Trying to Maintain

I’ve found that while I often have several thoughts swirling in my head that would be blog-worthy, I don’t have nearly as much time as I’d like to have in order to blog them. Such is the nature of the beast that I call life.

Work is challenging and rewarding. Challenging in the sense that I’m always aware of the fact that I miss the mark every day, but rewarding because students and coworkers are encouraging and forgiving. I also still endure some of the challenges I faced last year as a new teacher- struggling to find my place and my voice in the school environment and just trying to stay ahead of the curve in terms of teaching a subject I’ve never taught before. Add coaching to that, along with being in school myself…and it ends up being quite a full plate.

Despite this, I find joy in students and their questions, I love being swarmed by the too cool 8th grade girls for hugs before the weekend, and from my mother who provides great wisdom not only as my parent, but as the parent of a teenager.

When I say that I’m trying to maintain, what I really mean is that I’m trying to balance being “Erin” and also being “Ms. Davis”. Last year I learned that I didn’t have to choose- I could indeed be myself and do all of the things that I love and enjoy without giving up my role as a teacher. This year, I’m trying to balance it all out.

I am excited because I see growth in myself, and I honestly feel like I’m moving in the right direction. While there are many, many trying days; there’s much joy and happiness in each of them as well. Overall, I’m grateful to be in a profession that provides me with the opportunity to do what I love and live my dreams. God is good.

“When my faith is challenged and my vision is obscure; when I’m hanging on by a thread and my footing’s unsure; I hear in the spirit one word to help me endure- ORDERED.” ~Fred Hammond

Book Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

I love Donald Miller. It started when I took my friend’s advice to read “Blue Like Jazz” and it’s continued ever since. After reading “Blue Like Jazz”, I read “Searching for God Knows What” and “Through Painted Deserts”. Over time, I must say that I have a certain expectation for Miller’s work, and this book did not disappoint.

I will admit that I was hesitant about the topic of the book. Reading about Donald Miller’s journey after becoming very successful didn’t REALLY appeal to me that much. However, once I started the book, I found myself reading as intently as I had read with his other books. Reading “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” was refreshing to me. It took me back to a place of curiosity within my faith that I’m sad to say has been missing recently. What I appreciate most about Miller is his ability to not only see God in the most ordinary, every day things; but to subsequently express that in a way that his readers can easily understand. That skill, as a writer, is truly a gift.

As with previous books that I’ve read by Donald Miller, I was pushed to think about myself, and how I view my faith and my relationship with God. Miller also seems to have mastered the ability of writing about ones self without seeming too self-absorbed or overly arrogant, which is another skill that as a writer, is a gift.

I would (and already have) recommend this book to anyone who is seeking to explore their faith in a new way, or just want to go a deeper level in their faith. Those not familiar with Miller and his style of writing may have to adjust, but it’s an easy adjustment to make and definitely one that is worth it. Miller doesn’t disappoint.

care packages needed…

…because sometimes it’s good to know that people care…

if you feel so inclined, hit me up for my address…

an unusual sunday

Today I did a couple of things that I usually don’t do on Sundays: stay home from church and wash clothes.  I usually don’t wash clothes because of how I was raised: Sunday is the Lord’s Day, and we don’t do work on the Lord’s Day.  I recall waking up VERY early on Monday mornings on some occasions to wash the special item that I wanted to wear to school that day (that I had inconveniently forgotten to put with the wash on Saturday) because washing on Sundays was out of the question.

On the other end- staying home from church doesn’t happen often.  I usually have responsibilities at church that require me to be there (ie: Trustee Board, YPD, Pastor’s Assistant, Sunday School)…and I still had them today, but I felt that I needed to take some time for me.  I understand the argument that taking time for me can be done on ANY OTHER DAY of the week; however, my church involvement has become rather extensive to the point where for the sake of balance, I might need some time off.

A friend and I discussed how free it felt to actually “skip” church, just because of how in some ways we feel a little overwhelmed with our church commitments.  I think that the personal challenge is to find a balance in all aspects of life, but to also be in a place where you can use the gifts and talents that God has given you to uplift the kingdom in the best possible way.  On the other hand, I think that churches are excited to have young adults who desire to be involved, and their challenge is to not exclude them from areas they can serve, and to not over-commit and subsequently burn out the young adults.

So while my Sunday was unique- I feel recharged, rejuvenated, and refreshed.  I won’t be making a habit of any of these- washing on Sunday or not going to church; however, a break from what can sometimes be the monotony of life was good.

Be encouraged, all!

coming to you from Phoenix, AZ

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog. I’m kind of disappointed with myself for not keeping up with it like I feel like I should. I’ll do better. Really, I will.

So, as the title indicates, I’m writing this entry live from Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve been here since Monday evening (really early Tuesday morning) enjoying Christmas with my mommy and my sisters and my brother. It’s such an interesting experience.

One thing I’ve learned since being here is that I will NEVER outgrow my mom’s cooking, or laying my head in her lap while we’re watching television. Call me crazy, or a big overgrown kid…I say that I’m appreciating the simple things in life.

I’ve also REALLY noticed how much my sisters and my brother are growing up. Obviously, there are the physical changes (way to go puberty), but also having conversations with them and listening to how they process things is amazing to me. It also makes me wonder if I was “like that” at ages 13, 15, and 16. They never cease to amaze me, and I’m proud to have siblings who are so beautiful, so talented, and so giving.

While Phoenix is not “home” for me, this visit has been a reminder that home really isn’t the physical structure- it’s the people you’re with, the memories you share and create, and the unconditional love. A house doesn’t give that, but you can find it wherever you make your home.

Wishing you God’s best….

will the real erin davis please stand up?

It’s amazing what technology can do these days. Check out the email that I received on Wednesday, just before preparing to leave for Thanksgiving:

Hello, Erin.

You don’t know me but I am going to do for you what I wish someone would have done for me a year and a half ago. K** H***** was a delivery man for RTI when I met him about 15 years ago. He delivered packages to the school where I was a preschool director. He had tried to talk to me then but I was happily married and paid no attention.

Over the years my marriage became stale, my husband worked a lot of hours, we had some financial problems, I was feeling neglected and taken for granted. In July of 2006, I ran into K** H***** again. I had two children by then aged 8 and 15.

We started talking and he obviously sensed my vulnerabilty and took advantage of it. He began to do and be all of the things that I was missing at home. He took such an interest in my life and my job. He wanted to know everything that happened in my life. He became my best friend and confident. We began an affair. I am not proud of this, I was raised in a religious home, attended a parochial school, but it happened. I told him over and over that we needed to slow down; that I was falling in love with him. He said “good”, because he felt the same way. He became jealous of my husband, telling me not to sleep with him, etc. I told my husband that I had to take an additional class for my job and spent every tues and thurs evening at K**’s house in addition to any other time during the week or weekend that I could get away. Finally after 6 months, my husband caught me heading to Oxford when I was supposed to be going to school. I admitted that I had been having an affair and was in love. He moved out of the house in February.

As soon as I was free to talk to K** anytime I wanted and to see him all the time, I realized that there were several periods of time that I could not find him. I would call late at night or early in the morning and he wouldn’t answer any of his phones. We began to fight a lot. I found out that he could be truly mean and insensitive. We fought so bad that we broke up several times. During one of those times he actually sent me a picture of some other woman in her bra and panties posing in his bathtub to hurt me and make me jealous. When we would make up he would always tell me that the other women were just “friends” and that he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else, but I’m not crazy and didn’t believe him. One night I held a meeting at my school and he didn’t believe that’s where I was. He called me on my cell and accused me of seeing someone else. I drove all the way out to his house to show him the receipt from the pizza that we had served at the meeting to prove where I was and there was a strange car in his driveway and he wouldn’t answer the door.

I didn’t talk to him for a couple months after that. Then in the beginning of October he started calling and coming around again. I had tried to forget him and started to see someone else, but I was still in love with him and he knew it. I found the birthday card that you gave him in his truck so I knew that he was seeing someone but he said you were just another “friend”. He made the mistake a couple of weeks ago of sending me an email that he had also forwarded to you so I got your email address.

I know that you are at least one of the people that he is currently seeing because I was in his bed Sunday morning when you called around 9:15 a.m. I didn’t come to his father’s funeral because I am white and didn’t want to answer a whole lot of questions about who I was and how I knew him. I have been with him at least once a week for the past 6 weeks again.

I think that he is lying to both of us and probably several others. I don’t think that he has the capacity to be faithful to anyone. I am going to try to stop seeing him and forget him. I know that the only way I can do that is to get him to leave me alone. This will probably make him mad enough to finally stop calling me. I hope that it’s not too late for you to get out. Even if you decide not to, at least you know the truth. He can never be honest or true to anyone. I also don’t think that he can ever love anyone else because he is too in love with himself. Even though he says it, I don’t think that he really knows what it means.

He has ruined my life, I hope he doesn’t do the same to you. We always blame the other women when it is really these men that play with our emotions that we should punish. If you want to know anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. I truly wish someone would have sent me this email before I got so involved with him. They would have saved myself and my family so much pain and heartache.

Good luck
M

While this entire email situation is sad; the worst part is that she divulged this information to a TOTAL STRANGER. I replied and let her know that I was sorry for her situation, but that I didn’t know the person that she was speaking of. After exchanging emails for a while, she realized that I was telling the truth, and that there might just be someone else out there named Erin Davis who was involved with this man.

After receiving this, I talked with a couple of people that I know about the prevalence of extramarital affairs- and I was overwhelmingly surprised at what they told me. Apparently, people frequently engage in extramarital affairs- it’s a common occurrence of some sorts. Definitely not news that you want to hear. Your thoughts?

clearing out and cleaning up

Usually when I start posts here, I have an idea of what I’m going to say. I can’t say that’s the case this time. I just know that the title completely describes what needs to take place in my life.

I feel like one of the biggest challenges I face is to not let ANYTHING completely take over my life. For the last few weeks, I’ve been somewhere between working ALL the time and/or at church ALL the time for various meetings and commitments. I have a ridiculously long list of things that I need to do (laundry, cooking, going to the dry cleaners) and I never feel like there’s enough time to get them done. On the nights when I’m not overly committed to something else, I’m usually too tired or unmotivated to do anything meaningful. I want the professional success and it’s important to me to serve Christ in the ways that I’ve been called to do so. I don’t feel that I should need an extra 2-3 hours in the day to do so.

While I’m feeling a bit over-committed in some areas of my life, I feel that I’m really not doing well with dealing with people. I’ve gone through phases since being in Athens where I’ve felt lonely and homesick, and I kinda feel that way now. But there’s also a different component to this, where I actually just crave an inner circle; people who know me and understand me and love me for me. While I love and appreciate being on my own, I wish that I could have the opportunity to do cocktails with the girls or have a movie night. I guess I feel detached from everything and everyone…including myself.

At the end of the day, I can live with myself- the mistakes that I’ve made, the regrets, the hopes for the future. Trying to navigate it and understand it is much more difficult. I feel like there is a severe need to clear out some things and reorganize my life. I wish I knew where to begin…

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” ~Matthew 6:33

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” ~Psalm 27:13-14

true life: i have a therapist

So, I’m actually very hesitant about writing this post. I’ve thought about it for days, and I guess we’ll see what comes out as I write.

The title says it all: I have a therapist. And to be honest, she’s fabulous. It’s not some situation where I think my life is miserable or I have an eating disorder, or I’m going through some dramatic life changing situation. It’s actually quite different. There have been several things in my life that have affected me, and I made the personal decision to go to therapy because I felt that it would be good for me. I felt that it would be good to talk with an unbiased, spiritually grounded person who could help me articulate a lot of the things in my head.

I know that therapy is usually reserved for people who have “real” problems. I guess that would include me…and if you’re honest, it might be you as well.

As Jay-Z would say, “Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty.”

it’s been too long

It’s a bit ridiculous that I haven’t updated my blog in a month. I should really do better. The sad thing, is that there is so much that I want to say, but my job is seriously taking over my life. Well, that and trying to still have a life while negotiating the real world.

I always thought that having a real job and being an adult was easy. Sure, you have to be at work on time, and you have work-related responsibilities; but you don’t have homework, papers, and presentations. Or at least that’s how I imagined it to be. I see now that I was horribly mistaken. I still have deadlines to meet, proposals to write, presentations to prepare for. There’s no more of the extended lunch hours, or making decisions on going to class based on the weather. Life is different. You don’t work, you don’t eat. I’ve become accustomed to being fed, having a roof over my head, being able to pay my bills, and buy a few other things on the side. I suppose I’m shifting from the “Quarter-Life Crisis” to really living life as an adult.

Part of my job consists of going to high schools to recruit students for college. If you all think back to your high school days, you may remember seeing college recruiters in the lunch room/cafeteria/commons area during your lunch. Now, I’m that person waiting for students to come and talk to me, to fill out a contact card, or to get more information about the school. While it’s not the most exciting part of what I do, I have found some entertainment in people watching. We all know that high school is such an interesting and challenging time for students; however, I promise you that I have seen some of the BIGGEST fashion mistakes from high school students. For example, who said it was okay to have hot pink/magenta/fuschia weave in your head? Or when is it ever okay to have your entire head slicked down with a jar of gel, only to have a long flowing ponytail of someone’s hair stuck to the top? I’ve seen teachers with rat tails, students have asked me for money, and I’ve witnessed a fight in the cafeteria. I’m confident that by the end of this recruiting season, I’ll have seen it all.

All that said, I do enjoy what I do. The travel allows me to see different parts of Georgia that I probably wouldn’t have seen by myself, and the college fairs have given me the opportunity to meet colleagues from a number of different schools. Of course there are challenges, but that is to be expected. Simply put, I’m blessed.

Peace and blessings…

PS- For those of you who check this, I promise I’ll update more regularly. Besides, I am certain that God is preparing me for some awesome things that I can’t wait to share with you all

Finally, something good from Duke

It’s hard for me to believe that anything good could come from Duke, other than something in the likes of Grant Hill, Dahntay Jones, and Jason Williams. However, after reading this article in the AJC, I realized that I may have been wrong.

The article explores the hypocrisy of white culture as it relates to Michael Vick. While I initially thought that it would address how it seems that white culture has completely alienated Michael Vick, this article is written purely from an animal rights perspective. Though I’m not familiar with animal rights, I can appreciate what is being said.

Here’s an excerpt of the article:

We need to face the fact that dog fighting is not the only “sport” that abuses animals. Cruelty also occurs in rodeos, horse and dog racing (all of which mistreat animals and often kill them when no longer useful). There are also millions of dogs and cats we put to death in “shelters” across the country because they lack a home, and billions of creatures we torture in factory farms for our food.

Vick treated his dogs very cruelly; there is no question about that. But I see one important difference between these more socially acceptable mistreatments and the anger focused on Vick: Vick is black, and most of the folks in charge of the other activities are white.

Some might argue that the difference between dogfighting and these other forms of animal abuse is that dogfighting is illegal. That’s true, but the fact that dogfighting is illegal while other institutions remain acceptable is because dogfighting no longer a sport of the middle and upper class.

Dogfighting (and cock fighting) used to be “sports” enjoyed by the upper classes in the United States and were, then, perfectly legal.

In the last 50 years, however, they have become the domain mostly of blacks, Latinos and poor whites — and were ruled illegal. Now, while white middle and upper classes continue to watch horses run to the point of exhaustion and risk breaking their legs, they regard dogfighting as something that only low-class “thugs and drug dealers” find entertaining. Indeed, a reading of many of the Vick news stories indicts him and his friends as much for being involved in hip-hop subculture as for fighting dogs. Several proponents of animal rights have used the Vick case to draw attention to the widespread abuse of animals, but they are primarily trying to persuade people to become vegans.

I look at this another way: If we find dogfighting unacceptable but we can live with other forms of animal abuse, what is the underlying distinction? Could it have more to do with the culture surrounding the human beings involved and less to do with the animals?

I am not saying dogfighting is acceptable, but rather that Vick should be publicly criticized for that activity, not for his participation in hip-hop subculture. Whether or not dogs are fought more by minorities than white people is actually unknown, but the media representations of the last several weeks make it appear that black culture and dogfighting are inextricably intertwined. We need to find ways to condemn dogfighting without denigrating black culture with it.

What do you think?