When you work with teenagers, you serve as a daily witness to a thousand triumphs and tribulations. The worst parts of my job are watching the things I remember hating about middle school reenacted before my eyes. The best parts involve seeing the students, really seeing them, and letting them know that they are seen. They eat lunch standing around my desk, they argue about book characters, they ask for help on application essays, they proudly hand over their report cards. They tell me great and terrible things that make my heart break with the joy and sorrow of it all.
They do not, of course, see me. This is the way of teenagers, and I like listening to their confidences. I am surprised when they think to ask me a question about myself. I like when they forget themselves and say more than they should, eyes sliding over to see if I noticed.
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At work, the week before spring break did not feel like a Holy Week. The building simmered with fatigue and stress and lack of air conditioning. The earthly calendar was not reflecting the heavenly one.
The church calendar grounds me in a sense of collective memory and reflection. I feel that grounding here at the end of Holy Week. Our church’s Maundy Thursday service was focused on symbolic reminders of the last days of Jesus’ life. It ended with communion, an echo of the meal Jesus shared with his friends. Do this in remembrance of me.
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This week what is saving my life is a story I can’t tell you. I look hard for the redemption, but I am not allowed to testify to the miracles that I see. There are privacy issues, and, anyway, they are not my stories to tell. My part is boring: editing essays, giving advice, listening. Praying and waiting. They are the ones who are taking steps into the future. I am just the old lady who cries at the wonder of it all, because sometimes it works out exactly like it should.
It feels like a sacred job, to remember another human being. Whether it is remembering someone who has died, holding someone in your heart, or being reminded of someone’s humanity. It is enough to say that the gift of my students, being allowed to carry their stories in my heart, is saving my life this week. Especially on this Good Friday, a day when we are reminded how holy it is to remember.
What is saving your life this week?
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Rote prayer is saving my life. I have been struggling with a lot of things of late, including some dark ones. The other night it was really dark, and I just prayer the Lord’s Prayer over and over again until I felt an easement. I probably would not have done this had I not started praying an Anglican rosary a few months back. I didn’t think that rote prayer would do me any good, because it gave me no room for creativity in what I felt needed to be said. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was wrong about that.
Every week when I read these Friday posts, I wonder what is saving my life and I’m never sure. Geof, I can understand how rote prayer could do that, because sometimes we just don’t have the words to say. But I decided this afternoon that what is saving my life at the moment is the azaleas. They have been so gorgeous. I have a flame red one in my front yard that has lifted my spirits when I’ve walked out the front door. It’s fading now, as azaleas will do, but today I looked out my kitchen window and saw the wild azalea in my backyard. It’s been there who knows how long. It’s left over from when this area was a forest, and thankfully the houses in our neighborhood were built before clear cutting was the norm for a new development. It’s grown really tall and has gorgeous pink blossoms. I look forward to it every year. Something else will have to save my life next week probably, but this week I’m really thankful that this wild azalea is sharing its beauty with me.