Pick up your crap

I just got home from walking my dogs around the neighborhood, which I rarely do. My dogs and I are more of a run though the woods type trio. We don't like the leashes, we don't like the cars, and we don't like people stopping to yell at us. Well, actually, this is the the first time someone has stopped to yell at us.

For this particular reason anyway.

So there we are, nearing the end of our walk. We're in the home stretch. We have probably walked a few miles, through a Dierberg's parking lot, through some empty lots, and we're making it back into the subdivision...when of course, my dog poops.

Now one of my dogs has been so abused that he refuses to poop while on a leash. He gets as far away as possible from anyone and makes sure, if he's not far enough away, that at least he can still see you. You're safe with him. He won't poop on your lawn.

My other dog, yes, I should bring a bag. But I don't. Partly because I don't think about it because I hardly ever walk around the neighborhood, partly because I know he got most if not all of it out this morning in the back yard, and partly because I just cannot see myself carrying around a bag of poop for like a mile or so: I think I would puke.

And then who would clean that up?

Anyway, sure enough, here we are when Ross decides to squeak out whatever is left in his colon on someone's front lawn. It's not likely they'd be looking out the window right? And they aren't. But, sure enough, a car rounds the corner right as he pops a squat.

And the car brakes. And the man watches. And we begin walking again.

The man pulls in a driveway. We walk faster. He turns around, speeds to catch us, puts on his brakes and yells, "You need to pick up that shit! There's shit all over this neighborhood and it's all from you!" (He really says this!) We keep walking, he pulls up some more, "It's the LAW you know?!!" I keep walking and say, "You're right sir" several times as I begin panicking, thinking he's going to keep harassing me all the way home! But he stops, turns around, and I make it home.

Now he was right. I know that. It is the law. It's also common courtesy. It's also gross. While we were walking, I could not believe how many piles I almost stepped on. How many piles I had to drag my dogs away from. All I did was contribute. And I know I was wrong.

But here's where this blog comes in, because this interchange began to conjure up memories of other times I was berated. Sometimes I was wrong, sometimes I was not.

But I need to make this point. Are we really seeing the big picture? You know, the one God has in mind for us?

Does that man know how hard I try on a day to day basis? Does he know about my prayers, my trials in adoption, my hard work at school and the behaviors my students exhibit daily? Does he know I rescued my dogs from certain death? Does he know I lie awake at night alone and scared? Does he know I struggle to pay my bills every month in spite of all my hard work? Does he know that this walk is probably the only time to myself that I will have all week??

I know that he doesn't. And I know that I can't tell him. But everytime someone berates me, I wish that I could.

I also wish I could encourage him to find his own niche. I wish I could have a conversation with him. A real one. I think I could be some encouragement to him if I could only speak the truth in love and say, "Is this really what you have to do with your time, sir? Because if it is, maybe you need to adopt a child, volunteer in Haiti, help your neighbors, pray some more, read a good book, or fix dinner for your wife."

And maybe I would find out that he does do ALL of these things, but I don't think so. I know that in real life, I would never be able to tell him all this, but I wish that I could.

When my son first started kindergarten, he'd been with me for 2 and a half years. He went to his West County school with a background that I would venture to say NO other parent or child at that school could even imagine. Again, I could be wrong. But I say this to emphasize the fact that he was working on some things. He had a hard time telling right from wrong. After all, when your mom tells you to steal, how can you even know up from down?

One time, in art, he said some inappropriate things. The teacher called me. I was investigated. And at the meeting, I reminded them all about the long letter I had written before he started at that school, telling them all that he had endured. They hadn't read it. They thought when he talked about what his mom did with her boyfriend, he was talking about me.

We cleared some things up, I talked tearfully with Tyler, and he began to understand a little more about right and wrong.

The next day, I get a call from a neighbor mom. She said to me, "I want you to know that your son said some things in art that were just appalling." She said it with anger. She said it with malice. And she said it in a condescending tone that told me, a new mom, that I just wasn't doing things right.

I wish I could have told her then all the same things I wish I could have told the old man today. And I know that I can't. But everytime someone berates me, I wish that I could.

The last incident that came to mind as this man was yelling at me to "pick up the shit" is something that happened to me when I was teaching in one of those West County schools. I'd been teaching 8th grade for 3 years. Doing the absolute best that I could every day. Just out of college, trying my new ideas, grading my little heart out, and providing the most enthusiastic lessons I think anyone has ever created!

That year, I got called into my principal's office.

It was very serious. I had to have my union representative with me. My principal had to have his representative with him, and I just felt sick. I had no idea why I was there. But what he said was this: "Did you use the word 'crap' in your classroom?"

What I felt at that moment was immediate relief! Well yes I used that word! In fact, I think what I said was, "Make sure you pick up the crap under your desk."

And once again, I was wrong. I see now that I could have chosen a more appropriate way to say that. I know that I was an example, a model, a leader, a teacher. I could have done better. But wasn't I inspiring my students in other ways? Wasn't I teaching them how to write the best essays of their lives, encouraging them, listening to them, helping them understand the ins and outs of prepositional phrases, gerunds, and infinitives? Wasn't I listening to their hearts?

None of that mattered. All it said in my record that year was that I used inappropriate language. And it followed me.

I wish I could have told my principal then all the same things I wish I could have told the old man today. But I knew that I couldn't.

Still....everytime someone berates me, I wish that I could.

I lasted one more year there, and I resigned. I know God had a greater purpose for me, but it still hurt. Years after that, I ran into one of the mothers of a girl I had that year. She grabbed me, looked in my eyes while her own eyes welled up with tears and said, "You saved my daughter's life." "You made her feel good about herself and her writing. You gave her something to hold onto at a time when she didn't feel like she had anything. She would have killed herself that year....I just know it. But she didn't. Thanks to you."

I saved a girl's life!!! I can't even tell you what that means to me.

But the only thing anyone else remembered from that year was the crap.

That is an honest-to-God true story, and it's the story I hang on to when I'm being yelled at about picking up my crap.

My point in all this is: we have to make sure we aren't focusing on the crap. God has a bigger picture for all of our lives. And you don't know what His picture is...you CAN'T find what His picture is for you, or for me, when you are yelling at me to pick up my crap...or when I am yelling at you to pick up yours.

I make mistakes. We all do. But most of us are trying....and wouldn't it be nice if someone could recognize that?

So to the old man who wants me to pick up my poop, to the neighborhood mom who doesn't think I'm doing a good job, and to my old school principal, I'd like to say to you: Look at the big picture....because you never know who it is that you're telling to pick up the crap.

"For now I see through a glass, darkly, but then I shall see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete. But then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now."
1 Corinthians 19: 12-18