Missing You

These are the days I miss you almost more than I can bear.
Autumn days filled with swirling leaves
And cold winds
And smoke rising from chimneys.

Do you remember teaching me the poem about autumn?

Come little leaves said the wind one day....

Do you remember peeling apples from the front yard apple tree
Before the storm ripped it up, roots and all?
Do you remember always acting surprised when I came into
your bedroom every morning with your shawl behind my back?
You never let me know you were only pretending to be surprised every morning by this gesture of my love.

Do you remember how much I love you?
Do you remember the summers I stayed with you?
Do you remember teaching me to skip?
Do you remember --- me?

What must it be like in heaven?
Do you remember waking up one morning, believing you were there?
Do you remember being disappointed to find out you were here instead?
Will you be waiting for me there?
I miss you so.

I had a dream about you a long time ago
You were in the back yard with Daddy Clair.
He had been in heaven several years already.
Yet, he was there, welcoming you.
The dream was a wonderful gift for me. I believe it was from God Himself.
He wanted me to know you were well and happy.

I long to dream about you again.
I long to skip again.
I long to bring your shawl again.

I love you.

Mississippi Madness?

Last night my daughter phoned on her way home from another stressful day teaching kindergarten in Morehead, MS. Her question to me was, "Mom, why should I have to defend myself for not hitting my kids?"

K is in the Teach for America Program, which places college graduates in teaching positions in "at risk" schools across the country. These are either inner-city schools (as found in Harlem and Detroit), or very rural schools (as found in South Dakota, North Carolina and the Mississippi Delta). Her first choice was the Delta, and was very pleased to be assigned to teach kindergarten in a school which was 99% African-American.

As she researched the public school policy for Sunflower County, Mississippi, she found that the favored form of discipline was spanking. Alarmed, she immediately contacted her TFA supervisor in the Delta to voice her concerns and advise TFA that under no circumstances would she spank any of her students, nor would she condone that action by anyone else. Her supervisor assured her that there was no cause for alarm, and that physical punishment was the exception rather than the rule. K's students would only be paddled if she herself administered that punishment.

Sadly, this has proven NOT to be the case in her school. Her teaching assistant, her principal, her reading coach, and all her fellow teachers believe her view of spanking as ALWAYS WRONG and NEVER AN APPROPRIATE WAY TO TEACH ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR, as ridiculous. They believe that belittling, berating, and beating are the only methods to correct behavior problems - yes, even for her four- and five-year-old students.

Yesterday her distress was made worse by the knowledge that one of the students had come to school with the marks from the prongs of an extension cord on his legs. The result of a whipping delivered by one of his parents. The student's teacher phoned Mississippi's DHHR to report the incident. Their response to her was that she was simply wasting their time with this sort of report.

K believes these children, under these circumstances, will have little hope of breaking out of the cycle of violence without immense changes in the policies of the public school system. Of course, when parents themselves believe the definition of discipline is "spanking" or "beating," and that such discipline is perfectly acceptable, there are great changes needed within the homes as well.

In the book God's Politics, Jim Wallis speaks of changing the wind. Sadly, I believe there can be no improvement without this change in the winds of Mississippi; however I am at a loss as to how or where to begin.

My request for any who read this post and share my concern is that you would please pray about this situation, and offer your comments.