Fear Factor

When I was a kid, I was afraid that Jesus would come back before I got to see the final Star Wars movie. As of May 19th, 2005, that has no longer been a concern.

When I got a little bit older, I was worried that Jesus would come back before I could have sex. (Be shocked if you want, but I guarantee that all honest church boys have this concern at some point…I’m just sayin’….) I don’t have to worry about this any more either.

The truth is that I don’t think I’ve really felt afraid. I worried that something would happen that would cause me to miss a future experience, but the fear was never that I could die. Until now.

Now, I have to be here for the girl. I don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want her to grow up without me. I can’t tolerate the idea that something could happen and that I’ll miss seeing her grow up and knowing her as she becomes more and more her own person everyday.

Everything is more serious now. Driving on the bypass is a much bigger deal. Driving anywhere is a much bigger deal. Collapsing bridges and crashing semis, highway debris, drunk drivers and potentially psychotic overly disgruntled 7th and 8th graders with too much hunting experience haunt my sense of security.

I was warned about many things, but I don’t think I was adequately warned as to how much more I’d have to confront fear in my life. It doesn’t control me, but for the first time: it’s there.

 

A What?! (tales from a 7th grade classroom-first entry. This is for James.)

So, in my first class class of the day, we’re talking about our word of the
day: bedlam. (means chaos, confusion). We’ve already talked about
what the word means and I ask: “What would be some situations or
settings that you would expect there to be bedlam?

I get a couple of kids raise their hands and they say, “war” or an
earthquake or a tsunami. And then I call on this one kid and he says:

“A gangbang!”

I have no idea what my face looked like. I was a deer in headlights with my jaw hitting the floor. Then he said, “you know, like a bank robbery or something…” I say: “Ok…yes, like a bank robbery or something like that….” Whew!

I’m glad that 7th graders are pretty innocent for the most part. The
other day we were talking about plot and I had to talk about “climax”.

I knew then that they didn’t know otherwise or I would have had
snickers.