my funny valentine

I'm not the biggest fan of manufactured holidays like Valentine's Day. But celebrating it in the classroom yesterday with the kids was so much fun. We made our bags with our names and hearts all over them and all the kids got to drop their valentines and candies in each other's bag. I remember how much I used to love that as a kid. Heck, I love it now. The room looked like it had been hit by a tornado of doileys and construction paper and gooey glue stick containers (some of which ended up in my hair...)

And man, I just have to say, I cleaned up yesterday like no other Valentine's Day before. I'm thinking having 17 second-grade boys that have crushes on you means that by the end of the day, your desk looks like a chintzy storefront Valentine's display at Osco Drug. Some of the fine items that made their way from the aisles of Walmart and the 99 cent store and into my Valentine-lovin' heart included: red stuffed animals with magnetic lips that kiss, a HUGE bear with a lace heart that says "I love you!", a monkey holding a guitar with the clever phrase "You rock my world", boxes and boxes of hearts, and my favorite -- a little bear holding a rose, from Obed. He sneakily carried his back back up to my desk, threw it down, and ran away with hopes that I didn't see him. Later he pulled me aside and said slyly, "That's my rose to you. Did you smell it? Smells good, huh?" as he winked. Apparently he sprayed his cologne on the rose so it would smell like him. My car smelled of some dime store cologne like Cool Water (or maybe it was Stetson?) all the whole way home. I'm still laughing.

Other unrelated funny occurrences: Today we learned some new words that the students were asked to create sentences with. Maybe not such a good idea. For the word "crater", Carlos decided a good sentence would be, "Your momma is as big as a crater". Nice.

Yes, the comedy of it all...

what we really need is relational

"And that is the thing about life. You go walking along, thinking, people are talking a language and exchanging ideas, but the whole time there is this deeper language people are really talking and that language has nothing to do with ethics, fashion or politics, but what it really has to do with is feeling important and valuable. What if the economy we are really dealing in life, what if the language we are really speaking in life, what if what we really want in life is relational?

Now this changes things quite a bit because if the gospel of Jesus is just some formula I obey, then it doesn't meet the deep need of the human condition, it doesn't interact with the great desire of my soul, and it has nothing to do with the hidden (but rather, obvious) language we are all speaking. But if it is more, if it is a story about humanity falling away from the community that named it, and an attempt to bring humanity back to that community, and if it is more than a series of ideas, but rather speaks directly into this basic human need we are feeling, then the gospel of Jesus is the most relevant message in the history of mankind."

So here is what I am thinking. I read this recently and it just made such simple and perfect sense to me, because this Gospel is the only thing that can really meet the deep desire of my soul for worth. He created it... and it has to be explained by something. A big part of how I think and what I do is driven by this overwhelming need to feel important and valuable. It feels so inescapable. And I think that's because it is. I am a human wired to to need something outside of me to tell me who I am. And that is what He intended, actually... but unfortunately I too often look to things outside of my relationship with Him to speak into my human need for self-definition. And that is never a good thing.

Mental note to self: Quit doing this. It fails miserably every time.