What Band Would We Listen To Together?

Students arrive to class with earphones deep in their ears.

"What are you listening to?" I ask one.

"What?" he calls back.  I point to my ears and exaggerate the words with my mouth. 

"WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?" I shout. 

He nods back at me, takes the earphones out of his ears, and says, "Blu Exile."

"Blu Exile?"  I ask.  I find the band on youtube and bring up the song for the class to hear.  It's a rap song.  I listen, trying to think of something to say. 

"I like how the background vocals make this so layered." 

We listen to the song together, and the student smiles.  I tell the class, "Maybe we can play a song from one of your favorite bands at the beginning of class." 

One student who rarely speaks says, "Awesome!  That's awesome!" 

I remember the story of a man who had a very rebellious young adulthood.  He hated everything and everyone, and while his life fell apart with drugs and alcohol, most everyone in the community gave up on him. 

This man tells the story of how his grandma would come visit him and sprawl out on his bedroom floor to just listen to his music with him.  She never preached at him or asked him about all his bad choices.  They'd sit together for hours and listen to all his heavy metal bands.  A few years later, when this man felt so hopeless and depressed, he remembered how his grandma loved him and never judged him.  He knew because she listened to his music with him.  That simple act reminded him somebody cared about him and wanted to enter into his world.  It encouraged him enough that he changed his life and didn't commit suicide.   

That story sticks with me.  I thought about it today when that student told me about his favorite band.  You never know what students are really feeling and what hardships they experience.  What if I just listened to their favorite band with them in those few minutes before class starts?  Maybe they'd feel seen and cared about and not lost in this huge world.

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I'd love to know your favorite band.  I admitted I love country music already, so it's your turn! 



  

A Million Ways to Prosper

I'm reading Psalm 1 (where it says whatever we do will prosper), and I notice all the things I wanted God to "prosper" in my life.  I've scribbled down everything from boyfriends to book contracts in that narrow margin. 

This particular Bible was given to me by my great friend, Elizabeth, back in 1995.  I therefore have 17 years worth of hopes and dreams written in the margin of this Bible.

I notice something as I look at all the things that didn't ever seem to work out.

The promise in Psalm 1 is this: 

Blessed is the man
   who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
   or sit in the seat of mockers. 
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
   and on his law he meditates day and night. 
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
   Whatever he does prospers.

I wonder for the first time what that verb "prosper" really means.  Very few of my dreams in the margin came true, but does that mean they did not prosper?  In the midst of failure, broken dreams, disappointments, and unanswered prayers, did I nevertheless thrive?  Did I nevertheless meet God?  Did God not use it somehow? 

Whatever I do, God prospers it.  He makes it succeed and thrive in a million incomprehensible ways.  

I might not see it until 17 years later.  I might not ever see it, but the promise in Psalm 1 is that whatever I do prospers.  

Whatever we do today will prosper.  

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Do you have an instance where something seemed like a failure or a disappointment and God actually used it to prosper you? 

 

Don't Bother Being Fake

Yesterday, the neighborhood children run in and out of my house, delighting in the unseasonably warm weather.  Some are barefoot and trying to skate on the melting ice, and others are running frenzied circles around the tree.  One of my daughters has mud splashed up her legs.  One child has found the cat brush and attempts to brush her own hair with it!

"Everybody stop!" I cry.  "A mother I haven't met yet is bringing her daughter to play, so could everybody just act normal?  I don't want this mother to think we are all crazy wild animals around here!"

One little girl stops running and looks at me with a deep serious shake of her head.  She says, "Mrs. Holleman, we shouldn't even bother.  She's going to find out the truth anyway." 

I burst out laughing, and suddenly, the wild scene in my front yard becomes a source of comical, wonderful joy.  

She's right. Why fake it?  Living with flair means I don't put on a show.  I don't bother; you're going to learn the truth anyway.  That poor mother might not ever return, but at least she knows the real me. 

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Here's to being real in February!