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AMBS and their ilk in the fringe wing of (North American) “post”-Mennonite churches once again display their cluelessness.

Meanwhile, my neighbor’s children (horse and buggy Mennonites—real Mennonites) rode past on their bicycles this morning on their way to school, stoic as they battled those 40 mph wind gusts. Surely they remain gleefully ignorant of these social media discussions; and for me, the beauty of their diversified, small-scale farm, and the joy they seem to have in caring for it and playing on it is a witness more powerful than almost any sermon I’ve heard. Their faithfulness and fidelity both inspire and put me to shame.

You try, and most things do not work—most especially those things suggested by the teacher’s manual, when you follow the “curriculum map.”

You have modest success trying to teach them basic vocabulary, reading aloud, and working with them through a worksheet of ILearn-type questions. They cannot be trusted for long stretches with their Chromebooks.

When they do not complete your carefully designed, scaffolded writing assignments, you make deals with them to get them to write something, anything, remotely related to the assignment, however late, so you don’t have to feel like a failure when so many of them have failing grades using traditional measures.

Still, too many of them turn in almost nothing, are defiant when you offer them the chance to catch up, or redirect them when they are off task (repeatedly) in class.

It’s discouraging work if you dwell on all that, as opposed to the little miracles that do happen almost daily, that surprise and delight you.

You are beginning to understand what it means to “be joyful, though you have considered the facts.”

1. It should be illegal to own a smart phone until you are 16 years old. You should have to have a license to own one.

2. As a middle school teacher, stuck with a horribly boring ELA curriculum that effectively requires students to use Chromebooks in order for it to function, it is my firm belief that we should return to almost completely analog classrooms if we want to educate our children. Paperback books, pencils, and paper. You don’t need anything else 99% the time.

We are both middle school English teachers.

Wife’s middle school: 650 students, 1 assistant principal, 1 resource officer, 0 security guards, and students are allowed to use the bathroom during passing periods.

My middle school: 400 students, 3 assistant principals, 1 resource officer, 7 full-time security guards, no bathroom use during passing periods.

Also, in one of our classes a student was caught vaping. During class. Guess whose?

Any guess whose school has the better ILearn scores?

Today one of my students asked me if I was rich. I told him I am not. And then elaborated, saying by comparison to the vast majority of people in Haiti, for example, I am extravagantly rich. But by American standards I am very middle of the road. He asked if I lived in a mansion. I asked him if he would enjoy seeing a video of my house and property sometime. I might make one.

But I wonder in these two weeks with him what might have made him think to ask such a questions.

In education, the looming “elite” vs. “everybody else” divide will not be along the lines of who has access to the best and most cutting edge tech anymore. It will be along the lines of who gives and who gets a face-to-face education with human teachers vs. those who give and get an online education, one marked by A.I. generated instructional materials, assignments, and rubrics completed by students submitting A.I. generated assignments to match. A.I. generated “disussion posts” get replied to with A.I. generated replies, which get evaluated with A.I. assessment and feedback tools… this will be the (non)education the “have-nots” will be getting. Since these students learn little to nothing through this process, industry will very quickly recognize who to hire and who not to hire, and a degree from a certain kind of institution will be a negative mark on a resume rather than a positive credential. A radical return to the “peripatetic”—to the seminar, the tutorial, to the lab, to apprenticeship, to Jesus and the twelve if you will—is where the only hope for formative education lies. Those willing to innovate quickly in that direction will survive.

Sydney and I completed our second half-marathon of the summer yesterday. It was a very humid and warm morning in Port Huron, and Syd had rough time of it the last three miles, probably a bit of dehydration and a blood sugar drop. We were headed for a 2 hour pace, but had to stop and walk multiple times the last three miles.

But, who cares? We did it and we did it together. I was so happy to run with her again, and so thankful to have no issue with the calf muscle I strained about four weeks ago that seriously hampered our training.

Perhaps the P90x strength training I was able to do helped me feel strong through the race.

I’m on the hunt for a solution for a mild but annoying toe blistering issue when I run long. If I’m to do a marathon eventually, I’ve got to get this figured out. My toes are pretty scrunched together, so my anatomy is not my friend. Thinking of trying some merino wool toe socks.

Looking forward to cooler weather at some point, but it is a ways off yet. Taking it easy this week, but maybe doing a 6 mile run this weekend with Syd and starting the process again to see what my 55 y.o. body can do.

Loving it.

After I finish my next half-marathon, unless I get very inspired and decide to register for the marathon in Indianapolis in November, I intend to do the full 90 days of my modified P90x. It’s been awhile.

This is how I roll with P90x with my modifications in the first round.

1. Chest & Back + Ab-ripper.
2. Plyometrics
3. Run 5-6 miles
4. Shoulders & Arms + Ab-ripper
5. 30 minute yoga (P90x3 or Sean Vigue), 3-4 mile run.
6. Legs & Back + Ab-ripper
7. 8+ mile run.

I add running because I don’t want to lose the ground I’ve gained from my running, but it’s only 3 runs per week and not particularly high milage. The long runs might build to 12-14 miles depending on how I’m feeling. I do a much shorter yoga workout because the marathon yoga-x session is over-kill in my book, and then I can run that day. I skip Kenpo because I hated it, and run instead.

If this ends up being too much pounding on my body, I will simply modify as I go.

I’ll document my progress with stats and photos here on my blog and, perhaps, on Instagram.

I went to see Baugo again on a Monday after work. He was sitting on his front porch reading a book; his dog rushed out to greet me, tail wagging. 

Baugo motioned me up to the porch with a smile, motioned at the rocker beside his own.

”Hello again. What brings you up here?”

”I had another question about my failure,” I said.

”You think too much about this, you know.” He looked off toward the tree tops.

”I know I do,” I said.

Then he didn’t say anything for what seemed like a long time. We just sat there, I petting his dog, he contemplating the wind in the maples or the clouds. Who knows?


”Will it ever get any better?” I asked.

He didn’t look at me when he replied. He simply said to the treetops: “Seasons come and seasons go. You know the wind in those trees makes them grow stronger? Grow a tree in a windless place and it doesn’t spread its roots like these have. The weight of the snow in winter, too, makes the branches grow stronger.”

He paused, but I knew there was more.

”Sure, some times the wind or the weight is too much and branches fall. But even so, the tree is usually stronger overall after a bit of nature’s pruning.”

He stood up then. “I got some branches I neeed to haul from the storm last week,” he said. “Sawed them up earlier today. Just need now to put them on the pile, let ‘em dry out. Mak a pretty good fire later this fall or winter.”

I thought he might have some point in all this.

”You know ash is good to sprinkle on the garden in spring? Not too much, just enough. Rake it in, let it work. I use mine from the branch piles I burn most years. Better than fertilizers you buy in the store.”

He walked off the porch and toward the old pick-up in the drive.

”You coming?”

I followed him. I guess I could see his point.

I came to him with my disappointments.

They were all packed in a sack, slung across my back. Some were fresh and sharp, like broken glass. Others were old and dull, but heavy—like stones soaked in grief.

“I have carried these a long way,” I said.

He looked at me with compassion. “And what do you want from me?”

“Hope,” I said.

He nodded slowly, then led me to the garden. It was winter. Nothing bloomed, trees bare, earth frozen.

“Here,” he said, handing me a cracked pot. “Plant something.”

“But it’s not the season,” I said. “Nothing will grow.”

He smiled. “Plant something.”

So I took a handful of the ash-colored soil and put it in the pot. I placed in it a seed he gave me—though it looked more like a pebble. I watered it with a few of my tears.

“Now wait,” he said.

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

I waited, days, weeks. The pot sat on my windowsill, unchanged. I told myself it was foolish to believe. I began to resent the seed, then the pot, then him as well.

At last I returned to him. “It’s still empty,” I said. “Nothing is happening.”

He looked at the pot, then at me. “So it is,” he said. “But tell me—how many times did you check it?”

“Every day.”

“And what did you feel when you looked?”

I paused. “Disappointment. Frustration. But… also a little curiosity. A little wondering. A little… hope.”

He nodded. “Then it is already growing.”

“But nothing has sprouted!”

“Not in the pot,” he said. “In you.”

Today I learned that David Brooks writes from 8-1 each day, trying to produce about 1200 words. When he gets ideas, he writes notes on post-its, which he eventually photocopies onto full size paper, creating stacks of papers on the floor around themes of his notes. He says his composing process involves walking around the room, kneeling to look through notes, to help him develop paragraphs.

In some ways, it sounds like a version of storyboarding.

I’m always fascinated by the writing processes of successful writers. I continute to experiment with and hone my own.

You can listen to him describe his process in the early minutes of this excellent podcast interview.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

I teach (English) at a very large online University. The diabolical ubiquity of A.I. generated discussion posts and replies, marked by a laughable lack of human voice to them, is a depressing problem with no easy solution.

For this reason, I am hoping we might move away from written discussions to audio or video discussions and replies, with clear penalties for students who are quite obviously reading from a script (likely A.I. produced). Or better still, place students in groups of 3-4 and require them to schedule a time each week for a 20 minute live zoom discussion that they must record and submit, perhaps giving a one paragraph key “takeaway” from their discussion.

Something should be done. These discussions—not a great pedagogical practice under the best of circumstances—have now become a joke.

“Lord, grant that I may always allow myself to be guided by You… Grant that in all things, great and small, today and all the days of my life,  I may do whatever You require of me. Help me respond to the slightest prompting of Your Grace, so that I may be Your trustworthy instrument for Your honor. May Your Will be done in time and in eternity by me, in me, and through me. Amen.”

“As we age, we can begin to trim down our spiritual vocabulary, and eventually we can get it down to three words: forgive, forgive, forgive! To die with a forgiving heart is the ultimate moral and religious imperative. We should not delude ourselves on this. All the dogmatic and moral purity in the world does little for us if our hearts are bitter and incapable of forgiveness.”

-Ronald Rolheiser, “Sacred Fire”

(from Ronald Rolheiser, “Sacred Fire”)

1. Live in gratitude and thank your creator by enjoying your life.

2. be willing to carry more and more of life’s complexities with empathy.

3. Transform jealousy, anger, bitterness, and hatred rather than give them back in kind.

4. Let suffering soften your heart rather than harden your soul.

5. Forgive—those who hurt you, your own sins, the unfairness of your life, and God for not rescuing you.

6. bless more and curse less!

7. Live in more radical sobriety.

8. Pray, affectively and liturgically.

9. Be wide in your embrace.

10. Stand where you are supposed to be standing, and let God provide the rest.

The university creative arts magazine is an education, not so much for the artwork or poetry, but for the bios the students pen next to photos of themselves. “Claire Cartright is a garden of gratitude,” begins one. Does she lose the battle with the weeds in her garden as I do?

Max’s work, says another, “focuses on his identity as a queer and trans person, and most of what he makes is seen through that lens.” I wonder what lens the rest of what he makes is seen through.

“Brayton enjoys taking pictures in nature and of landscapes, and his pictures are all shot on an iPhone.” Brayton wears a navy blue blazer and red tie, and studies Business Marketing in the School of Business. I like him.

When Aiden is “not writing code or making dubious Google searches,” says another. Tell me about those dubious Google searches. “Aiden hopes their stories confuse and disorient you in the most entertaining way possible.” I feel disoriented already. They conclude with this delightful gem: “Not once have they ever known what they were doing, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.” Reading their bio is evidence of this.

I resist the temptation towards a hermeneutic of suspicion as I read these bios, though it is hard not to give in to the urge I feel to deconstruct them. I lean into the hermeneutics of wonder and of charity, and daydream about potential. What will they feel twenty years from now reading their own bios, perusing their past creations? Will they come to know their true selves and acknowledge this was all necessary, that the One who whispers their real name in their ear has some gift only they can give to the world if only they will listen closely, asking, “what do You want me to understand about myself, and what do you want me to do with what I come to understand?”

May they all become gardens of gratitude.

They bury ducks, dead from avian flu, in the landfill, up the slope from where I am working on the beautification project of the day. On the radio, I hear them call it “special waste.”

I daydream of a great resurrection day, where all creation is restored to perfection, and the special waste is reanimated as ducks, but in the new Earth there will be a meeting of the minds between humans and other creatures, where the barriers to our communication will be no more.

I wonder what they will have to say then. This is my “working genius.” Wonder. Invention, too. I would be happy to know the mind of a resurrected duck and learn of his or her working geniuses. Among other things.

“We grew up thinking confession was just telling everyone and God that we’re sorry about stuff. But “I’m sorry” doesn’t lead to transformation. Confession is telling God the truth about what you really believe about him, yourself, and others. It’s the greatest act, a sacrament. God loves honest confession. Confession is the beginning of genuine transformation. If you don’t tell God your truth, how can he enlighten your reality with his truth?”

• Jamie Winship, Living Fearless

I do not have many opinions about football. But I will die on this hill. All football games should be played on grass. Turf should be outlawed, starting with NFL and trickling down to high school. My apologies to all these moronic high schools that just installed turf fields. This was a very stupid move on your part.

Suppose, instead, your choose one book to read for the month, and you read in it for at least one hour a day. Suppose you finish the first read in a week and half, and then start over, re-reading, deep reading, reflecting, writing about it. You would want to choose books worthy of 30 hours of your time, that can sustain a month’s immersion, that you would want to form and shape you.

www.theatlantic.com/politics/…

Although Christians believe that God reigns supreme over history and will direct things to their proper end, the meanings of individual events are much more difficult to discern. For this reason, Christians are not quick to attribute natural disasters as a sign of God’s judgment on a particular place. We don’t believe that one can count the number of Christians on a sporting team and then give the team with the most Christians the victory. The world is more complicated than that. We are not always sure why some people get sick and their prayers for healing are answered, and why some people get sick and die. Promising prosperity and declaring a secret knowledge about the purposes of God have always been ways to gain applause, power, and money, but they are also dangerous and potentially heretical.

If all this is true of illness and catastrophe, how much more so of a presidential election? I know that more people cast their vote for Donald Trump than for Kamala Harris, and for that reason he was inaugurated yesterday. I cannot with confidence speak about God’s intervention in the matter. I was surprised, then, to hear the invocation at the inauguration attribute the outcome of the 2024 election to God’s positive will for America, and as an occasion for praise. That strikes me as hubris because it assumes the ability to know God’s opinion on an event in history.

“I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; Put me to doing, put me to suffering; Let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, Exalted for you, or brought low for you; Let me be full, Let me be empty, Let me have all things, Let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things To your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, You are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

•  Methodist Covenant prayer