Please do not open your test booklet.

The LORD, the God of gods, has spoken; He has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty, God reveals Himself in glory. Our God will come and will not keep silence. Psalm 50:1-2

A disciple asks the rebbe: “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rebbe answers: “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.”  —Hasidic tale

Suffering breaks our hearts — but there are two quite different ways for the heart to break. There’s the brittle heart that breaks apart into a thousand shards, a heart that takes us down as it explodes and is sometimes thrown like a grenade at the source of its pain. Then there’s the supple heart, the one that breaks open, not apart, growing into greater capacity for the many forms of love. Only the supple heart can hold suffering in a way that opens to new life.

What can I do to make my tight heart more supple, the way a runner stretches to avoid injury? That’s a question I ask myself every day. With regular exercise, my heart is less likely to break apart into shards that may become shrapnel, and more likely to break open into largeness.

My heart is stretched every time I’m able to receive life’s little deaths: a friendship gone sour, a mean-spirited critique of my work, failure at a task that was important to me. I can also exercise my heart by taking in life’s little joys: a small kindness from a stranger, the sound of a distant train reviving childhood memories, the infectious giggle of a two-year-old as I “hide” and then “leap out” from behind cupped hands. Taking all of it in — the good and the bad alike — is a form of exercise that slowly transforms my clenched fist of a heart into an open hand. Parker J. Palmer

Fat out inexplicable.

I woke up perfectly content this morning.

And not a single thought of new seating charts or a snotty nose or trying to set up an online account to pay my mother’s electric bill could dissuade my smiling soul.

And yesterday was craziness multiplied a hundredfold as my little class faced three then three and a half and then four hours of absolute silence (Ha!) as they wrote a persuasive how-many-sentences-do-we-have-to-write standardized test essay. Dear Lord, God of gods. I made eight phone calls home yesterday afternoon.

And maybe it is the way the sun is glinting off of the exactly-the-right-shade-of-brown-paint that Scott Holmberg used on the front of the house, Or my spinach quesadilla tucked in a baggie for lunch. Or the cockatiels burbling in the greenhouse. Or just remembering all of those jillions of happy hugs yesterday, even though my ribs crackled.

But betcha that it’s because so many people are praying for me, that I will traverse the storm in exceedingly great delight. Carried in His arms.

And I watched the shards thing yesterday, as my beloved Xavier climb on his chair and screamed profanities at the Rwandan refugee kid for looking at him that way.

And about the third time I looked hopelessly over the seething chaos and about the third time I wondered why on earth I had taken on this craziness, I remembered God’s call to a supple heart. May it break open into largeness.

His call to the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting, may He be revealed.

In me.

He will come. He will not remain silent.

O Holy Spirit, as the sun is full of light, the ocean full of water, Heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of thee.

Call to Worship Your name, O Lord, endures forever, Your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. For the Lord will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants. Psalm 135:13-14

Confession Lord, You come to us, but we do not recognize You; You call, but we do not follow; You command, but we do not obey, You bless us, but we do not thank you. Please forgive and help us. Lord, You accept us, but we do not accept others; You forgive us, but we do not forgive those who wrong us; You love us, but we do not love our neighbors. Please forgive and help us. Lord, You showed us how to carry out Your mission, but we still insist on our own; You identified with the poor and needy, but we seek our own wants and desires; You suffered and died for all, but we turn to our own comfort. In the midst of our lack of faith, You are always faithful! Please forgive and help us, You are the faithful one! Amen.

Contemplation But Jesus offers us another way, a humble way that waits patiently – despite the suffering – for the Spirit of God to direct our steps. He reveals to us what it means to embrace our humanity without short cuts. 


Well, I have no shadow of doubt that this leap down the road was on the Spirit’s prodding. And, yeah, my shining light is still just brief scratched-matchstick bursts that quickly flame out, but, well, it is light nevertheless.

And there are joyous glowsticks of light waving across campus from Cate and Nicole’s rooms. And there are springs of His joy in each of our footsteps, albeit a little less springy by the end of the day.

Yesterday I had a conversation with ol’ Xavier, the dread-locked kid who is just returning from out-of-school suspension and who did not seem to have learned even one iota of classroom decorum from his vacation from school. And he sure gets well, pissed, if I mispronounce his name as Javier because he “ain’t no Mexican,” and if I call him “Sir,” well, that pisses him off too, but it was still a good chat. I told him that I had a weird little story to tell him. Weird spelled W-E-I-R-D, since no one knows how to spell “weird scientist hair.”

And I told him about the first time I saw him outside of his locker when I was visiting that first time. And he corrected me and said, “Miss, we don’t have lockers; I was standing at the drinking fountain.” And he had asked if I was the new science teacher, and I had said yes, and he had said, “Miss, we are going to have a great time.”

I told Xavier that when I met him, I thought to myself, “That is exactly the student I want to teach,” and that he was the reason I was teaching at his school and I knew that we were going to have a great time.

Xavier agreed that it was a weird story.

And yesterday Nicole and Cate sent out an offer to all of the school leadership. They said that wanted to start a Leadership class the last period of the day. And that they would take everyone’s “Leader for Bad,” and work on learning how to be “Leaders for Good.” Whenever my dad dropped us kids off at school, he always told us to be Leaders for Good, and not Leaders for Bad.

And on the Monday after spring break, they will have the boys/girls separated and do some community building, Tuesday the school has asked Nicole to lead a schoolwide Rachel's Challenge, and then they will talk about what project they want to do together that would focus on respect, team-building, collaboration and making a positive impact on the school... Rather than being a "Resource" class, we would call it our "Leadership Class: Becoming a Resource to ourselves and others."

Each week we would focus on going "In" --- some reflection, awareness, developing personal resources --- as well as "out" -- becoming sensitive and aware of needs around us and learning to collaborate to become the change we want to see.

If there are any "misdirected" leaders, misfits, kids who might need some more vision or help with their issues, please feel free to hand-select them and send them our way to sixth period.  We want to maintain the fairly intimate class size that we currently have, but really use that time to serve the kids (and especially at the end of the day when they are wound-up emotionally anyways.) 

 I imagine a few teachers will be happy to send some “misdirected” leaders over to their sixth period class.

And yeah, I am pretty proud-happy with my compadres. And one of the Leadership Team at the school always tells me that we were sent by God to her school to change the school culture.

All I know is that we were sent by God.

And today’s Lent Contemplation was about Jesus’ time in the desert. And again and again, Satan whispered, “Now,” and again and again, Jesus was willing to remain under and wait on His Father and not take any shortcuts.

And LORD God, today may I recognize You again and again. Standing by the drinking fountain, for instance, ready to have a great time.

Because You will have compassion on Your servants, and Your name is to be glorified throughout all ages.

And man, Nicole fairly floats out of the house with all of her jingle jangle costume clothes, she is so full of His joy.

Clumps of jonquils under the shrubs.

Call to Worship In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  1Peter 1:6-7

Contemplation Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

We are reminded that suffering is not a setback to our agendas, but rather an orientation to God’s agenda, which is to form the character of Christ in us.

The Listening Prayer question for today was, “How does your desire for Comfort over Character play out in your life?”

And what it does is suck Joy out of my heart, and fill me with a Spirit of Murmuring. And I can almost picture a Gollum-like creature clinging to my neck, muttering and clucking under its breath as I tromp through the day. Ugly.

But there are some bright yellow daffodils sitting on the corner of my desk. A good praying friend showed up on my doorstep a few days ago with this reminder of God’s faithfulness and beauty. Because I know something about daffodils, or jonquils, from my years in Tennessee. They are the first things to push their little green heads up through the hard frozen soil as the early rays of spring sunshine begin the thaw.

And there is not a shadow of doubt that this clump of middle school students is God’s agenda for me. And I for them.

Knowing how to interpret events and actions is a large part of wisdom, and the faithful attitude of the Christian is one of joy. - Dan McCartney  

Dear LORD God, You promise Your wisdom to whomever asks, and so I ask, with all humility, in that I may rejoice.  

Without suffering, happiness cannot be understood. –Dosoyevsky

My God who is sufficient in grace and power and who gives these things generously.

Open my lips, LORD, and my mouth shall proclaim Your praise. Psalm 51:16

Therefore, I have cheerfully made up my mind to be proud of my weaknesses, because they mean a deeper experience of the power of Christ. I can even enjoy weaknesses, suffering, privations, persecutions and difficulties for Christ’s sake, For my very weakness makes me strong in Him. 2 Corinthians 12:10

What I desire: To move into deeper levels of experiencing the all-sufficiency of God’s grace and power, especially in my areas of weakness and deficiency.

If we know that God’s thoughts and way are not our ways, then we recognize our need to hold our thoughts and ways loosely and to be open to God’s corrections and guidance.

Two lessons: First, that God’s grace is always sufficient to sustain us in our weakness and suffering. God’s grace does not automatically mean your weakness and suffering is eliminated. Rather it means weakness and suffering are transformed into stepping stones for a deeper experience of God.

Second, that weakness and suffering can be used as the means to create a willingness for ruthless trust in God. We are naturally self-sufficient and independent. Our great need is to be God dependent in all things, both where we are weak and where we are strong. This ruthless trust has been defined by de Caussade as “self-abandonment to divine providence.” -Rice

What are my thorns in my flesh? I know that one thing that I feel like I have tried to turn over again and again is that blurting tongue. If one can control the tongue, the tiny flame that can set ablaze a great forest, one can control it all. I do want every word that pops out of my mouth to be edifying and true. And those words come out of my heart, so it is a heart issue, pent up angst. I leap into the fray of life, tongue a-wagging, wrenching control away from a quiet trust in the Spirit to work. A silent trust.

Yet silence can pierce as well.

Therefore, You, oh LORD, open up my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim Your praise.

And there are those words “cheerfully” and “made up my mind.” And it’s kind of a goofy image, but every morning the thing I make up is my bed. Really it’s the first thing I do, make up that bed smooth and tidy. And somehow, it helps me feel cheerful. Getting off on the right foot every day. So…maybe, part of that routine of making up the bed, can be making up my mind as well, cheerfully, to let Him be the bit in my mouth.

And when I was a little girl, I used to daydream about being a wildly beautiful horse galloping across big mountain fields under bright blue skies. And I would gallop through the woods around my little two-room schoolhouse, imagining strength and freedom and delight. Longing for self-sufficiency and independence, perhaps. Because honestly, I was alone in my fields of delight. But wonder if I had the sweetest of masters, sitting lightly and straight, guiding me with but a gentle touch, as we raced through the dappled forest light?

And a friend sent me this good word this morning: Patience fortifies faith, is the pilot of peace, assists charity, establishes humility, waits long for repentance, sets her seal on confession, rules the flesh, preserves the spirit, bridles the tongue, restrains the hand, tramples temptations under foot, drives away scandals, consoles the poor, teaches the rich moderation, overstrains not the weak, exhausts not the strong, is the delight of the believer. -Tertullian

Prayer: Do with me whatever it shall please Thee. For it cannot be anything but good, whatever Thou shalt do with me. If it be Thy will I should be in darkness, be Thou blessed. And if it be Thy will I should be in light, be Thou again blessed. If Thou grand me comfort, be Thou blessed, and if Thou will have me afflicted, be Thou still equally blessed. –Thomas á Kempis.