Bird Droppings June 13, 2011
Using calamity as an opening

“Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.” William Davenant

I wasn’t sure from where to start today as I have been busy, feeding snakes and animals at the high school, ordering two books for graduate school, spending most of last week at a Foxfire course in the mountains, and taking care of my granddaughter in between. After sitting down and focusing I have had several ideas that I have been pondering and that have been running through my thinking the past few days. As I think back and forward to a possible job change moving is always difficult. We have attachments to people, places, students, and thinking back to moving from one house to another we have attachments to a house.
For me the past few days considering and thinking about my job and possibly moving to another position I have seen in change that often we find new sustenance. I recall back a few years when we last moved into this house it was within hours that our sons had made their new accommodations home. Always we are sorting through the acquired preponderance of material and items that are collected over the years. Matter of fact we still are. I am a notorious pack rat and actually my main negative with even interviewing for this new job was moving out of my current room.
Within each calamity, tragedy, life hurdle and hard coming is light. Dr. James Sutton, Clinical psychologist has done a beautiful forward for my first book of Bird Droppings, The journal of a teacher. It was several years back when we moved that was the first email I opened at our new house. It is funny I am sitting here sorting through my papers working on graduate school and various other undertakings. I was first thinking today’s message would be brief since I have much to do but I wanted to share two songs that have been running through my head for several days.
Country Stars Big and Rich original claim to fame was a song entitled, Save a horse ride a cowboy, not one of my favorites though it helped promote them to national fame and a song on their first album was brought to my attention. The song is simply titled Holy water. I heard this song a now nearly four years ago and was impressed with the harmonies and words. I heard them wrong the first time as we so often do. So Big and Rich’s song and ponder for yourself the lyrics.

“Holy Water”

Somewhere there’s a stolen halo
I use to watch her wear it well
Everything would shine wherever she would go
But looking at her now you’d never tell

Someone ran away with her innocence
A memory she can’t get out of her head
I can only imagine what she’s feeling
When she’s praying
Kneeling at the edge of her bed

And she says take me away
And take me farther
Surround me now
And hold, hold, hold me like holy water
Holy water

She wants someone to call her angel
Someone to put the light back in her eyes
She’s looking through the faces
The unfamiliar places
She needs someone to hear her when she cries

And she says take me away
And take me farther
Surround me now
And hold, hold, hold me like holy water
Holy water

She just needs a little help
To wash away the pain she’s felt
She wants to feel the healing hands
Of someone who understands

And she says take me away
And take me farther
Surround me now
And hold, hold, hold me
And she says take me away
And take me farther
Surround me now
And hold, hold, hold me like holy water, holy water

The first time I heard this song tears welled up in my eyes as I was listening to the words of the song. My first reaction was thinking the woman in the song was being washed or cleansed by holy water. I took this CD to school and played it for a class several months back to illicit responses. I asked what is this song about and one of my red necked skate boarders piped up and set me straight. The girl wants to be held like holy water as something special and sacred. Here I am working on a doctorate and a student sets me straight, from the mouths of babes so they say. It got me seriously thinking and how many of us want to be held at some point in our lives like Holy Water.
A week or two back for lunch my oldest son and I were eating at a barbeque place and on the TV a Martina McBride music video was playing. It was an older one from a few years back. As I watched the video entitled, God’s Will, again I was in tears. A powerful image as I thought back to what took me into teaching exceptional children so many years ago. So I am using some more song lyrics and these are for all special education teachers a good one to save a copy of and please try and watch the video. So lyrics number two by Martina McBride.

God’s Will

I met God’s Will on a Halloween night
He was dressed as a bag of leaves
It hid the braces on his legs at first

His smile was as bright as the August sun
When he looked at me
As he struggled down the driveway, it almost
Made me hurt

Will don’t walk too good
Will don’t talk too good
He won’t do the things that the other kids do,
In our neighborhood

[Chorus:]
I’ve been searchin’, wonderin’, thinkin’
Lost and lookin’ all my life
I’ve been wounded, jaded, loved and hated
I’ve wrestled wrong and right
He was a boy without a father
And his mother’s miracle
I’ve been readin’, writin’, prayin’, fightin’
I guess I would be still
Yeah, that was until
I knew God’s Will

Will’s mom had to work two jobs
We’d watch him when she had to work late
And we’d all laugh like I hadn’t laughed
Since I don’t know when

Hey Jude was his favorite song
At dinner he’d ask to pray
And then he’d pray for everybody in the world but him

[Chorus]

Before they moved to California
His mother said, they didn’t think he’d live
And she said each day that I have him, well it’s just
another gift
And I never got to tell her, that the boy
Showed me the truth
In crayon red, on notebook paper, he’d written
Me and God love you

I’ve been searchin’, prayin’, wounded, jaded
I guess I would be still
Yeah that was until…
I met God’s Will on a Halloween night
He was dressed as a bag of leaves

My son leaned over and asked, dad are you crying again, as I watched a powerful music video and song especially for some of us who are where we are to be. A calamity you might say got me into working with exceptional children and adults probably a few calamities to think of it. Nearly fifty years ago my brother John was born and my mother was in labor nearly two days. John was born with cerebral palsy. At the age of two he contracted encephalitis and suffered more brain injury. John passed away just a few years ago. John was always with his family, sharing in all gatherings, he never spoke a word, he was never toilet trained and yet he left his marks upon so many of us.
The city of Macon was segregated in its education of exceptional children till John came along. Many the people who have became teachers of exceptional children after babysitting or being around John choosing this field to teach in. My own family ended in Georgia because of John. There are so many stories of John’s impact on people. Somewhere I have a photo of John and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. One of the few photos of my father with John is dad dressed as Santa holding John on his lap.
John is buried on a hill now sharing the plot with my father, out by my mother’s house and not a day goes by that I do not look back and wonder what if this had not happened to our family would we be who we are and where we are now. My mother has answered this idea in a series of poems and thoughts she has put together over the years and published a book. As I look back for each of my brothers and sisters have responded I am sure as have I too these questions in their own fashion. I do hope these two songs will provide enough fodder to make you think and ponder as I say. So for today peace my dear friends and thank you all for the support and emails over the years so until tomorrow please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
bird