Qualifications

I have been filling out applications for teaching, then, per their request, attaching a resume that says  everything in the application.

I keep it professional for the most part, but in one particularly detailed application today, I was nearly to the final step when the form gave me an opening with some question like, "Is there anything else we should consider in the hiring process that this form has failed to ask about?"

There are so many other talents. Where do I even begin? I can do a plethora of things as a result of my former, less relevant job experience.

I can...

• stuff a cannoli
• crack two eggs at once
• haggle for a rug in a souk
• wrap gifts very neatly, including curling the ribbon
• count letters in words very quickly
• count money in a cash drawer or a safe very quickly
• alphabetize all the letters in a word (e.g. Carolyn --> aclnory)
• say words backwards
• drive stick shift
• backfloat very well
• pick out glasses that look great on your face
• call your insurance company about your benefits
• follow you around a corn maze if I think you're drunk
• spin cotton candy
• fry Oreos
• whip up pancake batter
• lead any of several get-to-know-you games
• clean a bathroom in 35 seconds or less
• sense when someone is talking about me in another language
• curse in Mandarin, Arabic, French, and Spanish
• tell you where any item belongs in the Waynesboro Kmart in summer 2007
• recite all verses of the "Found a Peanut" song, including alternate endings
• make a lox and cream cheese bagel to die for
• make an espresso using a standard machine
• memorize specials

And cats like me.

I Will Watch That Movie If

• "Ragtag" is somewhere in the description.
• Shah Rukh Khan, Will Smith, or any of the Wayans brothers,  is in it.
• It's based on a Jane Austen book.
• Someone must learn to dance.
• One or more characters undergo a montage transformation.
• Someone must go from poor to rich or from rich to poor. (They must "Trade Places," if you will.)
• I can immediately tell that there will be a happy ending.
• There is a heist.
• "...must learn that, in life, things don't always go as planned" is in the trailer.
• A remarkable child is the narrator.
• Morgan Freeman is the narrator.
• Tom Hanks and/or Meg Ryan are in it. Who am I kidding? It's Tom Hanks *and* Meg Ryan.
• Tina Fey and/or Amy Poehler did anything with it, to it, or near it.

"Merlin" Is My Personal Favorite

I don't teach spelling. And it doesn't lower my students' hand-written essay grades if they mess up with spelling, as long as it's understandable. As I read their essays (many of them very thoughtful!) on The Great Gatsby, I found a surprising variety for ways of spelling "Myrtle."

Martyle
Merlin
Mertal
Mertil
Mertin
Merytial
Merytile
Mrytle
Myrle
Myrtile
Myrttle
Mytle

Alternate Language Proposed for the CDC Budget

According to the Washington Post, Trump and his... who? Minions? have given a list of forbidden words to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Below are the words not allowed to appear in the budget proposal, and my suggestions for alternate language. I've included alternates in a sentence, to get a feel for the new language, which can seem clunky at first.

1. Forbidden: Diversity
Alternate language: not-just-whiteness; difference; heterogeneity; where people exhibit clear differences between each other. 

As in, "In areas of not-just-whiteness, the median income is often half of that of just-whiteness neighborhoods."

2. Forbidden: Entitlement
Alternate language: due by law; owed by law. 

As in, "Despite the 70-year-old's being due by law a healthcare benefit, per his military service, he was denied any care at all due to his pre-existing condition."

3./4. Forbidden: Evidence-based/Science-based
Alternate language: factual.

As in, "Climate change is factual, and of course each country must do its part to eliminate carbon emissions."

5. Forbidden: Fetus
Alternate language: foetus; unborn children. 

As in, "The unborn child should not be hurt in any way, because this is the one issue that has moral credibility, and there is no way we are losing traction with the one-issue voters. No way in hell."


6. Forbidden: Transgender
Alternate language: individuals who are confusing in their ambiguity; scapegoat.

As in, "How can Americans become better at treating individuals who are confusing in their ambiguity with respect instead of beating them up in public restrooms?" 


7. Forbidden: Vulnerable
Alternate language: threatened, endangered; poor; sick. 

As in, "This administration preys on the poorest people who are already threatened by big businesses."

---

The White House budget will be a reflection of what this administration holds dear. Just as important as what it spends money on is the recognition of what is missing from the budget. They've clearly outlined that bit for us: facts, transgender people, vulnerable people, diversity, and what Americans are entitled to by our own laws.

And here's a freebie, for the kids. 

Trump
Alternate language: No Justice for the Poor.

November Dedications

Wednesday, 1 
Today is dedicated to having enough.

Thursday, 2
Today is dedicated to Thor and the refugee Asgardians.

Friday, 3
Today is dedicated to that group of women who prays for me and laughs at my jokes. I thank my God every time I remember you.

Saturday, 4
Today is dedicated to the Enneagram.

Sunday, 5
Today is dedicated to Hay Hassani's thrift clothes. You are so reasonably priced. Thank you.

Monday, 6
Today is dedicated to Monica, who sees the Kingdom of God.

Tuesday, 7
Today is dedicated to the Apostle Paul, who preserved the Gospel from extra conditions.

Wednesday, 8
Today is dedicated to every bank everywhere that actually does their job. So, that would exclude my bank in Morocco, just to be clear.

Thursday, 9
Today is dedicated to Tyler, who sympathized with me at odd hours while I was grading instead of sleeping.

Friday, 10
Today is dedicated to "The Crucible" movie, which saved me from actually teaching.

Saturday, 11
Today is dedicated to the book Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Sunday, 12
Today is dedicated to the taxi driver who spoke beautiful French, and encouraged me to keep learning.

Monday, 13
Today is dedicated to this carpet next to me. It witnessed my attempts to create two unit plans in one hour, and it remained beautiful.

Tuesday, 14
Today is dedicated to the parents of my students. Thank you for trusting me so much.

Wednesday, 15
Today is dedicated to the English department. During high-grading weeks, I sometimes feel like we go through war together... separately.

Thursday, 16
Today is dedicated to the "Time Until" app. Five days.

Friday, 17
Today is dedicated to naps. Naps on the way to work. Naps on buses. Naps on couches. Naps that save first my life, and others by extension.

Saturday, 18
Today is dedicated to Amicitia American School, Fes, who knows how to host graciously.

Sunday, 19 
Today is dedicated to Luke D., who made me laugh until I cried.

Monday, 20
Today is dedicated to the substitute who will have the joy or sorrow of my classes tomorrow.

Tuesday, 21
Today is dedicated to Tyler, who flew across an ocean to hang out for a few days.

Wednesday, 22 
Today is dedicated to couches, windows, and sunshine, and anywhere the three meet.

Thursday, 23 
Today is dedicated to you, Lord, who graciously gives us good things.

Friday, 24
Today is dedicated to a pair of cat earrings; to my brother and sister-in-law; to Tyler; and to the little girl selling tissues next to the train station.

Saturday, 25
Today is dedicated to "Stranger Things" and leftovers.

Sunday, 26
Today is dedicated to comings and goings; may God watch over them all.

Monday, 27
Today is dedicated to the working printers.

Tuesday, 28
Today is dedicated to sentence diagramming; I wish I had known how fun you were when I was in seventh grade, myself!

Wednesday, 29
Today is dedicated to G period. I look older because of you. But I love you, and will keep forgiving you right before class, at 1:40 PM every weekday, and right after class, at 2:30 PM every weekday.

Thursday, 30
Today is dedicated to Shanti and Nissa, who listened without judgment, and kept my phone through the night.

Reset Button

What did it take me to get here, in Casablanca? 

The flight was less than seven hours, a red-eye from DC to Casablanca. I even had the great honor of being able to sprawl across three seats because by luck my row had not sold out. That afforded me three hours of low-quality sleep. Three hours of sleep provides you with just enough energy to stand in passport control for over an hour, but not quite enough energy to remember how to get to the train station from baggage claim. Missed that first train. Whatever. 

What did it take me to get here, in front of a computer with thoughts?

It took me some crying, a good video chat, dinner with friends, time in prayer, twelve hours of sleep, two cups of coffee, a load of laundry, two episodes of something on Netflix, and a banana. 

It was good to be in the United States.

It is good to be back in Morocco.

So Angry

If I were you, there's no reason I would read this. We get enough complaining without searching for it.

This week, here's what makes me angry.

1. People defining themselves by traveling. Collecting friends like souvenirs. I see my hypocrisy. It will take years to remedy.

2. Dudes hollering at me on the street. Yesterday, as I was walking past Beausejour on a main road, I had just passed two young men when I heard that kissy noise every woman knows. I turned around, walked the few steps back to them, and shouted in English, "DON'T DO THAT. DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!" I was livid. Jaw set hard, lips pinched, eyes wide and fixed; I curled my upper lip in disgust. They don't speak English, but the words didn't matter. They nodded, ashamed and uncomfortable.

I have been told to not make any eye contact, to keep my eyes down so as not to draw attention to myself in any way. It doesn't seem to matter. Men here (and in Pennsylvania, and lots of places) think a woman walking on the street is an easy target for their libidinous guffaws. Usually, I walk on for my own safety. But yesterday I had it in my head that I really could, and would, fight. 

3. Students who put forth an extraordinary effort in making excuses and arguing while their work remains incomplete or not begun. In the same category, a senior who shows up at their final and doesn't have a pen.  

If I Had it to Do Over...

If I could sit myself down in late July 2016, I would have listened to my very legitimate worries about how to say goodbye, what to pack, and what to do about money. After just listening to all that, December Me would have told July Me the following important information:

1. When it comes to packing, remember, people live there. They either know how to do it or are surviving without doing it. (This apparently does not apply to shoes. Bring ALL your shoes.)

2. Bring a journal from before you left. You were a person quite different then, but still a whole, dignified person. It's good to remember those days when you understood the world around you.

It's also good to see the holes and questions you had before the move. Moving has brought new pain, but it has answered some of your questions, deepened your dreams, changed your life.

3. You don't have to go everywhere and experience everything right away. Reading books is still an acceptable pastime, no matter the continent.

4. You're going to write again. And you're going to love it.

Victories

In our first weeks here, my roommate and I talked about our small victories. We were doing things every day that we had never done, or typical things that we hadn't thought about doing for years, but that were suddenly complicated by language and other barriers. We started writing these victories on a calendar, and posted it on the fridge. Here are my highlights from September to present:

9/26: taxied from school

9/27: zumba!

9/28: good hair

9/29: three good lesson plans

9/30: in bed before 10 PM

10/1: enjoyed a late-night party

10/2: 30-minute run

10/3: four hours of schoolwork on a day off

10/5: stayed in line at the butcher

10/6: small group

10/9: judged debate at CAS

10/10: paid electric bill

10/13: French class

10/17: rode on a dromedary

10/18: haggled

10/19: did nothing

10/22: hour-long talk with Mom

10/24: didn't take myself too seriously

10/26: first tutoring session success

10/29: bought a watch

10/30: [watch doesn't work]

10/31: exchanged money

11/1: took taxis from school, to the bank, back to school

11/6: called off work and wrote sub plans between throwing up

11/9: mostly didn't fight on Facebook

11/13: got involved at church

11/15: didn't mention the election to anyone

11/16: 41 parent-teacher conferences

11/18: bought a rug

11/19: successful baking!

11/20: read and prepared to teach Macbeth

11/21: subbed during a prep period and didn't get bitter

11/24: went to Ain Sebaa in the rain

11/25: six hours of Gilmore Girls

11/30: enjoyed the students

12/2: gave four lunch detentions

12/3: won Dutch Blitz

People First

1. People here are patient with me. Most people try to understand when I speak English, though they absolutely do not understand when I mispronounce French, which is absolutely every time I try to speak French.

2. People in cafes can stay in cafes for as long as they please, drinking only one tiny cup of coffee if they like. No one is shooing you away. No one is asking you for your seat.

3. People walk across the road, sometimes dangerously, and though I'm sure they do get hit, vehicles slow down (almost unreasonably, in my mind) to avoid hitting pedestrians.

4. People driving vehicles tend to use their horns to alert drivers in the right lane that they are passing them in the left. And while we're on the road, if you find that you need to make a right turn, but find that you are three lanes far away, ne t'inquiète pas: merge on over there, nice and steady-like. People will find a way around you.

5. People walking along the street fearlessly approach each other from opposite directions, neither indicating which way they'll move in order to avoid collision. And you find yourselves miraculously passing each other, barely touching elbows.

6. People who are accepting your payment may try to cheat you. If you catch them at it, smile and reclaim the money instead of yelling and getting heartsore. They were just moving into the space they saw, filling in the cracks.

All this to say, things are... negotiable. People are pliable. People are first. People people people.

Such a Relief

I wish I enjoyed the intensity of a difficult moment, but I don't. The moment after the tension, that's what I like, when we can have peace again.

1. As soon as D period is over, and my ninth graders are about to leave the room, I celebrate that I've gone through my three different classes, and all that's left of the teaching day is a double reprise of seventh grade. It is such a relief.

2. As soon as I finish the allotted studying I have given myself for the night, and I remember that I need to eat and sleep, it is such a relief.

3. Every time President Bartlet entered a room in the show The West Wing, the lights were already on. And when he left it, they remained burning. In season two, an episode ends with him leaving the oval office at the end of the night. An aid comes into the oval office, and extinguishes each light. It is such a relief.

Brain Imploding in 5, 4, 3, ...

For the last two and a half weeks, I've been learning about all the systems that make up both life in Morocco and work at the Academy. We, the new recruits, have sat in on sessions explaining vision for the school, and the personal vision of the administration. We've eaten a lot of food together, and formed those unique, tentative bonds that result from shared fear. I think it's time for a list of things I've had to learn in the past three weeks:

how to get a taxi
how to navigate this city at all
my address
how to tell a taxi to get to my address
how to order food at a restaurant
and pay for it
and pay for anything, without overpaying or insulting anyone
how to lock doors, wash clothes, dry clothes, close windows, repel roaches and mosquitoes, sleep through the morning call to prayer,
how to say a few words in Darija and in French,
how to buy and use a VPN,
how to video call (don't use your phone, do use a VPN),
how to clean a floor... oh, everything.

And then there are the school systems for which we've had sessions, but you just have to figure them out at some point:

the school's grading scale and grading software,
attendance policies and online tracking,
purchase orders,
TimeOffManager,
helpdesk,
disciplinary referrals,
curriculum mapping,
Google Classroom,
and the school's email system.
It's gmail, so no change for me... except... have I mentioned that four or five of these systems need their own PASSWORDS?

... and now, to do all of this on a Mac. Nothing makes me feel less competent than having to Google every time I need to know a shortcut on a Mac. How do I open a new tab? Save a bookmark? Command key!

My students know so much more about the world they live in than I do right now. I'll offer them what I have, ask for what I need, and go to sleep now.

Reasons Why I'm Going

To learn to teach.

To live near the desert

To live near the ocean.

To escape the crush of scheduling, for which I take full responsibility.

To ask God how to stop being so angry.

To produce nothing, be known for nothing, be right about nothing, defend nothing.

To confront my loneliness, and befriend it.

To be out of the country during the 2016 presidential election.

To know Muslims.

... and there are many more reasons, some I haven't even allowed myself to think of. It seems to me that no one lives without an agenda. I just want to have a good one.

Your Good Gifts. You're Good Gifts.

Sometimes gifts come at exactly the right time, and make the deepest impression. I usually don't choose the right gifts to bring to parties, and sometimes I give up. I can think of two weddings where I just FORGOT to bring a gift. But I don't want to do without gifts. I need them, and so do you. In celebration of gifts, here's a list of some of the most important ones I've received.

I listened to the Pocahontas soundtrack, and discovered that I loved to sing. Who thought that would be a good gift? An aunt and uncle I haven't seen in 20 years.

I take up this notebook, and realize it, too, was a gift to me. I am so grateful for it. Blank sheets for my pulsing heart to glide along; blue lines to bring its rhythm true. Slow alignment.

An argyle t-shirt dress I wore with tights for two years. I had very few growth spurts. And as ugly as the garment sounds, I can assure you it was totally in style mid-nineties.

A down comforter I slept on before I even reached home.

My current cell phone.

Yesterday's pancakes.

A pair of heart-shaped earrings.

Spontaneously plugging my tire, filling it with air, and telling me it would be alright.

A plastic to-go mug filled with hot coffee when I left your house for a long drive home. I still use that mug.

After moving into the apartment, with far less help that I needed (read, just my mom - her moving help was one of those gifts that you can never repay), the two of you bounded up the stairs with smoothies for my mom and me.

When we were in Vegas over my birthday, you gave me a card with a cat on the front. I'm bound to say no more in public, but I still laugh when I see it on my dresser.

You gave me your bed when you moved out, and it is far superior to my old one.

You, grandma, trusted me with a responsibility recently. It was so small, setting up something decorative. I could have forgotten about it. I have only since realized that you entrusted me with a piece of your happiness.

You took me seriously when I sounded crazy, more than once, and became indignant for my sake.

You gave me some headbands I use all the time.

You trusted me with a secret. I have kept it.

You gave me frankincense, my favorite scent in all the world. Always available to me now.

This list... it's killing me. It's hard to tell where it ends. It doesn't end. I meant to focus this on the material gifts you've given me, friends, acquaintances, strangers! But I cannot separate them from the immaterial that have been so dear to me. Thank you.

Creative Energies Transformed

"Why haven't I been writing?" I ask myself, and one or two of you have asked me, too. One part of not writing has been the fear of it. If you refuse to stop and reflect, you don't have to make any changes to your life. You can just keep going forward until you hit a roadblock.

So I let myself fill up my schedule with visiting. (I've been around. You've seen me.) And while that's mostly been a positive change since this time last year, the lack of quiet for my mind has crippled my ability to compose creatively.

When I do become introspective, cataracts of thought open wide, and out flows something different than before: a desire to sing, to play an instrument, to run, to laugh with you, to do something brave, to call you, to finally get back to watching Lost, to coach a Bible Quiz team, to plan a friend's wedding, to visit my sick grandpa and my outspoken grandma, to see a good friend far away, to plan a baby shower, to read that book... by the way, it was Wuthering Heights this month, and it drew me in like the sea, and rescued me, too.

It occurs to me that time is short; if I want to do any of those things, I had better do at least one right now.

I do still write, though, in my journal a few times a month. I write emails. I write advertising copy. I write quiz questions. All taken together, it is satisfying me for now.

Re-Entry

I went through the pains of what I have heard missionaries call "re-entry" when I returned from my first short-term mission trip to Arizona at the age of 12. What was it? Everything was different; home wasn't home. As I re-entered my old world, I recognized that it, too, was new. Those losses had to be mourned.

I didn't experience it to any great degree when I returned from Honduras, nor upon my return from any other foreign country.

But I've found myself experiencing it this summer, those aches of loss, now I have moved out of the life I've known for the past three years. I haven't always phrased my work as a missionary assignment, though my availability to friends and family has been that of an ex-patriot. (Besides, why would I call myself a missionary? Our lives are ours to use how we will, and if you're a Christian, your life is yours to use how God wills. So we live out our mission. All Christians are also missionaries.)

Yet... aside from rarely being available to hang out, I've been surrounded by people of a different culture and language, and I've been a spiritual mentor. And I guess those are what I have always thought of as a missionary's callings.

Now that I'm living outside of the residence hall, here's what's been on my mind:
1. I have to cook. What is "to cook"?
2. I just did a lot of packing and downsizing: my classroom and my apartment were all placed or displaced in the house I now share with three other women. And most importantly, I don't miss any of those items. Maybe possessions are silly.
3. Is it time to move to another country in a few months? No.
4. Aren't all jobs supposed to be full of purpose? Or are some jobs editing copy, making coffee, and praying that God would receive glory in that? Yes.

The Latest Transition

It's been hard to find a place in my new domicile in which I feel comfortable writing. Today I cleaned and moved some furniture, and I feel more at home now. But writing requires inward inspection. To turn my eyes inward requires an effort when my outer world is so stimulating. There's a whole kitchen to use, and food to be made out of necessity, not just luxury. There are so many living room chairs to sit in and find the comfortable spot. There are so many modes and tones of lighting to try in each room. It takes time and dedication to know and love a place. As I move into this one, I'm slowly settling in. It'll probably take 11 more months before I feel at home.

I hasten to add that I feel comfortable here on the whole, and am glad to be here. But it's different living with three other people in the same house than having an apartment, as thin as the walls were, as intruded-upon as I was. In this house, it is possible to...

• run out of milk (I was always throwing away 1/3 of the smallest milk containers.)
• stay up talking without having to turn off floor alarms (In a dormitory for high schoolers, you need floor alarms.)
• light candles (Again, it was a dormitory, and an old one, that couldn't be subjected to fire code.)
• wake up at 6 am, and see humans moving (High schoolers don't wake up that early.)
• come home, and find a party is already going on (At the dorm, if there was a party where I lived, it meant someone had broken into my apartment.)
• experience a breeze (In the dorm, I had all West-facing windows, and none too breezy.)
• find no room in the freezer (I generally kept ice trays with water evaporating in them.)
• walk to the front door without passing through your job (And that is beautiful, my friends.)

Thanks, Mom

Prompt: Indulge in nostalgia

I don't normally think about the positive things I associate with being a kid. My childhood is filled with half-gratified desires. I often think about how hard I had it. I always had questions that needed answering, and I longed to grow up so I could be taken seriously.

The library. As a child, my room had lots of picture books, and we were always at the library swapping them out. We rented movies from there, too, especially during the summer. I remember the first time I saw Princess Bride. My brother was skeptical that it was going to be "a girl movie" (ha!!). It should go without saying that we were both entirely satisfied by the viewing experience.

Midnight Snack. How it got started, I don't know. And it was never actually midnight when my mother indulged our young cravings for sweets. She put a few Graham crackers out with cups of milk. I became a pro Graham-dunker. Good job, Mom, on not giving us fruit snacks or candy at that hour. She knew nutrition, even if our babysitters were sometimes less than aware.

Reading to us.Why does no one read to me now? It's so comfortable and cozy to sit and listen to someone else's voice, on and on. As I rested my head on her side, I closed my eyes and heard her voice, swallowing my thoughts and spooning a thin layer of honey all over the world. She read to us before bed almost every night, when she wasn't working, of course, and she'd dismiss us to bed with, "first one to bed gets first hugs'n'kisses!" We scrambled for our rooms, and made such a fuss if she didn't judge correctly the "winner" of the game.

"Go outside and play." In my imperfect memory, Stephen always seemed to be outside with his friends, riding bike, or skateboarding, or playing street hockey, or... many other mysteries. None of my friends lived in town for a long time, so I confined myself to the yard, learned nothing there, and felt lonely. But at least I was outside, and so was Stephen, usually. Once, though, I recall he and Logan and Danny (together, the Three Musketeers, but without the noble intentions or code of honor) were playing in the basement. They were there for a long time, and finally came upstairs giggling. They had spray-painted their initials on a yellow, metal cabinet, long unused, in the tiny work room. The fumes had been getting to them, but they also thought that they were the cleverest little rascals to ever strategically spray paint their initials. The "LSD" cabinet remained in the house for a long time.

"Why don't you stay home tonight?" In high school, my mom would tell me that I couldn't go out, just because "you've already gone out three nights this week. It would be a good night to stay in." I so little understood how much my bitter, "But why?!" could have hurt her. My "why?" to the request to stay home implied so much: that I wanted to get away from her and the family, that I didn't think they were worth my time, that I had better things to do, better places to be, in short, that I didn't value my home community and consider it worth my contribution.

I wish more parents would tell their kids to stay in a few nights a week. When I tell it to dorm students, they are frustrated. They say things like, "It feels like I'm in prison!"; "I hate this place!"; "Why do you want to control me!?" But by the end of the year, they realize that the time they spent here was valuable. They wish they had spent more time getting to know the other students and advisers. They realize that this was their home for a while, and wish they had owned it more, contributed more.

Productive Day List

On Facebook, I often see lists of things people did on their most productive days. A few of those lists, and I am sure that I am unsuccessful at living. I make to-do lists all the time, and rarely cross off more than two or three items before day's end. BUT, if you make the list AFTER the day is over, it's much more rewarding.

Here's what this morning's to-do list would have consisted of, if it had been accurate.

Drive to Philly and back.

Turn around only three times.

Attend a doctor's appointment with a friend who will get sutures removed, right in front of me. 

Do not throw up.

Have a stimulating conversation.

Leave windows down during a rainstorm.

Eat Vietnamese food with Elizabeth.

Buy two cute shirts at a thrift store.

Read Steinbeck.

Clap loudly to scare off a skunk while Lachelle unlocks the building. 

 Ignore other lists. 

Asking Better Questions

In the teaching ESL class I took this month, we watched a video from the late 1970s about Mexican-American acculturation in southern California. They were experiencing all the racism, poverty, and loss of identity that comes with immigration. The most striking part of the video was when the interviewer asked some of the Mexican-American high school drop-outs, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" This is a familiar question, and it seems to me that it is really asking, "how will you make money when you are old enough to do so?" It's a good question for an individualistic, transitory, capitalistic society to ask of its members. But the teens in the video, who come from a communal, stationary society just stared blankly into the distance, and responded with a nervous chuckle, "I don't know."

I wish the interviewer had gone on to clarify, "You mean you don't dream of anything happening in your life?" Then it would have been clearer if they merely didn't know how they would earn money, or if they had not been encouraged to dream about their futures, and to picture life differently. The tragedy would be if they had not been given the power to view themselves as agents for change and betterment in the world. That possibility was heart-breaking, and everyone in my class felt it.

I recently attended a party of about 25 bright, enthusiastic young people. They are certainly exceptions to many rules. They carry the hope of Christ in their hearts. They walk with confidence wherever they go. They change the world by listening to God and people. If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they might also stare at you blankly for a bit. They are entrenched in that very battle of deciding how they will earn their bread. For them, too, the question doesn't have a more inspirational answer than a stare into the distance, and a faint, "I don't know." But, if we change the question a bit, and begin with "what do you want in life?" or "what are your hopes for the future?" we will get to the heart of the matter.

Here are a few of their responses:

• I want to be a father to children, and not just in the biological sense, especially for boys.
• I want to teach, and help build a community.
• I want adventure, love (maybe getting married, but maybe not), and wisdom (because I love to read books).
• I want to do everything, go everywhere, and meet everyone.
• I want to serve. I like where I am right now.
• I want to do one of the following before I die: star in a show, or start a camp for troubled youth, or...
• I want to write a novel, like War and Peace, that follows a person through all of life.
• I want to have a family, and have an outlet for adventure.
• I want to adopt four boys.
• I want to do something that matters, that no one ever gives me credit for.
• I want to have the ability to go off on thinking tangents for as long as I like.
• I want to play Encore all together with my giant family.
• I want to live outside of the ordinary.
• I want to know people and encourage them to know God better.

I'm far more satisfied with these answers than with those I gave as a child, "nurse, vet, waitress [ahem, little Carolyn, you mean 'server']."