Where the Light Is

In case you don't know, in my imagination, I am close friends with John Mayer. I imagine, from his lyrics, his interviews, his music, that I know him. I know he's said some crappy things over the years, but I know, from knowing him as a friend in my imagination, that he is not a crappy person. And his newest album is a tribute to that.


"I'm a good man, with a good heart, had a tough time, got a rough start, but I finally learned to let it go." 
So goes the chorus from the first single from Born and Raised, "Shadow Days." I believe every word is pure honesty, and that's why he and I are friends.


But, anyway, I'm not writing this to confess my obsession with John Mayer, which does indeed border on being delusional and not just indulgent in imagination.


I'm writing this to celebrate redemption and goodness at heart.


I am reminded, as I listen to Born and Raised, of seeing John Mayer in Nashville in one of his darkest periods of running his mouth a bit too much. If you want to see what I saw in person (further deepening my infatuation with my broken, humble, and honest friend John Mayer), someone else at the concert that night posted it to YouTube.


John Mayer Apology in Nashville 2010

In this video, John refers to being a "possible future grown up," and the John Mayer of Born and Raised is "twice as old in half the time" as the John Mayer of Battle Studies. I have always loved him and only been sad for him for his embarrassing comments. (See "My Stupid Mouth" from all the way back on his first EP in 1999 and first album in 2001 to know why he makes them sometimes-- "I just wanna be liked. I just wanna be funny. So call me Captain Backfire." Don't we all know that feeling? Anyway...) Now that John Mayer is growing up, I love him even more because I believe in my heart he, like all of us, is just a good man who has a tough time sometimes, and that reminds me how important it is to love and remember that we all mess up. We are broken shadows of what we're supposed to be. Yet, somehow, we all have a little sliver of the miracle of what God intended in humanity in us at the same time, and music like John's helps me connect with that miracle and believe in it.


I don't think that John Mayer knows Jesus; he's never mentioned it that I know of, and it doesn't seem likely. But I believe he wants to, even if he doesn't think so because he's never met the real Jesus. Why do I believe that?


Because of our imaginary friendship through his music. I could point to a lot of JM lyrics that show humanity's need for God, but one of the most poignant examples is the song "Gravity," which he was playing when he stopped to make his "apology" at the Nashville concert I attended. 


Gravity

Keep me where the light is. Oh, keep me where the light is. Keep me where the light is. Keep me where the light is.

John Mayer, after who knows how many time he's sung those lines, still broke down singing them in Nashville that night. And all of humanity is with him. We all want gravity-- all the things that bring us down, all the bad, all the brokenness, all the parts of us that are fallen-- to stay the hell away from us and for the light to shine on us.


Oh, Lord, keep me where the Light is. Just keep me where the Light is. Just keep me where the Light is.


I hope one day John Mayer gets to see that Light too. I can't even imagine (yes, this selfishly crosses my mind) what amazing music God would create in him if that happened.


The last thing John Mayer said during "Gravity" on that night in Nashville is a quotation I've keep in my notepad since that night: "My name is John Mayer, and I'm gonna figure that out."


Isn't that what we're all doing here on this earth? Just trying to figure out who we are, where the Light is, and how we can stay in it. And I, for one, am grateful for music like John Mayer's where the sacred occasionally overlaps with the secular and little glimmers of light shine through, dispelling the shadow days and transcending gravity.

I Wish I Could Blog and Drive

I drove to Athens, Georgia this weekend to see my best friend before she headed back to Katy, Texas indefinitely and to see her walk across the stage as a law school graduate. There's so much mushy stuff I could write about the experience of being there and connecting with my best friend of best friends, but the thought of it makes me think of Drop Dead Fred saying "Ew, Gross!" and spewing corn flakes, so I won't. I'll just leave it at wonderful to spend even a few hours with one of the true soul mates of my life. 


The trip, which I nearly didn't make because the five+ hour drive there and back "wouldn't be worth the time I would be there," was well worth the drive. Not only did I see Sarah and her graduation, I also stopped in Atlanta to see one of my best friends from high school, Katie. And even the drive itself was worth it.


John Mayer may mean any number of things by the line "Don't be scared to walk alone. Don't be scared to like it." in his new song "The Age of Worry." I read multiple meanings in it, and its meaning will no doubt evolve and deepen with further listens. (That's probably the number one reason I'm obsessed with JM-- his lyrics grow with me.) One of the meanings I take from it that I love right now is this: It's important to be able to spend time alone and to be able to like solitude and being in your own mind.


I loved the drive to Athens, not only because of where I was I headed, and not only because I listened to all five full-length, studio, solo albums of John Mayer on the trip (which was amazing), but because I spent time with myself and let my head swirl things around and settle a bit. 


I didn't do very much of what you would conventionally call praying, and JM music isn't exactly worship music, but I'd also call this time I had in the car time with God-- time for reflection and time for dreaming, time for examination and re-examination, time to imagine a brighter future and a path forward. Time just to chill and to be. Quiet and full of thoughts. Singing and being shaped by what my thoughts do to the lyrics. Wrestling, celebrating, planning for better days.


On that drive I was full of thoughts, questions, answers, resolutions, ideas... many of which I can't recall right now. If only I could blog as I drive and let the ideas pour out as they come and preserve them!


It reminds me of another JM masterpiece "Clarity":
"By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone. But I will bend the light, pretend that it somehow lingered on, but all I got's Oooo oooo oooo oooo." That's how the clarity of this drive was. Beautiful, brilliant, complete for a moment, and now all that's left is something inutterable, indecipherable, just an echo of the original thoughts.


I'm trying to rephrase in them conversation, scribble them in my journal, give them shape here. But it will only be a glimmer of bent light. 


That's okay. I don't mind.


I still like it. And I still cherish those drives, those walks down London streets alone, those times at night when everyone else is asleep, those quiet lazy mornings, those afternoons when I'm at home alone in the sunshine with my books and my music... Clarity.

I wanna be a better nerd!

"Because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff... nerds are allowed to love stuff... when people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is 'You like stuff,' which is just not a good insult at all, like 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.'"
The beginning through 1:40 is awesome.

On Teaching: Why It's So Hard and So Hard To Quit

I was talking to a retired teacher at Christian Women's Job Corp tonight, and one of the things she said was that, the way it used to be, teachers would often teach well past retirement because the kids were good and teaching was fun and they loved doing it. It's just not like that anymore, she said.


And, boy, is she ever right. It's not like that anymore.


When you're a young hopeful prospective teacher, you hear older or retired teachers make statements like that and pity them a little or tsk-tsk them internally and think that they wouldn't think such things if they were younger and more idealistic and hip and cool like you are. At least, that was how I was when I was a young and hopeful prospective teacher.


Now I'm a young teacher with nearly three years experience and my countdown is not only 12 days until school's out but also 192 days (pending negotiations with myself and my husband) until I start the next phase of my life.


"It seems like most teachers don't make it to five years anymore," I told the retired teacher who fulfilled her entire 30-year career, and she nodded she's noticed that, too. "Next year will be my fourth year, and I don't know if I'll make it to five. And most of my young teacher friends are right there with me."


Why It's So Hard


* Nothing is ever finished. The to-do list is never completely checked. Even in the summer, there is next year, and even after this year, there are infinite changes to make so next year can be better. If grades are caught up, there are parents to call. If classroom management is good, lessons need to be more challenging. There is always something to improve. As I write that, it strikes me that these things shouldn't be a bother; that's just life and part of learning and growing. I think what makes it hard, though, is that there is no clocking out and no real break from it. Asleep and dreaming, in the shower, at dinner with people who don't want to hear you theorize about school-- it doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, there's always something that you're rolling around in your head and trying to fix. 
* It's your identity. Another reason the never finished thing is so oppressive is because it is so personal. You feel every advancement as a teacher is a personal responsibility to other people and to society. It's not like not finishing an assignment in college and dealing with the individual consequence because the consequence now is letting down students, other human beings that you've committed to be as good as you possibly can be for, and you're constantly trying to figure out how to do that yet never being perfect at it. Plus, you're not only letting down students, you're letting down the society that these children are going to be the leaders of someday (We are in trouble as things are currently headed, btw.). Not being as good as you want to be as a teacher means not being as helpful to other people and to society as you want to be. It means failing at something you have made not only your life's vocation but your life's mission. It means failing at being you because when you're a teacher, that title is not just your job but a huge part of how you see yourself and how you make meaning of your place in the world.
* There are so many factors beyond your control. On any given day, the level of success I feel and the worth and value I believe my existence has had in the world rests wholly on how a bunch of twelve-year-olds learned and behaved on a given day. For me, whether I matter in the world is determined by whether the lives and learning of these twelve-year-olds improve... and a lot of times I don't get to see any improvement. And it's impossible to know how much of it is because I haven't done enough or the right thing and how much of it is because they're twelve, because their parents never read to them, because at home they're the closest thing to an adult in the house, because they watch too much TV, because they had lousy teachers in prior years, because they just don't care (which is caused by a multitude of factors beyond their and your control!), because because because....
* You want it to be so good. You want it to be like Stand and Deliver and Freedom Writers and Dead Poets' Society. And you know it's not realistic. And you know you can't expect every exchange with a student to be like in the movies. But you want it to. And it's just not that good. Sometimes you get a moment, and it keeps you hanging on... but a movie is less than two hours long and full of those moments. A school day is seven hours long, and most pass without a single Stand and Deliver worthy moment. Most weeks do. So do months sometimes. And the better you want it to be, the higher your standard for what qualifies as a glimmer of a moment of good. And the less frequent they seem.


Why It's So Hard To Quit


The reasons are the same.


* Nothing is ever finished. You know that, and so you just keep thinking that when you check the next box on the to-do list, you'll be closer. One more teaching book to read, one more planning session with another teacher, one more tweak to your lesson or classroom management and you'll be there. You just keep thinking you've got to stick with it because, while you know you'll never be perfect, you keep thinking you might get close enough that it'll at least help some kids.
* It's your identity. You are a teacher. You have wanted to be for years. Teaching is your gift, your degree, your job, and your life. It's how you promised to give back to the world and the teachers who carved the way for you. It's what you've always believed in, and it's who you are.
* There are so many factors beyond your control. Some of these kids haven't gotten a break their whole life. From what their mother consumed while pregnant with them to where they live and from whether anyone ever took the time to teach them to read to how much love and discipline they have in their lives outside of school, the odds are stacked for some kids and against others. I have one little window of opportunity to try to be a buffer against all the risk factors and an inspiration to go even further for the ones with a solid foundation. I want to be a positive factor.
* You want it to be so good. And the people who should teach are the ones who want it to be so good. You don't want to quit because what if that Freedom Writers moment is coming and what if what you're doing is exactly what one student needs and you just can't see it yet? Someone needs to stick around in this crazy system and fight to make it good.




All of that being said, I may be 192 days away from a new beginning, in something with all of the Why It's So Hard To Quit with a little less oppressive amount of Why It's So Hard, or I may teach well beyond retirement... or at least for a while longer.


I don't know. I just know that it's hard. And it's hard to stay positive. 


But I've got to try for the dozen days I have left with this group, for them and for me.