performance pay, the military, and family

The school year is fast approaching its final days.  Teachers are more ready than the students.  Students have been ready since the start of the fourth quarter.

Mercifully this year, I didn't have to worry about FCAT testing for my students.  Though I wouldn't be surprised if that comes down the pipes in the next few years as they try to implement performance pay for Florida teachers.  A lot of teachers can't see how performance pay will work, myself included in those ranks.  What I do foresee happening though is that either it gets overturned or a ton of teachers will experience significant pay cuts.  That's the whole point, isn't it?  To save the state money?  Isn't that the same reason they started making state employees contribute 3% of their pay to their retirement accounts?  Let me get this straight then, we make middle class teachers, police officers, fire fighters and whoever else that's a state employee take a 3% cut on their spendable income while at the same time granting more tax cuts to corporations and desiring, in the governor's own words, to take the effective tax rate for corporations down to 0%?  That's what we get for getting a tea party candidate in our governor's office though, I hope all you Republicans out there are happy now.  Just keep cutting everyone's taxes though, and see how far that will get you.  While you're at it, why don't we do away with public schools and make them all charter schools?  By one study, charter schools do 17% better than their similar public schools, but 37% of them actually do worse than their public school counterparts.  That's what we want though, right?  Those of us who really care about education anyways.  Oh, and let's cut our social safety net down to nothing so we don't have to cut our defense budget any.  Lord knows we don't want a 'weak' military.  I mean, what would we do if we didn't spend well over half a trillion dollars a year on our military?

Enough ranting for now and time to start thinking about solutions.  What's a way forward?  How do we go about reforming education in a productive way?  Well, a good place to start would be to ask teachers what they think.  As far as our military goes, I'm sure there are more effective ways to spend all those billions of dollars than having the strongest military on our planet and spending more on it than the next 20 countries combined.  I just purchased a book about fixing the moral deficit, after I read it I'll have more to say on the subject I'm sure.  Cynicism is no place to get stuck, although I often find myself stuck there.  Where do we turn for hope?  We turn to Christ, who came not just for personal salvation and justification but also to right all the wrongs of society.  Now we are His hands and feet, commissioned to go into all the world and make disciples of all men.  As we make disciples of all men, this transforms communities for the better as people look to the common good of all their brothers and sisters.  I remember having a discussion with a high schooler a long time ago in the middle of the Iraq war that we were killing our brothers and sisters over there as collateral damage.  How would the world look if we treated each other as family?  Sure, all families have drama, but they stick together through it all.  Families are forgiving of one another, extending grace on a regular basis.

On Turning 30

This past Wednesday was my birthday, and as you may have guessed from the title of this blog entry, I turned 30. For some reason, I have made a much bigger deal about this than what it probably constitutes in reality. There's just something depressing about leaving my 20's behind. I did spend a third of my life there, after all. My twenties were pretty amazing all in all, and I just don't see how it could get much better. There were some hard times of course, in particular with the bipolar stuff, but overall I had a fantastic time in my twenties. From college to living in community in a couple different locations worldwide to traveling the world a couple times over to landing my first job to doing a bunch of cool adventure sport type stuff, all in all my twenties were spectacular. That is why I'm sad to see them go.

I've always associated a few things with this coming decade. One is settling down and starting a family. You may laugh as many people start that in their twenties, but for whatever reason I had a pretty good feeling that I would wait until I was at least 30 to start pursuing anything worthwhile in the relationship category. Now I have a girlfriend and a steady place to live, both signs of starting to slow down a little bit. Twenties are when you find yourself and explore the world in the process, at least that's what they were to me. What are thirties supposed to entail exactly? Not really sure about settling down quite yet, and I don't necessarily have to. This summer for example I'm traveling to Istanbul, Turkey and then to some different countries throughout Eastern Europe. As I've mentioned in a blog or two before, I suddenly have this weird acceptance with marriage as a potential even for me that I've never quite had before. This scares the crap out of me quite frankly. I've been skydiving 3 times and bungy jumping off of the world's highest bungy bridge but marriage? That is really terrifying to me. Waking up to the same person every day for the rest of your life? Really? What part about that sounds fun? Clearly, I still have some trepidation about marriage, so I'll have to see where that leads me.

My country count is now up to 26 or 27 with probably 25 or 26 of those countries having been visited in my twenties. How am I supposed to surpass that number for my thirties? Of course, I'm sure that with a little bit of determination and stubbornness I could surely accomplish that. That isn't necessarily one of my travel goals, although maybe I should make it one? Go to at least 25 new countries while in my thirties? This summer should give me a good head start theoretically. Not sure how many countries I'll be visiting in Eastern Europe but it will hopefully be a good number. I'll have 2-3 weeks to explore so I think I can do quite a bit within that time frame, it's just a matter of how much I'll be able to afford. Something different that I've done this year is set aside an emergency fund. It's what the experts suggest you do and it sounded like a good idea. Now I'm just a little concerned that I'll have to dip into that quite a bit for this summer, which isn't exactly an emergency. If I settle down with a woman though, the traveling would probably have to come to a close, especially if we ended up having kids. For example, I work with a friend who has traveled way more than I have but is now expecting to have her second kid and she has said her traveling will slow down significantly now. Maybe I'll just get a vasectomy and call it a day; a day that I can travel a lot more due to not having any kids.

You see, these are the things I think about when I think about turning 30. Marriage and children, all the stuff real grown-ups do. Not to mention the part that my mom has told me I share in common with my dad about reflecting on your life up to this point and thinking about whether you made any real difference in the world or not. This usually leads to a state of melancholy so I've avoided it for the most part this year. Even though I get down on myself fairly easily I do have to acknowledge that by this point in my career, I've touched the lives of a couple hundred students, hopefully for the better so there's that.

Back to the marriage and kids thought; there's a big part of me that wants to be as free as possible from any possible entanglements. It's bad enough that I'm bipolar and as a result can't live as free as I'd like because the truth is I need insurance to pay for my medicine. Say what you will about how great the institution of marriage is, but the fact remains that it takes away from one's freedom. When you have kids, even more so. The Bible I read though, says to spend yourself on behalf of others. Marriage and parenting seem like a fairly safe place to do that. How many people just care about their own families though, and don't serve anyone outside of that when they get all settled down? How many times do I look at my friends' lives and wonder how they juggle everything with 3 jobs and 3 kids and a wife to look after? Where is there time to serve anyone else in the midst of all that chaos?

Maybe my thirties won't be so bad after all. Like I told a friend last night, I was sure I would hate kindergarten but I turned out to love it; which is still a mystery unto itself. Maybe my thirties will be the same. Maybe I'll settle down and end up loving the American dream instead of despising it like I do now. Or maybe I won't settle down and love living on my own like I've grown accustomed to over the past decade. Whatever my thirties has in store for me, I know my God will be with me every step of the way. He will always be by my side, no matter how far away I try to push Him. Even when I can't feel Him or see Him, I know He'll be there. With Jesus, I'm invited into the Holy of Holies, to experience God's very real presence. What more could I ask for? So here's to my thirties and whatever life throws at me during them, may God be glorified through all the triumphs and failures, the high's and the low's, the good times and bad.

Homelessness, part 2

Now, a long time ago I posted about homelessness, and I am ashamed to say it has taken a couple or a few years for me to interact with the homeless again. Today, I saw a lady on the side of the street with a sign that read "Jobless, have a kid." I offered to buy her food and she accepted so she took her bike across the street while I drove there to meet her at Panera. It is so fascinating to hear peoples' stories sometimes. Her husband had died a few years ago from leukemia and she had been a house wife up until then. She didn't feel as though she had any marketable skills but she had been a dog bather before because she loved animals. Her friends were trying to set her up with another dog grooming business so I hope that works out for her. She had a 14 year old son who was currently living with friends because she is now living in a tent. Can you imagine, living in a tent in the middle of Sarasota? As it turns out, her tent is very close to my school so I'm curious to see exactly where it is, although I probably wouldn't be able to find it if I looked for it as I'm sure she's tucked away somewhere that you couldn't find unless you were specifically looking for it. She told me when she was younger she could never have imagined herself living as a homeless person. Later in the day I had a couple friends over for dinner and the woman commented how everyone is just a few bad breaks away from something like that happening. It reminds me of something a friend once told me that has always stuck with me, even to this day although it has been several years since he said it. At the time I was looking into going over to Kenya for a year and he encouraged me to go over there for a 3 year term. I politely explained that I had really good job security and could only take a year leave of absence. To this he replied, "Our only real security is found in Christ Jesus." I was dumbfounded as to what to say next, pretty sure I stumbled over my words or something, I don't remember exactly. But it's true, isn't it? No matter how financially secure you feel you are, our only true security is in Christ. Imagine that tomorrow, you lost your job and couldn't find a replacement and went through your emergency savings, then what? Most of us could find someone to stay with for at least a little while but people's patience does eventually run out. If I'm ever homeless, which I pray will never happen, I'll still have my security in Christ Jesus my Lord. Some people follow Christ for the things that they think they're guaranteed in Scripture for following Him. The only thing that I can tell that you're guaranteed for following God is that you get God Himself, and that's enough. If you can't live without all the niceties that the typical American middle class life has to offer, than are you truly living with and for Christ. Not saying we have to give up all those things, but it should at least cross our minds that if we lost everything, we would still have Christ, and He is more than enough, as the song goes. Where do you turn when everything hits rock bottom? What if you were in this lady's shoes? Where would you turn? I've heard the CEO of Crown say several times that 70% of jobs are never posted, they're filled through networking. How do you network if you're homeless?

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, when we celebrate Jesus' victory over death through the resurrection. It sounds ludicrous when you think about it...to say someone rose from the dead? How can perfectly logical people accept that as a certain conclusion. For me, it took some research on the life of Christ to convince me. For others, it's simply when they come to the end of themselves and realize they need a Savior that they realize not only do they need a Savior but they need One who raised from the dead. This past week in youth group we talked about how the resurrection impacts our lives. This struck me as an odd question as I had never really considered it in those terms before. How does the resurrection impact my daily life? Certainly something to think about, isn't it? The resurrection is something I need to dwell more on, as it is a promise to freedom in Christ as much as anything else. A promise that I don't have to live in bondage to sin anymore, even though I do still sin on a daily basis. It's a reminder that my sin doesn't define who I am, but rather that Christ defines who I am in Him. It's a reminder that God sees me as holy and pure, not because of anything I do on my own, but rather because of the sacrifice that His Son made on a cross over 2,000 years ago. It is beyond my comprehension that God sees my as pure and holy. I look at myself and see all the sin I so often find myself caught up in, but God sees things differently. He sees me with Christ interceding on my behalf, with Christ saying, "I purchased him with my blood, he's my child." Just like the Scriptures say, "How great is the love that God has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!" I've always loved that verse, partly because where else do you hear the word 'lavished.' haha But seriously, God lavishes His love on us, not because of anything we've done but simply because we're His children. He has chosen us. What an honor, really. To be called a child of God? Who gets that privilege? To know we're restored to the One who created us? That's pretty overwhelming so I'm going to stop there and challenge you to think about that. God loved you so much that He sacrificed His own Son. He died for us while we were still sinners. Even if you don't believe in God, He died for you too. Believe me, you wouldn't be walking around on earth were it not for the grace that God affords each one of us for even the privilege to take our next breath.