that she refers to me that way almost exclusively, so much so that her mom asked her, following last week's game, "I didn't see Jesus on the bench--is he okay?" (I was filming the game, incidentally). That's awesome--Jesus wasn't on the bench.

But when it is phrased like that, and when I remember that I really am Jesus (Gal. 2:20) to these girls and all who see me, I hope I'm living up to that high calling in more than just hairstyle.

The Great Freeze of 2011

Two Two One One.

A day that will live in infamy.

Oh the horror! In the early morning hours on Tuesday, a terrible "wintery mix" rained down upon poor Keller, TX. We awoke to find ourselves BLANKETED in ONE WHOLE INCH of snow!! (To be fair, there was some slush and ice underneath the snow.) In the face of such insurmountable betrayal by Jack Frost, it was decided the Metroplex should shut down. Both Fort Worth and Keller ISD's (among countless others) closed on Tuesday.
But what's this? With temperatures hovering in the teens, that stubborn ice would not melt. And because of this, the schools would stay closed for not one, but two more days (we will not be going back tomorrow either).

So while blizzards rage in the northwest, we won't go to school because of lack of preparedness. It would have taken one snow plow, one salt truck, a single one-hour delay on Tuesday, and all these days off could have been avoided. I know, we are setting record low temperatures, and I know it's probably a cost-effective solution in the south to just sit and wait for a thaw (instead of buying equipment that will rarely be used), but the northerner in me bristles at such inability to deal with cold.

But that is nothing compared to the drama of today. It wasn't just that we woke up to having no power. It has nothing to do with our frozen pipes and lack of water. It started just after 8 am. The boys were excited to go sledding like they had yesterday. They got changed and went out as Heather and I were eating breakfast. They weren't gone for very long when Brennan came bursting into the breezeway crying. Usually this means that Aydan has hurt him in some way. But when he came through the door we could see he was wet. As I assured him he would be okay and we would warm him up, his words chilled my heart: "We fell in the creek...AND AYDAN IS STUCK!"

I sprinted out of the house in bare feet, pounding my feet into jagged ice, slipping and sliding as I raced to the sledding hill. When I neared I could see Aydan's black form clinging to the steep bank of Bear Creek. I pulled him out, stripped him down, took off my clothes and put them on him. In no time, Heather had flagged down a city of Keller employee, who radioed the police. Soon we were in an ambulance and headed to Baylor Grapevine.

At the hospital Aydan was connected to a heated IV and placed under a heating blanket. It took him several hours for his core temperature to get back to normal (at one point I think it was 92.3 degrees). I called home to check on Brennan, and thankfully he was doing fine. In the time while Aydan was being warmed, more of the story came together. Brennan had gone down the hill backward and, unaware how close he was getting, fell into the creek. Since Aydan could see he was in trouble and wouldn't be able to get out on his own he immediately jumped in to save him. He pushed Brennan out, having him stand on his head, and then tried to get out himself. When he couldn't, he sent Brennan to the closest houses on the edge of the park. Finding no one home there, Brennan then came home to get us. It is likely that from first entry into the water, Aydan was wet, frozen and exposed for 10 minutes.

And how do I feel about all this? Am I proud of Aydan for jumping to the rescue of his brother? Absolutely. Am I proud of Brennan for pushing his cold and wet body to find help for his brother? Without question. It fills my heart with gladness to know that, when push comes to shove, the boys will literally lay down their lives for each other. Do I think that I am blessed with quick-thinking, tough and determined boys? Of course. Do I love my boys and hold them tight, knowing things could have gone very badly today? I love them even more. But do you know what emotion dominates all of these? Shame. With tears in my eyes I apologized to Aydan in the emergency room. I am sorry I wasn't there. I'm ashamed that I let them go out without me. It makes me sick to think that my two sons were sitting in a freezing creek, scared that they might not make it, and fearful that I would not come. I should not have had to come; I should have been sledding with them and helping to keep them out of trouble.

So thanks be to God for protecting my kids and providing the help we needed. We're back to normal now, and hoping that tomorrow's snow day will be a bit less eventful than today.