Why is critique spelled with a K? - Debate, shoes, and the concept of “cool.”

I was not cool in high school. In fact, I was probably the epitome of socially awkward, dorky, and fashionably inept. I made up for it by being class Salutatorian and figured that college was where it was at. At college I would reinvent myself into “cool.”

In college I tried very hard. Started straightening my hair every day, wore these ridiculously painful shoes to class and eventually realized that again, I did not have what it took. Just like in high school. I wasn’t friends with the “cool” people. You know, the soccer team/SGA types. It took me a couple of years to fully become okay with that but eventually the painful shoes stayed in the back of the closet and I was all about the imitation Birkenstocks.

By the time I graduated I learned that I really did not want to be the SGA type of cool after all. And then I stumbled into debate.

It was my second week at BWHS when I was asked to head up the debate team. It sounded kind of fun, but I really had no idea what I was agreeing to. I remember the first tournament – I was scared, I thought everyone was so weird, so intense. There were sixteen year olds throwing around words like hegemony. Then there was this whole other language. Flowing, topicality, counterplan, solvency, link-turn, impact analysis. Why was critique all of the sudden spelled with a K? Then we start abbreviating things. You run DA’s, go for T, perm the counterplan. And why the heck did everything end in nuclear extinction?

I’ve been a coach for a year, I went to camp, I learned to speak the language, and here is what I love most about it: it gives nerds that opportunity to really fit in – to be “cool.” We’re a part of something. We have our own jargon. Kind of like Trekkies and Klingon, only less jumpsuits and more ties and blazers. In the judge’s lounge you meet college students reading Heidegger, economists who work on the hill writing CRS reports, the debate mom who makes awesome lasagna and doubles as a nuclear weapons inspector, periodically traveling to North Korea and Iran. In the cafeteria kids are talking about federalism, Obama, the bailout bill, Obama, the pitfalls of wind energy, Obama, and whether or not Renewable Portfolio Systems provide an incentive for alternative energy. Most of these kids have spent two or more weeks on college campuses during the summer researching their cases, writing briefs and talking with a pen in their teeth to improve speaking ability. They haul around large plastic boxes full of expanding folders. The intense ones have carts. Most of their boxes are covered in bumper stickers advocating a variety of liberal causes.

This is just a snapshot. Back in the classroom from 4-5pm three nights a week mass quantities of Twizzlers are consumed, everybody talks at once and if we’re lucky we get about half an hour of solid practice in. They show up before the first bell the next morning, just to hang out in my room and get passes to come in later. They stay after on Friday, just to hang out and play annoying music on my speakers. I had to kick them out of my room at 5:30 this Friday. Tell them to go home and get a life, “If only for a few hours before I see you again at the crack of dawn tomorrow [Saturday] morning.”

They think I’m “cool.”

I’ve never been cool before. Peers never thought I was “cool.” Whenever I’ve worked with kids in some kind of church ministry someone else has always been the “cool” one. Someone else who has all this charisma, who can jump around in an absurd costume or shoot basketballs in the gym. But not anymore. My debaters aren’t really impressed by people who do all those other things. They think that’s annoying. They’d rather see someone with a sarcastic sense of humor and an appreciation for SNL. I guess that’s where I come in.

It nice to finally be “cool.” It’s nice to have a place where I’m normal, where my sense of humor is shared and appreciated. I laugh a lot when I’m in debate world. I know, I know. I’m 24, why should I care about being cool? In reality, it’s not so much about being cool. It’s about being who you are. It’s really only been in the past year that those waves of insecurity fostered in college have finally subsided and I’m just okay with who I am today. I guess I’m a late bloomer in that respect. Debate really had little to do with that, but how coincidental that once I finally became okay with not fitting in, then I finally found a place to fit in.

This morning I stood in my closet and observed my shoes. I’ve long since gotten rid of all my painful, stylish shoes (they say DC is the least fashionable city in the US, once again, the right place for me). I had to choose between my leftover-from-college imitation Birkenstocks and my brown Sketchers. I chose the Sketchers. Then I went off to a debate tournament. My kids won trophies. That made me happy.

Grace My Feet

I’ll walk with grace my feet, and faith my eyes. –Derek Webb

A few nights ago I found myself on the Appalachian Trial at about 11 pm. This was not by accident and it was not unplanned, it just happened to be one of those moments when, caught in time, you wish you could suspend the passage of it, and soak in the mountain vista, the fresh night air, the stars, handcrafted above for God’s glory and our amazement.

Walking back to our car that night I found myself without a flashlight and relying solely upon the light carried in front of me. That was fine. I followed the footsteps of the guy ahead. Watched closely his feet as they navigated the rocks and crevices in the dimness of that small light. And it felt good. Felt good to have someone go before. Someone who tripped a couple times, but kept going.

Sometimes it’s good to the be follower. I’m generally the leader. Or at least the “facilitator.” (That’s the trendy things in education now, to be the facilitator of learning, and since I’m young and trendy I guess that makes me a facilitator, not a leader) But anyway, I generally find that in my life outside of school I like to step back and let other people lead/facilitate. I like to be able to follow someone else’s footsteps, rather than being the one to lay the tracks.

And yet it makes me thankful. Had I not had footsteps to follow all of my life, how could I be in this place today. And as I’ve been reading through the books of Genesis and Exodus, being more and more confronted with the failures of our faith’s forefathers, I see ever more clearly that its not always about having a perfect guide to follow. Sometimes we do not see. Sometimes the light is dim or the air is cloudy and all we can perceive is a rough shape in front. As the Scripture says we perceive very dimly. And yet the day will come when we see face to face. When finally time shall be suspended. When that exquisite mountain vista, that moment of pure joy is a state of permanence. I’m looking forward to someday seeing the One I am following. But in the meantime, I’ll join the throng of others who are following Him with me. We may fall at times, we may lose sight of the goal, but we’ll keep in step. And by grace we'll hear the words "well done" at the end of our journey.

She is Running

Friday was “College-wear” day. So I drove to school wearing my Cedarville garb, listening to a Casting Crowns song on the radio. I’m not really a Casting Crowns fan but during college, at a time when I was questioning the role of the church and what our ministry should look like, this song resonated with me. The song is called “Does Anybody Hear Her” and in the lyrics I saw faces. Faces of girls that sit in my classroom everyday. Don’t be fooled by the three car garages.

The song talks about how these young women are searching, hurting “ beneath the shadows of our steeple.” How ironic, I thought, as I pulled in the school drive. I have the pleasure of attending church in the same building where I teach. On Sundays the high school becomes a house of God. On Sundays you won’t hear profanity in the hallways. Dating is called “courtship” and most of the books referenced are written by God or John Piper. It’s truly a world transformed.

[People sometimes act stunned when I tell them that I’m a high school teacher. Usually it’s because I look so young. But you get your occasional homeschooler who has been raised to think that the public school is a bastion of every evil and godless doctrine and when I tell them how much I love the public school they respond with appropriate astonishment. But do you know who I feel sorry for? I feel sorry for all the people that work in those office buildings along 28 and the Dulles Toll Road. I feel sorry for the people with nothing but a cubicle and a computer. Sometimes I wonder what people could possibly be doing all day in those buildings. It must be such a tedious and unimaginative existence.]

A few days ago a girl in one of my classes ran away from home. The Casting Crowns song on the radio told her story. My heart breaks for all of these girls. I wish I could lift them out of their insecurity. I wonder, what and who will guide them as they embark upon life outside our walls. And if there was some way I could save them from themselves, I would.

God called me to the public school, he gave me a heart for this place. I’ve never been so sure of anything. I don’t know how many times I thanked God on Friday for my job, and then that college is over. Cedarville was good, but I just wasn’t made for the Christian subculture.

It’s great to be at a place in life where you are just as excited to get up on Monday morning as you were on Sunday morning. I am blessed. Exhausted, overwhelmed, but immeasurably blessed. I love listening to my students recite their lines for the play, honing that British accent. Or seeing them in their football jerseys, ready for the game. And of course my favorite moments are during debate practice--the laughter, the banter, the political digs and sarcasm. The moments when I can see these kids in just a few years taking over the world. And hopefully that will be a good thing. I am glad to have this chance—this amazing opportunity to be the light that chases away the shadows of our steeple.

One Day More

Besides the cross, Les Miserbles is quite possibly the most powerful story of redemption I have ever encountered. This weekend, I had the unforgettable opportunity to see the musical for the first time and while I am not an emotional person, during this show I could not help but tear up at the powerful picture of grace bestowed so readily upon the unworthy.

Arriving at our seats half an hour before the show, my friend and I delved into one of our usual conversations, grappling with the questions posed in the latest books we’ve read. As we discussed the writings of a controversial Christian author we verged into the topic of redemption, and the question: Would you serve Christ if there was no Heaven? First Corinthians 15 tell us that “if those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished,then we are of all people most to be pitied.” If there is no redemption at the end of this life then what have we lived it for? The sacrifices, the self-denials are all in vain. If this were it, I could not serve God as I do now. I could not look at this broken world and cope with the idea that this is all there is.

Les Miserbles is so powerful because it embodies redemption, promising deliverance from this wretched world. Desperation, dishonesty, self-righteousness, poverty, oppression, unrequited love. None of these perennial struggles are resolved in the play. But redemption abounds nonetheless through grace. Through hope in something more, in something beyond our little lives.

There are few places in literature where the Gospel shines as clearly as when the Bishop knelt down beside the fallen and guilty Valjean and declared him innocent. The Bishop hands him the silver candlesticks with the admonition to become a better man. With that one act of forgiveness grace takes root. It permeates every life that Valjean touches. What resonates with me in that scene is the depth of my own guilt. In fact, it is more powerful to me than the images evoked every Easter. Somehow when I see God in the character of Hugo’s Bishop Bienvenu, I face my own sin so much more fully.

I wish that the act of grace that restored me would, as with Valjean, be multiplied, sowed in every life that I encounter. But instead, I see myself as Cosette. Not a bad character by any means, but a truly self-absorbed one. Marius too. Both are so overcome with the passions of the day, that neither realize the great sacrifices that Valjean has made for their happiness. And then there is Epinine. The tragic story of unrequited love. And while we’d all wish to see her with a Cinderella ending, she dies empty and unloved.

I would not say that the story has a happy ending by typical standards, but for the Christian it embodies the hope that enables us to live as we do. As life is passing from him, Valjean is joined on stage by a forgiven Fantine. She is clothed in white, restored to purity. And then the duet becomes a trio as Epinone enters. This is a fulfilled Epinine. A loved Epinine. As they draw Valjean to heaven with them, in the company of those who sacrificed their lives for social justice, I realized if it were not for this ending the entire play would be futile. If it were not for this, Jean Valjean of all should be most pitied.

Wegmans and the Topic of Community

A Rochestarian friend once said of Wegmans grocery store: "Every time you go to Wegmans you always see three people you graduated with and one of them is still working there."

I'm convinced that you have to be from Western New York to embrace the true essence of Wegmans. But Northern Virginians are learning. While I was growing up "Hey, let's go to Wegmans" really meant "Hey, its 10pm on a Friday night and we're bored out of our minds so lets go wander around the bulk candy section and see who we run into." Today, "Hey, lets go to Wegmans!" means "We can't decide where to go out for dinner, so lets go to Wegmans because they have prepared food from every geographical region and it's all so unreasonably priced that you can't help but feel you're in a gourmet restaurant!"

Loudoun County Wegmans is more than a grocery store. It's true piazza of cuisine. It's a mecca of fine teas and pretentious wines. But the longer I live hear the more I'm seeing that Wegmans, at its core, is still good old Wegmans.

For instance, you never go to Wegmans on Saturday, unless you want to get there at the butt-crack of dawn (my new favorite phrase, attributed to Kaitlyn, and describing the time that I've had to wake up the past 3 weekends). If you go at any other time the place is mobbed. Or take for instance the bread guy. Yes, the happy Asian man who gives out free samples of bread. I've heard my students talk about him and I've even been graced by the generosity of his "A special one for you!" free sample, which is twice the size of the normal free samples and apparently given out to pretty redheads. And then of course there is the sheer fact that every time I go to Wegmans I see at least one person I know. Last week it was a teacher that I work with, the week before that a student rang me up at the register (fortunately I wasn't buying any alchohol).

You're probably wondering why I've spent my entire first post talking about a grocery store. You see, Wegmans is a place where the community comes together. In my hometown Wegmans is really the only decent grocery store and everybody shops there. Everybody eats the Wegmans brand generics, and every five year old knows how to weigh their fruit. Now I live in the sprawling DC suburbs and this idea of community takes a vastly different form. But I've realized of late that community is still possible. Now, the suburbs can be alienating. Your neighbors haven't watched you grow up, you don't know that last three families that lived in the house next door before the latest family moved in an remodeled. And there is no Charlie Gainer - the small town legend with six cars in front of his trailer and a beat up pickup that hauls around everyone else's junk. When you sit in the coffee shop window you can't gossip about everyone that walks past. And in Loudoun County you can't leave your dog's poop laying around for people to step in.

But in the midst of suburbia I have found community. I found a church that is named, quite appropriately, Grace Community. And in that community there are girls to talk about the things girls talk about, guys with whom I can discuss theology or computers and some "moms" who are just good church moms. And I'm finding here that the world is a lot smaller than it first appears. The more people I meet the more connections I make. And then there is the debate community. This will probably be worthy of a whole new blog in the near future...but suffice it to say, debate is a place where nerds are cool. I fit here. And then nothing reinforces community like a good old fashioned high school football game, complete with the fight song and the color guard and Star and Stripes forever. And of course my roommates, who've seen the best and the worst I have to offer and can make me laugh each and every day.

I'm a country girl at heart, but I'm making a pretty good life here in suburbia. A year ago I couldn't have imagined it. But I fit here now. And that's not at all bad. It's where God put me. Someday, God willing, I'll end up back in the country with a hobby farm. But for now I'll be a suburban girl and enjoy the gourmet Wegmans.