Tag: High school

Outsiders

Published on by Marilyn30 Comments

I found myself growing hot with frustration.

I tried to back up. “Let me explain. Both of you grew up here. You’ve lived in the towns where you now live since you were born. It means you know the rules; you ‘get’ how to do things, how things work. Those of us who move here? We don’t know these things”

I felt like I was speaking to children. The conversation began as I was telling some colleagues about our friends who just moved here for a year after living in Japan, Australia, and most recently, Romania. Their youngest daughter went to her first day of school yesterday.

“So?” was the reaction I got “Big deal.”

It was.

This was her first day of school in America. Ever. She’s in high school and she’s never attended school in the United States. Added to the equation is that this is a part of the country where people don’t move a lot. You meet many people who have lived here all their lives. Those of us who haven’t are the exception, not the rule. Both kids and school administrators are not used to having new comers. There is an assumption that everyone knows the rules, everyone knows how to fill out the forms, find out specifics, work the system.

So it was a huge, big, fat deal.

And to have to explain this felt more than frustrating. Everything seems easy when you know how to do it. But as Robynn said in a previous post, sometimes the “easy” is impossible.

So I tried to put the situation into a different context. “Imagine if you came with me to Pakistan and I wanted you to get something in the bazaar, or I wanted you to go sign in with the police. Would you know how to do it?” Silence “What if I said ‘but it’s so easy! everyone knows how to do that!'” I think I made my point.

I found myself yet again the outsider trying to defend other outsiders. It’s a role I have played often, but it still surprises me that people don’t understand. We become so comfortable with our normal that we consider it normal for everyone else.

It’s fall now and schools across the country have begun the school year. Elementary, high school, college, graduate school – it all begins in September. And there are a lot of outsiders, a lot of people who don’t have a clue where they are supposed to be and how they are supposed to get there.

They may not know that you are expected to wait in line in the United States or that in America the expectation is that you follow traffic laws. They may not understand that you don’t walk through a “drive” through to get your meal; they might be shocked at our public displays of affection to our pets and our partners; they probably don’t know that bargaining isn’t common – you don’t negotiate the price. And initially they won’t even know where to get the basics – eggs, bread, milk, and fruit.

We can step into these scenarios and be that person who makes life a little easier for the outsider, a little less daunting, a little more manageable. That person who reaches out and understands that some of these things really are big deals. The person that helps make the easy possible.

Do you remember what it was like to be an outsider? How did that work for you? Who was the person who came alongside you and walked you through the rules, the do’s and don’ts of life in another place? 

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Sharing Bedrooms and Dialogue

Published on by Marilyn10 Comments

“See! If more people shared a bedroom when they were juniors in high school, we would have better dialogue in this country!”

This was my comment to a high school friend as we exchanged views on the strong reactive response to Chick-fil-A  last week.

Tina and I were fast friends in high school. Although we knew each other when we were younger, we met again in Pakistan during our junior year. She had just come from school in Iran and I from the United States.

We roomed together. We double dated with Tim and Skip. We talked and laughed late into the night. We fought. We went on 14 hour bus trips, all the time. We shared life in a way most high school kids don’t because it was a boarding school.

I love Tina – I haven’t seen her in years but I still remember her laugh, her acerbic wit, her anger, her tears, and her smiles. In fact she’s the only person from my past who still calls me Mare Bear.

Reconnecting on Facebook I get to see glimpses of all those again — but we are no longer in high school. We have both faced life in all it’s beauty and ugliness; life in all it’s complexity. And we don’t agree all the time. There are strong opinions on various issues – sometimes expressed openly, other times in more subtle ways through posting pictures, articles or the iconic thumbs up Facebook like button.

Dialogue is best done in relationship, over breaking bread, over coffee.

We both have strong convictions that could lead to ugly – but we don’t let ugly happen. We share Facebook bread. I don’t think it’s even conscious; I think it’s just an unspoken recognition that we shared much in the past; a past that very few could connect with or understand and this relationship is foundational to our online communication. It’s not planned – it just is.

I  don’t think it’s easy. Human reactions, emotions and interactions are complex. I also know there are some things that I won’t discuss online, not because I lack conviction but because the potential for misinterpretation is too high, the possibility of offense equally so.

But there are other areas where I think it can and does work and that’s what I want Communicating Across Boundaries to be – an online bedroom of sorts where we dialogue with respect, at the same time not watering down our convictions to please.

And that’s precisely what I see more and more. I am honored  by the thoughtfulness and intelligence in comments; by the real questions asked and the open sharing of conclusions and convictions.

Keep it coming! Share the Communicating Across Boundaries Bedroom. This blog is nothing without you.

Strength Will Rise

Published on by Marilyn17 Comments

On Wednesday, my fifth child graduated from high school. The ceremony was living, breathing evidence of perseverance through adversity. Everyone on stage clothed in a black graduation gown with a cap and tassel has lived more of life than they should have in their short years. And we celebrated. Big time.

With this graduation I ended over 22 years and approximately 4025 days of school; of school functions and lunches; of good teachers and bad teachers and mediocre teachers; of interacting with parents I love and showing grace to parents I don’t love; of fundraisers and so much more. And it was Bittersweet. And it was time.

And my strength was gone. Gone like the chewed bones of the ribs that were eaten at the graduation party. Gone like the cups, plates and silverware tossed in the trash for tomorrow’s recycling. Gone like the people who had come, celebrated and left. I wanted to curl up in the fetal position and cry until there were no more tears to cry and my tears had watered every flower, bush and plant in the Boston Public Gardens. Instead I called a friend and sobbed, talking through all the emotions I was feeling.

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord

Sometimes all of life builds up like a house of cards and one little movement sends it crashing down, lying in a jumble of aces, spades, hearts and diamonds.

And that is what happened. My house of cards fell. I have gone on my own strength for so long that it took the tiniest of motions to cause the collapse and demise of my carefully constructed but pitifully weak house.

Our God, you reign forever. Our hope, our strong deliverer

After a heavy dose of tears and wise words of a friend swallowed with a big bottle of self-reflection I found myself in a place of humility and exhaustion. It was so good. It was so hard. 

You are the everlasting God, the everlasting God. You do not faint, you won’t grow weary 

I have tried to fix and rescue, protect and provide. Only. There are times when it is impossible. When the broken cannot be fixed and the drowning cannot be saved; when those who need protecting need more than our feeble efforts and provisions have run out. And that is where I was. I was weak. I was needy. My strength was gone.

You’re the defender of the weak, you comfort those in need

In the post-tears exhaustion that followed, I surrendered  with smudged mascara, tear coated contact lenses and weary willingness to lean on the One who gives life and the bread of life, the one who lifts us up on wings like eagles.

Strength will rise.