Friday, September 25, 2009

Style


I like the idea of everybody having a style.
Attractive, repulsive, popular or weird...I think everybody does.

When I was teaching first grade, the bad kids always intrigued me.
I loved their style.
They were so tiny. Such little people,
and yet they were distinctive - different - they stood out in the crowd.

Not their clothes or their face...
their style.

I knew they were naughty, incorrigible,
sometimes stinky,
erratic and compulsive.

But they had a certain flair to them.

Being the big person in the room, it was easy to step back
and see them for who they were.
Little beings just pounding around inside their bodies,
trying to get noticed, trying to yank some love out of somebody.

They fascinated me.
I secretly loved their style.

I had to carry one down to the office once and he kicked me in the leg.
It was easy to love him. It barely hurt.
And it sorta felt like...he finally reached out to me, you know?
Even if it was his sneaker to my shin.

How come it's so much harder to love big people?
Maybe it's because we're the same size,
in the same class,
competing for the same attention.

I betcha it's not so hard for God to love people.
Big ones, small ones.
Dirty, selfish, proud, silly ones.

He'd probably like to help us out more than we let him.

He probably really likes our style.

*

5 comments:

CiCi said...

You were a teacher with a warm heart.
You still are but with different students. Your kindness shows in your posts.

Brian Miller said...

what a wonderful post. and message. we can be a whole lot more forgiving with kids. maybe we we give them more grace because we think they dont know any better, and adults should. maybe just being reminded of his grace with us would help us see their style.

GrandpaC said...

You ought to write a book. Entitle it, "Musings." You have such a unique gift of expressing the common with a rare perspective. There is a word I cannot think of right now that means, "seeing beyond the actual to reality. Does that make sense?

Go girl! Your dad is very proud!

Love
Dad

Kelle said...

i love this...and i'm going to link it on my facebook. you make me wanna be good. :o) i love you and am so lucky to call you my cousin.

Kulio said...

ohhh...thanks Kelle!