The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight

finding the humor in teaching high school, writing a memoir, keeping the faith, reading good books, and keeping company with cats named Charlotte and Emily Bronte!

I struggle with all that has made me "crooked" in my life especially growing up in the Bible belt where my grandma's fear of the end of the world scared the crap out of me on a daily basis. By the time I was 7 I was convinced I had committed a sin that was so completely and utterly unpardonable that I was going straight to hell. So I hopped on the church bus each Sunday morning desperate to spend time with God in spite of my impending doom. My journey to find God in church led to a few disastrous entanglements with "Christians" who gave me every reason to give up my search for Jesus and run like the dickens to get away from them. I did run, too, all the way to the West Coast, and even though I have some pretty nasty wounds, Jesus, I believe, is at work straightening all my "crooked" places. In my opinion, it's taking too damn long, but then again, I struggle to do my part in this process of being set free. Redemption is the work of Jesus. Maturity, well, that seems to be up to me, and evidently, I'm a slow learner.

4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.~C. S. Lewis

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.~C. S. Lewis

I gave in, and admitted that God was God.~ C. S. Lewis

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. ~C. S. Lewis

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. ~Psalms 139: 9, 10

O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart. ~W.H. Auden

Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry. ~ Muriel Rukeyser