~upon an awakening~

When I said good-bye to "the 18" this past May, I admonished them to continue to read, write in their journals, and do a little bit of math from time to time so that when they walked into their new fifth grade classrooms in the fall that they would be ready to go.  I said to my now "former" fourth grade students that I wouldn't ask of them anything that I wouldn't require of myself as well.  I've tried to remember that during the month of June, now past.  I have written way more than I have read but that is soon to change as life somewhat slows down for me in July. 

During the past four weeks as the sweet sixth month of the year flew by, I wrote in my blog 19 times over a variety of life's topics ranging from remembering my first swimming lessons as a grownup and the cutting of the alfalfa fields adjacent to home here all the way to the joys of drinking soda pop for the first time to meeting a new friend named Norman as he walked along the roadway.  I thought of those students of mine from this past school term and remembered the times when I would read my blog to them.  We turned it into a writing lesson and had a lot of fun in so doing.  I would have them all assembled on the floor in front of the screen with Monica at my desk running the "clicking of the mouse" and they would listen and read along as their teacher read her words to them.  I smile at a remembrance here.  My dear one named Kevin would always look at me and say "Hey Mrs. Renfro.  Do we need to get the Kleenex box for you before you get to reading?"  Depending on the blog post topic, sometimes we would. 

Here they are on one of the last field trips of the year just prior to hiking into Box Canyon.  I will be anxious to see their little faces as they enter the doorway of school in about six weeks more. 

It is also very untimely and most ironic that I would be getting ready to read a book called "Elaine's Circle", a paperback version of a story that one of my dear friends at school in Olathe would press into my hands on the last day of school May 21st and say "You should read this.  It's well worth it. Take it home with you Peggy and read it this summer."  The book, written by author Bob Katz, tells the story of a teacher named Elaine who teaches the children of Eagle River, Alaska.  Elaine embraces the idea of the classroom being the same as a "community" and endeavors each year, every day to embrace that notion.  She and I believe the same way, that the students inside the confines of the four walls of the classroom are for better or worse each day, like "brothers and sisters" to one another.  When Kathy offered the book to me, I gladly accepted the chance to read it.  I love promoting community within the classroom and I was hoping to get some new ideas of what to use in my first grade room come this fall.  I had put it away until just now and when I grabbed it from the shelf to be sure that I quoted the author's name correctly, I discovered an astonishing fact and I must admit there are huge goose bumps on my arms and the chills just won't stop going down my back.  The book's real message is about how Elaine Moore, a wonderful and veteran teacher, uses the practice of community to help one of her 10-year old students who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer during that year.  Childhood cancer.  It's what our new friend Norm Horn is walking across America for. It's what he wishes to bring an end to.   To my dear little friend Kevin I would say, "Yea, I think I need a Kleenex now.  Bring me a couple of them."

I never considered that this post would be a weekly "Norman Update" kind of one.  It was not in my intentions at all.  I was going to do that tomorrow, just prior to our meeting him along the roadway somewhere very close to the edge of the state of Colorado.  God had other plans for this blog post.  I had no idea at all what the book "Elaine's Circle" was really going to teach me until just a few moments ago.  I hadn't had any time in June to sit down and get in some reading time.  I figured that in the next few days I would just pack the book into my suitcase and catch up on some reading, if I could, in the car as Mike and I travelled back to Kansas for the weekend.  That book had been packed away into my school bag from the moment Kathy gave it to me.  It had definitely been an "out of sight and out of mind" kind of thing.  That shall be no longer. 

You know, I don't know a lot but this much I am very sure of.  Absolutely NOTHING in this life of ours happens accidently.  Coincidences?  They don't happen.  Random acts of the chaotic universe?  Hardly.  The life that I, a Kansas farm girl turned "Colorado transplant", am living is just a part of "The Plan" set forth for me by Someone so much greater than I will ever even come close to professing to be.  I'm not exactly sure what it is that God is trying to tell me but I listen and I wait to find out more. 

So for an update on Norm, who is alive and well, walking this day from south eastern Colorado.  He plods on through some very warm and windy kinds of days, in a land now so much different from the Rocky Mountains that he went through as we first met him nearly 3 weeks ago just a short ways from our home here in Montrose.  He goes through water and a lot of it!  I was especially touched by a post he made and the pictures he took of an encounter with an elderly couple and their son just a few days back.  They saw him walking on that hot June day near their home between Pueblo and La Junta, Colorado.  Those good folks, common and ordinary people, just like you and I are decided to do the "right thing" and they went back and picked him up to take him to their home for the night.  They fed him, gave him a place to shower and a clean bed for the night.  He was a stranger to them but they knew it would be all right.  I love that about people.  It lifted my spirit to read of it and I know that Norm's was as well.  Mike and I are heading back to Hutchinson this week to take care of getting my house there rented out so that we no longer have to worry about it being empty.  We'll be finding our friend Norm once again only this time it won't be a "coincidence" (I'm laughing here!) it will be intentional.  We will be traveling the same road as he is, U.S. Highway 50 and plan to drop off water and food both ways, our going out and coming back here to the west once again.  We hope to meet him near the Kansas border on Sunday and both Mike and I wish to take the time to walk a mile with him on the sod of the state we were both born in.  It also seems strange and most unusual that our trip back to Kansas would coincide so closely with the time that he would be ready to cross over the Kansas/Colorado line near Coolidge, Kansas.  But I'm shaking my head now as I write these words...  It's just a part of THE PLAN.

Have a great day everyone out there.  Keep your eyes, heart and mind open today.  You just don't know what might be waiting for you out there to bless your life.  Don't miss it, whatever you do.  Love you guys, one and all.  Friends and family back there in Kansas we shall see you soon.

To my friend Kathy, I say that it's time to read the good book you placed into my hands.  My friends, never underestimate the power of the spoken word OR the written :)