Name Mispronunciation

 

Last Saturday at the Young Authors event,

I greeted one of the parents by name.

Hey, Mr. Anonymous.

He immediately corrected me on a minor mispronunciation of his name.

He’d previously done this in the car rider line, and I thought I’d corrected the pronunciation,

But my southern draw was still messing it up a bit.

He evidently didn’t like it at all.

And he wasn’t joking or being kind about it either.

He was very serious.

And it made me sad.

 

Last Friday, at the 2^nd and 3^rd grade program,

I greeted two of my students by name.

Hey, C. Hey, E.

The boy whom I had called E just sheepishly looked at me.

I could tell I’d gotten his name wrong.

I said another name.

It was wrong, too.

Finally, his sister said, “It’s D.”

And I felt so bad for getting D’s name wrong.

 

I know that names are important.

I do my best to call everyone by the right name.

But sometimes I mess up.

And when I do,

I hope for the quiet kindness that my students showed,

Rather than the judgmental condemnation of the parent.

 

I know that that parent has a lot on him.

I imagine that he carries a lifetime of hurt.

I’m trying not to judge him but to instead show him grace,

But I must admit it’s hard

When I don’t understand

The full gravity of name mispronunciation.

 

And so today, as I write this,

I breathe in the junk that I feel about saying his name wrong and being harshly corrected,

And getting my student’s name wrong,

And not being fully graceful,

And falling short in this category and so many others…

 

And I breathe out light, love, grace, and peace

To myself,

Mr. Anonymous,

You,

And all the hurting people who sometimes get things wrong in this world.

 

Amen.

A Reflection on Writing

 

For those of you who don’t know, Young Authors is a celebration of writing sponsored by the North Carolina Reading Association.

Each year, the association president chooses a theme that becomes the focus of student and teacher writing.

This year’s theme was “Reflections: Celebrating the Me I See.”

Each writing is first judged at the school level, then the county level, and then the state level.

Of the 500 writings that made it to the state level this year, 300 were selected as state winners.

Saturday was the state-wide celebration for those winners.

Each winner received a certificate and a printed book that contained all the winning writings.

 

On our way home from the celebration, Heidi the Librarian and I read many of the entries.

Some were funny.

Some moved us to tears.

Some were simple.

Others made us think.

 

Love poured onto many of the pages.

Family, friends, school, and sports.

It was sweet to hear of moms playing Legos with daughters,

And dads being the best coaches ever.

 

But pain bled onto many of the pages, too.

Divorce, death, rejection, unrequited love.

It was sad how much hurt the writers had experienced in their short lives,

And how quickly they felt they needed to grow up.

 

One of the most profound statements we read came from a 9^th grade student.  

She wrote:

“If I had a song written by those who hurt me, I’d be its main composer.”

 

I understand her statement.

I feel it in my core.

I am my own worst enemy.

Do you understand, too?

 

Upon reading the book, one of the moms of a GW student commented:

“You never really know what is lying on a kid’s heart.”

And she’s right.

We don’t know what’s on someone’s heart—

Maybe even our own—

Until we give them the space to write it out.

 

Good, bad, choppy, smooth, handwritten or typed, complete or incomplete, proper or poor grammar…

Maybe we all need to write more,

So that we can understand more,

And become more,

Than the reflection we currently see.

 

Amen.

Trust

 

I went to see Peter Pan with my 10-year-old friend, Caius, a couple of weeks ago.

On our way to the show, Caius sat in the backseat and

Played a game on his Nintendo Switch,

Every once in awhile, he would chime in to tell his mom something about the game or

Answer a question that one of us asked.

But mostly, he just played.

 

At one point during the ride,

It started raining really hard.

Durham traffic stresses me on a non-rainy day,

So to say that I was stressed on a rainy-day is an understatement.

My hands were firmly on the steering wheel.

The windshield wipers were on high—

And that’s a big deal because I don’t like windshield wipers and

I don’t use them unless I must.

Cars were going slow.

I was trying to merge.

I had stopped talking.

And meanwhile Caius was happily humming along,

Completely unaware of the danger of the storm.

 

I remember looking back at Caius and thinking,

“He has total faith in me at this moment.

He has no reason to think that anything could go wrong.

He has no worries at all.

He’s perfectly content.

Boy, do I wish I had his level of trust!”

 

As adults, it’s hard to put our trust in others.

We’ve been injured too many times,

By too many people,

Under too many circumstances,

To blindly trust many people in life,

Especially when it means relinquishing control.

 

But trust is exactly what God asks us to do

When God speaks through the writer of Proverbs:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge God,

And God will direct your paths.”

 

And how does God work in this world?

God works primarily through people.

 

No. We can’t trust everyone.

But we can trust some.

 

Caius trusted me in the middle of a literal storm.

Who do you trust in the middle of your life’s storms?

 

Say a prayer of thanksgiving for them now…

And then write them and tell them you love them…

In whatever way feels comfortable for you.

 

Amen.

God's Goodness

 

I've come to believe that God has created us to be co-creators--

That art and inventions,

Computations and mental functions,

Occur with and alongside God.

And God is good.

God exists in the good we create.

God exists in light, love, happiness, and joy.

God exists in justice, mercy, grace, and peace--

And not just passive peace,

But peace that comes from living into the goodness of God.

God wants us to exist within God's goodness,

And God's goodness is always there.

 

Sometimes life is hard.

Sometimes people and systems make choices that hurt us.

Sometimes we are faced with difficult situations to which we see no obvious solution.

Yet when things arise that point us into God's goodness,

Then those opportunities are the ones that we should take.

Sometimes doors will fling wide open,

And it will seem as if God has prepared a way just for us.

Sometimes doors will creak open and

We will wonder which path to take.

Sometimes doors won't open at all,

And it will seem like we are at a dead end.

Sometimes we will have to choose what to do next.

Sometimes we will have to use the minds that God has given us to think:

Where is goodness?

Where is light?

Where is hope and help and

What allows me to live into my giftedness and to serve in the body of Christ?

What brings possibility?

What brings peace?

What simply feels "right"?

 

So we make the best choices that we can,

And then we go.

We serve.

We live.

Every day.

Creating and seeking good.

For God is good.

And God exists in goodness alone,

Working with us in and through all circumstances to create more good

In this broken, hurting world.

Down Deep

 

I’ve been a member of Massage Envy for over a decade now.

I joined when I lived in SC and made more money than I currently make.

I haven’t let the membership lapse because I always have massages lying in wait,

And I don’t want to waste the money I’ve already spent…

And so I keep the membership going, thinking that I’ll catch up on massages one day,

Only to watch more and more massages accrue and more and more money seemingly go down the drain :-\.

 

That being said,

I’m in a catch-up cycle right now.

At the beginning of the year, I made it my goal to use my massages,

And so I booked a massage every Friday afternoon for five weeks.

Here’s the deal, though:

There was only one massage therapist available at the time I could go,

And he wasn’t very good.

I went because I needed to use up my massages.

I didn’t go because I was receiving the therapeutic benefits of massage.

 

That all changed last Friday.

On a whim, after not going in for a few weeks,

I decided to see if an appointment was available for that day.

There was.

And it was with a different therapist.

So I booked it.

I figured that he couldn’t be much worse than the therapist I’d been seeing.

 

Come to find out,

The new guy was actually an old guy I’d seen years ago.

He had left my location, gone to another, and then landed at the Umstead.

He didn’t like the Umstead, however, because he had to keep the massages relaxing,

And he likes to do more therapeutic work.

 

And boy does he.

As soon as he started my massage,

I knew that it was going to be different than the massages I’d lain through at the beginning of the year.

My new therapist, Anthony, went down deep into my muscles,

All the while stretching them as he went.

There were moments when the work he did hurt,

But it was a good hurt,

And when I left, I felt different.

The tension in my lower back and glutes was gone

And I was pain-free for the first time in a long time.

 

I think that’s how it is with life sometimes, too.

I think sometimes we have to go down deep,

Stretch ourselves, and make ourselves

Face the things that we don’t usually face

In order for the pain to dissipate.

That’s the beauty of counseling.

It’s also the beauty of prayer.

 

Dear God: You are everywhere if we but have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Thank you for making your presence known on a Friday afternoon in an appointment that I expected little from but that I wanted to keep to be a good steward of the resources you have given. Help all of us to be good stewards of our resources and to catch glimpses of you in wherever we end up. Thank you that, through pain, there is often progress, and that you provide us with people to help in the processes that are beyond our expertise. Help us to seek out others who will strengthen us and make us better for your service. It’s in your loving and life-giving name that I pray, Amen.

 

By the way, I’ve scheduled more massages with Anthony.

How could I not?!

God Still Is

 

I was away at a retreat this past weekend,

But I got to go home for a few minutes on Saturday.

While I was there, I took off my shoes.

As I was getting ready to leave,

I thought to myself,

“What color shoes did I have on? Blue or green?

That’s right. It was the green.”

(I have multiple pairs of the same shoes—just in different colors.)

So I put my shoes back on,

Got the stuff I’d gone home for,

And went back to the retreat.

 

When I got there and started talking to a friend,

She said,
“I see you changed shoes while you were home.”

Thinking to myself, “Oh. I must have put on the blue shoes after all,”

I looked down to see a blue shoe on my right foot…

And a green shoe on my left!

“Oh goshk,” I said. “I put on two different shoes.

And I even stood there and debated which ones to wear!”

We both laughed.

And then it was my turn to speak, so

I totally, 100% forgot about my mismatched shoes until someone later said,

“Umm, Deanna? Is there a reason you have on two different shoes? 😊”

 

Friends:

There I was, delivering a 25-minute talk about grace,

Playing my guitar,

Speaking about communion,

And serving communion to everyone in the group…

In totally mismatched shoes!

 

What a beautiful picture of proof that

I don’t have it all together!

Sometimes, I am a total mess.

Sometimes, I overthink.

Sometimes, I doubt.

Sometimes, I say or do stupid things.

Yet God still is…

 

Working to create good from my worst mistakes,

Working to create life from my deepest grief,

Working to create light in my darkest nights, and

Working to create hope in my anxiety-producing fears.

 

When I seem to have it together,

And when I clearly don’t,

God still is…

 

And God still is…

With you, too.

 

Thanks be to God.

Duty and Call

 

1^st Grade Student: Ms. Deaton, can I tell you something?

 

Me: Yes.

 

Student: You can’t tell anybody, okay?

 

Me, feeling a little worried about what I was getting ready to hear, not knowing if I was going to need to tell somebody about neglect or abuse: Okay.

 

Student, reaching in his pocket: I found this on the playground.

 

Me, concerned that he had found some type of weapon or a condom…

 

Student, opening his hand: Now don’t tell anybody.

 

Me, relieved to see that it was a 50/50 raffle ticket…

 

Student, excited, with a sense of awe and wonder: You see these numbers? I’m gonna use them  to win the lottery!

 

He was so proud of himself, and so very hopeful, and all I could do was smile as he stuck the ticket back in his pocket…and silently ask him for forgiveness because I knew that I was going to tell his story.

 

Here is this kid whose parents are dead,

Who lives with his grandparents (who evidently play the lottery 😊),

Who loves to wear either a bowtie or a huge (fake) golden chain,

Whose skin is brown,

Yet whose innocence sees nothing but goodness and possibility in this world.

 

…

 

Friends:

Let’s do our part to fill the world with goodness and possibility so that everyone—

Those young AND those old,

Those with AND those without significant childhood trauma,

Those who have everything AND those who scrape to get by,

Those who fit in AND those who are different and unique,

Those with white skin AND those with brown and black skin—

Has an opportunity for happiness, love, and joy.

 

Standing against society’s injustices may be hard.

Recognizing privilege may be hard.

Naming personal judgments may be hard.

Doing something about the wrongs we see may be hard.

But it’s our call if we profess to follow Christ and

It’s our duty to common humanity if we do not.

 

Amen.