Sports Day

For the fourth year running, my team finished second in the Parents-Teachers Race.

This year though i must admit i was somewhat culpable, having lost control of the exercise ball towards the end of my lap.

Oh well, at least it’s a familiar position.

Crab Flower Club

i thought it was an excellent production, especially in its blend of the profound and the comic.

i am grateful for 4I and 4M’s response.

Takeaways from organising this learning journey?

Make it compulsory.

Always.

And the night ended with an unsuccessful attempt to consume Rochor tau huey and a ten dollar note, hurriedly tossed.

Teachers’ Day

I really, really am thankful for the gifts/cards/cookies/candies/brownie.

Football and captain’s ball was fun.

The day a language teacher (EL, Mother Tongue whatever…) in Cedar wins the Greatest, Most Bestest, Fantabuloriffic, Super-Duper Devoted Teacher award, i will give a standing ovation and thereafter proceed outdoors to observe the rare phenomenon of aviating swines and buy 4D.

Sigh. Honestly.

Conclusion

Four and a half or five editions later, things really do lose their lustre.

Forgive me, Holy Father, for ever placing my trust, my hope, my joy, my comfort, my love in anyone or anything but You.

So Express Yourself Day came and went.

Perhaps it was the division of the Assembly, one featuring the Lower Secondary and the other the Upper Secondary.

Perhaps it was the general dolour that has descended upon the school since the H1N1 measures took effect.

Perhaps it just wasn’t as novel.

But i thought it lacked a little something.

Maybe it’s  just me.

The end of the school year draws on apace, and, to be honest, i am grieved.

What about exactly?

That i’m still figuring it out. But, currently, i would put it down to soon having to bid another class farewell – one i’m deeply, deeply fond of ; how “you can’t please everyone”, as a colleague put it so aptly yesterday, with good intentions; and, as ever, a gnawing dissatisfaction with my expression of worship (i hesitate to honour my pathetic offering with such a hallowed title…) and the bloated, self-serving, navel-gazing, simpering, limp, histrionic excuse we call the C….. .

rant. rant. rant.

And i wonder why i’m more disposed towards verse as a form of self-expression these days.

Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or i would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of  God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God,
you will not despise.

As ever, holy Father, break me; till all i am, i am for you.

Thank you, O gracious Father, Lord of all heaven and earth, for the lack of rain in the evening.

Thank you for Esther, Audra, Rachael, Melinda, Laura, Candy, Jasmine and Monica.

Thank you for 4M (you are all so, so amazing! i feel so incredibly blessed! you came and you dressed up!).

Thank you for the Confinement cast and for showing me that their hearts are so into ELDDS.

Thank you for the Kampung Cedar cast (you all display such potential, talent and an actor’s attitude; never let it go to waste!

Thank you for 3N and their amazing rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the chorus was superb. the costumes and makeup was top-notch. And the audience really enjoyed your performance! theatrical nirvana!)

Thank you for the sheer presence of Joanne and Josiah.

Thank you for working in and through me and in spite of my manifold and manifest weaknesses. Always, always, O Lord, reveal your strength in my abject helplessness. Always reveal your glory though my wretched fallen-ness, Abba.

Thank you, Father.

Father, thank You for 4M’s response during SEL.

Thank You for their earnest, sweet and gentle hearts.

Thank You for sustaining me through another Monday.

Thank You showing me each day in different ways how precious a gift Josiah truly is.

Thank You for Your word. Your word is truth.

Thank You, Father, for the enthusiasm of 4Madness.

Thank You for the fun-ness of 4I.

Thank You for the self-sacrificial love of Joanne.

Thank You for the purity of Josiah’s smiles.

Thank You for old friends.

Thank You for lifting me out of the Slough of Despond.

There are days when you wonder what’s the point of it all.

What is the point of teaching others how to use language accurately, to communicate effectively, to think critically?

What is the point of teaching a play some dead guy wrote four hundred years ago?

What is the point of teaching someone how to analyse a poem or a piece of prose?

Because the sad truth is that most people are not going to ascertain the veracity of what they listen to or of what they read or of what they watch.

Most people simply prefer not to think.

To allow the mind to idle, to blot out the harshness of reality, to remain in the blissful cocoon of ignorance.

So why should i bother?

For an A1?

For 100% distinctions?

For an MSG of 1.0?

For an L1R5 of 6.0?

i wish i could bludgeon myself into thinking that that is all to education.

It would make things a whole lot easier.

i wouldn’t have to care about people. i wouldn’t have to try to bridge the gap. i wouldn’t want to know you for who you are.

So, Father, give me strength to bear with the heartache of a thousand bored faces, a thousand cobwebbed minds, a thousand souls content to remain in darkness.

Father, hold me up that i may take an extra step towards another scarred and lonely person.

Father, grasp in your hand the shards of my heart for i cannot bear one more moment in this broken world.

Father, take all of me, this wretched offering, and use me as you will.

Dear Father, thank You for the privilege of speaking to Your people about spiritual friendship and accountability.

Thank You for helping me to speak Your truth and Your heart through my unclean and unworthy lips and tongue.

Thank You for choosing time and again to work in, with and through us, broken jars of clay that we are.

Continue to reveal Your light and Your glory in and through us, Father, that You may be glorified, that all the world may acknowledge that You are the living God and that Jesus Christ, our Lord, is Your Son.

Thank You, Abba, for Your still, small voice.

Thank You for deigning to speak to and through me, wretched man that i am.

Thank You for Your inexorable grace and love.

Thank You for the mighty Cross.

Father, thank You for all that you bless us so richly with.

There is no cause for us to boast in ourselves.

For what talent, what intelligence, what ability do we possess that we did not receive from You before our conception?

For what effort, what discipline, what diligence did we exert that came not from Your hand, Your strength?

There is naught but to offer a humbled cry of thanksgiving unto You.

There is naught.

Father, I give thanks to You for 4I; for their excellent attitude in completing the blog assignment.

Thank You for Josiah’s pure and exuberant smiles.

Thank You for the way he nestles so comfortably and securely in my arms.

Thank You for Joanne who is a fantastic mother and a model helpmeet.

Thank you for many, many blessings.

My heart cannot contain my joy at Your love; i am awed, i am humbled by your mercy, your grace and your loving kindness.

Wow.