Post #5 in the Children’s Chapter Book Read-Along Series
As a child, I loved to play school, and I loved to read and write. In regards to the former, I used to bribe my younger sister with copious amounts of stickers and candy into sitting still and being a pupil. Fortunately for me, Kelly was quite happy to sit there and munch away while I stood at the front of our “classroom” (usually our bedroom, or at the head of the picnic table in the backyard on those humid summer days) while I lectured her on ABC’s and 123’s.
I also loved regurgitating information I had learned from school: how acid rain occurs, the passage of fur trappers along the Great Lakes and through Hudson Bay, mysteries surrounding the sunken island of Atlantis, the solar system and the life cycle of frogs. So many delights and insights to share! In imitation of my teachers, I would hold a coffee cup in one hand (or a mug full of water, in my case), a piece of worn chalk in the other, and pace the room like a great sphinx, bursting with riddles to unravel. With schoolmaster primness, I printed neatly on our broken piece of chalkboard, propped up beneath the effusive spider plant hanging from the window or dragged outside onto a patio shimmering with summer heat and streaked with popsicle juice.
Most likely because of the content compliance of my baby sister, teaching came relatively easily. Whenever I rewarded her spelling sheet with a precious scratch-and-sniff sticker, she would beam up at me with eternal gratitude and pure, unadulterated adoration. The effect, as any teacher will tell you, can be intoxicating. From then on, hooked indeed was I on the calling to teach and (hopefully) the privilege of impacting lives for the better with the joy of learning. Eventually, I would go on to a very rewarding teaching career.
The writing, I would discover, came harder.
As a child, I was a voracious reader. Partly because I got hooked on constantly having an alternative reality in my head – a reality, I found, that complemented, complicated and always helped me navigate the other “reality.” Without much prodding, I grew to love how a story grows in your head and your heart, how it stays with you long after you turn that last page and close the cover. I found myself missing the characters I had lived so intimately with over the past few hours or days. I longed to know more details about the story, how the plot might continue or how a certain character might now react to something I was facing or thinking. Put another way, I couldn’t shake the magic, nor did I want to. And, even as a small child, I was beginning to realize how the power of story allows you to trail the magic from your finger tips as you go from turning pages to turning days: as you yourself grow in a story and through a life.
The other reason I began reading early and often is partly because I didn’t know any other way of being, I guess. For as long as I could remember, my mother brought books to us, and us to books. Anytime we visited anywhere, for instance, we visited that place’s local library. Entering its cool annals during summer vacation is as familiar to me, and consequently as healing, as drinking a tall cool glass of water on a sweltering day. My mother kept meticulous scrapbooks filled with poems, letters and excerpts she cherished. Tucked inside on many a blustery day, too, we would sit with these great tomes spread open on our laps, pouring over the treasures she had collected. We ran our fingers over the often yellowed paper, marveling at the accompanying photos and newspaper imprints, captivating in their antiqueness (at least to us children).
By the time I arrived in the first grade, I had already changed schools several times due to pressing family circumstances. In the first few months of Grade 1 alone, I had moved twice. As I stood at the front of my new classroom surrounded by Hallowe’en decorations, a sea of scrutiny rose up in front of me. What would the new girl bring to show and tell? I could see my classmates’ faces wondering. I froze with more than Hallowe’en fear.
The teacher coughed and shifted on her seat, prompting me to get started. “Well, Carolyn, what did you bring to share?” she asked me again. I looked down at the rainbow journal shaking in my hand.
“I brought a story,” I mumbled.
“A what?” she asked. “Please speak louder.”
“A story,” I said, pulling myself up with my voice.
“Oh,” the teacher replied in exasperation. “You were supposed to bring something you made. That was the theme this week. Didn’t you remember the assignment?”
“Yes,” I stammered. “But I wrote the story.”
“Oh,” was all she said. Again. “Well, then, you may begin.”
I read the story aloud, each word taking every ounce of confidence I had. To this day, I hold a great sympathy with those who are shy about public speaking, and an even greater compassion (and admiration) for those publicly sharing their creative work. Very little matches such vulnerability. I often think about this when I consider the honor bestowed upon us by a God who set us in the midst of His creation. And I shudder at our all-too-often dismissal of it, or even worse, defamation.
Later, after class, the teacher took me aside, wanting to know where I had truly gotten the story. She didn’t believe me when I insisted I had written it myself. It wasn’t all that great, I’m sure, but I did have an unusual vocabulary for my age, I suspect, given my mother’s influence. When I showed her my penciled pages, this rainbow journal painstakingly filled with great looped letters, she sniffed. “Bring something else next time,” she announced, towering over me.
“Okay,” I conceded, terrified, and yet oh so eager (especially as the new student) to please. “But what?” I feebly asked. “You wanted us to bring something we made. I make stories, or pictures.” I wanted to be sure to get it right next time, but I also didn’t have a lot of homemade options, from my point of view.
She bent down and looked straight at me: “Bring anything. Just don’t bring words.”
That day, I meandered home, hurt and mortally (for a child) offended. I couldn’t believe she didn’t believe me. And while the anger did rise up, fear and sadness, however, tidal waved over it. I snuck into my bedroom, slid the journal of too many colours into my desk drawer, and locked it away.
I didn’t write again for a long, long time.
Fortunately, I have had far more fantastic teachers than inane ones over the years. Such discouragement as I received in first grade would actually prove to be an anomaly in my educational path, thank goodness. But the stamp stuck, so to speak. And it would be a long time before I worked up the courage to walk through the wardrobe door, or the looking glass, again; years in fact before I dared travel between these worlds of words – a landscape shift I used to manage so deftly, in the same spirit of childhood that the Lord reminds us we must own to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published her novel Anne of Green Gables in 1908 and it has remained a bestseller ever since, complete with sequels and film adaptations. The story offers a female buildungsroman of sorts, in which the heroine, Anne Shirley, grows from an awkward and outspoken orphan into an accomplished and articulate teacher and writer. The aging brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert request a boy from the orphanage as a farmhand. Instead, they receive the imaginative, dreamy and fiery red-headed Anne. Adventures ensue, ranging from the comical to the tragic, but always touching and poignant in their ability to make us, along with the earnest Anne, discern more about human nature. Underpinning the entire narrative runs a concern for what is right, and what is righteous, and yet the narrative style never approaches the preachy or insincere. Instead, we grow to love Anne, and to love others, through a very real and therefore still very relevant exploration of forgiveness, friendship and love.
In Anne, this loquacious and literature-loving heroine, I long ago found a “kindred spirit.” She remains a fellow lover of words, and someone who also takes delight in the natural as well as literary worlds. Returning to these hallowed pages now having weathered many words myself, I still feel the magic trailing like a comet through the story and, by proxy, through to my very finger tips, as I touch and am touched by the story. Such characters give me character; their deliberate development and adherence to such important principles as loyalty, perseverance, the love of beauty and truth, and a genuine pursuit of justice, mercy and goodness. Such characters embolden me to bring on the words, and to bring in God’s Word.
Simply put, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s timeless classic reminds us of how God gives each of us the benefit of the doubt, which is simply another way of putting “faith.”
A person’s faith in God is a beautiful, precious thing. But God’s faith in us? That seems unspeakably mysterious: undeserved and unfathomable. The gift of grace that astounds and profounds us into more meaning than we can ever contain merely in our two hands, let alone two hemispheres of the brain, or two chambers of the heart.
Do childhood passions point toward adult gifts?
“The child is father of the man,” professes the poet William Wordsworth. This child knows the way to the Kingdom of Heaven within. This child holds the promise of God’s purpose and plan: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). In these childhood dreams – in that which we take delight and sense how we might be gifted – we glean our future in God’s purpose for us.
Romans 12: 6-8 tells us that “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to this faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.” If you labour from this passion, you will (as my mom likes to say) never work a day in your life. Our gifts – like little points of light of our passion – arise from our faith, respond with love to our fears, and move us through the “terrible beauty” of living the unanswered question with all we’ve got.
Montgomery’s words offer a reminder of the importance of holding on to your joy and cultivating that wonder – for yourself and for others – that is praise at its purest. A praise which protects, preserves and promotes the precious. And which is not locked away in a drawer or kept captive in a grave. For “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house” (Mt 5:15).
As I turn off the bedside lamp and kiss my daughter’s head, I cherish how a Good Story – this bringing of words in the sincerest form of show and tell – still continues to illuminate the night.
Questions to Consider:
Which interests did you delight in as a child?
How have those passions shaped you, or how would you like to bring them back into your life?
How might they reflect or point to a further calling before God, or a better understanding of the Holy Spirit at work in your life?
Lover of God, happy wife, mama to 4, writer, teacher, author of
Carolyn,
you are a wonderful writer.
I’m glad that teacher’s influence didn’t “stick”.
Jude
Ha! So am I :) Thanks for the encouragement. Praise from Caesar, too, coming from a teacher I admire! ;)
Great post! It was funny to read your account of your childhood teaching experiences… I did the same thing with my sister, only the “class” included our multitude of stuffed animals.
I really appreciate how you tie in Wordsworth and the Scripture in at the end. Now that I’ve graduated from Biola with a BA in history and I’m trying to sort out what to do next, it is good to be reminded that God gives us certain passions and abilities to use for His Kingdom. As part of His story.
I so enjoy your blog, and also your book.
God bless,
Laura
Thank you, Laura! God bless your adventure ahead. And wow, we owe our sisters a lot, eh? :)
Love this post. So moving to consider God’s faith in us, and the way our identities are formed.
Yes, not only our bodies knit together, but our very personhood in Him. Great thought!
What started out as a really long comment for you turned into a post on my blog. Thank you so much for the writing inspiration! I have been looking for direction for some time. I would be honored if you would consider reading what I wrote in response to your post, and I would be grateful for a few words of feedback.
I read Surprised by Oxford in May, and it is the best book I’ve read in ages! I read it in about two days. I couldn’t put it down! I’ve loaned it out to a couple of friends, but when I get it back, I plan to read it again.
Blessings,
Katy
Thank you Katy for your encouragement here, and so glad we can be in touch. I’m honoured that you would write in response to my ideas here, and glad to have the conversation continue. I just read your blog and it is excellent. I will certainly be recommending it, and your site! God bless your work and sweet spirit.
“Very little matches such vulnerability. I often think about this when I consider the honor bestowed upon us by a God who set us in the midst of His creation. And I shudder at our all-too-often dismissal of it, or even worse, defamation.”
Wow, what a great way to think about that. This was absolutely beautiful. I had something similar happen, to make me not want to write, but it was by my parents, and not a teacher. Ouch.
I have an Annotated Anne of Green Gables and an Anthology to go along with it that I’ve started working through with my daughter, and that is a lot of fun. It really brings the books to life even more.
What great accompaniments to Anne of GG – good idea! And it is hard to be (unfairly) discouraged, especially by those we admire and love ourselves. But learning and practicing forgiveness also helps sharpen our focus, and hone our souls, I think. Thanks, Caris!
Thank you for this post. It pushes me in the midst of some life chaos to keep at it. I have gained much inspiration from writers like L.M. Montgomery, you included! I loved recounting many of my own experiences in Oxford as I read your book several months ago. Thank you for bringing your words. They influence greatly.
You deeply honour me, Christina. Thank you. Wow. I love your phrase “life chaos” – so well put. I’m with you in the spirit of the current! God bless
I followed a similar path as yours as a child, and certainly fell in love with Anne with an E at a young age. I wanted to share that reading passion and wordplay and grow up to be a writer.
I’m taking a break to read your post right now, as I struggle to put words to cyberpage. I’m on deadline for a novella–a child’s dream come true this year in an astonishing way.
Blessings,
Keep us posted on that novella, Michelle! Thanks for joining here!
Great post! I love Anne of Green Gables. And yes my childhood passions definitely pointed toward me becoming a teacher.
http://www.vintagebooksfortheveryyoung.blogspot.com
I love good teachers :) Great link, too – thanks for sharing!
Hi!
I am glad your teacher didn’t squelch your passion. I marvel at your ability to write and the ease and beauty with which you do it. My mom also has the same gift and I marvel.
As a child I liked to ride my bike alone, out in to a field behind our neighborhood…I didn’t like to speak to people, didn’t like my picture taken. At the age of six I began speaking and I have never quit, although Christ has tempered me greatly with what I say. I love to listen to stories, I love to listen to other’s stories. Always have.
This last week, I have been musing on this very thought…what natural gifts am I perhaps neglecting that could be used for His kingdom? What have I shelved?
And I pray for Him to awaken and breathe life into every facet of my being, for His glory.
How interesting, Sarah! I loved riding my bike alone, too. Still remember it very clearly, especially the speed and wind and the silence of being with one own’s thoughts while moving. I will pray that your search is fruitful. I know it will be.
I didn’t get a chance to read this until today (Sunday) and had to smile as my Sunday Afternoon Tea post was about… Story. :)
I had something similar happen with an art teacher. Because of family circumstance we moved a lot and when we moved back to a school I had attended before, my mother asked if I could be put in an advanced art class because I had been taking art classes.
The art teacher was one of the most horrible teachers I ever knew and made my life miserable each time I was in her class. I never took another art class again, stopped doing any kind of painting, and threw myself into my other love (WORDS).
All the pain led me into the arms of the Savior. :)
True how that can happen … nothing beyond His salvation, even crappy teachers and bad learning experiences :) But have you thought of returning to painting? You seem so artistic to me! Your website is gorgeous!!
I was a very big fan of LM Montgomery as a child too, (and still am), but now as an adult it is hard for me to read her work and not think about it in context that she suffered from depression and ended up committing suicide. Her husband especially had mental issues, largely relating to his belief as a Presbyterian in predestination and his fear that he was already condemned.
http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/gifted/gifted-children-deserve-compassion-and-understanding/lm-montgomery-a-gifted-person-with-depression/
Oh, Caro! This is breathtaking. I imagine it’s the sort of stories we’d share and discuss over tea. Anne Shirley was a definite kindred spirit of mine and this brought back many good memories. I still intend to reread the book before summer ends and even more so now that I’ve read this reflection.
All I wanted to do when I was a kid was read and write. The writing dreams, at least for public consumption, stowed away for quite some time until I started blogging several years ago. I wish I had time and space to share all that’s unfolded since but especially new developments the last few days. The refrain “for such a time as this” keeps echoing and I marvel at the ways God has prepared me and may use my gifts still. This is rather cryptic, I know. But don’t you wish you could come to TN or I could come to you so we could hash it all out? :)