Taking the Plunge: Practice Teaching

Taking my first plunge in practice teaching an ESL class:

What I learned from my cooperating teacher during my Teaching Practice:
I focused on a different aspect of teaching during my observations, such as how lesson plans were presented, use of mini-lessons, use of technology, classroom management, time management for classroom tasks, review and introduction to new material, assessments, transitions in activities, group work, unexpected incidents, rapport with students, and much more.  My lesson plan, to teach for one hour, worked out well.  I wasn't sure if I planned the time for the activities right, but it worked out to be exactly right, although I could have made the pair activity more simple.  We talked about family, reviewed vocabulary and morphology, word families, how to learn intentionally by using the words to learn more forms of each word, co-locations, synonyms, etc.  We did a short listening exercise from the text and identified and discussed the main idea - that knowing your ancestry is important to a positive self-concept.  Then students got into pairs to interview each other, find out about their families, and then each one gave a short presentation about their partner's family.  They could talk about relationships, family values, or a past experience that was meaningful about their family that made them 'unique'.  Since the listening exercise was about ancestry, most of the students discussed their ancestry, although we listed on the board different values that they thought were important to have in a family before they got into pairs to interview each other.

*Above are some of the students in our class (I know their names, but I didn't want to list them here):

The class is an intensive learning, upper level Listening and Speaking class.  The student on the far left, his grandparents are from France and moved to Saudi Arabia after they visited there and liked it so much they stayed in Saudi Arabia.  The second student on the left is from Turkey.  His entire family is from Turkey.  However, his grandfather lost his parents when he was only two years old so the government took care of his grandfather.  Because of this, they don't know their entire family history on their grandfather's side.  He also has a high respect for women and believes women's rights should be protected and that women are also capable of being strong leaders in government and business.  Next to the student from Turkey, the third on the left is a student from Seoul, Korea.  He and the student from Turkey are roommates and also like doing their classwork together.  They ask great questions in class and are very thoughtful, such as, "Do you think heritage is a good thing, especially when a culture has a strong heritage that might need to make changes?" The student fourth from the left is from Saudi Arabia and his grandparents are from Germany.  They moved to Saudi Arabia and liked it so much that they also decided to live there and raise their family.  He likes to spend time in Germany occasionally as well.  The fifth student on the left is also from Saudi Arabia.  He said he'd like to have a large family, but it depends on how much money he earns, if he will be able to support a large family.  Other students which were not in the picture were three students, from South Korea, China, and Vietnam, another student from Saudi, as well as three girls from Saudi.  The Saudi girls didn't like to be photographed, so they aren't in the pictures or videos.  Every morning when I arrive at the school, I see their husbands drive them to class and drop them off.  I think of it like getting pampered in a way, since I usually have to do things for myself - the down side to being independent.  One of the students, when asked to give an example of good manners answered, "to visit the sick people," and then another said, "to take care of the poor persons."  How sweet is that!
They are all really great "puppies," (nicknamed by our cooperating teacher, who is also from China but grew up in Boston).  They are each both exceptional and 'unique' (inside joke - not 'eunuch').  Other similar words that were equally questioned, version and virgin, modified version/virgin?  Also trait/trade.  I had to video-tape the practice teaching, which my cooperating teacher generously offered to do the camera work.  Although I brought extra batteries, the memory stick didn't last long enough, so we had to use my cell phone for half the class.  Luckily it worked out just as well.  I think everyone left with the feeling of being very 'unique.'

I got to practice the power pose (like Wonder Woman) just for fun at the beginning of class, which I learned from watching my cooperating teacher, as well as from a video I found on Ted Talks:

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are

I found this video by accident after getting the website from my cooperating teacher.  It was perfect timing to see it just before my practice teaching.  It talks about how we can sometimes feel that we don't belong in a certain situation because of our differences, or perceived limitations, etc.  I have a struggle with thoughts like that at times that stretch me.  The video talks about how to get past that.
So today, much like the message about Your Body Language, I faked it 'til I made it - like a colt that stands up for the first time on shaky legs with big knobby knees - although my knees were knocking together a little, at least they aren't too knobby - neigh, just a little wobbly.

I am now looking forward to taking a class in Old English that I'm enrolled in for next semester, Insha Allah.  I have been waiting since before 2009 for this version/virgin? of English to appear, or is it a modified version/virgin, since it's finally being "offered again."

Friday Night Confessions: Ghosts in the Theater

It's Friday evening (6/7/2014, the week before Father's Day).  I began earlier to get things ready to welcome the Sabbath.  I'm not Jewish, but it's something I like to learn about because it helps me understand more about who G-d is according to the Jewish tradition.  Also, the Sabbath, because it was established on the 7th day of Creation when G-d rested from His works according to scriptures, has been considered sacred by some since the time of Adam, also considered one of the seven Noahide laws, before it was given as one of the ten commandments to Moses for the children of Israel. (Genesis 2:1-4, Jubilees ii.16-33).

I was looking forward to welcoming the beautiful presence, the Shekinah glory, and the peace of Ha Kodesh.  I started doing this a few months ago in my own small way, and now I don't like to miss it.  I read somewhere that there is a tradition where some rabbis walk up the road to meet the Sabbath as it is approaching.  So I tried this, walking eastward, up the road from my home to the end of the next block.  I'm not a rabbi, or a scholar of the Torah - but I love to walk. There was a calmness, a coolness, and a gentle breeze, like in the description of Adam when he heard G-d walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day.  I wanted to keep going further, like making it into a prayer walk, but I didn't want to be away when it was time to light the candles.  It was such a beautiful, quiet moment.  Ever since then, I've tried to make sure that I have everything ready on time as much as possible for the Sabbath.  It has helped me since I started to set aside the Sabbath day to rest, and I put aside my own pursuits, homework, etc., and I try to make it last from Friday evening until the early hours of Sunday morning.

One Sabbath I spent most of the day spying out the land, looking at the journey to locations on Google Earth where the children of Israel were led through the wilderness, from where they were thought to have crossed the Red Sea, and all the places along the way to Mount Sinai, at Jebel el Lawz in Saudi Arabia, and the Rock at Horeb, which looks like a split camel toe, etc.  Most of the sites I looked at were in Saudi Arabia, rather than the usual Mount Sinai in Egypt, which never made sense to me if they were led out of Egypt that Mount Sinai would be back in Egypt, especially based on a tradition an Israeli soldier, Dan Tal, once told me, that Israelis are known for not having reverse, or back-up lights on their tanks.  Moses was associated with Midian, so it seems he would have traveled towards the areas where he first encountered G-d in the desert when he fled from Egypt the first time.  But the feeling I got when looking at the sites was like that of being in an empty theater.  There were traces of drawings of footprints, drawings on altars, and even broken pillars and campsites left behind.

As the time for the Sabbath was about to begin, I lit the candles.  I always light them all (one candle for my daughter, one for others I want to send good thoughts to, and one for myself )  and then I read the blessing from a  Jewish website on my cell phone.  I like to read it in Hebrew - I can still read the Hebrew alef bet, although I don't know much of the vocabulary.  But, when I study the Hebrew words, there are meanings that are easily lost when translated into English.  Such as "Abba," a more intimate word for "Father," more like "Daddy," "Alef-Bet-Alef, The Alef is the symbol for an ox, or strength.  Bet is the symbol for a house with a door. So, for example, a father is the strength of the house, as well as the door to it.

Something that came to my mind this week when I was lighting the candles and reciting the blessing was about G-d being our loving heavenly Father.  I was listening to a message by Joseph Prince one evening this week and he said that G-d's purpose in sending Ye'shua was to reveal the love of the heavenly Father for the world.  A loving heavenly Father.  During Joseph Prince's message, he sang an old hymn, "you will always be a child in my eyes, -- and even when you're growing old, I hope you'll realize, you will always be a child in my eyes."  This song came back to my mind as I was lighting the candles and I wondered why I hadn't realized this before in my own life, that even though I can believe it is true about G-d for others, I never really knew how to connect that He is a loving heavenly Father to me.

I started to realize that, emotionally, I had put G-d "up on a pedestal," high on my "G-d-shelf," thinking He belongs there, of course; but I kept him at a safe distance - at arm's length, above my head even.  I thought, this seems reasonable because after all, he told Moses to tell the children of Israel to stand back and not even touch the boundary that he set up around Mt. Sinai when he came to meet the people and entered into a covenant with them, giving them his instructions.  Your G-d is a consuming fire!  Moses warned the people to stay back so that the fire of G-d would not break out against them if they crossed the line to get a closer look at him. 

As a small child, I remember once my sister and I peering through the mostly closed door to my parents room to watch my dad while he was practicing a speech in front of the mirror.  Compared to many dads, I considered my dad a mostly perfect father.  I admired him very much.  He got upset sometimes, and he was upset that I was curious and spying on him, interrupting him as he practiced a speech for work the next day.  He was an electrical engineer, about to become head of the planning and engineering department of the OG&E electric company.  So, I can understand, or relate to a concept of G-d that does the things this G-d of Moses does.  He had to keep a separation and a mediator, a slightly opened/closed door, between him and the people, which was Moses.  But, I didn't understand how to see this G-d as a loving heavenly Father.  Holy, good, responsible, a protector and provider, yes, but loving?  What did that look like?

When I was trying to imagine G-d as a loving heavenly Father, I suddenly re-member-ed something I had forgotten about for many years until now.  Friday night was also the time chosen to be my "date night" with my dad when I was between 9 to 10 years old.  My parents were going through a divorce and it was very heartbreaking.  At first my dad had to get a hotel room downtown close to the office where he worked so that my mom could keep the car and the house so she could take care of my brother, my sister, and myself.  The hotel was for men only and he had only one room to live in with a shared bathroom down the hall.  My dad let us stop by one evening and he snuck us in to see his place because I was having nightmares about something bad happening to him.

He and my mother made arrangements for us to be able to see my dad on the weekends, but since my sister and I couldn't spend the night with him until he got his own apartment, he made plans to spend special time every week with each one of us.  He said he would pick me up on Friday nights to spend time together and take me out to a movie or to dinner.  After the movie, he said he would take me back home, drop me off, and pick up my brother, who would spend Friday and Saturday night with him at his hotel.  Then he would come back on Sunday and take my younger sister on an outing for the day.  My sister was about 6 years old at the time.

A picture of my dad, Eldon, before he graduated

from Capital Hill High School - an

'OG' - original greaser! (1950's)

I loved and admired my dad very much.  I never doubted that he loved us because he always did his best and worked hard to provide for our family.  He went to night school after he got out of the army, training to be an electrical engineer while working for the electric company.  My mom said most of his co-workers were getting second jobs to support their growing families, but she agreed we could do without the extras so he could go to night school.  He was under a great deal of stress with work and trying to study.  I always felt uncomfortable around my dad because he seemed on edge.  He was very nervous and would get upset, or sometimes lose his temper at us, and I felt like I could do nothing right.  I missed him when he was gone, but I was nervous when he came home.  So, in a way I was relieved when he wasn't home, and at the same time I missed him when he was gone.

I know my dad wanted the best for me, even as a small child I was sure of that; but emotionally, I was very insecure in his love for me.  He was angry one night with my mom when things started getting worse before their separation and they were fighting.  He was trying to cook something and my mom was talking to him and she reached out to hold onto his arm.  He pulled back suddenly and she lost her balance and fell back onto the floor.  He tried to kick her away when she was down on the floor; he was pulling on the silverware drawer at the same time, which pulled out and the silverware, along with the drawer, went clanging and banging all over the floor.  It was more frightening than violent, but I ran to help my mom.  I was crying and asking my dad not to be mad, but he was too upset. He told my mom to get out, and he looked at me and said, "you can just go with your mom, since you love your mother so much!"  You always knew when my dad was too mad because his eyes would dance back and forth nervously.

It was night-time and raining out, and my mom and I were both crying.  He  picked me up and carried me out to the car and made me go with my mom.  I loved them both, but when I saw my mom fall  onto the floor I was nearby, sitting on the floor of the living room where I had been watching something on T.V.  Suddenly, she was on my level.  I just wanted to protect my mom from being hurt, but my dad was also hurting.  However, this was the first time I felt my dad disown me.  His words stung like electricity and my face felt numb from shock and shame, as if he had hit me.  His words were stinging in my ears.  My parents separated after that and I didn't see my dad for a while.  I later realized that people say things when they're angry or hurt that they don't mean, but it can be damaging at the time.

After some time had passed, my dad came to pick me up one Friday night for our first Friday night visit.  He had made plans to take me to the movies.  My dad always liked to plan everything ahead of time.  He was a really good planner, which helped us have a sense of stability growing up.  I was ready by Monday also planning what to wear, what to bring, and all week I was looking forward to seeing my dad and spending time together.  It felt strange to be going someplace alone with my dad.  We didn't usually get to do things together, just the two of us.  I hoped it would be a time to become closer to my dad.  At the same time, I felt awkward, nervous, anxious, and afraid I might do something wrong.

We went to the Knob Hill Theater.  After we bought tickets we went inside to see the movie.  We found some seats midway to the front, and sat down near the isle.  Once the movie started, after a few minutes, my dad told me he was going to go smoke a cigarette and make a phone call.  I said I would be okay, because I thought I would be.  I knew I should be fine.  However, after he left, I started feeling really anxious.  It felt like he didn't like being there with me.  Then, I wondered if maybe he really didn't like me.  I felt like I wanted to cry. 

The theater was full of adults and other families, but it wasn't like a Saturday morning matinee when there were mostly kids running around without their parents.  I sat in the dark theater looking around, trying to see if I could see my dad and wanting to be invisible.  He said he would be in the lobby to use the phone and then go up in the balcony area to smoke, and that he would be able to see me.  But I couldn't see him up in the dark balcony, only the glaring reflection of the flickering lights on eye glasses, the red glowing tips of burning cigarettes and a few pillar-like clouds of smoke with flashings of light shooting out from the projector, which drifted and hovered over the theater, juxtaposing the smoke with the flashing lights like clouds with lightening. 

I'm sure he thought I was just sitting and enjoying the movie.  I was trying to act grown up because I didn't want to disappoint him, but the longer I sat there, the more I also wanted to run and hide.  Was I just being a big baby?  I knew my dad wanted to call his girlfriend, someone he was seeing at the time that he had to skip a date with to take me to the movie, and they might talk for hours.  I felt terrible.  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find him again.  At the same time, I knew he wouldn't leave me there.  I sat alone in the movie, but I don't remember how long or when he came back, if it was a long time, or if I had to walk out to the lobby and find him when the movie ended.  I don't even remember what movie I watched.  I also don't remember if we went to dinner first.  I don't remember if we got popcorn, or if I asked for lemon drops at the movie.  There was a Jerry Lewis movie that came out that year (1966), Three on a Couch, and I think it may have been that one.  My dad knew how much I liked Jerry Lewis, although he didn't like to watch him much, because he thought he was too silly for grown-ups.

Whatever my insecurities were, as I got older I realized the reasons for the misunderstandings, but I didn't experience a very close loving relationship with my father.  We went through harder times when I was a teenager. He didn't want me to make bad decisions for my life; but at the time, threatening me made me feel even more anxious and rejected.  The next time he disowned me again I was sixteen, he told me to get out of his car, saying that he didn't want to see me again and he said I was worthless.  He accused me of sneaking out at night and being a bad influence on my sister, although it was my sister who was sneaking out and I didn't want to tell on her. This time he left me beside the curb with my suitcase downtown near my job one morning where he dropped me off on his way to work.  I was sixteen and working as a receptionist in an office downtown.

A friend who was teaching me how to drive a standard-shift car also worked for OG&E, the electric company where my dad worked.  My friend was a meter-reader and saw a garage apartment for rent for only $75 a month!  The elderly lady that rented it out to me was a widow, she was very kind.  She made me a birthday cake unexpectedly, because it was my seventeenth birthday soon after I moved in.  My dad and I went through long periods when we didn't speak, and there were times when things improved some, but it was always a painful subject.  He would also threaten that I was not going to be included in his will when we disagreed.  But I didn't care about his money, I only wanted things to be better between us.

My mom was married to my step-dad at the time.  They were alcoholics.  My dad was also going to AA to get help, and was successful in his career, but my mom and step-dad were struggling and my step-dad would get violent when he drank.  My step-dad didn't let us stay with my mom without causing problems for her.  He had lost his dad in a mining cave-in when he was a small child, so his mother lost her husband, her brother, and her father in that same accident.  She was so devastated, she put her two sons up for adoption, so she lost them as well.  They grew up in the Baptist Boys Home, and he said he experienced a lot of abuse there.   He and my mother also had a baby and she had nowhere else to go when they fought.

My dad was there for me in many practical ways growing up, even though we had difficulty relating to each other.  I don't think he ever intended to hurt me, he just didn't want me to make mistakes and maybe he didn't know how to help me.  His idea of life was like swimming or riding a bike, you either sink or swim.  I wish I had known how to speak to him and be closer before he died (in 1994).  He began to be more supportive and called me more often when my daughter, Ariele, was born, so we had a chance to become closer.  But he lived out of town after he retired, so I didn't get to see him very often.  He and his wife came to take Ariele and I to dinner when she was a year old.  His wife took Ariele for a walk for a few minutes to keep her from crying when she became restless.  As I sat across from my dad, with no mediator, I still remember feeling so nervous and painfully self-conscious.  I still felt like that frightened child, even though I knew things had changed.  We still didn't know how to communicate, but at least we were trying, and that was a good thing.

I also didn't realize until I remembered the Friday night at the movie with my dad that, emotionally, part of me was still sitting back in that dark theater in my mind, and that, subconsciously, it had been keeping me from understanding and knowing G-d as my loving heavenly Father.  I felt like I always needed a mediator with my dad, which was usually my older brother, my mom, or aunt, or my step-mom.  I used to hide behind my brother when we got into trouble, and I was projecting all my negative feelings from my experience with my dad onto G-d.  I was so anxious at the time I can't remember the details of the good things about the time I spent with my dad that night at the movie.

We read King Lear in class recently as well; just before reading The Tempest.  It was the first time I had read the entire play.  I almost didn't go to class that day because it wrecked me to talk about it.  It reminded me so much of my dad and our relationship.

Why didn't Cordelia speak to her father?  She said, "love and be silent."  When she found her father again in his tragic condition, she said to someone else, "He awakes, you speak to him." Was she being prideful or unforgiving?  Maybe she didn't want to upset him further.  I don't believe it is because she was being harsh, or at a loss for words.  I think she was still stung in a way, numb from the shock of being disowned, and that she also didn't want to violate his wishes not to speak to her.  She still loved her father and wouldn't want to make matters worse or alienate him even more, so she stayed busy doing her father's business, looking out for him.  Although, as he said, "nothing comes of nothing."

I heard a song this week, "One Thing Remains" that said, "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me."  I could feel the words sinking into my heart.  It felt like my heavenly Father was coming to sit with me in the dark theater of my mind, reassuring me of his love.  His loving-kindness.  My parents had to put me on tranquilizers for a while when they were going through their divorce, because I kept breaking out in a rash from anxiety.  My dad got his own apartment soon after our night at the movies, so I don't remember going together alone after that.  But he did get me a nice cassette player with a small cassette tape of the Beatles' release "Hey Jude," and other songs for my birthday, not too long after that.  Now, I am enjoying the Sabbath and a great sense of 'Shalom,' on a Friday night "date-night" with my loving heavenly Father.  If I knew how to communicate in a way that would break every silence of separation, I would also speak.  My lips are already moving, as Hannah's did, silently in prayer for a child; though I, like a child, only need to be reconciled.

[ A Prayer of Moses, Man of G-d ] G-d, it seems you’ve been our home forever; long before the mountains were born, Long before you brought earth itself to birth, from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"—you are G-d. So don’t return us to mud, saying, "Back to where you came from!" Patience! You’ve got all the time in the world—whether a thousand years or a day, it’s all the same to you. Are we no more to you than a wispy dream, no more than a blade of grass That springs up gloriously with the rising sun and is cut down without a second thought? Your anger is far and away too much for us; we’re at the end of our rope. You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed since we were children is entered in your books. All we can remember is that frown on your face. Is that all we’re ever going to get? We live for seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty), And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard. Who can make sense of such rage, such anger against the very ones who fear you? Psalm 90:2,4 MSG

Genesis:8 When they heard the sound of G-d strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from G-d.

9 G-d called to the Man: “Where are you?”

10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”

11 G-d said, “Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”

12 The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”

G-d said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?”

13 “The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.”

14-15 G-d told the serpent:

“Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed,
    cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals,
Cursed to slink on your belly
    and eat dirt all your life.
I’m declaring war between you and the Woman,
    between your offspring and hers.
He’ll wound your head,
    you’ll wound his heel.”

16 He told the Woman:

“I’ll multiply your pains in childbirth;
    you’ll give birth to your babies in pain.
You’ll want to please your husband,
    but he’ll lord it over you.”

17-19 He told the Man:

“Because you listened to your wife
    and ate from the tree
That I commanded you not to eat from,
    ‘Don’t eat from this tree,’
The very ground is cursed because of you;
    getting food from the ground
Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;
    you’ll be working in pain all your life long.
The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,
    you’ll get your food the hard way,
Planting and tilling and harvesting,
    sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,
Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;
    you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt.”

20 The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.

21 G-d made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.

22 G-d said, “The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never—this cannot happen!”

23-24 So G-d expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they’d been made. He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.

This used to be the Knob Hill Theater.

It was later named the Oklahoma Opry Theater. 

It is still there today, empty and ready to be put to good use.

Located in the Capitol Hill district at

404 W. Commerce (S.W. 25th Street) in Oklahoma City,

 A Department of Human Services building sits just across the street

where a large department store used to be (that once had a fish tank with live Piranhas for sale!)

The theater was built in 1946.

It was air conditioned, modern, with comfortable seating,

the latest in projection and sound, with every facility,

 including a "cry room," a "smoking room,"

and 2 acres of free parking.

(I could have made good use of the crying room.)

And Today, this theater has one less ghost.

Remembering G-d and the Shofar on Rosh Hoshanah

After posting my recent blog about prayer, searching my heart (and the heavens) for the voice of G-d, I wasn't disappointed:  It just so happens that Rosh Hashanah is today!  The shofar blasts are one of the main features of this day, also known as the Day of Trumpets.  I spent time listening to the shofar blasts to welcome the Jewish "New Year," also the anniversary of the first Day of Creation, and other significant events.

Then an article showed up on my timeline on Facebook from Chabad.org: "11 Reasons Why We Blow the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah."  The article mentioned 11 points, which also answered my own questions about prayer in my recent blog.  The Chabad.org article literally answered my prayers.  The saying is true, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you!"

The sound of the shofar pierces both heaven and earth.  Prayer is similar to a bead.  A bead isn't useful unless it is pierced through both ends.  In order for the bead to "count," as on an abacus, it needs to have a hole that goes from one end to the other, called the axis of the bead, so the string or wire can be threaded through the bead and slide easily.  The shofar was heard from heaven on Mt. Sinai to get our attention, and it is also a signal to G-d when we remember Him and blow the shofar.

My 'Prayer-Jihad': A Crash Course in Prayer

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

“It is not particularly difficult to find thousands who will spend two or three hours a day in exercising, but if you ask them to bend their knees to God in five minutes of prayer they protest that it is too long.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Seven Capital Sins)

I wonder if being restless and making myself stay put and be still for an hour would be considered "agonizing in prayer"?  It's not that I don't want to pray!  But I don't always know what I'm doing and sometimes I agonize about that.  

When I stay for an hour, I agonize about whether I am praying in a way that is effective - I don't usually hear anything, even after I have let my thoughts finally settle down.  I am just grateful to be in G-d's presence, but I am not sure if my prayers are piercing heaven.  I literally get face down on the floor, then on my knees, then on the chair, then back on my knees, and I'm all over the place.  Even when I'm sitting still, my thoughts are bouncing off the walls like ping pong balls.  And to add to the effect, there is a camera in the chapel for security, so you always feel you are being "watched."

I pray the L-rd's Prayer, the rosary, the Jesus prayer, the Psalms, some scriptures, the Tabernacle prayer, and about the things that concern me, like what's going on in the world, or with people, or my life.  I write in my prayer journal.  I go around and pray the Stations of the Cross.  I sit in the back of the chapel, I sit in the front of the chapel.  I sit in the middle or on the side at the altar and under the portrait of the L-rd during his own prayer-jihad in the Garden of Gethsemane.  

I sit in front of the Tabernacle.  I even bring my small pillow and a blanket to camp out, or sit huddled through the storm in the middle of the night, imagining what it was like to be inside Noah's Ark.  I wrap my fingers around the tzitzit of a tallit.  I mostly want to get closer to G-d and learn to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.  I am restless and tired of my own thoughts until He comes!  

I especially like to walk and pray.  I hear others pray and they sound like true prayer warriors.  But I have no idea how to get there.  I want to be able to pray like the desert fathers and mothers who stayed in their cell for days, weeks, months, and went on long prayer walks in the desert.  Please L-rd, teach me to pray.  

I can say arrow prayers, I can say scripture prayers, I can read and pray the prayers of others, the prayers of the Agpeya.  I can be violently silent, but I haven’t been broken and truly and deeply effected in my prayers.  

Where are my tears for my condition, for man’s condition apart from G-d?  Where is my grief for the lost and those who are hurting and suffering, even though I care?  Why is my heart so cold and distant?  Where’s the fire?

I have a hunger and a thirst for G-d, and I am so grateful to have that.  I seek to humble myself under the hand of G-d, but where is the weeping and howling of St. Jakov/James?  Where is the red hot prayer of the righteous man Elijah?  Where are the wakeful prayers of Abouna (Father) Anthony (the Great), or the watchful prayers of Pope Shenouda III?  Or the confident, patient prayers of Abouna Andrew, my own priest?

I don’t want to live by bread alone, the things of this life, but by every word that proceeds from G-d's mouth!  Maybe this is how He learned to count the stars and know them all by name, by spending many hours in prayer, counting the stars with our names like His prayer beads.   The scriptures say that He ever lives to intercede for us in Heaven.

So if He is praying and I am praying, something should connect, which requires the Holy Spirit.

Please pray that G-d will grant me grace to grow in humility, in sorrow, in passion, in watchfulness, in wakefulness, and in the patience and persistence of effective prayer.  For now, all I have are beautiful examples, words on a page, and a heart that is willing.  Being willing is not enough, we must do.  

This is my prayer struggle, my jihad of prayer, and I am the only infidel.

A Cardinal Experience: How to Build a Nest

Today as I went to my car, which is red, I saw a female cardinal fly by and sit on top of the side mirror of a red SUV in the parking lot.  I've seen her before near my car.  She sits on top of the light post next to where I park.  It is difficult to see in this picture because of the distance, but she is sitting on top of the mirror of the SUV.  She kept flying down in front of the mirror and pecking at the glass, then she'd fly near my car and back to the mirror.  Maybe she liked the color of the red cars?  I guess even wild birds must love mirrors!  I was almost in a trance watching her, but I wasn't able to catch the picture with her in front of the mirror before she disappeared.

I sometimes wonder about the strange behavior of birds or animals, and if there is a message or meaning.  I found out that male cardinals can change their color to look like the female cardinal while the female is nesting on her eggs.  He does this to help her fill her role by gathering food for her until the eggs are hatched and the baby birds can leave the nest.  His color changes to make him less visible to predators so he can provide for his family.  So the cardinal I saw could have been a male or a female bird!

I also found this article while looking up more information about the behavior of birds:

Birds attack shiny surfaces because they see their own reflections. In the case of a window, the bird does not see through the glass: it sees a reflection of the outside, possibly trees and the sky, and another bird of its own species. The real bird does not recognize itself and mistakes the reflected bird for a competitor for territory or mates. It attacks the image in the window, trying to drive the other bird away.

Of course, this is a fruitless exercise. The bird reflection will always be there, forever inaccessible behind an invisible barrier. The real bird often returns many times, compulsively launching itself at the window. If it is very aggressive, it could damage its beak, but most often it just wastes energy and time. Very large birds may break the glass, to the distress of bird and home occupants alike.

Then I found another website with information about cardinals:

The recognition of a genuine symbolic sign can lead to the beginning of a new communication with something that is beyond our normal realm of experience. In this respect, a symbolic sign can be considered a phenomenon or, a Cardinal Experience.

Because symbolic signs are so uniquely individual, appearing in all shapes and sizes, they may not always be easily recognized as symbolic signs, or immediately understood. Symbolic signs may be presented to us in an unending array of forms: birds, animals, people, places, things or events. Whatever shape or form your symbolic sign may come in, keep in mind that the form is the messenger and the messenger is an important clue to the message.

Perhaps that is why a cardinal messenger is so often chosen to deliver such deeply significant messages to us. With his bright red color and powerful call, the cardinal tends to stand out from the crowd. There are times when it may be possible for a little red cardinal to get our attention when nothing else can, especially in times of depression and grief.

The more we learn about the messenger, the more clues we may gain about the message. While each message is special and unique to the individual, the cardinal messenger has some unique qualities of his own. Relating these cardinal qualities to your particular life situation may help you to understand more about your uniquely individual message.

Cardinal Color: One of the first and most obvious qualities about the cardinal is his color. Cardinal red is so called because it is one of the three primary colors. The primary colors are red, blue and yellow. All other colors are a combination of these three basic colors. That the visual spectrum begins with red hints at the importance of the cardinal, beginning with his powerful visual presence.

The Cardinal Cross: While we are all familiar with the symbol of the cross as it relates to the death and resurrection of Christ, the concept of the cross from the root of the word cardinal may open some new thoughts on the subject.  The oldest base root of the word cardinal is actually connected to the word cross.  The word cross comes from the Old Norse word, kross and the Latin word, crux. For the ancient Romans, the Latin word crux had comet to mean "a guidepost that gives directions at a place where one road has been split into two."  It's not hard to recognize the figure of Christ as the 'guidepost' who offers directions to travelers along the road of life.  Where one road has been split into two, can easily be seen as the crossroad we all come to at some pivotal point in our lives.  It is the place where we must make an important, cardinal choice and need guidance to do so.

On a deeper level, one road that has been split into two can also refer to our perceived separation from God.  If we are walking down a road and it splits into two, we have a choice to turn right or left.  If it is truly a cardinal crossroad, we may experience finding our guidepost at the intersection.  We may discover that there is only one road that leads to faith and unity.  Whatever we find there, we can be certain that finding ourselves at a crossroad is a cardinal opportunity to 'find our way' at the 'cross.'  The root word for cross is contained in many words we commonly use:  across, crucial, crucify, cruise (to cross the sea, or go backwards and forwards), cruiser, crusade, crux, and excruciate.  In the cardinal sense, the cross represents fourfold systems:  the four directions: north, south, east, and west; the four seasons; the four elements; the four winds; the four gospels; the four chambers of the heart; etc.

How to build a nest:

No Pink Ribbon, Just a Purple Patch -to KILL CANCER!!!

Today started out something like a purple patch day, "It was a dark and dreary morning, ..."  It really was dark and dreary out, it was rainy and chilly!  Strange weather for the middle of July in Oklahoma.

I was also dreading this day - as usual - when I have to go see my oncologist.  All the mental gymnastics are worse than the actual visit.  What will they want to do this time?  What are the results going to be?  etc., like walking through a mine field, but I tell myself it never goes the way I think and to put away the fears and use my energy to be positive and to get militant.

It's an exercise in walking the fine line between "save me?!" and "leave me alone already!"  I try to stay in the middle and save myself.  I say "I'm fine, I'm doing really great!"  Which is mostly true.  I'm so low maintenance as a patient it seems sometimes like they want to push me to do things, not because it is necessary, but because it justifies that they are doing something new to write on their paper and they feel uncomfortable if they aren't doing something more.  So far my protocol is I take one pill a day, Tamoxifen - so I haven't had to make changes, just monitor things every month.  So far, no pain, no problems.

After my blood test, the doctor went over my history and then did my exam (this exam is after a mammogram and ultrasound results in May indicating that I need to have a biopsy on my left breast).   The last time he did my exam he measured a mass of 3 cm.  The ultrasound results said it was larger than before.

This time after the exam was complete, the nurse left the room.  The doctor sat down at the computer to update the records, and then he stopped.  He had a perplexed look and said, "Huh!!"  I thought, "that doesn't sound good, I was hoping I could get out of here without any catches."  I just wanted to be let off the hook.  Leave everything the same, I feel fine.

He said, "let me go and get the nurse, I need to check something."  I thought to myself, "Oh no, let me go - just leave me alone and let me go already... I don't want to have any more biopsies, surgery, medicines, etc."  Then I thought, "I am being way too anxious.  They are only trying to help."  So I took some deep breaths and waited.

The doctor and the nurse came back in and repeated the exam and then he sat back down at the computer.  He said, after a pause, "I just wanted to be sure I was right.  Did you know that you had a mass on your breast of at least 3 cm (he whipped his measuring tool out from his coat pocket and held it up to demonstrate the size of a 3 cm mass)...

          I said, yes, I remember.

He said, well, it's not there anymore!

          I said, it's not?  I thought the mammogram and ultrasound results said it was larger than before?

He said, "well, its not there now.  There is regular tissue, but nothing irregular or solid like a mass that was there before!"

He about fell out of his chair when he was telling me, then I about fell off of the table.  I was not expecting to hear that!  I said, "Wow, I guess my medicine must be working!  See?  You're doing the right thing."

He said, "it looks like something happened.  When good happens, we don't question it!"

I didn't tell the doc that I have been taking baking soda and molasses to bring my pHd-own, or is that up, to 8.0-8.5 alkaline for a few days, which has been known to KILL CANCER!!!!  It looks like something is working!  A purple patch of victory in this case!!

I'm also thinking of a purple patch to remember my grandfather in Germany who, although he was not a Jehovah's Witness like the victims who wore this patch during the Holocaust, he was killed by Nazi SS Officers for refusing to follow protocol or show honor to Hitler (my equivalent of cancer).

My grandmother also rode her bike in winter to surrounding villages to collect food, clothing, and supplies to protect and provide for the Jewish prisoners that were being held in the factory where he was a supervisor before he was killed.  My grandmother was from Warsaw, Poland. We don't know if she was German, Polish, or Jewish, but I was told she kept the Sabbath and was raised by a Jewish family in Warsaw that she "worked for" as a child.

My grandparents hated Hitler and would have nothing to do with his regime.  When my mother was a child and came home with some flyers that she found that had been dropped as propaganda by the Nazis, my grandmother tore it from her hands and put it in the fire.  She wouldn't allow photos of Hitler or any of his influence in their home.

At one point, several SS Officers came and set up a headquarters in part of their home (which was a large summer resort in the mountains).  The arrangement was forced on my mother's family, but my grandmother set down rules for them.  She told them NO bringing women into her home, and if she caught any of the married men cheating on their wives she was going to call their wives and turn them in.  Eventually they were the ones who killed my grandfather, and their home was fire bombed to the ground by Axis Powers that may have learned their civilian home was being used as a headquarters.  All the SS Officers went into hiding, my mother was separated from her mother and didn't know where her family was until many years later.

Ballad in brown

This is a really good set of markers,
Like the ones at the hobby store.
And it has all the same colors
as the ones I saw before.

And it's only half a crown,
which makes it just right for me;
except, there's no brown!
No brown?  How could that be?

I miss brown!  I need brown!
It's the color of his eyes.
It's the color of his hair blown
As it waves against the skies.

It's the color of the tree trunk borne,
once carried through the streets;
It's the color of the crown of thorns
he wore the day he rescued me!

It's the color of the famous muddy band
wherein the mighty river Jordan
feet stepped to cross into the land
when YHWH went before them.

And what about the day before us,
when G-d made Adam, then Eve?
He formed them from the dust
of the earth, before there was any green.

I never thought about it
as my favorite color of the box;
but when you don't have it,
you realize just how much you've lost!
I can't live without brown.
So I put the markers down.
Forget about the cost!

The Beauty of Imperfection in Shakespeare

     I took a wild chance this semester and enrolled in a Shakespeare class, the only one I hadn't taken in our English Department so far; but I wanted to take Shakespeare more than the odds against it.  The odds were that the professor would be the same one I had for Chaucer.  I loved Chaucer!  I also greatly admired the professor and felt he had incredible knowledge and skill.  However, there was a weird aspect to the class.  Every time I turned in a research paper, it was like facing a lobotomy.  My papers were almost failed.  I thought it must be something I could learn from, but it was not always productive criticism.  In other classes I always get an A or occasionally a B at the least on my research papers.  There seemed to be more going on than I can explain.

     This semester, I decided to go ahead and take Shakespeare's Major Plays hoping things might go better.  The professor taught very well and I enjoyed the class very much.  Twenty Shakespeare plays in a semester is like getting to eat a whole box of chocolates in one sitting!  I made good grades all through the semester as previously in Chaucer.  The professor even read one of my papers to the class as an example of what he wanted in a paper.  I wrote on the female imagery in Henry IV.  There are only three women to speak of in the play, as well as some female imagery, so it caught my attention and he said it was different than anything he had read on the subject before.  The two research papers, however were another matter.

     I was reading Hamlet at the same time as I was having to consider possible treatments of cancer therapy, (different hormone therapy, possible radiation therapy, etc.) all of which are types of poisons.  So when I read Hamlet, the poison theme jumped out at me.  I always tend to get into the skin of the characters, so I decided to write the first research paper on the poisons in Hamlet.  My thesis was that there are some obvious references to poison in Hamlet, but that the theme of poison permeates the play in many subtle ways.  I covered each of the types of poison that were present in the play chronologically.  I enjoyed researching for and writing the paper, which was only about 23 pages.

     When I got it back, "SEE ME" was written across the top of the paper.  The paper was thrashed with ink lines, crossed out sections, and remarks, most of which were illegible.  We met and discussed the paper.  He said I would need to write a completely different research paper, which he also required most of the rest of the class to do (which also happened in Chaucer).  Some could revise their paper, but most had to totally do something new.  After a week or more, I was told I wouldn't have to re-write it, but to recognize the problems we discussed.  For example, he suggested that some information should have been considered footnotes (agreed), some information he didn't see as relevant to the subject (okay, but debatable), and there was a difference in opinion about the focus of the paper (opinion).  Some of the criticism was helpful, some seemed irrational, such as, "what does a Mountebank have to do with poison in Hamlet?"  (See Hamlet: IV.7)

     By this time, the second research paper was coming due, as well as the second research paper in my second class, The Bible as Literature, as well as preparing for two finals.  I was then reading The Tempest.  My professor recommended that I write about the Tempest.  I agreed, so I began researching different aspects of the play to write about.  It seemed like each idea I had was already covered thoroughly by someone else in critical essays.  I could have tried to disagree with one of them, but so far I hadn't found anything significant to argue.  In the essay by Harry Berger, Jr.'s Miraculous Harp: A Reading of Shakespeare's Tempest, Berger raised some questions that had also interested me, so I used that as an approach for my paper.  I didn't write my paper in response to the entire essay, which is what my professor might have expected.  I wrote about the questions he raised that I hadn't seen other people write about and which he didn't answer.  

     I don't know why, but the idea of Carthage and the "Dido Problem" fascinated me.  Prospero's external problem of his lost and regained domain and his way of handling it, issues about royal authority and political domain, was the theme I focused on.  I used the calculus formula, known as the isoperimetric problem, or "Dido Problem" as an example of the method for establishing domain used by Dido when she went into exile and established Carthage/Tunis.  At this point, I knew it would be taking the risk of sounding ridiculous.  But I decided to write it as it was unfolding in connection to the island.  I also made a connection with Adrian in The Tempest (who has no lines in the play besides Act 2, scene 1), and Don Adriano De Armado in Love's Labor's Lost.  The significant lines were, "Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar..." (LLL, IV. 1.1063-1068), and how that echoed the overarching theme of Ariel, and that there is a ruler in heaven that all kings are subject to.  The Nemean lion, when slain by Herakles, became the constellation Leo, which is Ariel in Hebrew, and Ariel was the name of the spirit Prospero used to carry out his plans. 
    
     I also quoted, Miranda: "What foul play had we that we came from thence?
                                          or blessed was't we did?
                          Prospero: Both, both, my girl.
                                          By foul play, as thou sayst, were we heaved thence,
                                          But blessedly holped hither" (1.2.60-64).

     I argued that Shakespeare encourages us to study the text and subtext when he writes in a quote from Hamlet:  "There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves. / You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them'."

     For my research paper in my second class, The Bible as Literature, I wrote about the Jewish Feast of the 15th of Av, and received an A+.  The research paper in Shakespeare on The Tempest, a C-.  It may have seemed ridiculous to a professor from Yale, but at least it wasn't boring.  So my A in his class was dropped to a B due to my two research papers.  But I made it through and it was worth it: I was both "foully heaved thence" and "blessedly holped hither."  A "B" for the beauty of imperfection.

Flower burgers

The Flowerburgers
      Part 4

Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, "Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it."
Baudelaire would give
them a flower burger
instead and the people
would say, "What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?"

by Richard Brautigan

     I came across this poem by Richard Brautigan and it reminded me of a dream I had in the late fall of 2009.  I was up late the night before.  I had a dream that I was in a galleria food court.  It was indoors, and I was standing in a line and looking at the menu on the wall behind the counter.  It was my turn to order, and I was trying to make out the numbers, but they kept changing.  They were charging 5.00 for a hamburger, then it would change to 50.00.  I ordered a burger, then I went  outside to sit in a courtyard to wait for my order.

     As I sat at a small table under a veranda of trees and vines, an unusual waiter came to my table.  He was dressed in vintage clothes, but they looked like new.  He was very kind and soft spoken.  He placed my plate in front of me, and instead of hamburger meat, there was a big bunch of herbs inside the bread.  I didn't understand, I had never seen bundles of herbs instead of lettuce in a burger.  He then handed me a large bunch of herbs that were bundled together, very fresh and green and then smiled.  The sun was bright and I didn't see his face clearly but I could feel his smile.  He filled my glass with water fused with citrus fruit, and the sun shined through the leaves overhead and made the light and water very beautiful.

     When I looked up from my glass the man who was waiting on me was gone, but I realized when I tried to look around and my eyes were still closed that I was waking up to golden light in my room.  I had slept late, and the room was full of sunlight.  When I woke up, I realized that I forgot to bring my potted herbs inside overnight and the nights had started to get too cold already.  I tried to bring them in, but they had frozen overnight.  I was sad that I ignored my thought to bring them in the day before, thinking I could have saved them.

     I thought maybe that was what the dream was about, my way of reminding myself to bring in my plants.  But as I started completing an assignment on John Keats I was working on, I learned that he once studied to be an apothacary.  I looked up pictures of him after that, and although I didn't see the man's face clearly in my dream, I felt like it must have been about him.  I didn't know at the time that I was sick, and if I would have understood then to take the dream as an indication to seek help earlier, I could have avoided a more serious condition with my health.

     I also felt later on that it was an indication that my healing needed to include the most natural process available.  I am grateful that it has been possible to do that so far, and that I am still doing so well, and to have an apothecary and poet for a guide.

Ben Whishaw as John Keats in "Bright Star"
 Ode to a Nightingale
(...)
 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
  No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
  In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
          The same that oft-times hath
  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
  To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
  As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
    Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
          In the next valley-glades:
  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
    Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?