Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

Last Thursday, I opened my e-mail in the early morning to two e-mails from the school, or, at least, from people at the school. In the first, a staff person wrote to me from his/her home e-mail address and said that recent communications from the school s/he had seen did not make sense in light of other similar cases—i.e, it was clear that I was being picked on and that I should consider getting an advocate and asking the advocate to come with me to the next version of the IEP meeting. I cannot tell you how affirming it was to see an e-mail from an insider after so many weeks of feeling like I was crazy for requesting very simple things: notes, in a place where I could access them; assignments, a week in advance. And, I got another e-mail from S’s special education advocate. I needed to either sign and say I agreed with the IEP or sign and say I disagreed with the IEP. My 14 days are almost up, and when they expire, the new IEP will go into effect no matter what I’ve done. I responded ...

From the beginning, I knew that one of the most difficult parts of my job as the parent of a special needs kid was that I needed to be an advocate for her. People would misunderstand her, treat her poorly. People would shrink away from her story, not want to hear the details. Kids would bully her, and she’d push back, and I’d have to be clear about how to hold her accountable and advocate for her at the same time. And, then, there was the issue of her education. I was determined to ensure she would not be underestimated as she had been for the first 14 years of her life, sitting in a resource room all day, doing, as far as I can tell, very little. I will never forget how, when I was finally permitted to talk to S’s teacher, she explained over and over how sad S’s plight was, how badly she’d been abused. “But how well does she write?” I’d ask. “How severe is her learning disability in math?” There were no answers to such questions. Her IEP, when I finally received it, gave even fewer a...

S. held the lead rope in one hand and slapped her other arm against her thigh awkwardly, making a clicking sound in the back of her throat. She had a funny, half-grimace on her face, and she glanced at me then, to see if I was watching. Just as she had looked away, Honey began to circle her. “You’re doing it! You’re lunging! Stand in the same place, right where you are, and just turn with her. Keep moving your arm. That’s it—that’s it!” K, the college student who would become S’s horse teacher, was speaking urgently; already, I knew that any sense of urgency could throw S. off, cause her to withdraw into a comatose-like state. I felt my body tense up, expecting S to collapse and curl into a ball. But this time, S. didn’t. She did exactly what K told her to do, and I watched small wisps of breath escape from Honey’s nostrils and she circled and circled. S. was smiling crookedly, the left side of her lips curling toward her nose, the right side flat, stationary. She had a faraway look i...

When I decided hurriedly last fall to teach _Refuge_ by Terry Tempest Williams in my Creative Nonfiction course this spring, I chose the book partly because of our institution's commitment to sustainability and partly because I wanted to temper the edginess of my syllabus with a classic. That we will be discussing the book only a few days after the 25th anniversary of my mother's death never occurred to me when I made my syllabus. In truth, I'd forgotten the power of the book, how I'd read it for the first time in college while I was grappling, finally, with what my mother's death meant for me and my life. I have been trying for weeks to finish my re-read, and now I'm probably lagging behind even my most slacker student. For once, it's not procrastination that's the problem. I'm halfway through the book, and only halfway, simply because I am finding myself savoring every image, sinking as I had the first time into the details of a place I've neve...

I think I'm supposed to be paying attention, but I've only half-discovered what the lesson is. My daughter needs a new social security number. I was advised by everyone prior to the adoption--her social worker, her guardian ad litem, the attorney who finalized our adoption--to get her a new number as soon as the adoption was final. It would be too easy for the people from her biological family to find her if she continued to use her number. Already, her biological mother has the address to the adoption agency we used, which, although it is in a different town, is near enough that this makes me nervous. She is allowed to send S. letters to this address, which are apparently piling up, though S. has so far shown no interest in reading them. In any case, I assumed this would be simple--make copies of some documents, fill out some paperwork, send it all in, receive new number in...OK, I'm not naive. I figured it would take a few weeks. About a month after sending in the paperwo...

I know there is controversy surrounding Obama's choice for the minister who will offer the inaugural prayer. I also know that his decision to ask Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop who identifies as a gay man, to pray at the opening event tonight was likely a political move, perhaps even a way to appease the GLBT people who were angered by what they perceived as an insensitive move. Admittedly, I've been a bit bitter about this decision--I love Robinson, but I also hate for a member of the GLBT community to be used in this way, as a public appeasement for the liberals who feel slighted. And now, the controversy continues; some stations did not run the prayer, starting their coverage after its offering. I'm not going to jump quickly to assume that this was purposeful, but it is too bad...because, now that I have read Robinson's words, I think they are words all of us need to hear. I felt proud to be a Christian, a feeling that is rarer and rarer these days. Robinson...

I heard from a former student today. “I’m grieving,” she wrote. “I used to be able to write what I was feeling, but I can't anymore. I feel like I've lost something.” She is in medical school, and her journey to that career began, ironically, in her introduction to creative writing course with me in 2001 (I think it was 2001—is that possible?). She is a gifted writer—this was clear about her from the first assignment she submitted—but she is also gifted at connecting deeply with others. This was clear when I observed her for the first time in the Alzheimer’s unit, where she had been assigned to visit weekly and to record the residents’ words and write found poetry from them. That year, she wrote a beautiful essay for the families of the residents with whom she worked, one that I still use in my student manual as an example. N finished her English and Spanish majors, then went on to try working in a nursing home in the activity department, then a hospital as a translator. Eventu...

I promised my cousin I would blog about the New Year's soup. So, Lia, for you, I just have to say that the soup on New Year's day was phenomenal--maybe the best ever. Our family is Greek, which means that we eat and sing a lot over the holidays and that all of our celebrations reach into the late night--to leave a home at 11 is considered early. My favorite tradition of all is singing the Greek new year's song--partly because it is something we have been doing on New Year's day for as long as I can remember, partly because it's one of the only true "old-time" traditions we still follow that's stayed the same since I was a kid, and partly because the song itself is so beautiful. The song starts out simply, praising the beginning of a new month and a new year and the closing of the old. But later, the song becomes a dialogue between the singer and St. Basili, who is the "Santa Claus" of Greece and comes on New Year's Day. The song asks St. ...

This last week was a hard one. I had two utterly irrational blow ups at S. involving yelling and, once, dramatically dropping the broom I was using to sweep around S's feet while she sat at the kitchen table refusing to do her homework or chores. If I'd had only one screaming match with her, I could feel as if my behavior was somewhat justified--I apologized right away, went through the same consequences she would get for raising her voice and stomping around the house--but two? The blow ups have been happening more frequently on S's end, too. I was called in to talk to her teacher after she had a blow up in class. The reason--and this is hilarious--is that she had a rotting banana in the bottom of her bag, which she was not particularly willing to remove, mainly because doing so would have involved also removing every other item in her backpack. Now, if you have seen my office, or our home, it is not entirely surprising that her backpack is a mess. (I once got a note from ...