Category Archives: Children

When You Shoved a Desk at Me as I Walked Past You . . .

Posted on 20 November 2018 | Leave a comment

I didn’t punch you, like any of the teachers in any of the viral videos punched their students.

I didn’t punch you, because . . .

I am an adult, and adults are here on this earth to nurture and mentor young people, to teach you who you should become as an adult, not to teach you who you shouldn’t become. If I had hit you, I wouldn’t be nurturing you or mentoring you. Most importantly, your decision-making skills will not be fully developed for another 10 years. I cannot expect you to make choices like a mentally-well adult, because you are a middle schooler.

I want, more than anything, for you to grow into a wonderful, smart, caring, kind, and loving man, not the sort of man I will read about in the headlines for doing something mean and heartless. I already had to read about a former student trying to murder his girlfriend, including some graphically sordid details that didn’t need to be in the newspaper. I don’t want to read something like that about you.

On most good days I actually enjoy my job, and I look forward to coming into a school where students, ready to learn or not, will get one little glimpse into the beauty of this world and into the theological concept of grace. My goal, each day, is to teach my students one thing that hadn’t ever thought about before.

I am a pacifist, and even if I wasn’t, I want for you to know that your first response shouldn’t be what can I do back to them, when they’ve done something wrong to you. I should model that a response can be forgiveness, love, and grace, not retribution.

I can control my initial reaction, and I can look you in the eye and tell you, “NEVER do that to me again, because a person’s first instinct is to hit back, or push back, and I don’t want you to get hurt.” I mean that. I really want you think through your actions, your words, your behavior, because I want for you to act with purpose, making good choices, not out of impulse, making poor choices.

You are a kid living with (probably significant) trauma in your life. You don’t need me to add onto that, and I probably didn’t think through this one hard enough when I got angry. Instead of talking through your actions with you and helping you to see how many other good and pure choices you could have made, I spoke harshly, punished you and your classmates who were laughing, and then made you work in silence.

I love you, even when you don’t love yourself. Even when your sole mission is to entertain the other kids in the class with behavior that is the opposite of what you know is right and good, I love you, and I want the best for you. At this point, it feels like I love you more and care about you more, than you love or care about yourself.

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Posted in Bad Day, Childhood, Children, Education, Ethics, Grace, Mental Health, Middle School, Pedagogy, Poverty, Public Servant, Relationships, School, Social Justice, Teacher, Teaching, Theology, Wellness, Work

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Unique by Corby Jaye Roberson

Posted on 27 September 2014 | Leave a comment

While I was moving things, I found one of my most prized possessions, a poem I wrote when I was in seventh grade. I’m posting it here for the simple fact that if I lose the written copy, I’ll still have this cyber copy. I love how much and how little I’ve changed in 27 years.

Here is the title page:

Unique
by: Corby Jaye
Roberson

Hartford City Junior High
7th grade
April 8th, 1987

Here is the poem:

The world looks down on people like me,
The ones that want to do or be different.
I don’t think that just because I’m different,
That I should be looked down upon, lower
Than people that do the same old thing day after day.

But I don’t really care if the people do look down on me,
Because if I’m what I want to be,
That’s my choice not the world’s.

If everybody did or was the same,
The world would be very dull and boring,
And maybe then people would want to do or be different,
Not the same!

So I’ll just me, because that’s all I can be,
And I don’t care what the world thinks.

Here is the story behind this poem: I totally forgot that it was the last day to submit anything for Young Author’s, so I faked sick during P.E. and went to the nurse’s office. Then I laid on the cot and wrote the poem you have before you. I made the cover during lunch and then turned it in to Mrs. Warner, my English teacher, just after last period. I was as shocked as anyone else when I won the competition at our school and had my poem submitted for the Indiana Young Author’s Anthology, which I never received. I was pretty proud of this poem, and I wasn’t the least embarrassed that I wrote it at the last minute, because it had been rolling around inside of me, since about, oh, kindergarten. Growing up I always felt a bit out of step with everyone else, and I didn’t really care about how out of step I was until the next year, during the same month, when I had a life-altering event happen to me. I don’t really want to divulge that here, now, but I will say that I spent a good portion of the next 25 years trying to get back in step with everyone else. And, well, now I am done with that. So there.

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Posted in Children, Grace, Joy, Mental Health, Personal, Queer, School, Wellness, Writing

The Toothpaste Won’t Go Back in the Tube

Posted on 29 August 2014 | 4 comments

I’ve been in Minnesota for about seven weeks now, and I can say that I am growing to love it here. I have a great job at Cairbou (or the ‘Bou, as they call it here) that provides me little stress (except financial stress, since I only make $8 an hour), and I have free time to run, bike, and spend time with Bec doing things we love. I start swimming on next Monday night at 8, and I am mostly relaxed. The past seven weeks hasn’t been easy—make no mistake—but I have learned a lot about who I am and where I am going. Yesterday I received a care package from a friend. In it was a map that said YOU CAN GO YOUR OWN WAY in big letters. Another little reminder that this move has been good for me. Don’t get me wrong; I still miss my friends and family very much, but I feel hopeful right now that I am becoming someone I can live with for the rest of my life.

One of my big goals for moving here was to be able to get in touch with the me I used to love and respect, and to shed like a used up exoskeleton the me I had become, the bitter, sad, angry, short-tempered, and otherwise not very gracious me. I would say for the most part, I have rediscovered the person I want to be, but there are moments where the old me rears her ugly head. I got very angry with a poor unsuspecting woman at the license branch, this morning I got into a fight with Bec over some utility bill envelopes, and I’ve argued with a couple of friends over really petty and stupid shit. These moments wouldn’t have even phased me six months ago, because I sort of lived my life in combat mode, almost living my life for the argument, or to prove my rightness in every situation. Ridiculous. Embarrassing. Wrong.

I look back, and I wonder how I even had any friends with the way I acted most of the time. Maybe I am hyper-critical of myself and my actions, but I desire to be a person who ushers peace and grace and love into this world, and I certainly wasn’t doing much of that. In these “old me” moments—though they are few and far between in the past month or so—when I see myself acting short, or being an asshole, I am embarrassed about my present actions, and I am saddened by the fact that I had become a person whose first response was fault finding or misplaced anger.

I’ve started trying to stop making excuses and start making amends. It’s almost like I am in attitude AA, and I am trying to find those people I’ve wronged and try to apologize or at least let folks know that I am aware of how I was, and sadly occasionally still can be, because I’m finding that this is just like any other sinful (I hate that word sin but I don’t have a better word for it) behavior, in that, I can’t just make it go away.

When I think about how our personal conduct affects others, I am always transported back to a children’s sermon, one of the better ones, that someone gave at Grace UMC when I was in high school or college. I think the person giving it was Shelly Neal, but I can’t be sure. Anyway, in the process of the children’s sermon, the person speaking squeezed an entire tube of toothpaste out onto a paper plate. She then said, “Okay, kids, now put it back in the tube.” They tried various methods, but to no avail. She said, “Um, yeah, it doesn’t work.” If you’ve ever tried to put toothpaste back in the tube, because you squirted out too much, you already know this. If you follow the children’s sermon illustration, you’ll understand that what we say and do is like the toothpaste. Once it’s out there, it can’t be put back in the tube. Basically, I am trying really hard to be a person who doesn’t squeeze the tube unless what is going to come out of the tube is true, kind, necessary, or helpful (Bernard Meltzer). If what I am about to say or do isn’t one of those things, I am trying to avoid saying or doing it. Living this way, for me, is a struggle.

*

In the fitness realm: I was doing really well with running, but my hours bumped up, so I had to readjust. On Monday, I start a Whole 30 for the month of September, and I start swimming on Monday and Wednesday night, as I said above, so I plan to get back to the running and biking more regularly as well. I’ve lost 15 pounds since July 11 when I moved here, and I mostly attribute it to reduced stress and better eating. I’m looking forward to Muncie 70.3 for next summer, and I know it will be fabulous.

EDIT: I am not doing a Whole 30. I don’t want to. 🙂

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Posted in Biking, Children, Christianity, Coffee, Cycling, Ethics, Family, Fat, Fat Runner, Fitness, Goals, Grace, Joy, Mental Health, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Paleo/Primal, Relationships, Religion, Running, Spirituality, Swimming, Triathlon, Walking, Weight Loss, Wellness, Whole 30, Work, Writing

Palm Sunday and Mounds State Park

Posted on 1 April 2012 | 5 comments

Today is Palm Sunday. I love Palm Sunday because it means that Lent is almost over. While I love the season of Lent, I love its end as much as, if not more than, its duration. I enjoy thinking about serious things, but I also enjoy the excitement that comes with Easter and realizing that all the suffering and sadness comes to an end with the risen Christ. Though I am not silly enough to think that all of our earthly suffering comes to an end. I know that very real pain exists in this world, and I know that even remembering the resurrection of the Messiah is not enough to assuage some pain.

Palm Sunday is also one of my favorite Sundays because, for many churches, it is one of very few high holy days where children are encouraged to play a part in the service. Too often, I think, churches don’t have children participate in the service (they might totally mess things up, right?) unless it’s a special service, like a Christmas play or something. Children and youth seem to always be an afterthought in the Church, but we’d be well off to listen to their voices and learn from them, like a reciprocal relationship, instead of always putting them off to the side, in Children’s Church or the Nursery or the Alternative Youth Service. I love Palm Sunday, because it almost always involves small children, and any willing youth, waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!”

I remember how special I felt when I was a child and I got to be one of the Christians who proclaimed the coming of the Messiah. I (probably over-zealously) shouted my Hosannahs and waved my palm branch before (possibly not so) delicately laying it on the pile of branches on the altar of the church. I had a little extra spunk when I was younger. After Sunday School we got to go collect a branch apiece to take home with us, and I would always take it home and press some of the individual leaflets in my little white leather-bound KJV bible with Jesus’ words in red letters. That bible was so cool because it was a children’s bible, but it was a real translation (if you can call the KJV a real translation), and it had these strange watercolor type pictures in every book. I remember the one for Genesis was Joseph in his amazing rainbow coat. The Preface to the Christian Scriptures had this picture:

I remember getting in so much trouble in Sunday School over this exact picture. One of the adults was explaining to us, “See there is no door knob on the door, which means that you have to open the door to let Jesus inside. He can’t just open it himself. You have to let him in.” Then I said, “Um, the side of the door you can see has the hinges. The hinges are never on the same side of the door as the knob. Jesus is standing in front of the knob, so we can’t see it.” Let me just say, it doesn’t pay to be an observant little kid in a conservative evangelical denomination (Nazarene). I am sure my punishment by my Sunday School teacher for this event is one of reasons we ended up becoming Methodist. For all their faults, at least Methodists use their brains! But back to Palm Sunday.

I am not sure that I’ve ever missed a Palm Sunday service before in my life, but today we chose to sleep in and then go for a walk at Mounds State Park. Going to Mounds was a great choice since all the wild flowers were bloomed out and the weather was a little drizzly but perfect for hiking. We walked the opposite direction that we usually do, and it’s the way I like better, because I notice more beauty coming around that way. I’m not sure why I notice more, but I do. And today was no exception. The park was absolutely beautiful. Breathtakingly so. I didn’t wave any palm fronds, and I didn’t shout Hosannah, but I was able to worship in a way I don’t usually worship in a building called Church.

So this week, as I look forward to Easter, I plan to do several things to remind me of what is coming.I am going to play more, run more, and swim more. I am going to fast, eating only one meal (dinner) each day. And, I am going to pray more and be more mindful of the beauty all around me.

Peace.

*

I have found that writing here (nearly) every day during Lent has done wonders for my mental health. Paying attention to the things around me and reflecting in a spiritual way always makes me feel better, more connected to my surroundings. I don’t know why I don’t keep this up. One entry a day isn’t too much to ask, right? Also, I just cut my hair; it’s pretty crazy, but so am I.

Crazy Hair. Woot. Woot.

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Posted in Art, Children, Christianity, Easter, Goals, Grace, Hair, Lent, Mental Health, Play, Religion, Running, Spirituality, Swimming, Writing

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Lent Day 8: Remember Your Baptism and Be Grateful

Posted on 29 February 2012 | 1 comment

Each day, I try to read at least a chapter from each of several books in which I am immersing myself at the moment. One of the books I am reading right now is Reluctant Pilgrim by Enuma Okoro. Okoro’s voice reminds me a bit of the writerly voice I strive for: honest, quirky, humorous, serious when necessary, and compassionately smart. She achieves this voice in a way that I hope one day I will. In tonight’s reading, her thoughts about baptism reminded me of my own:

It is fascinating to me as a writer that the portal into the life of God is through water and word. Somehow the Holy Ghost shacks up in our souls with a verbal lease-to-buy agreement (depending on your tradition), and we are sealed to God for eternal life. I’m not going to pretend I get all that. But I do find the thought of it absolutely beautiful. Whenever I hear the words “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever” during a baptismal service at church, I clutch my heart and gush as though I’ve just seen a baby panda rescued by a fleet of tiny forest nymph-like fairy angels.

I was baptized when I was somewhere around five years old after “accepting Jesus into my heart” at the ripe old age of four. I had no idea what I was getting into (had I known the many twists and turns my spiritual journey would take, I might have run away) when I asked my mom to pray with me in the living room of our small ranch home. She was sitting in the brown recliner, watching television, and I had been reading my Bible in my room. I remember walking out and asking her about being “saved.” She invited me to climb up into the chair with her, and I think I remember sitting on the foot rest portion of the recliner while she sat in the seat. I think I remember her praying a prayer of forgiveness and confession, and I think I remember praying it, line by line, after her. I know I remember feeling holy when we had finished, like I had done something life altering and important. I remember.

After getting saved, everyone knows the way to seal or bind that salvation is through baptism, so I was the youngest person in the membership class at Hartford City First Church of the Nazarene (we quickly migrated to Methodism). I learned the quick and dirty version of what it meant to be a Christian, and shortly after the class, all of us who had taken it were baptized.

I wore a little white sundress that might have had blue trim and possibly had some fabric applique fruits on the front. The sun shined warm on my summer-tan skin. The slight breeze kept blowing my skirt, as I walked barefooted in the sand on the beach at Taylor Lake. The water was thick and brown with algae covering the surface in spots. The beach was clear as the brightness shimmered off the calm surface. I felt so important. I was making a public profession of my faith in Jesus. I had somehow missed the part about dying to attain life; I just knew I loved Jesus and wanted everyone else to know it, too.

Having waded out until the water was about chest deep, I remember feeling calm, at home, peaceful. The pastor pinched my nose and covered my mouth with his palm. He spoke, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Dunk. “Amen.” I went under the surface, I was lifted back up, and I was a new little girl. I had been born, died, and resurrected in Christ. I was a new creation. The old was gone, and the new had come.

This moment is one of the many reasons why I love swimming and being near water, why it is my lifeblood. Each time I swim, I can remember my baptism and be grateful. Each time I look out the window to see the river across the street, I can remember my baptism and be grateful. When I think about the spiritual formula presented by Okoro, I realize why words are so important in my life as well: water and words are the portal into life with God. Through those two elements, I remember my baptism. Each time I remember my baptism, I renew my faith, and it is absolutely beautiful.

Peace.

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Posted in Baptism, Children, Christianity, Grace, Lent, Religion, Spirituality, Swimming

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