Longwood Gardens

Michael's mother came to visit and we went to Longwood Gardens for the afternoon, after that the doctor visit that inspired the last post.  Because I was apparently feeling poetic that day, I also wrote a poem about Longwood Gardens, though it took me a few more days to put together.  I'm still not entirely pleased with it, but I wanted to share it here.


There is a place in Southeastern Pennsylvania
where a man with more money than he knew what to do with
decided to plant all the plants he could find
And hire as many men and women add he could to tend the plants
and be stewards of truth and beauty in his new Eden.
And several decades later, maybe a hundred years--
I don't really know the history--
I paid $18 at a counter at the front gate
for a chance, to see the man's enduring collection.
I am thankful for this man who did not drink his fortune,
who did not take Gatsby as his model,
but instead dedicated himself to planting peaches,
training bonsais,
and collecting palms,
if only for his own pleasure.
I am thankful because I am losing my battle against cynicism,
and I am beginning to suspect that what men say about God might be true:
He is old, useless, and irrelevant.
But here, my tired spirit rises and sings,
joining the chorus of creation.
God loves me, God loves us.
In fact, he is lavish and exaggerated and over the top,
what with these ridiculous colors, fuzzy plants, and oversized lily pads.
The problem isn't that God is dead, but that we aren't paying attention.
It shouldn't take billionaires and patience through east coast rage-traffic,
but, unfortunately,
it does take that.

Marriage and Doctor Visits

Whoever came up with those vows about
"in sickness and in health"
must have known a thing or two about life and living.
We took those vows because, being intoxicated with love,
we actually believed keeping them would be easy.
It's easy to make promises when you're in love.
And at first, when love is hot and vows are new,
you find a way,
even amongst grocery lists and loads of laundry and unpaid electric bills,
You find time for kisses.
But sometimes the mundane and routine turns overwhelming,
kisses turn stale, even bitter
and in our case, the long parade of doctors and lab techs began.
Surely it's just hormones they told us,
or anemia,
And they started treatments and recommendations and more labwork to confirm.
And as the overwhelming bits turned to definite chaos,
kisses became another unfinished to-do at the bottom of the list,
Deprioritized after doctor visits and phone calls to the insurance company.
And then they found the tumor
--benign, non-cancerous, yet completely disruptive--
and they agreed on the depression and the anxiety,
and we entered a phase of guess-test-revise prescriptions, until
Today.

When I took those vows, I thought we'd get a good two or maybe three decades of "in health."
We'd get to practice,
bringing soup to bedside over the flu,
and when the time came for whatever the end looks like,
whatever "in sickness" looks like,
we'd be well-rehearsed.
But whoever came up with those vows must have known about people like us,
People who need vows because making promises is easy but keeping them is hard.

That's what I was thinking about today,
watching you rebutton your shirt as the doctor put away his stethoscope,
telling you that everything looked great, telling me it was my turn up on the table.
Whoever came up with those vows must have known that sometimes young people get sick,
and sometimes husband and wife get sick together,
and sometimes love and marriage means being faithful to doctor visits.
I was thankful for the grace in those vows,
because the errands and the bills almost drove us apart,
but these doctor visits put us back together,
Slowly, with each new prescription and therapy,
the doctors taught us how to care, how to be selfless despite great personal suffering, and how to persevere.

On Becoming a Teacher

I did not mean to be a teacher, but that's what happened.  I have never, ever been a good student.  Lots of teachers have described me as sweet, caring, genuine, bright... but studious?  No, parent-teacher conferences often started, "Elena, is a sweet and bright young girl, but she needs to focus more on her studies."

I find it very ironic that I became a teacher at all.  First, because I was such a terrible student, easily distracted, irreverent, a little lazy.  Second, because my dad was a teacher and that should have meant that I should have been a better student.  He taught at the national teacher's university in Honduras, La Pedagógica. My earliest memories of him are his hands and clothes covered in chalk.  Stacks of papers to grade.  The great halls he lectured in.  The way his students approached him with deference and respect.

I had no intention of becoming a teacher, but then, I had little intention in career planning, as my undergrad transcript clearly shows.  I graduated  in Linguistics and Anthropology, because by then, why not?  And then I went to China, then I started teaching English, then I kept teaching English, started teaching work maturity, teaching adult basic education.  I found that I was good at teaching, and eventually I found that I could love it.

Now I've decided to go back to school--despite general trepidation related to my past academic performance--to learn how to be a teacher less haphazardly. What follows is the the personal statement I submitted to Indiana University for the M.S.Ed in Adult Education.  I was accepted in early June.

            I am interested in the online Masters of Science of Education in Adult Education at Indiana University because I believe it can provide me with the formal training I need to become a more skillful practitioner, to operate more effective programs, and ultimately to advocate for improvements in the existing Adult Education systems.

            A cursory examination of the Adult Education system reveals its shortcomings.  According to the National Skills Coalition and the National Commission on Adult Literacy, as many as 88 million Americans lack a high school diploma, or demonstrate low literacy or limited English proficiency, yet only 2.7% of these individuals were served in government-funded adult education programs in 2009.  Even with support from other funding streams, the system lacks adequate capacity, or arguably the adequate quality, to significantly impact our communities.

            Locally, the situation is just as dire. Presently, I work as an Adult Education Manager, where I am responsible for grant-writing, program administration, and instruction.  We offer academic, life-skills, and job related training to individuals from vulnerable populations.  While we consistently meet and exceed the goals prescribed by our funders, we are only a small portion of the system in our area, which collectively serves only about 3% of qualifying adults. We are not keeping pace with the need.

            Despite the challenges, I find my work extremely rewarding. I relate to many of my students’ circumstances.  My family came to United States in 1992, to the same impoverished community where I now work.  My parents made significant sacrifices to ensure my education, leaving prestigious posts behind and taking on low-wage jobs. My own apathy resulted in poor academic performance, jeopardizing my scholarship and my degree.  My first real act of adulthood was to recognize my gaps, prioritize my education, and begin building my future.  With support, I eventually found success.  My students have made similar decisions.  Helping them goes beyond content mastery and calls for persistence, flexibility, optimism, and creative problem solving to navigate needs and manage resources.  I find the work rewarding because I know their success casts wide positive influence through their families, their social networks, and our entire community.

            I am again confronted with my gaps, since most of what I've learned about curriculum development, instruction, and classroom management comes from mentors, textbooks, and first-hand experiences.  The outlined course of study at Indiana University would weave together my experiences with pedagogical theory and application.  It would also allow me to understand the larger historical context surrounding the Adult Education system, explore past and current trends, and consider new strategies for addressing gaps in the system.  The online format would allow me to continue working, and to immediately apply what I am learning, while I pursue the degree.  In total, Indiana University's program will better equip me as a teacher and a program manager to meet the needs of adult learners, and to begin working to bring about change in the existing Adult Education system.

Travel Poems, again

Apparently, I like to write travel poems.

You can see the first installment on Transprovincialism here and the second here.

This one, I wrote while I waited in the International Arrivals Hall at the Philadelphia Airport for Michael to return from Romania.


My life is fewer airports than it used to be,
I am more grounded, you could say.
But today, standing here waiting for you,
I feel oddly at home--
Desperate for you embrace,
Yet gently comforted by the familiarity
Of wide cold halls and the clatter of luggage wheels on faux marble floors.

Twenty Easter Sundays

I grew up with a Christian legacy, but I did not fully grapple with the personal implications of Christianity until eight years ago, when the immense and eternal God declared himself to me saying, "Perfect love casts out fear." Three weeks later, after what I call my screaming day, was Easter Sunday. My 20th Easter Sunday, I worshipped God for the first time, not for who I thought he was supposed to be, but according to who I knew him to be: that is, the mighty and immeasurable Creator of all things who is yet the lover of my soul, who loves me perfectly, who casts out fear.

Every day of the last eight years, I have been, slowly and painstakingly, learning to fear less and love more. So many days, I find myself clamouring the way the weaker disciples did, "This is a hard teaching, who can accept it?" Thank God for Grace.

1 John 4:15-19, " Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us."

On "Ubuntu"

I listened to these two TED talks recently, and I thought I'd share them. Like the nerdy western girl I am, I associated the word "ubuntu" with linux or something, but it turns out the word has a much richer heritage than I had known.

Here's the first, delivered just after the passing of Nelson Mandela, by Boyd Varty.

And here is the second, a much older TED talk that I stumbled upon today, by Chris Abani.

I have, in the last few years, wondered much about being made in the image of God, per Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." I've wondered at God's lavishness, that he fashioned the created after the Creator, and I've wondered what it all means.  I've wondered what it means for who we're supposed to be, and what it means when we choose to worship the True God over ourselves (Romans 1:23, "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man..."), and how we're supposed to relate to each other. I mean, what does it mean to be human if by design we are image bearers of God? If before Eve and the Apple, in our most perfect condition, being human was being created in the image of God? I am still working out the day-to-day, the "walk by the Spirit"  stuff in Galatians 5.  Too often, I feel inadequate and wicked and broken, but I find myself returning over and over to the two greatest commandments:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:37-39)

So Ubuntu. "I am because of you."  "The only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me." Maybe Ubuntu can mean that as I love you-my-neighbor, and you love me-your-neighbor, we remind each other of the Creator who loved us first, who so lavishly fashioned us after himself. Maybe Ubuntu can mean that as I learn to love God with all of my heart and soul and mind, that I will look around and see his image in my neighbors, and I will learn to love them well. I don't know. But I like what Boyd Varty says when he talks about his friend Solly, who didn't think twice about saving him from the crocodile, because all life and death must be shared.  And I like what Chris Abani says, quoting his mother, "The simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you."  And then I think of Philippians 2:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

I wonder that maybe we are too jealous with our humanity, hoarding ourselves, when in fact the lavish God who made us in His image meant for it to be shared, like Christ who died on the cross to love God with all his heart and soul and mind, and to love us his neighbors and brothers.  The Apostle Paul went on to write in that same letter to the Philippians, "Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me."

Poems about Time

Apparently, I've had time on my mind lately.

Calendars
Calendars have a funny way
Of ever marching forward
Disregarding personal hopes and aspirations
And launching each of us into new seasons
Whether we are ready or not

On the first Sunday of the new year
I must remember to be hopeful for new things,
To be less cynical, less skeptical,
To regard days less as time-slots for tasks on a to-do list
And more as new mercies,
new adventures,
new opportunities to gain perspective.
I must remember to be open-handed,
Open-minded.
It is, after all, a new year.
I must learn to put new wine in new wine skins,
I must learn not to burst.