Chaos Theory

 May 24, 2021

I recognize there is scientific theory grounded in chaos and the resulting patterns that emerge. I don’t pretend to understand said theory—in theory. In practice, however, to God I say: message received.

Three weeks ago, my precious daughter was in an accident. She is okay. She will be okay. But I heard her cries in pain in the aftermath that even now I cannot hush from my mind. The helplessness you feel when your child hurts is the hidden nightmare of parenting. There is no preparation for it, but there is an antidote to despair. What happened on that night and the intervening days was that the grace of the God I’ve known all my life swept in. It wasn’t until I sunk bedside to my knees later that night in grateful prayer that I wept. Then I gathered my mother-self up and rolled on.

We’ve made it through this hot mess, and Saturday my home (which I love just a wee bit less than the kids and the dog) decided to spring a leak and pour water from the kids’ bathroom to the kitchen. Fans and ripped up carpets abound. Silence is a distant memory. Chaos is the constant.

What is confirmed to me, yet again, is that when the universe swirls about with the challenge and the noise and the “what next?”, I find that a peace kicks in that is exactly the stuff I sang songs about at the Baptist Bible school. It’s real.

Thank God.

And that’s all.

The Swad I Knew

 March 12, 2021

It’s taken me a breath to digest Swad’s landing on that shore. Paul Swadley was my pastor, my friend. Those who knew him have their own Swad in their hearts and minds, as he was precious to all. I have no corner on the market where our beloved Swad was concerned. Nonetheless, this is the Swad I knew. 

When the news came that Swad had died on Sunday morning, my first reaction was to be happy for him. Gone was his dementia and the other shackles of this world. After my momentary selflessness, my selfish grief took over. A flood of memories of life with Swad gripped me, and with them, a flood of unstoppable tears. 

I thought of how he stood next to my father as Dad told us Mom was gone. I would eat Jello then, in the hospital, and Swad called me “Miss Jello” for years, making me feel special for something otherwise horrific. I thought of how he was among the first to see each of my newborn children. I saw him officiating at wedding after wedding, including my own; and preaching the funerals of so many I loved. I remembered the Sunday lunches and dips in the Swadley pool as a kid. I remembered how he embraced the youth of the church and how we sat front and center to hear him preach. I remembered the brilliant sermons and the laughter; the faith and the joy. 

The last time I saw him was last December. I was making a video for Dad’s 80th. I woke him and asked if he would say happy birthday to Pops, not sure if he knew who I was. “Happy Birthday, Bill!” He said, without skipping a beat. He knew.

Swad’s service was beautiful and uplifting, gut-wrenching and aimed toward heaven. I was surrounded by people who love God and loved Swad. It felt like home. The joy of Swad’s life and death in that service helped stitch the wounds left behind. I felt myself heal as we sang. And I know I’m not alone.

My children sat between Dad and me, with Nyds to my right. They got to experience the South Haven of my youth, and the Swad of my life. Drew scarcely remembers him, but he knows what he was to us all. Gracie does remember the bit she got to know as a child. 

When we got home, Gracie—who cries little and exhibits sentiment even less (that is no criticism)—stood with me in the kitchen and said this: “I would have been okay, but I can’t bear to hear Papa cry.” I had watched her weep, holding his hand. She went on to say, “I don’t envy much of your childhood, Mom, but I envy what you had at church.” I agreed. It was idyllic, my young life at South Haven, with Swad at the reins. When all else crumbled, it was truly my safe haven. And I mourn for that time in that place as I mourn for Swad. But I thank God my kids had a glimpse on that day, and that the five of us experienced it together.

That was one of Swad’s great gifts: bringing people together.

He made me feel loved unconditionally, and personally. I know I am not alone.

I’m grateful for the Swad I knew. I’m grateful for the church I call home. I’m grateful for a God who is bigger than all grief, and for the promise of, one day, landing on that shore.

The Comfort

 February 26, 2021

I only had two classes today and sweet Hal looked so sad this morning I said, “better to ask forgiveness than permission” and took her along. The kiddos in class loved on her and she relished their company; but she still returned to my feet and laid down as if the nearness of me was a comfort.

The nearness of her is a comfort.

In those moments of such familiarity, I see that kids reframe me as a person. They were happy today, as was I. And they needed a little something.

Lately in class we have been discussing parenting, and life at home, and all the rest. I’ve listened to them, and searched my soul for how I’ve been as a daughter and as a mom.

For some reason, I recalled this, out of nowhere:

When I was in elementary school, my dad went to school on my behalf. See, I had grave insecurities and a unibrow and a bad perm, and I was surrounded by lovely girls who seemed to have the world by the tail. My struggle became evident at home. Dad ventured in to see Mrs. Jarmin, my kind 6th grade teacher who always adjusted her elastic-waist pants awkwardly and who I thought was, frankly, marginal. (In retrospect, she was perfectly wonderful and we got to make marionettes and type on the computer, so what the hell did I know?)

I find faults with the Pops of my childhood for his temper and controlling nature during my formative days. It was—to put it mildly—difficult on the levels of bad Lifetime movies. But I get it (mostly). On that day, in Eugene Field Elementary, he showed up, hat in hand, to try to find out how he could help his little girl. (I didn’t know he had done that at the time: he told me later.) The little progeny he saw at the dinner table and loved more than anything didn’t match up with the tortured 12 year old almost on the ledge.

I will never forget that he searched for the answers.

It’s the caring that is the defining factor. 

And today, when my not-so-little pup accompanied me to class, I saw a relief and joy in the eyes of sweet students who talked to me of the lives they lead; and I thought of mine.

That’s the stuff: dogs and kids and care. Isn’t it?

Chances

 Feb 19, 2021

Years ago, I had guided one of my best and brightest to perform a piece by Whoopi Goldberg. We had the audio version, but nothing printed. It wasn’t legal for our district tournament. I was young and naive. I went so far as to contact Ms. Goldberg’s agent. 

No dice.

We were moments from the tournament. Within a week, we found another script that was beyond reproach. It made me cry, it was so moving. My student mastered it quickly, and qualified to the national tournament.

I remember the guilt I felt at screwing up the original script, how hard we worked to make it work, and how I sweated bullets watching her amazing talent deliver one brilliant result after the next to get her where she always deserved to be.

I tell this story because I see second chances all around. I am the poster child for chances second, third, fourth...

If everything had worked out perfectly with that first script, I think of the lessons I wouldn’t have learned. It was the struggle and the sprint to the finish that makes the memory, 20 years later.

Grateful, sometimes, for the struggle.

The Superpower

 October 19, 2020

Kelly Corrigan is a brilliant writer and thinker who is conducting thoughtful interviews on PBS. In one such interview, she mused that “Presence is the elusive superpower.” 

It is difficult to be fully present: not to look around the corner to a better time (fingers crossed), or to the past to alleged golden times gone by. In this 2020, with the status quo akin to mayhem, I understand the glimpses forward and back. Fingernails on the door jamb. Whiplash toward the memories.

It’s a crazy paradox to me: I’ve spent so much of my life haunted or enchanted by the past, or so hopeful of the future. Even in the midst of all this present, I savor another time.

Bear with me: in these times I get more time with my sweet son, as he is virtually learning at home a lot, and I am in and out between classes. I teach students so grateful they are in the world, as am I. I treasure every day I am not sick or swabbed for illness, even though I’m surrounded by students in and out of quarantine every day. People I love are safe, for now. And those who have suffered losses are even more precious to me now, in the wake of the struggle.

When you’ve made a mess of things (as I have, in my moments that might be more than moments), and you rise up from the refuse to refuge of new chances and friends and family and opportunities to start anew, even a pandemic and a democracy with tears in its fabric can’t break you.

I still have a rearview mirror that haunts me with its images that are sometimes larger than they appear. And I’ve a future that could sketch it all up. But I’m grateful for being present these days: grateful that even in the crazy 2020, there is a God so much greater than all of it all.

I don’t have the superpower of living completely in the present. But I have the cape. I should probably check the laundry, but it’s here...

And it’s mine. My choice to face the day.

I’ll take it.

Our Skin

March 18, 2020


It may sound trite, but tonight I’m hearing Atticus Finch’s observation that it is quite difficult to understand things from the point of view of another until we climb inside his (or her) skin and walk around in it. When I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time in 1989 and taught it first in 1996, I didn’t picture the scenario we are in now.


But it’s true. As truths tend to be.


What is happening now to us all is different and it is the same. We are each experiencing this new reality of isolation and dismantled normalcy and fear and we tend to see it from the confines of our own skin. Whether I am a teacher who has to reconfigure my strategy to deliver learning, or a health care worker who is on the front lines and exhausted and in peril, or an hourly worker who is losing livelihood each day without work, a CEO struggling to keep an empire afloat, a worker doing the job while at risk, a student who has to figure out a whole new way of learning, an athlete who has lost a season or a championship, an elderly person secluded and frightened: we all have a mountain to climb. And that is to say nothing of the sick. Oh, my…


I have observed in past days people seeking to help one another and ease these burdens (which restores with great joy my faith in humanity) and those somehow needing to prove that their burdens are the greatest to be borne (what?).


Whatever skin you’re in, the 2020 you rise to each day surely proves that the realities of your neighbors are unique and relevant and important: our skin is different and the same. It’s not a contest. Atticus was right: understanding is the thing. And it might just be the greatest lesson a pandemic can teach us. We shall see.


“Experience is a brutal teacher,” C.S. Lewis wisely noted, “but you learn. By God, you learn.”

A Viking Love Letter

February 19, 2020


Today a former student of mine posted a picture of some t-shirts from his high school debate career. He had stumbled onto them, and it has inspired a great deal of goodwill on the FB front. What it inspired in me is more than goodwill. It is a sea of memories of a time that I’ve never really wrapped my head around. I probably never will.


Coaching debate at Parkview from the late nineties to 2014 was—next to my biological children—the greatest gift of my life. I walk a fine line here: I quit after 18 years and some of my heroes and friends are still duking it out weekend after weekend. I didn’t split the atom or cure the cancer. I’m not in line for any hall of fame. And clichés aside: this is not about me. But for a slice of time, I got to cavort with some of the most splendid, talented, driven, brilliant kiddos around. We all came together at Parkview High School in rooms 301 and 237 (one with air conditioning and one without) and we created a team that was larger than any one of us. It was a wee bit magical, as I see it in my rearview mirror.


When I began teaching at Parkview, I was following two legends. Bob Bilyeu and Brett Miller were giants in speech and debate in the state and the nation, and I managed to weasel my way in on their coattails. The pressure I felt to continue a tradition of excellence was self-imposed and often backfired: my temper and my ego-driven need to prove myself sometimes hurt kids. I see those scenes in my mind’s eye and they pierce me still. I know that now and I knew it then as soon as it happened. But I wasn’t fully formed and my ambition was focused inward. That was the mistake.

I never dropped the ambition (I think my former students will agree), but as I grew up as a human being and as a coach, I began to see the damned forest AND the proverbial the trees. I saw people, not competitors. I saw pride in themselves, not in me. Not always. I’m still flawed Nance. I still hurt kids and kicked myself after. If you’re reading this and you’re among them (the likelihood is 100%, in all probability), I’m sorry. 


What happened, over time, and what I think happens to leaders in positions of success, is that I truly felt like I was along for the ride. We became symbiotic, those Vikings and me: I needed them, they needed me. And what that created was a special formula that I wish I could bottle. The unbottleable result, however, was weekend after weekend of kids who largely came from some variation of difficulty and who faced their counterparts throughout the state and the country without fear.  “When they hear you’re from Parkview,” I would tell them before the first tournament of the year, “they might pee a little.” The squad was proud of the reputation they carried with them. And the thing I hope they knew—and they know now, these years later as they triumph in their own adult lives—is what it meant to me to lead them off the bus and into the school where they would carry that confidence. I hope they carry it with them still.


So if you fine Vikings still have those “Undefeated” or “We bust ours so we can kick theirs” t-shirts, I hope you remember all the late nights and sketchy motels and bus rides and evidence-chasing and practices. And I hope you have some gilded memories of the moments for which you wouldn’t trade any of it. I sure do.