advent at the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired

A couple of days ago I took down the Christmas lights I had up in my room. Maybe a little strange for two weeks before the holiday, but it's not because I've suddenly lost my Christmas spirit. Really, before today I wasn't quite in the Christmas spirit yet. No, the lights were just decorative mood lighting in the room I stayed in for the semester at the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired, where I taught the last seven weeks. They came down with everything else I had hanging on my walls, like quotes scrawled out on pieces of paper or a giant poster of Peter Pan. I don't wanna grow up either, Peter, I thought.

For the record, I didn't actually think this. I'm not that melodramatic. But it fits, right? Part of growing up is constant change, of too many goodbyes, and the last year-and-a-half has already had enough of those. Last fall I lived in Indianapolis for six weeks, followed by a year-long tour of Illinois including Jacksonville, Freeport, Normal, Chicago, and then back in Jacksonville this past August. The moves have all been for school, moving from one teaching placement to another in a longer-than-usual-due-to-complications pre-student teaching phase. 

And I'm finally here. Finally packing everything into my little car for the last time before moving to Chicago to student teach (and then, hopefully, teach). I was supposed to be here a year ago when it was suddenly delayed. After a year of learning more about urban education, networking with Chicagoans through social media and a summer internship, and going through four different clinical placements, I feel more than ready. This is a gift I've been waiting for most of my college career, and I'm grateful for everyone who's invested in it.

So why hasn't it felt like Christmas?

While the last year has been the most life-giving year I've had on a personal level, it has been a year full of pain and discord on national and global levels, and I've found it harder and harder to disconnect myself from it. The anti-blackness that had become a national focus in the fall of 2014 has continued. Racism against Mexicans and other Latino populations has been given political backing by the consistent top pick for the republican presidential nomination, who has also triumphed Islamaphobia by proposing to block all Muslims from entering the country. Xenophobia has become rampant as we've barred Syrians from seeking refuge in the states. And gun violence has appeared in headlines for multiple shootings, most notably those at a Planned Parenthood clinic and a home for adults with developmental disabilities. This violence even hit in my own community last week when a woman was shot by her husband, both of whom I went to church with years ago.

If this world and this awareness of it are the gifts of adulthood, then no, I don't wanna grow up. 

No, it hasn't felt like Christmas to me. But it has felt like Advent, this period of anticipation of and longing for the coming of the incarnate Christ. This is more than putting up decorations or getting your shopping done. The Biblical anticipation of the Messiah "was in the context of oppression and injustice," a "groaning of creation" for the coming of the Creator, "the Word made flesh." Yes, I'm anticipating my indefinite move to Chicago and the purpose and relative stability that will bring. But I'm also anticipating healing and hope for a broken world that so desperately needs them.

And of course, like anywhere else, this school I've been at needs them, too.

The "goodbye" cards I made for my students.
They say "It's been so much fun teaching you, I'm going to miss you! - Mr. E."
in braille on one side and large print on the other. 

This morning we all made our way into the auditorium to see a nearby high school choir perform Christmas songs for us, as they have for the past several years. After they finished and filed out of the auditorium, the principal stood up front. "Since we have you all in here, I wanted to talk to you about something," she said. "Most of you have probably heard that we lost someone very special this week." Most of us heard yesterday that one of the aides had unexpectedly died of a stroke the night before. I had never met her or Nick (all of the names in this post have been changed), the student she had worked with for almost 15 years. "It's okay to be sad. It's okay if you didn't know who she was, and it's okay to still feel sad if you didn't know who she was."

"Did she go to be with Jesus?" a student asked.

"Yes, she went to be with Jesus," the principal responded.

"Is that why Nick isn't in school?" another asked.

"Yes, he was with her every day at school since he was 3," the principal said, trying to hide the quiver in her voice. "He's feeling very sad right now. He will be back in school once we find him a new aide and once he feels comfortable being here."

"We need to find Nick a new aide!" a small voice from a small first grader in the front row squeaked out, "Can Mrs. Thompson do it?" he said, referring to another administrator at the school.

We all let out teary laughter. "I'm sure she would love to do it," the principal said.

And this is what I have loved most about teaching at this school. Not witnessing my students "overcome" their disabilities, as is the popular narrative in the media. We prefer to view people with disabilities through our American lens, turning them into the ultimate "rugged individuals." While I love seeing my students grow in independence and face new challenges, these gains are always within the context of interdependence. These kids constantly think of each other, constantly look out for each other, constantly seek to make sure that everyone is being accommodated for and included. For the most part. There is still bullying and drama like every other school because these kids are still kids. People with disabilities are not psuedo-angelic, hyper-moralistic beings. They are people. But their limitations and the ways they are left out by society can, if it is fostered, make them more aware of the limitations of others and more intentional in their efforts to accommodate those contingencies. This interdependence is not something to be "overcome" but to be celebrated.

Once everyone's questions were answered, the music teacher spoke up. "Megan, can you play us something on the piano?" A high school student made her way to the piano at the front. "Do you know 'Amazing Grace?'" And she began playing. She played a short intro, and then the room full of students and staff began quietly singing along. 

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound..."

An aide behind me started sobbing.

"...that saved a wretch like me..."

A teacher moved up a row and put her arm around a student who was crying.

"...I was once lost, but now I'm found..."

Several students put their hands on the back of another student who was crying.

"...was blind, but now I see..."

These students are blind, but they can see more than many of us can.

She went on to play two more verses, and then we stayed in the auditorium and sang Christmas songs together until it was time for lunch. We laughed and cried and clapped and sang, enjoying our time together after being reminded why enjoying our time together is so important. "Do you know 'Friends are Friends Forever?'" a student asked. The student at the piano did--apparently they sing this every year at graduation--and we all sang and cried and rocked together in gushy 80's cheesiness. 

And that, all of that, all of that, that's Christmas. I mean, that's Jesus, right? God bursting into our wounds and our weaknesses and our low places, somehow bringing joy and healing. Even when we are in need, especially when we are in need, the joy of Jesus can be found. "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." The love these kids show each other when they are in need, the love that recognizes they are always in need because we are all always in need, is the love of the incarnate Jesus, the love that comes into what is broken, what is needy, what is incomplete. And "when completeness comes, what is in part disappears."

This Christmas season, I anticipate both my move to Chicago and the love and justice of Jesus in our world. But I have a feeling that I've already seen that love and justice here. If only the whole world could have sung "Amazing Grace" in that auditorium with those kids, maybe there would be a lot less problems. Or maybe not. Part of growing up is knowing that singing a song together won't change the world by itself, although I'd like to think it can start to.

As we headed out of the auditorium, I finally felt like it was time for Christmas.