And Idah is working really really hard because she wants to go to University High.

Test me, O LORD, and try me; examine my heart and mind. Psalm 26:2

Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves. Psalm 126:6–7

I so remember that bend in the road away from the Santa Rita sunrise and towards the Valley of Humiliation. That merge lane onto I10. Every single morning I would sort of tear up as I headed into the Den of Wildcats, land where a thousand clever ideas and polished procedures and State Standards would be shredded into twisted heaps onto the rather sticky floor.

And it’s really not quite like that now, really.

But the new teacher gig is always humbling. I have no street cred. No remember-when stories. No particular answers to the myriad of questions. Just lots of essential elements of instruction plans and powerpoints that just didn’t work out so well.

And it’s one thing to ask God to be poor in spirit and quite another to walk it out.

And every afternoon while I peddle back up Broadway I should reflect and restructure and sort through the ten-hour day and make some new to-do lists. But I mostly I don’t. My head is too tired.

But every morning I can look over those names on my fixed-prayer list once again. Eliseo, Angel, Cadeaux, Guliette, Desire, Kristofer. And think about Kristofer’s robotics club. And his momma. And his dad whom he has never met.

And Mohamed, Miguel, Gabriel, Tearon, Mireya, Alexis, Jazmine. And the one who every lunch always goes around and asks people for their leftovers. And the one who lives with three families in a one-bedroom apartment. And the one who did forty push-ups in the park yesterday. And the one whose behavior form that I fill out after every single class period, even lunch, gives me so many opportunities to point out the things that she is doing right.

And Sebastian, Heather, José, Alex, and the other José too. And Emeline, Jimena, Idolina, Jasmine, Herithie, Idah, Sylvie, and Ruby. Ruby is really worried because if Mr. Trump get elected her parents might get deported. And can she do a science project on that?

So now they have stories. Each one. And faces.

Your face, Oh LORD, I will seek.

Your way, Oh LORD, will I walk, the descending way of Jesus.