Lilley of the field

I’ve just begun reading Everyday Justice by Julie Clawson. In the book, Julie unpacks how we get the goods that we daily buy- food, clothing, gas, and more- and shows us the negative impact it can have on the environment and people around the globe. When I asked my friend, Darlene, if she enjoyed the book, she said, “Well, I don’t know if ‘enjoyed’ is quite the word for it.” These books and thoughts and discoveries more or less wreck your life in the best way possible. Jesus wrecks my life in the best way possible. In a world that is driven by a desire for comfort and happiness, I am learning the value of living in the uncomfortable. Because once I know these truths, I am held responsible. How can I turn a blind eye? Now that’s an uncomfortable thought. It’s ok to be uncomfortable sometimes. It’s ok to be uncomfortable as we wrestle with how to make daily choices that glorify God. This is what we call “pressing in.” When things get hard or questions arise, human tenden...

Here's what I've learned from my first "snow-day" as a teacher: Teachers will always be kids at heart. I'm pretty sure we were more excited than the kids. Immediate visions of sweatpants, hot chocolate (oh no, is that fair trade?!), watching movies, and fires in the fireplace came to mind. Even though am in the public school world, most of my friends are out of it. I thought I'd check facebook for comments about snow days and school out only to find that there weren't any! NONE! What?! Getting older I guess... - - - - - So this gives me some time today to answer some questions I laid out yesterday about fair trade. I'm going to post any research, articles, and websites that I find. Also, this is MY journey. I encourage each person to wrestle with these things and figure out what it means for them. I do not judge anyone. If there are people who struggle to make ends meet or put food on the table, by all means, please shop at Wal-mart if you ne...

This week is the letter S at school. Super, stupendous, satisfying, savvy S. This meant my week would be filled with kids shouting, " Robots!!!! " or dancing to our  Have Fun Teaching Letter S Song  or pulling objects that start with the letter S out of a s ock or s melling things like coffee or herbs or soap. Friday would be filled with  Salt art  and snowman art and s'mores. That's really the best part of the week- cooking on Fridays! We all love it. Friday is a no data taking, relaxing for a little bit, and hugging the kids a little harder day. But in the back of my mind this week has been: chocolate. You can't have a s'more without chocolate. That's like having ice cream without the cream or spaghetti without sauce or steak without potatoes. The other thing about teaching is... it's way to easy to spend lots of money on these cute little kiddos who want to do all these fun things and learn in all these multi-sensory ways. I mean forget the fa...