A Homecoming Weekend, Sort Of

Homecoming is a bit of a misnomer today because even though it is our local high school's Homecoming Weekend, half my family is out of town. Gabriel, a high school senior, and Greg are in Fairfax, Virginia tonight. They've spend the past four days touring colleges in the region and sightseeing in our nation's capital. I miss them badly. My husband rarely travels for work and I am not accustomed to having half my family missing from home.

Painting the House, Guarding against Greed

You know how they say one's physical space can sometimes reflect one's inner state? 

Our Babies are in High School

I don't think our sons are old enough to be entering their senior and freshman years of high school tomorrow morning.  I mean, really, do they look ready?

Preparing to Teach: To Enter Into A Yearly Journey

First, a disclaimer: I didn't invent that phrase "to enter into a yearly journey" to describe teaching high school. I swiped it from a woman named Anglica Q., on the website Ignatian Spirituality.  You see, "Ignatian spirituality,sees God as actively involved in the world and intimately involved with us in every moment and place." Yup!

Angelica Q.  tweeted:

"I find God in my service as an educator--in the eyes of my students with whom I 
enter into a yearly journey.

I stole her description it because it perfectly encapsulates how I feel about teaching high school, and about the learning communities I try to cultivate each year in my classes. 

August looms. I am closing my summer reading books, finishing two graduate school classes, and preparing to teach two new courses: American Literature and American History. This book is in my purse.

Musings on September Despair and Hope

As September approaches I find myself in a reflective mood. September is full of meaning to me.

September isn't an easy month for me. In early September of 1996, we nearly lost our first-born son within days after his birth. Then in 2001, the day before that son's fifth birthday, my husband nearly lost his own life in the World Trade Center attacks. In both instances, I felt as if the ground beneath my feet had disappeared.

In the intervening years I also have come to see these experiences as a way for God to tell me to appreciate the precious, fragile lives of my loved ones, to never take their presence in my life for granted.