Reading a Guy's Book

As I was reading those captivating stories by a group of seventh graders I realized that there is something built into the soul of little boys and girls. Most of the boys stories were those of adventure: slaying dragons, scoring the winning goal or run in the last second of the game, landing the job of their dreams and driving the fancy cars. Most of the girls stories were about love and relationships: unrequited, newly discovered, long ago hidden. Here in lies the real difference between boys and girls whether they are twelve or eighty two.
I might have been more keenly aware of this rich distinction of the sexes because of a book I was reading. I had recently been talking to a friend who had just come back from a John Eldridge retreat and said that every woman should read "Wild at Heart." It was funny that he should mention it, because I had just been cleaning out some drawers in my guest bedroom when I ran across a copy of it stuck inside a drawer. So, it just felt like it was something that I might find intriguing and enlightening.
Many of you may have already read it since it came out in 2001, or might have heard your husband or someone else talk about it. But I always say I'm a little behind, so it's no surprise it took me seven years to pick it up. The premise of his book is that every man has a "battle to fight, a beauty to win and an adventure to live." And then he goes into detail into each of these and into the wounded heart of a man. I found the book some what of a revelation. A revelation into things inside the soul of a man I was never before aware of: the fear he has to fight through, the longing for adventure that rests inside his soul, and the desire to well, basically be James Bond. He fights the bad guy, does it all in one heck of a fancy car all while capturing the heart of the "Bond" girl. And that was all reflected in the stories of these young boys. (Well, not so much the "bond" girl stuff. They're still in the denial stage at that age. Or at least they wouldn't put it down on paper.)
But it was much more than that. It gave me an inside view into his feelings of inadequacy and doubt. How the pressure of being hero and provider and adventurer often collide with the heart of a woman to be "practical". But he also tapped into the heart of the woman as well, saying, "the deep cry of a girls heart is am I lovely?" And I so saw that cry in the stories those seventh grade girls had written. They were longing to know if they were lovely, cherished, valued. Those things are in the core of who each of us is. Men long to know they are the hero of the story. Women long to know that they are worth a hero coming for them.
Yet, what I've discovered on my own personal journey is that we are all flawed creatures looking for infallibility in people. We are looking for something perfect in imperfection, trying to dip into a well to fill us up, forgetting that well also has to go somewhere for its supply. No one person can ever meet all of our needs. It's impossible. That's why we have to be people whose core, whose very center is filled with that which is eternal. Because it is only that which is eternal that can truly fulfill. That's why David in the Psalms said, "My expectation is from you." When our expectation is laid on the creator of our soul and expectation is removed from a human life, we can truly live in a satisfied relationship.
But honestly, even more than the man, woman stuff, it was the last chapter that really resounded with me. Maybe it's because I'm in that "adventure to live" place in my own life. I've been learning how to feel alive, and completely connect with the people and the joys that each moment offers me. But he says, "I want to live my whole life like that [hurling myself into the middle of what life has to offer]. I want to love with much more abandon and stop waiting for others to love me first. I want to hurl myself into a creative work worthy of God. I want to charge the fields at Banockburn, follow Peter as he followed Christ out onto the sea, pray from my heart's true desire."
Now, I don't necesarilly have a great need to "charge" anything, not even a credit card, if I'm being completely honest with you, I hate debt and pain. But I do want to live my life recklessly abandoned to a cause deeper and richer and greater than myself, touching people in their most broken places.
I was sitting in church the other day and we had a pastor in from a church in downtown Nashville, who has a group of women in his church who are making up gift bags with jewelry and lotions and perfumes and all kinds of goodies and then going into the strip clubs at night, before they open and presenting it to the ladies who work there. They are telling them of their value and their worth. All I could think is, "I want to do that!" Those are the adventures I want to live. The adventures that capture the hearts of broken people.
Eldridge goes on to ask a question to the men in the final chapter, but I believe it is a question that can be asked of both men and women. "What is written on your heart? What makes you come alive? If you could do what you've always wanted to do, what would it be? You see, a man's [woman's] calling is written on his/her true heart, and he/she discovers it when he/she enters the frontier of his/her deep desires. To paraphrase Bailie, don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive because what the world needs are men/women who have come alive."
I couldn't agree more...
I recommend this book for any man, husband, wife or woman. I also recommend this book for mother's or father's of boys. What a revelation if young men could capture these truths in the very peak of their shaping, it would redefine their manhood, allowing them to embrace it and enjoy it. I also think this is a valuable book for mother's and father's of little girls allowing them to understand the heart of a man and how God formed it and how her expectation has to be from Him.
I'll end with Eldridge's words, "A man is never more a man than when he embraces an adventure beyond his control, or when he walks into a battle he isn't sure of winning." I believe this is the essence of faith. And I think faith is what makes this entire journey such an amazing, wonderful adventure!

Captivating 7th Graders

I hated 7th grade. I was bullied by a girl who thought I liked her boyfriend. I had changed schools. My body was becoming that of a woman and I didn't know what to do with it. And the guy I did like couldn't decide between me and my best friend. They were tumultuous times.




(My 7th grade picture-granted the Farrah Fawcett hair was in style but seeing this you can hopefully understand a little more why it was such a difficult year.)

But a teacher changed things for me. She was my math teacher. And I hated math. But something about Ms. Anderegg captivated me. She was a hippie by all accounts. Long straight hair. And liberated! Man was she liberated! She didn't take her husband's last name which completely shocked me. But for a girl who took two years to get through Algebra 2, well, let's just say math has never been my strong suit. But for one year, this incredible teacher, taught a reader how to do math.
This was also the year that I discovered one of my all time favorite books, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Everything about this book captured me: the setting, the story, the characters, the conflict, the voice of the narrator. All elements of a good story culminated into the perfect storm inside the pages of that book. And I'm not sure I slept until it was finished.
Fast Forward to last week. For three days I subbed a 7th grade English class. I have substituted since college. Although I've been so busy writing books the last four years I hung up my substitute hat, I picked it back up at the beginning of this school year. When life changed for me last year I realized being at home all day by yourself can get lonely. I needed company. And since teaching is my heart, and I only have to do it when I can, and on top of that I can still write while I'm substituting during the teacher's planning period, I dusted off my substituting abilities, and my high heel shoes, because they grow them large these days, and braved the "new" world of education.

Well, let's just say after two days together I wasn't too fond of them and they weren't too fond of me. Their teacher had to retire for medical reasons and wouldn't be back the rest of the year. So, by the end of day two, I was getting a lot of, "Ms. Hildreth, are you going to be here the rest of the year?" And trust me, it wasn't because they were hoping I'd say, "Yes." When I was driving home that second afternoon I called my mother and told her, "I know why mother's eat their young!"
She laughed and reminded me how difficult her seventh grade year had been. "It was my hardest year in all of school." And that was when I remembered it had been mine too. As I was thinking about the next day and trying to figure out how I was going to endure it, I realized that the problem was that they were bored. The lesson plans had been more "busy" work then really engaging them. They needed more. So, Friday morning when I got up, I was praying and I just said, "Lord, I need something to excite these kids. Something that can challenge their little minds."
No sooner had I prayed that simple prayer that I had the idea to take in my Savannah from Savannah book, tell them I was a writer and that today they were going to become a writer too. As soon as the idea came this thought followed, "They'll think you're an idiot." I quickly countered that with, "They think all adults are idiots. Am I going to be intimidated by a group of 7th graders!"
So, in I went. I wrote the "five elements" of story on the board: setting, plot, character, conflict and point of view. And as soon as they walked in I said, "Get out a piece of paper and a pencil." They moaned and whined but obeyed. I stood up in front of them and held up my Savannah book and said, "This is a book." You can't ever assume people know anything. We all know what assuming does....
Then I said, "And I wrote it."
At this point eyes were becoming large.
"And my fifth book came out this past October."
Mouths were beginning to open, but you could have heard a pin drop.
"And today, you're going to write a story."
And for the next twenty minutes I was an English teacher to 7th graders. We talked about their favorite books, the five elements of story and what they could write about. I told them they had the rest of class to finish their story.
"But what if we're not finished before we leave?"
Yes, believe it or not, they were wanting time to actually do their class work.
"Then you have to have it to me by the end of the day. And oh, by the way, I will pick a winner from each class, even though I have no idea what you will win. But you will win something."
And I hardly had to say another word.
This happened with each class. I started the same way and the reaction was just as dramatic. They would read their stories to each other. They would leave class talking about the stories they had written. They asked me questions about my books. They took their study halls, even some took their recess and finished their stories!
As they handed them in and I began to read the creativity inside the very core of these children I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face. Then I realized I had to grade them. That the comments I put on those papers would forever matter to the hearts of those children, because their papers were being graded by an author. (Don't tell them me and J.K. Rowling aren't best friends...they think we're tight....) As I began commenting on the first story I knew I had a real opportunity to speak into the life of each child. So, with each amazing story or simply precious attempt I told them that their story was "Awesome! Excellent! Amazing! Great Job! You have just become a writer! I love your dialogue! Your description is incredible!"
I haven't finished their stories yet. I plan on getting the last of them read today and I'm going to post the winners right here on my blog as part of their prize. I guess that's a prize. But I was reminded of some basic fundamentals of life that I think we should often be reminded of. I was reminded that even those kids that thought they couldn't, did. And that those things in life I don't think I'm capable of doing, like math, if someone believes in me enough, and teaches me well enough, I can do anything. I was reminded that sometimes it takes a step of vulnerability, like telling a class of seventh graders you're a writer, to open people up to you. I was reminded that the power of my words can produce life or death, so I chose to lavish each one with the praise that simply trying often gets little credit for. And I was reminded that seventh grade is a tough year but their hearts are winnable.
I was asked quite a few times on Friday if I was going to be the substitute for the rest of the year. This time it had an entirely different ring to it. As I laid in bed Friday night I was a tad melancholy at the fact that I wouldn't get to be with these kids on Monday. But then this morning as I was thinking about the last stories I would get to read and the comments I would get to write, I realized that some of them would never forget the Friday of their 7th grade year when they wrote a story. And that maybe they wouldn't forget Ms. Hildreth either. Because I know I won't forget them.

Winter's Last Stand

This time last week I was sitting outside by our community pool, working on my new book, allowing my pasty white body to come out of hibernation. Today my roses are covered with sheets, my heat is back on and my body, well, let’s just say I’m wearing socks again and grateful for the corduroy pajama pants I just bought on sale last week. Didn’t figure I’d see them until next December, but at least they’ve made the fall back to winter not quite as traumatic.
So, as I look out over the hill that sits outside my office window here in Franklin, Tennessee, the smoky white clouds have overlapped to such a point that even the sun can’t wedge its way through. Winter isn’t going without a fight. And as I was sitting here pondering this blog, drinking a McDonald’s coke, thinking I needed to turn the heat up another couple degrees, I began to think of all the things that don’t like to leave easily.
I thought of the lines under my eyes that the magic cream was suppose to have gone, or at least “greatly diminished”, in six weeks which are still mocking me every time I smile. It has me contemplating what life would be like if I never smiled again. There are always options. I thought of the broken vase that I see at the top of my kitchen cabinet every time I go to get a glass and that it should have been thrown out three years earlier. I thought of the blue wash clothes that are shredded now on each of their four edges, but still do the trick of washing my face each night, even though I refuse to allow guests to see them. Those things that hang on.
And I can’t help but dig a little deeper and think of those other things that try to hold onto us too. If I’m being honest it’s been kind of a winter season for my heart. It arrived brutally about this time last year. About the time spring was showing up winter slammed into me with the brutality of a blizzard. Now, a year later, I’m glad to say there are a few things that wanted to hold on, dig in and not let go. But I just couldn’t allow winter to have the final word. I mean even Santa Claus gets out of the North Pole one night a year.
So, when bitterness wanted to rob my heart of the ability to think spring could ever return, I just tugged at it harder, until that day when my heart actually had its first moment of feeling alive again. When grief wanted to take up residence and move into the guest room, I made it upstairs first and locked the door and told him he could only have his season. And when fear tried to attach itself to my hip, I just put on another pair of jeans. And with each moment of winter’s brave and valiant effort, my heart just fought harder. And now, a year later, even though I can’t see my roses outside my office window for the Ralph Lauren sheet that is lying on top of them, I can still see the new growth on the crepe myrtles. And even though there are still moments that grief will sweep over me I can still see the incremental healing of my heart. And I know that winter would have stayed as long as I would have allowed. Bitterness would have lived in the soul of me until I died if I would have spent this last year rehashing my moments of hurt. Grief could have me still under the covers if I wouldn’t have made myself get up and realize the world wasn’t going to stop and I could join it or be lost in it. And fear, oh, he’s a crafty one. He would have whispered in my ear for the rest of my life if I had given him one moment of acquiescence.
But I had living to do. I have spring to tend to and flowers to plant. And I have summer to enjoy and tan lines to acquire. And I even had fall to appreciate and its audacious display of color. And I have living to live. And now, with winter only a shadow that I can see up the street I know that it will come again. Winter seasons just do that. But it never has to stay longer than necessary, no matter how hard it fights. And I also know that the forecast for Thursday is sunny and 72 degrees. And sister will be out there by that pool letting her white body blind anyone it needs to because she’s got some living to do.
Me and my friend Ashley, being completely Alive! And rather silly.....