Babies

Sometimes it baffles me that there is still so much to-do about a baby born a couple thousand years ago.  We get all excited and sometimes lost and overwhelmed in the preparations for this holiday, but when it comes down to it - to this moment - there is an air of anticipation.


I grew up going to church and this day, this Christmas Eve day, is my most favorite of church-going holidays.  Waking up on Christmas Eve day means the promise of baked treats wafting from the kitchen.  It means getting  my hands dirty doing what I love: helping prepare the traditional Swedish smorgasbord food we eat every year.  In the evening we go to church, where we finally still ourselves; we sing the traditional carols under and amid dim white lights.  Quietly we leave, back into the world for the brief time it takes to retrieve ourselves and gather 'round Mom and Dad's fancily-laid table, steam rising in front of everyone's plate.  After our taste buds have remembered that once, long ago, they hailed from Sweden, the anticipation yet lingers.


I suppose as a child, this anticipation may have centered on the presents under the tree, the promise of tomorrow's gifts for me.  As an adult, I anticipate the Christmas morning present-opening tradition in the Johnson household as a culmination of the months of deciding on the precisely perfect present for each beloved person.  There is still another cause of anticipation, however.  It is the gift of a little baby's birth that we celebrate.  Whether it's Jesus' birth, or your birth, the birth of your child or a stranger's, each baby is a promise of a new and ever-unfolding gift.  This is the miracle that I celebrate tonight: the mystery of each person's contribution to our world.  This is why I love my work.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I'm a teacher.  I recently had a conversation with another teacher, who expressed appreciation for parent-teacher conference conversations in which the parents are emphatically concerned with the question, "Does my child respect you and other teachers?"  I also appreciate parent-teacher conferences in which the parents ask about more than a student's academics, but something about this conversation has continued to gnaw at the back of my mind (not in a migraine kind of way, just a bit of unsettling of my soul).


I stand with my back against the countertop, hands wrapped around a mug of warm water - known in my family as silver tea - scanning the busyness of the room.  On the carpet, a couple boys build towers with the knobless cylinders, a potentially potent, but for now peaceful, mix of personalities and material.  I become enthralled watching Zoe work with coloring pencils and paper on the table by the fish tank.  Minutes pass; she and I are "in the zone," Csikeszentmihalyi's flow, we are absorbed in our work.  As she dutifully arranges her pencils above her paper and settles into her seat, I note her determined, focused, concentrated countenance.  From somewhere deep within her, she felt the need to do this work - the outcome of which still remains a mystery to me.


Each day I watch as children engage in freely chosen work, unveiling more about their inherent personality, more fully owning skills that propel them into the future, as they will continue to become distinctly beautiful human beings.  Watching Zoe at work, absorbed in her peaceful inner drive, peace settles on the shores of my soul; I understand my respect for the child far outweighs the child's need to respect me, for as she creates a meticulously multi-colored abstract drawing on that blank piece of paper, she acts to create herself.