The root of special education

Special education began in response to the great crowds of children brought to our cities by the industrial revolution. One of the forerunners in the field, Elizabeth Farrell, began an Ungraded School in New York City City in 1908, and the first special education journal, Ungraded, published from 1915-1926. 

It is possible that this seminal era of special education -- spurred by mutual responsibility and compassion rather than mere litigation -- could provide clues to the heart of our field. The excerpt below from an essay Farrell published in the first issue of Ungraded, provides three such clues. First the excerpt, then the clues.

There is the problem of the laggard. In its superficial aspects we have recognized it, but its ultimate solution is far below. The work of the school is one of unprecedented intricacy. It is inextricably bound up with all sociological problems of our time; its relation to crime, poverty, to health, to vice, is dimly perceived. The price that we now know we pay when a home is needlessly broken up is not greater than that we pay for repeaters made such by the poverty which drives the mother out early in the morning, but it is the same kind of coin.

To look back upon your own childhood you will agree that the orderly, busy breakfast time; the mother and the younger children standing at the door to wave good-by as you started for school was a time of character growth. Habits of industry, mutual helpfulness, straight-forwardness were there made into flesh and bone. Its value, who can estimate? Or that time after supper with father and mother, their day's work done, industrious with many things; that time which the poet calls the Children’s Hour. Who can count its value as evening succeeded evening all through that formative period? Would you have been the same man had you, like hundreds of children in the big cities of this land, been left asleep each morning while your mother went out into the world busy with the things of life which would not be put by, grasping from the fray food, clothing and shelter, but unable to give that nourishment to the divine spark within, the full flame of which gives meaning and value to life. The house now is the home of the body, but it must again become the home of the souls of children. The children must be taken back from the street and the factory and restored to the home. The mother must be freed from lesser things in order to develop the greater unity, character and strength in her children.

First, education is a response to everyone's problems. "It is inextricably bound up with all the sociological problems of (its) time." Foremost in the 1910s was the industrial revolution's impact on homes. Today's homes are still feeling this impact, along with myriad other detrimental influences that are beyond this post's scope to list, most of which are seen in teacher and student alike. To teach is not to solve our problems, but to address them as we can in our time. To teach with wisdom, then, is to work doggedly for improved outcomes, but to ever bear in mind the limits inherent in our work.

Next, Farrell understands education as a thing of "unprecedented intricacy." This contrasts with the spirit of "evidence based practices" which  are now required by federal law, and presume that if we simply find the programs that work, and implement them correctly, we will gain our desired results (leaving no child behind, closing achievement gaps, etc.). Teachers know that good programs and practices are valuable tools, but we also know how many teacher, classroom, and student factors must be accounted for and managed in order for any program to be worth the box it came in. My bias is that special educators are prone to a closer knowledge of this intricacy than other teachers thanks to a more intimate knowledge of fewer students.

Finally, she understand that schools don't have any influence on children, laggard or otherwise, the way families do. In today's schools, we are trying to address the character of children in the face of disintegrated families, for whom no semblance of a "Children's Hour" exists. What is the ideal cure for the "laggard?" An intensive small group therapy? A behavioral plan that perfectly meets the needs he is communicating with his problem behaviors? An evidence-based practice implemented with fidelity? Not according to Farrell. She prescribes"...a mother...freed from lesser things in order to develop the greater unity, character and strength in her children."

N.T. Wright talks tech

I've written here before about N.T. Wright, and how he's helped me through seasons of doubt. I've also written of my uneasiness with technological "progress." Today I watched a dialogue  between Wright and Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal, and other Silicon Valley startups. Among other things, they spoke about death, the future, and imagination. I planned on watching just 10 minutes of the 2 hour interview but got sucked in. Maybe you'll get sucked in too.

My takeaways are these:

1. I was struck by the charity exhibited by both Wright and Thiel. They clearly disagreed pretty sharply with one another. Their starting places are vastly different (a biblical scholar/theologian and a futuristic entrepreneur) which led them to wildly different conclusions. But they were kind.

2. Having the upper hand, Wright was especially kind. They are both widely read and well spoken, but Wright's mastery of history and scripture put him a on a different plane. Despite his intellectual superiority, Wright never spiked the football.

3. I hope to see such charitable conversations between believing scholars and non-believers occur at Olivet. I think it could happen.

4. There was a lightness and joyfulness in Wright that Thiel did not possess. This fact alone doesn't prove anything, but it was plainly the case.

The Mad Pontiff's Liberation Front

Reading the Encyclical that I talked about in my last post, I kept thinking how much the writing sounded like Wendell Berry. For example, the encyclical avoided vagaries that could easily be sidestepped by targeting specific corrupt behaviors and mentalities. It made clear that merely blaming corporations for our ills was not sufficient. To the Pope, as it has always been for Berry, caring for the Earth means consuming less, delighting in creation, and trusting God. Indulge me a couple more excerpts.

Specific Behavioral Target: Air Conditioning

People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behavior, which at times appears self-destructive.

 Specific Mental Target: Secular Humanism

The best way to restore men and women to their rightful place, putting an end to their claim to absolute dominion over the earth, is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the world. Otherwise, human beings will always try to impose their own laws and interests on reality.

The commonalities between Berry and Francis eventually come to a halt. Berry describes himself as a Christian,  but also as a bad-weather church-goer (when it's nice, he Sabbaths outdoors). Francis is, well, Pope. This makes the commonality all the more compelling. What is going on here that would cause two thinkers who, on the surface, draw from such distinct wells, to behold the same cups of water?  There's more comparing the Encyclical and Berry's lifelong work in this First Things Article,The Pope and The Plowman, by John Murdock. Murdock's discussion is rich and nuanced. And important. Let us engage and repent.

 

Encyclical Highlights

Pope Francis's Encyclical, Laudato Si, is wonderful. It presents a well-reasoned treatment of our responsibility to care for the Earth that flows from the Bible and from church history, It is written with a pastoral heart, not just for Catholics or Christians, but for all of humanity. Calling us to live within limits, the encyclical suggests that our purchases and pace of life are moral issues. It is written with the duty to care for the world's very poor as its primary concern, and makes clear that our agricultural and environmental problems issue from cultural problems.

Point after point is worth reading and reflecting on, but I want to highlight a few.   

The fourth section of the first chapter - Decline in the quality of human life and the breakdown of society - is beautifully crafted. The 49th paragraph makes a point I tried to articulate in my 2011 post How to Be a Rich Christian (To remind myself): We cannot reasonably expect to understand or solve the problems of poor people when we are insulated from them. To this point, Francis seems to add that we cannot expect to understand or solve the problems of the poor Earth, while being insulated from it, either.

49. It needs to be said that, generally speaking, there is little in the way of clear awareness of problems which especially affect the excluded. Yet they are the majority of the planet’s population, billions of people. These days, they are mentioned in international political and economic discussions, but one often has the impression that their problems are brought up as an afterthought, a question which gets added almost out of duty or in a tangential way, if not treated merely as collateral damage. Indeed, when all is said and done, they frequently remain at the bottom of the pile. This is due partly to the fact that many professionals, opinion makers, communications media and centres of power, being located in affluent urban areas, are far removed from the poor, with little direct contact with their problems. They live and reason from the comfortable position of a high level of development and a quality of life well beyond the reach of the majority of the world’s population. This lack of physical contact and encounter, encouraged at times by the disintegration of our cities, can lead to a numbing of conscience and to tendentious analyses which neglect parts of reality. At times this attitude exists side by side with a “green” rhetoric. Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Also...

 Many people will deny doing anything wrong because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is. As a result, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenceless before the interests of a diefied market.

 And...

For all our limitations, gestures of generosity, solidarity and care cannot but well up within us, since we were made for love.

I could go on pulling out highlights for a long time. But I won't. Read the full text of the encyclical here. What are your takeaways?

This just in...

The kids put this trailer together to show what's new with us. Gulp and Glory.

Liesel Meminger's Amygdala

I'm taking a class this summer called, "The Mind, Brain Science, and Learning." If I have an alley, this class is up it. The first topic we're discussing is "Emotions and Learning." Specifically, we're talking about the brain systems that correspond with negative emotion, and their impact on learning. (For a great discussion on the matter, check out this video). Neuroscience from the last 20 years has taught us some nuts and bolts of relatedness, but those nuts and bolts have been operating for a long, long time.

This post is about the long, long time. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak  takes place in Nazi Germany, before anyone knew that the amygdala triggers the hypothalamus, and that it matters. One of its characters, Hans Humberman, shows the power of relatedness. He is the German foster father of Leisel Meminger, who experiences nightly nightmares after her brother died en route to Hans's house.

Those first few months were definitely the hardest.
Every night, Liesel would nightmare.
Her brother's face.
Staring at the floor.
She would wake up swimming in her bed, screaming, and drowning in the flood of sheets. On the other side of the room, the bed that was meant for her brother floated boatlike in the darkness. Slowly, with the arrival of consciousness, it sank, seemingly into the floor. This vision didn't help matters, and it would usually be quite a while before the screaming stopped. 
Possibly the only good to come out of these nightmares was that it brought Hans Humbermann, her new papa, into the room, to soothe her, to love her.
He came in every night and sat with her. The first couple of times, he simply stayed - a stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, "Shh, I'm here. It's all right." After three weeks, he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans Humbermann would always appear midscream, and he would not leave. 

*** A DEFINITION NOT FOUND ***

IN THE DICTIONARY

Not leaving: an act of trust and love,

often deciphered by children

We now know a little more about what's happening when the Hans Hubermanns of the world slay aloneness with thereness. But that Hans Hubermanns existed should disallow us to confuse deeper knowledge for something new. 

Thank you

Before this semester begins, I want to take some time to share that I am deeply grateful for all the help we’ve gotten this summer since Beth has been sick. We were talking a couple days ago about how this has been a really hard summer for the two of us, but that despite this, the kids have had as full a summer as they’ve ever had. This is because of so many different people carrying us along.

I’m thinking of families that took kids to baseball practice, or that swung by to see who could go to the park. There were more offers for summer kid activities than there were summer days to accept them. I’m thinking of our church buying the kids school supplies before we’d ever had the thought, “we should figure out what to do about school supplies.” There were cards, facebook messages and e-mails, and genuine concern. I was touched when the librarian whom I’d never met saw me with the kids, connected the dots, and asked how my wife was feeling. People cleaned our house, mowed our lawn, did our laundry. People came from a long way away just to sit by Beth’s side during those first terrible weeks. There was meal after meal after meal. And there was prayer, which we have felt, and I’m not just saying that.

Several have asked, so I’ll just include here the most recent schooling update. As of this writing (8/11) Isaac (g5) will be at King, Suzie (g4) at Montessori, Eli (g2)and Steuben and Leeli (pre-K) at Mark Twain. Four schools will be a drag, but we are still glad that the American public school system, for all its faults, is nimble enough to accommodate four last-minute Stipps.  

Against a Closed Sky

Part of teaching at a Christian university means starting class with a prayer or devotional thought. I decided early on that I would not be busting out with an extemporaneous personal reflection each class session, so I began looking for something I could read to my class. A friend suggested using prayers from the book, Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth by Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann. Beyond helping me start class, the book has been a bright spot for my own spiritual walk this year.

These prayers/poems are cut from the same cloth as the Psalms. Like the Psalms, they are the expression of a man who is not at peace with the world, yet looking to God for its redemption. They reflect trust - that easily known but hardly experienced heart of the Christian journey.

Below is one example, very much appropriate for lent or Holy Week, those days in which the tomb is still full.

Against a closed sky

by Walter Brueggemann

God of all our times:

 We have known since the day of our birth

 that our primal task is to grow to basic trust in you,

 to rely on you in every circumstance,

 to know that you would return when you are away,

 to trust that in your absence you will soon be present,

 to be assured that your silence bespeaks attentiveness

      and not neglect,

 to know that in your abiding faithfulness,

    “all will be well and all will be well.”

We do trust in you:

                We are named by your name,

                And bonded in your service.

                We are among those who sing your praise

                and who know your deep faithfulness.

You, you, however, are not easy to trust:

 We pray against a closed sky;

our hopes reduced to auto-suggestion;

our petitions are more habit than hope;

our intercessions are kindly gestures of well-being.

Sometimes more, many times not,

                Because your silence and absence,

                Your indifference and tardiness are glaring among us.

We are drawn to find lesser gods,

easier loyalties,

many forms of self-trust …

that do not even fool us.

On this Friday of remembered pain and

 echoing deathliness,

We pray for new measures of passion,

for fresh waves of resolve,

for courage, energy, and freedom, to be our true selves …

waiting in confidence,

and while waiting, acting our life toward you

in your ways of forgiving generosity.

We pray in the name of Jesus who trusted fully, and

                                who is himself fully worthy of our trust. Amen.

 

Robins

I met my Beth thirteen years ago today. We had our first date three days later, and pledged our lives to one another (unofficially) two weeks after that. Capricious, unwise, love-drunk fools we were. Five kids and thirteen years later, I am as enraptured with this woman as I’ve ever been. 

In the last few years Beth has developed into a fine writer - something you’ll know if she has sent you a heart-felt Facebook message at 2 in the morning because she can’t stop thinking about what’s weighing you down. What I like about the way she writes is that nothing ends tied up in a ribbon. You always get the sense that she and her audience are right in the thick of things, and that she expects nothing less or easier of her audience or herself. It’s this mentality that has led her to dub our new home in Kankakee, The Thicket.

 

She’s given me permission to post one of her journal entries. She wrote it in the backyard at our old Chicago house, The Roadstead. She wrote it during some very hard days, when it was becoming clear that God was leading our family to a place she couldn’t imagine being home. As much as I’d love to wrap THAT up with a ribbon, I’ll stop here and paste in her journal entry. Enjoy.

May 8, 2013 8:45am

Robins listening, glistening.

Christening my day

with care.

I prayed again at group last night. I was brought to the memory of watching the robins in the backyard last week. Watching how they bent low to listen for the worms and then spiked their beaks into the earth, made softer by the sprinkler water, to catch one up. I had gone outside to sit and be still and listen for God's voice. I was (am) in deep need of knowing his nearness and had grabbed the few minutes of occupied children to sneak outside. Left the Kitchen of the Sticky Floor just as it was, true to it's name, and put off the start of schooling for the day. I needed to hear from God. I needed to connect because I knew (know) in my knowledge-brain that all of these feelings about being dragged along on the Olivet journey and about my experience not mattering as much as Brian's and about there not being life and joy where we're going were not, and are not, true. So I sat out there and tried to connect again so that I could hear from Jesus how untrue those things were. I needed help transferring the truth over to my heart-brain. As I was sitting/thinking/praying/being, I kept being distracted with those robins.

How regal and stately they were. How they walked through the spray as if they didn't even notice it, were unfazed and unimpressed by it. But I saw their eyes.

They loved it. They relished in the cool drops that polished their slate backs. They knew, too, that the unsuspecting worms would be inching closer to the surface in response to the artificial rain.

                                                               

And how the Sun blazed through those drops. It had no concern about where the water was coming from or if it was a good decision, by some mortal being, to spend water on new grass seed. It wasn't thinking what I was…about how it was a good decision to plant that grass and it was worth the water spent to maintain the Roadstead's secret, safe soccer/tag/baseball/colors game/apples-and-peanutbutter-for-a-snack field that my children and so many others rest and play and simply are in throughout the summer. The Sun was not being so reflective. It was simply reflecting and flashing and prism-ing each one of those sprinkler drops like it may never rain again.

So, as I watched those robins, I asked Jesus to make me aware of his presence. And, ever so softly, so as to not startle the birds, I'm sure, he told me that he had put those birds there for me to watch. And I sensed, ever so subtly and gently, his hand shooing them over into our yard to put on a show for me. And I resisted it at first (ah, beth, you of weak faith), because we have lots of robin friends who visit often. But then I asked, how do I feel that Jesus put those robins there for me?

Cared for. So very cared for. And noticed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now I sit at McKinley Park, abandoning my school-mistress responsibilities for the morning, and there is a teeky tiny little red bug crawling on the once-painted-black-many-moons-ago picnic table. So I watch it scurry and I ask, Jesus, help me be aware of your presence. And he says, 'watch'. So I do. And the bug scampers around and then disappears into a crevice of the used-to-be-a-strong-beautiful-tree plank of the table. It's gone from me. But there is another little bug flitting around the table too. And Jesus says, 'there is life'. Here. There. (Wherever there ends up being).

             Does this feel true, I'm asking.

               

Yes. Yes it does. Very gently, it does. Creator is here with me. And Creator is there. There is life.

I said to the Almond tree,

Speak to me of God.

And the almond tree blossomed.

                (N.K.)

Glory be.

Firing this blog back up...

It's been a while, but it's time to start blogging again.

These two videos will lead me off.

The first, an appalling Cadillac ad, portraying America in its worst light. Perhaps you've seen it.

The second, Ford's parody. Well done, Ford.

The Whole Thing's Holy: The Whole Shoot and Match

I've been waiting for some sort of documentary that would broadcast just how important is the life and work of Wendell Berry. This one hour video below is a real nice start. Most of it is a television interview. It also includes short clips that describes details of his life that don't come out in the interview. Clear out some space in your life and watch it.

Wendell Berry: Poet and Prophet from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Classroom quips, chapter the last

Cleaning out my public school teacher's desk perhaps for the last time, I found my notebook of quips. I'll miss these kids dearly.

9/22/11
To set up a debate, I had the kids divide themselves between pacifists and supporters of war. Most kids went the war-supporting side. One of the pacifists, a sixth grader, looked across at his opponents and mumbled, "you people are sick."

8/15/12
me: (inspirationally) I want you guys to write a paragraph about he person YOU ARE.

Mariano: 256!

me: what, Mariano?

Mariano: It's 128 times 2

me: couldn't have said it better myself


10/2012
Gerardo was crying in class. When I asked him why, he wouldn't speak. I allowed him to write about his feelings, and he wrote that he was scared of Captain Underpants books at his house. I told him he should stop reading those books.

The next day, he came in with two Captain Underpants books and set them on my desk. I said to him, "oh, you want to give these to me because they're scared to have them at your house?"

He nodded and replied, "four dollars."

I got out my wallet and completed the unforeseen transaction. Gerardo walked back to his seat as if this interaction fit squarely into his expectations.

1/2013
Mario: Man, kids are saying I have ADD.

Me: You do.

Mario: Aww, man! I'm crazy?!

Me: No, that just means you have a hard time paying attention.

Mario: Oh, good.

2/2013
Me: Do any of you have a step mom or step dad?

Niko: I have a whole bunch of step dads!

6/2013
Rosa: Who was George Bush again?

Paloma: the white guy....the president....we hated.

When Computers Teach

Last December, during our school's holiday break, I went to my school building for a training on a new computer-based teaching program, "Compass Learning  Odyssey 2012." I went mostly to honor the bold and adventuresome name, which indicated to me that this would be the program. The one to take the students on a learning odyssey! 

Now until that day, the web-based programs I had tried had been predictably lame. Rabbits teaching letter sounds, or encouraging skateboarders that reinforce correct answers with either a "Keep it up, DUDE!" or a "Aww, BUMMER! Let's rock that one again!"  But this December day, I hoped that finally, 15 years after the internet itself went viral, there would be an on-line program to truly teach my kids. 

So with adventure in my heart, and a compass in my pocket just in case, I entered our school's library-turned computer lab. Imagine a nice-sized school library whose walls have shelves who have books who have authors who have names like Dahl, and Soto, and Myers, and Rowling, and Lewis and Sachar. And that's just the fiction. There are shelves of biographies, too, and histories and books about sports and books about nature. 

But the books are no longer the library's main attraction. In fact, the books have become a mere decorative perimeter, wedged in tightly, fitted wherever space allows. But the area of the library, the space where students learn and think, is now taken up by rows and clusters of computers. It is to one of these computers that I sat down to do a little learning and thinking of my own. Luckily, I had a guide.  

The smiling Compass Learning Odyssey 2012 trainer asked me what I teach and I told her 6th grade Special Ed.. Well, that was all she needed.  The selling points - tailor made for a 6th grade Special Ed. teacher - came out in rapid fire. How I could take a kid's IEP goal and design activities streamlined for that kid, and how it is completely aligned to the Common Core State Standards for Reading and Math, to NWEA MAP RIT scores, to the Descartes framework (which she pronounced Daycarts). She told me that the program is workable with RTI and even has 3 tiers of activities per grade level.  It even has an IEP goal writing tool! She went on with selling points I didn't even understand, while I nodded with feigned confidence and admiration.

I thought that maybe she was a salesperson, a position which could cloud her understanding of the product's objective awesomeness. So I decided to ask her a hardball question. "How will I know if the children are getting better at reading and math and not just clicking around on the mouse?" And whoo boy if she wasn't ready for that one!  She wasn't just going to tell me how. She was going to show me. 

She directed me to the log on to the teacher portal where I can assign a pre-test to my students that will allow me to see exactly where they need improvement, to monitor progress and their time allocation:  jobs that in the old days I had to perform by physically interacting with kids. But not anymore. With Compass Learning Odyssey 2012, my students would be going on learning odysseys without me! 

To the portal we headed, but there was a glitch with the portal. ("Aww, BUMMER!" I thought). That the trainer was surprised at the glitch, reminded me of my vast experience with glitches. I remembered all the hours spent on glitches, and wondered how much teaching time has turned into glitch-fix time in my 10 years at this job. Glitches with passwords, glitches with mice. Glitches with LCD projector cords and and some with bulbs. Slow Internet, no internet, internet on some computers but not on others. The wrong browser, the programs not installed. Viruses. Printer failures and lost documents. The times kids went to the wrong site on accident, and the times they went to them on purpose.  The time I came to  school early to find pornographic videos on the desktop of a student computer. The time I tried to find a black and white smiley face on Google Images with a 5th grade boy watching as  a woman holding her naked breast popped onto the screen.

For the present glitch, my trainer needed to go to her computer. While she did, I began to wonder how I would spend my excess time now that I'd be managing work from the portal. I found myself drifting to my fantasy football page. Lest you judge, I want to be clear about the fact that I didn't decide to go to the fantasy football page. I drifted. What I did decide to do was drop Eric Decker and pick up T.Y. Hilton for the upcoming match. The trainer was on the phone with the help desk, working one last minor kink, and I got to thinking  how many fantasy football moves I'll be able to make while the students are away on their respective learning odysseys. 

Well, we never were able to get onto the portal. Something about the browsers in our lab not being optimal. But the trainer did us one better: she logged us on as students. Maybe because she was recognizing my wayward tendencies, she stood next to me as I picked my first learning adventure. From the list of eight reading skills, I picked "Cause and Effect." 

To start off the session, a robot danced onto the screen, singing, 

"I'm Mr. Bot 
I will teach you a lot
open your mind 
and bring all you got

We'll get better at reading
and math to be sure
on this Learning
Odyssey Adventure.

The trainer whispered to me, "All the lessons start off with Mr. Bot. I just think it's so cute how the program designers use a robot to start the session. The kids really love that robot dance. Plus, research says that kids pay attention better with flashing lights and music than to a human voice." 

The robot got to explaining Cause and Effect. I didn't hear his whole spiel because my trainer kept whispering about the reading passages the program uses: they use non-controversial non-fiction passages, they use kid friendly language, and they always highlight and define words that may be tricky. But throughout her whispering, I did hear Mr. Bot say that the characters within a story (or subjects within a history) often cannot see how their actions will lead to effects. 

And this idea got led me to think about the effects of programs like these: "Where is all of this going? Has education devolved to a world where the newest teaching techniques require a salesperson? What is happening when an enthusiastic robot interacts more with my students than I do? Can't I perform the core roles of a teacher -  instructing, assessing, caring  - better than this machine?" 

With high-minded idealism I began to excuse myself from the training session. 

But when I noticed my trainer had gone to help someone else, I dropped the idealism like I'd dropped Eric Decker and wandered back to the Fantasy Football page. Who was Cleveland playing this week, anyway? 

The Blessed Wildness

when what we believe breaks down

"...But what we believe doesn't matter unless we know who we believe. And when what we believe breaks down, if we trust who we believe, then even we don't understand, or are uncertain about things,  we can trust the person that we believe." 

I used to be a doubter. I went through season of intense doubt, and more than once seriously considered walking away from Christianity. But my experience over the last 18 months of connecting with Jesus, and helping others connect with Jesus has changed that part of me. I haven't doubted since. The video below is from Jessie Handy, a trainer in the Immanuel Approach to Healing and to Life. I was in the class when she gave this devotional, and I was writing feverishly, trying to capture what she said. This morning I found the video. It reflects exactly what I have experienced.

I Know Whom I Have Believed from Alive and Well, Inc on Vimeo.

Signs that wonderful things are afoot

This is a link to a fascinating Fresh Air interview by Terri Gross with Sam Parnia, a scientist studying resuscitated cardiac arrest patients.

Regardless of culture or religion, people around the world are reporting stories of the time between their technical death and their resuscitation that share the following themes:

They describe watching things in the hospital and recall conversations in the hospital room that happened while they were dead.
They feel incredibly peaceful.
They no longer fear death.
They see a warm light.
They feel that a warm, welcoming,  loving, compassionate being leading them through their experience.
They see a review of their lives, form early childhood to their death.
They experience the pain they have given others during their lives. They judge themselves (within the presence of the warm compassionate being I presume) and come back committed to living better.
They felt a sensation of detaching from their body, looking down at their hospital room, and seeing and hearing conversations that occurred in other rooms.

(By the way, these experiences are universal regardless of culture or religion).

The "warm, welcoming, loving, compassionate being" sounds quite congruous with the Jesus that I and many of my friends have encountered using the Immanuel Approach to prayer. Dr. Parnia's conclusion is that we humans no longer need to fear death. The story is all the more interesting because in the end Dr. Parnia explains that he holds no religious views.

Give it a listen, and let's talk about it.

March 6, 2013, in the backyard

My favorite part is Eli's stockpile of snowballs toward the end. What's yours?