August 2017

Next in my series of writing posts, I would like to highlight five great nouns (and a few of their synonyms) that can be used to identify internal things/traits people may possess.  As you read my list, I hope it will stir up some fresh thoughts for your writing, written communication, and descriptions of others.

  1. Contentment – state of having an easy mind because one is satisfied with what one has or because one has “enough”. Ease, gladness, equanimity, satisfaction. How often could you use this word to describe people you know? In our modern world, I find that people who claim to be content are often looked down upon because they aren’t driven and ambitious enough – and that having “enough” can be an extremely subjective thing depending on one’s personal philosophy.
  2. Prowess – superior ability, skill, or strength to excel in something. Aptitude, expertise, talent, command, deftness. I have seen or heard this used in a mostly negative sense. But the truth is that many people possess prowess in one area or another. Whether we are arrogant, showy, or pushy about it is up to us.
  3. Sensibility, Sensibilities – capacity to feel and quickness to respond; capacity for intellectual and aesthetic distinctions, feelings, and tastes. Insight, appreciation, discernment, sentiment, perceptiveness. Most people have common sense (though some of us pay less attention to it than we should), but some have sensibilities which are more heightened or prone to offense.
  4. Tenacity – holding fast to something, not giving up, persevering.  Determination, doggedness, perseverance, steadfastness. This is another word that can be used in either a positive way (a school principal who works hard for years through a very lean budget to help struggling students achieve high goals) or a negative way (the businessperson who demands to make a higher profit not matter what harmful production byproducts might do to the community).
  5. Gumption – Initiative or resourcefulness someone displays. Acumen, savvy, astuteness, get-up-and-go. When I hear this word, I often think of a person (like the Energizer bunny) who seems to have an endless supply of energy, hopefulness, ideas, or solutions. A person with gumption may get knocked down, but he/she won’t stay down for too long.

In the comments section, I invite you to share some of your own favorite nouns – especially positive or negative character traits that people can possess – or to give an example of how you might use the above words in a sentence.

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The news is ugly. So I watch little of it. Just enough to know the basics – and to be reminded of the fragile, broken world I inhabit.

It makes me sad to think of all the hateful things that have been said and done in both the past weeks and the past centuries. It makes me even sadder to recall all the zealots, fascists, bigots, and other radicals who have backed up their beliefs, claims, and propaganda by waving a banner of religion over their proud heads.

There have been many things done in Jesus’ name that Jesus would never condone. And any claim of ethnic superiority is one of them.

How do I know? Because Jesus was bi-racial. And so am I.

“What?” you say. “Jesus wasn’t bi-racial. He had one of the purest Jewish blood lines possible, well-recorded in ancient manuscripts. And you certainly don’t look bi-racial.”

But He was, and I am.

True, I am of European decent, with ancestors from at least six countries – a bit of the Scandinavian and a lot of the Anglo-Saxon. So by nationality I am American, and I always mark myself as Caucasian on surveys.

And after I had lived in China long enough, though I had no real shot at becoming a Chinese citizen, my students did me the honor of proclaiming that I was now an “egg” – white on the outside but yellow on the inside. I was deeply touched by their observation.

Those things are fine, but they are not what I’m talking about. Let me tell you about the races I identify with most strongly.

The first race is the human race. Human beings are my family. You are my family. It doesn’t matter where your ancestors came from, what country or state you grew up in, or what type of immediate family background you have. You are my brother or sister in humanity, and each of us was made by God’s hand, in His image. In the eighth psalm, King David writes that God made people amazingly well, just a tiny step below angels, and crowned us with glory and honor. And He created wondrous variety.

The second race is the life race. We are all running from our earliest years to the day we die. Some of us will run a longer race than others. However, the race can be grueling and the completion can get ugly. That’s because the honored, crowned products of the Creator have all fallen short of His glory, the glory we were originally endowed with. This is where we start to outdo each other in peer and self destruction. As with any race, life has a goal. And I’ve found that what or who I’m running toward at my finish line makes all the difference in how I live my life now.

Jesus was a part of the human race, but He was the only one to ever complete life’s race without falling short of that original goodness. I, on the other hand, am fully human and have fully fallen (before being lifted again by mercy). But the point is that both of us–and each of you–are bi-racial, no matter what our ethnic identification.

Now… if we could only remember those details every time we view the individuals around us.

 

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Have you ever attended a presentation, class, or meeting and watched another attendee use their phone, tablet, or camera to take pictures of PowerPoint slides, posters, or whiteboard lists instead of taking the time to write down or type out that information for later reference? (And have you ever done the same?)

I’m not saying this is a wholly bad thing. I’ve done it myself when a teacher’s diagram on the board was incredibly complex and replicating it on the spot seemed impossible. Technology has its advantages and, correctly used, can help make our learning lives easier.

But I am fearful that if students (and language learners more specifically) start to increasingly take notes simply by taking photos of things instead of recording information in some more engaging and personal fashion, such lazy note taking will result in numerous negative outcomes. Here I will share three of them.

  • Students will be less likely to really recall information later. For many learners, there is something that connects in our brains when we both listen and write or see and write at the same time. This opportunity to more actively process the information even as we are introduced to it makes a way for us to remember things longer and in a more meaningful way.
  • Student listening abilities will continue to decrease. At this point, I’m not necessarily speaking of a student’s language listening level. Rather, when students are busy taking a picture, they are often not listening closely to what the presenter or instructor is saying. As with many aspects of our technologically-driven world, the art of listening seems to be lost while we stare at devices and develop consistently shorter attention spans.
  • Students will not develop the ability to effectively organize and summarize information. The student who tries to transcribe a fast-speaking lecturer’s speech in her notebook will often become very frustrated, since the point of taking notes is to listen closely and write down things that are key, useful, or thought-provoking. In order to listen well and take good notes, a student must practice. By doing so, she can gain valuable experience in organizing information, prioritizing what she hears, and summarizing a speakers main points. All of these skills are useful in both professional settings and effective daily communication with relatives and friends.

When I start teaching a new set of classes later this month, I’m going to offer my students notebooks and pens, because I have a feeling some of them will come to class without these inexpensive but important tools. Whether or not they accept my offer, I will stress that they are to either write things down or type them instead of simply capturing screenshots. In this way, I hope that they will learn more in terms of both language and content throughout the term.

Feel free to comment below. What are your thoughts about “lazy note-taking”?

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A dear friend named Nyla came to visit my family this past week. While shopping together one delightful afternoon, we came across a unique floor rug from India, a long one in which the weaver connected many pieces of brightly died and tightly woven silken rope.

Later, Nyla presented me with the rug. She had purchased it when I stepped out of the store temporarily, and it was her housewarming gift for me and a home I will be purchasing in the months ahead.

I took the rug home and studied it. Many thoughts flew through my mind, about how this rug represents my life. Here are a few of them…

  • It is brightly colored and beautiful, despite (and perhaps because of) the irregular pattern.
  • Someone certainly worked for hours to make it, probably sweating and perhaps bleeding in the process. The only way my life has become what it is now and the only way I’ve been renewed is because of the blood and sweat of the One who loved me most.
  • One color runs into the next in a clear-cut way. Recalling plans, dreams, and intentions, my life is so different now that I imagined it would be as a child, teen, and young adult – often because of 90 degree turns in the road of life that I had little or no control over.
  • What looks like old rags and scraps of cloth has been made into something that the product tag says was used in the palaces of past Indian leaders and kings. In the right hands, with the true value known, what was before called worthless, ordinary, or disposable now becomes treasured, extraordinary, and glorious.

These thoughts inspired me to write a short poem.

from rags to glory

my eyes absorb

for one spun moment

the whole of life

in love’s outpouring

my days restored

through threads close-woven

a plan packed tight

a life: rich, colorful, useful, reclaimed

a plan: unforeseen, hope outshining shame

Today I invite you to ponder the tapestry of your own life, consider all the wonderful and hard things you’ve lived through, and think about how beautiful you must appear to the One who made you – the same one who can and does remake us, when we allow Him to.

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