To mention just a few of several awkward
events this week (ranging from mild to devastating):
I watch Cam’s music class performance
(bells and maracas and stuff) and morph into a sad sorry angry mess because
he’s left to stare into the blur and no one shows him where to pack away his
castanets or when to drum with only one hand. My friend Denise Bishop discovers
me howling and mops up the flood. This is embarrassment on the level of
good-grief-be-a-grownup.
I have arranged for the College’s
resident Professor Emeritus, Stephen Finn, to deliver a Form 4 poetry lecture –
on a prescribed poem that he wrote – at 9h00. Which is the time we see the Form
4s for English. In summer. The timetable changes in winter (long story). The
Form 4s are seated expectantly in the Auditorium just after 8h00. No professor.
The realisation dawns on me darkly. Oops. Everyone laughs; forgives. Yay! Free period!
Even the professor graciously scrubs egg off my face.
I’m team-teaching three Matric classes
with Bruce Collins. We are discussing the impromptu oral performance of one
particular water polo player at the back of the class. I step backwards and
trip over three school bags, losing a shoe and most of my dignity while
clinging to Bruce’s nonplussed arm and shrieking like a girl. Cringe. This is
on the level of squirming-in-my-bed-tonight.
It helps to know that,
The
high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: ‘I live in
the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I
restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with
repentant hearts.’ – Isaiah 57:15
And for Cam, whose brave stillness as he
listens for the cue of a bashing tambourine tells me he knows he’s not part of
what’s happening around him, it helps to speak these old words:
As
for me, I look to the Lord for help.
I wait
confidently for God to save me,
and
my God will certainly hear me.
Do
not gloat over me, my enemies!
For
though I fall, I will rise again.
Though
I sit in darkness,
the
Lord will be my light. – Micah 7:7-8
Thanks for sharing that Dee. I think we all feel like this sometimes about various issues on life. I like the way you frame it and lend perspective to it all
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