JWalking: The Blog

    I am going through one of the most difficult seasons. I don't want to say there haven't been offers of help, or people concerned, or even steps taken. But, the truth is, if I'm making forward progress, I'm quickly not making forward progress again. I don't have enough blog space, nor do you have enough time and capacity to understand the journey that I have been on and what it has transitioned into, both in the last several years and the last several weeks. I am drowning in both a loss of information and too much information that may or may not apply. I reach out for help only to receive cancellation, or month-long delay, or interest but inability to move much beyond that. I receive helpful suggestions, action plans, treatment courses, therapeutic interventions, prayerful support from well-meaning and loving friends. Still, I can't figure out what's happening nor determine the course for how to make effective change. And change is needed yesterday.  Unti

  "Still through the cloven skies they come With peaceful wings unfurled And still their heavenly music floats O'er all the weary world Above its sad and lowly plains They bend on hovering wing And ever o'er its Babel sounds The blessed angels sing." Christmas Eve never fails to bring out the wisdom captured in a carol. Seems my go-to song for years has been my favorite musically, too: It Came Upon The Midnight Clear . I've re-read Edmund Sears' lyrics every season with something new grabbing my mind. This year, I wonder just how long the world has been 'weary'? O, Holy Night speaks of the same ("The weary world rejoices.") Why are those Merry Gentlemen commanded to "rest" and not "dismay"? Some might think we've experienced the ultimate in weariness with this continuing state of pandemic, which has brought new meaning to the "sad and lowly plains." The range of sadness runs anywhere from literal death to t

" Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone...." In the Bleak Midwinter , Christina Rossetti Started writing this on a warm afternoon for February -- the day before another powerfully icy, iron-hardening nature-spraying arrived in Central Virginia. Aside from choosing to postpone a couple of appointments and having some appointments postponed on me, the weather is what I expect from a February -- maybe not in Central Virginia, but of other Winters in my life. When our area was hit last week with a similar storm, I gave myself 30 minutes of alone time to just stare out the back window and take in the whiteness, the stillness. We had had more snow with that system. It wasn't the same as Rossetti's "snow on snow on snow," but I was captivated with the glimmering highlights on the tree branches and appreciated her idyllic capture of a similar scene. But, this week, I came back to "Earth stood hard." Earth usually doesn't stand. It is in constant

I am certainly late to the formal announcement of my word for 2021. But, it's not that I haven't had one, or don't continue to think about it. I even used a form of it already in a text, and found myself grinning with affirmation.     Prospect (v; n) Oddly, I had thought of the verb form first. Maybe it was subconsciously taking root after bingeing on movies over the holidays. (One day, I'll get back to a time of weekend movie marathons. 2020 was not enough of an excuse to catch up on cinema.) There Will Be Blood opened with the scene of a single gentleman prospector, deep in his hand-hewn vertical shaft of rock and earth, picking his way to a few shavings of gold. The scene played long, beyond my comfort level, in that the way it was shot amplified the riskiness. Do I plan to prospect for gold? No. At least, not in the traditional, metallic sense. The word is not just exploring, but probing. Not just surveying, but looking deep with the intent to see the makeup of som

You can't know how sorry I am. No, really. With today's privacy rules over schools and students, you really can't know. Unless you ask. And I really wish you would. Because on top of telling you how sorry I am for what happened to you--even though it wasn't something I did; even though I've been told I shouldn't need to feel apologetic, that someone else has taken care of what needed to be said--I could have that opportunity to hear out all of your concerns about what happened, to offer you my sincerest sympathy, and to share the part of the story that you didn't hear--'cause you can't know. I can imagine your shock and your pain. Anger, perhaps? (I wouldn't blame you.) Confusion? Fear? This is the problem I have: I don't know what you experienced outside of the obvious, and speculation beyond that can lead one down wrong pathways. I don't want to go there, and it's why I can't just let go when things like this happen. The

T here has been quite a bit of buzz in the news and social media about the use of standardized tests. This position paper recently caught my attention.... *          *          * Take a seat, sharpen your pencils, and turn off all electronic devices. It’s time for a test—on testing .             Are standardized tests: a.        an accurate measure of whether teachers have educated their students, b.        equalizers through their uniformity, c.        ensuring that No Child is being Left Behind, or d.        tests which improve students’ critical thinking before they enter the Real           World?       Actually, the answer is e. none of the above. Standardized tests stifle creativity and individuality, leaving students to trade original thought for perfectly filled bubble sheets. The number of tests children must take has rapidly multiplied—even as early as kindergarten—and thus, anxiety about them has done so as well. Yet they are still use