Life is the Best Teacher

Posted on November 22, 2024 by Lynn

I have had the pleasure of teaching a book study unit to a small group of home educated kindergarteners over the last six weeks. My daughter, the Vice Principal of the BCS@home online program asked me to teach an in-class group that meets on Wednesday afternoons in a large church building. Hundreds of students participate in a variety of enrichment classes for students in kindergarten through senior high each week in a “hybrid” learning environment. At home, online, and in-person learning is increasingly popular now, especially after Covid. I was particularly delighted to be in a classroom again especially since she had “volunteered” my thirteen year old grandson, Jaxon to be my helper in my kindergarten class!

This past Wednesday, the last day of the unit study, I was walking my kindergarteners to meet their parents for afterschool pick up. Six weeks is such a short time together, but I prayed I had made a good connection with each of those little ones, and I wanted to tell each parent that their child had worked hard over the six weeks and they had been a delight to have in class. As I walked down the hall with my students, there was this sense of excitement mingled with pensiveness. After each of my teaching experiences, I always wonder where the Lord will take my students in the weeks, months and years ahead? I’ve been a teacher close to fifty years. I’ve taught students of all ages in public and private school settings. Teaching three year old preschoolers and all age groups through to senior high, I have enjoyed a very versatile career. Many of my students have pursued post-secondary careers and seminary degrees. Some are married and are raising their own families. I am blessed that I still have close ties to many of my former students.

I suppose I was semi-immersed in my own thoughts when I suddenly felt my right knee give way. I managed to grab a door frame, to steady me, but I knew immediately something was terribly wrong.

My kindergarteners did not notice I was no longer following them as they ran to their parents and showed the craft they had made in class. Then they excitedly thrust their participation certificates into their mom’s hands. I had spent time the night before personalizing each certificate knowing some parents like to save them in scrapbooks.

I waved from my spot, trying to look nonchalant, but my face betrayed my discomfort. I called to my daughter who was cleaning up her own classroom, and she instantly recognized my distress. “My knee has blown up!” I said as calmly as I could without parents hearing me.

There is good reason she is VP. She took charge immediately with level-headed authority. With Jaxon on one side of me and her on the other, they managed to guide me to the elevator. My eleven year old granddaughter, Kharis (Jaxon’s sister) who had just come out of her drama class, appeared with my box of teaching materials. In my pain, I hadn’t noticed that my daughter had directed them to clean up my classroom post haste.

I would have liked to avoid directing any attention to myself, but soon parents and students alike could see that Mrs. Dove was “in trouble”. As my daughter and grandson helped me hobble out to her SUV, to drive me to urgent care, my little kindergarteners came up to me one by one to “assist”. Then a tiny voice said, “You’ll be okay, Mrs. Dove. I will pray for you to get better.”

I have learned over the last few days, that parents and children have indeed been praying for me. I likely won’t be returning to the classroom until I am fully recovered, but I am so thankful for a community of Christian parents and educators who diligently pray. As I recover from a torn meniscus, prayer sustains me.

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WWJD

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lynn

My daughter had borrowed my car while hers was having some brake work done. While transferring car seats from her vehicle into mine, my two year old granddaughter caught sight of my little teddy bear in the back seat. Demanding to play with it, my daughter said, “No, that’s Grandma’s “swear bear”. It has to stay in the car!”

I was mortified when she told me about their conversation when she dropped off my car later in the week. “It’s not a swear bear!” I squeaked with embarrassment. “It’s my ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ Bear!”

Her husband raised an eyebrow, his expression begging to know the story behind my little teddy bear. My daughter giggled with mirth, and said, “This is a good one!”

When my first child was a toddler, her favourite movie was “Alice in Wonderland”. It was a VHS tape of an animated, musical adaptation of the story. I wasn’t even sure she actually watched it, because she would happily play with her other toys while the movie played in the background, but she demanded to have it on regardless.

One day as we were driving around town doing a variety of errands, she was strapped into her car seat almost asleep. I was merging onto a major thoroughfare, when a woman driving a small compact car zigzagged around me completely cutting me off in the process. She looked entirely too smug with her aggressive driving style so I loudly voiced my honest opinion of her as she zoomed by, “Stupid woman!”

From the back of the car a little voice squeaked out with gleeful delight, “Off with her head!”

I realized that day that I couldn’t vocalize my road rage with her in the car…

…and we obviously watched way too much T.V.

It wasn’t long after that incident, I went to a Christian book store and I bought a book that came with a promotional little teddy bear wearing a sweater with the letters WWJD knitted on the front. Charles Monroe Sheldon, published the book, “In His Steps” in 1896, and introduced the principle, “What Would Jesus Do?” which spawned the “WWJD” movement. To this day those initials are still found on Christian clothing, and jewelry. In my first book, “Shoot the Wounded”, I purposely had Jake, one of the main characters, wear a “WWJD” ring.

On the way home from the book store, as an afterthought, I tossed the teddy bear on the dashboard of my car. Instead of giving it to my daughter to play with at home, I decided to keep it in the car. It became a dashboard ornament with a purpose. It was a constant visual reminder that every time I was driving anywhere, someone was always watching me. Jesus was with me when I drove alone or with my children. He was watching over me, and monitoring my actions at all times. If I got into situations that triggered reactive behaviours (road rage 😡), I looked at the teddy and remembered to not say or do anything that might hinder my Christian witness in front of my children or others.

As the children got older, there may have been a few times they had to remind me to “look at the bear” when I was driving. I don’t swear, but I do on occasion voice my displeasure.

Four way stops are the bane of my existence.

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and and slow to become angry.” James 1:19

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Lady Aurora

Posted on October 11, 2024 by Lynn 
She Walks in Beauty
by: Lord Byron (George Gordon)-1814

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling place. 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent, 
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

It is said Lord Byron wrote these words after meeting the wife of his first cousin at a party in London. Byron was so struck by the woman’s beauty that the next morning he penned the poem. Anne Beatrix Wilmot-Horton, the “beauty”, was dressed in mourning clothes, and yet Byron saw her peaceful radiance to be in sharp contrast to the dark and somber dress she wore.

When in university, as an English major, I studied classic literature and romantic poetry. I memorized Byron’s poem and analyzed it thoroughly. When Mrs. Wilmot-Horton’s portrait was shown to our class, I laughed when my professor remarked that “beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder”, since it was obvious that what Byron was enamored by was not the woman’s outward beauty per se, but her inward beauty. There must have been an ethereal quality to her that he found captivating. Personally, I couldn’t see it myself.

However, as I gazed heavenward last night, I suddenly understood Byron’s poem in new light (so to speak). I silently, mouthed the words, “She walks in beauty, like the night…” awestruck by Lady Aurora pirouetting magnificently across the sky.

We have been blessed with a spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis for several nights here in Southern Alberta. Last night, I was absolutely mesmerized by the colours and the constant movement illuminating the darkness.

As a writer, I don’t focus on the impersonal science behind the phenomenon. Physicists may marvel that solar explosions produce huge quantities of particles thrown into deep space causing the electrically charged Aurora, but my mind is excited by the myths and legends that spark the imagination. Is it any wonder I choose to call the display, “Lady Aurora”, and I give her an ethereal quality with a perplexing form when she cavorts in regal beauty amongst the stars?

It is part of Aurora‘s “charm” that she has multiple personalities; the Ancient Greeks naming her “Sunrise” and Boreas meaning “Wind”. The Romans claiming her sisters were Helios (the Sun) and Seline (the Moon) and that Aurora raced across the morning sky in her “multi-coloured chariot to alert her siblings to the dawning of a new day”. (The Aurora Zone)

Ancient peoples around the world tried to explain the unusual and rare Aurora lights by creating epic legendary battles between good and evil enacted in the heavens. As a writer, these stories capture my interest and fuel my imagination to explore further the brilliance of Aurora in all her forms.

Last night, as Lady Aurora walked in beauty, in starry skies above me, the poetic words of Byron could not adequately express how wonderstruck I was at the sight. Only the sublime words of the Psalmist directed my eyes away from the creation itself to focus entirely on the Creator. Science, myths, legends, or my wild imagination cannot explain, fathom or comprehend how our God brought the expanse of the Universe into being and then how He Masterfully painted Aurora in all her splendour in the firmament.

To God Be the Glory, Great Things He Hath Done!

Lady Aurora
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