reluctantleadersite

The trouble with trauma-informed education is the movement’s baked-in propensity for teachers to modify student expectations based on the child’s adverse experiences, some of which might even be legitimately tragic. This malpractice is not usually a deliberate action. It’s generally an educational blind spot rooted in deep and sincere empathy for the child. Diminished expectations are not, however, confined to academic performance. Sadly, student behavior is also affected, and the acknowledgment of trauma has now devolved into behavior management strategies heavy on restorative discipline and light on behavior-changing consequences. When well-meaning educators make trauma-based excuses for students (or accept excuses from them), the child is victimized all over again by way of altered expectations.

“Excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build Monuments of Nothingness and Bridges to Nowhere. Those who excel in excuse making seldom excel in anything else” (author unknown). These two simple sentences capture the mindset of nearly every great success story ever written, especially stories about children overcoming trauma. Excuses are temptations for all of us when we see kids who have been dealt bad hands in life. They are easy and understandable, but they often manifest themselves in stunted academic and behavioral expectations.

The remainder of this post is dedicated to teachers everywhere who are tempted to accept and/or make excuses for trauma-exposed children. At the risk of exposing an enormous burden, let me speak clearly. Educators–you and I–are the single most predictive factor in a child’s academic success. That’s a harsh reality. You, the teacher, are the ONLY hope some students have. How do I know? Because countless trauma-exposed, high achievers have overcome the very excuses behind which some teachers are tempted to hide, student circumstances. Consider the following success stories from four different arenas: medicine, sports, politics, and law. Individuals profiled all have two things in common–they experienced legitimate adversity, and they encountered at least one teacher who refused to make or accept valid excuses. The application for schools is clear–our capacity to succeed is inversely proportional to our tolerance for excuses, even those that could be justified due to childhood trauma.

Ben is a neurosurgeon and the former U. S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. I find neither accomplishment uniquely impressive. There are literally thousands of neurosurgeons in the U.S. alone, and there is no short supply of bureaucrats in the Beltway. What I find ultra impressive, however, is how public school changed the trajectory of his life. Consider that poverty-based trauma would have been an understandable and perfectly acceptable excuse for Ben’s teachers. This little black boy from the streets of Detroit was raised by an illiterate single mother because of a bigamist father. Nobody would have blamed Ben or his teachers for hiding behind his formidable circumstances. Poverty, after all, has likely built more Bridges to Nowhere than any other excuse. Ben’s teachers, as early as elementary school, acknowledged his adversity but admirably chose against excuses. Because of that decision, Ben made some choices of his own. He chose education instead of poverty. He chose to become a physician instead of a statistic. When he could have justifiably chosen an existence based on victimhood, he instead chose to become the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins when he was just 33 years old. Ben Carson chose to rely on his Gifted Hands (the title of his autobiography) instead of relying on the sympathy of others…because firm and demanding teachers encouraged him to do so.

Wilma was a three-time, Olympic gold medalist. She was also a premature baby, one of twenty-two siblings, a polio patient, a Scarlet Fever survivor, and a victim of segregation. Any of these traumas individually, not to mention their collective impact, would have served nicely as a sympathetic excuse for the educators in her life. Wilma’s teachers and coaches instead chose to look beyond her traumatic circumstances. Because they did, Wilma made some choices of her own. She chose Olympic medals over crutches, achievement over prejudice, and success over failure. Instead of building “monuments of nothingness” her teachers inspired her to build a legacy: three golds and one bronze medal, world records, and countless awards (two-time A.P. Woman Athlete of the Year, U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame Inductee, and recognition as the 41st Greatest Athlete of the 21st Century, according to ESPN). Still, her greatest legacy, in my opinion, happened in the classroom, not on the track. After all the fame and accomplishments, Wilma became an elementary school teacher. The “poor little crippled girl” from St. Bethlehem, Tennessee passed away in 1994. She now has roads, bridges, awards, and schools named after her. Wilma Rudolph has her own statue in Clarksville, Tennessee and her own U.S. Postal Service stamp. Interestingly, neither image acknowledges leg braces or other excuses. Neither did her teachers.

Diane is a Registered Nurse who served four terms in the United States House of Representatives. Because her parents were undereducated (Dad dropped out after sixth grade and Mom quit after ninth), she also spent her formative years in Baltimore’s public housing, shared a bed with two older brothers in a house on the wrong side of the tracks, and regularly heard from her mother that she would never be able to attend college. Fortunately for Diane, her high school guidance counselor, Mr. Whiting, decided that she did not have to be defined by the circumstantially traumatic hand she had been dealt. In a former Tennessean article, Diane recalls that Mr. Whiting “saw something in me I didn’t see in myself.” She goes on to say, “If it weren’t for him, I don’t think I would be where I am today.” When even her parents were willing to hide behind the Poverty Monument, Mr. Whiting taught Diane Black a most valuable lesson: “…everyone has God-given potential,” and “where you start in life does not determine where you end up.” Mr. Whiting acknowledged her trauma but stopped short of coddling practices. Because he did, Diane Black chose education, nursing, and public service.

Daniel is an electrical engineer by way of MIT (bachelor’s and master’s degrees) and a Doctor of Jurisprudence by way of Cal Berkeley. This attorney who now specializes in patent law and intellectual property rights was also a young Hispanic boy from the violent streets of East Los Angeles. Daniel’s math teacher, Mr. Escalante, chose to disregard the gang- and drug-related trauma embraced by some of Daniel’s other teachers. When asked about Mr. Escalante, Daniel doesn’t hesitate. “Everything I have right now I owe to him.” Clarifying Escalante’s impact even further, Daniel remarks, “I owe my life to him.” The odds were stacked against Daniel and the rest of his classmates, so few could blame the teachers who accepted the trauma for what it could be–roadblocks and dead ends. When most adults in Daniel’s life pointed him toward a Bridge to Nowhere paved by excuses, Mr. Escalante built a bridge of education over the roadblocks, and Daniel Castro followed it all the way to MIT and UC Berkeley. Garfield High’s most impactful teacher and the subject of the film Stand and Deliver, Jaime Escalante, refused to lower his expectations for traumatized students. Consequently, hundreds of underprivileged Latino students became attorneys, engineers, professors, and scientists.

Given these historical examples of perseverance in the face of legitimate trauma, we need to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: Would any of these success stories be possible in today’s climate of trauma-informed education? Great teachers acknowledge trauma and adverse circumstances for what they are–obstacles–and then they erect educational bridges over them built on high and unforgiving expectations. Well-intentioned, marginal teachers lower their academic and behavioral expectations because student trauma and tragedy tug at heartstrings. How tragic. Let’s stop loving our kids all the way to failure.

The trash heap of educational reforms is littered with decisions made by armchair educators far away from the very students impacted by those decisions. In Tennessee, like most other states, well-intentioned politicians regularly debate and codify impractical ideas that adversely impact public education. Soon after, unelected educational bureaucrats, far removed from the classroom, applaud these new laws, revise TDOE and TSBA policies, and chaos ensues. Perhaps the only thing that ever changes is the order of the nonsense. Sometimes the old switcheroo happens, where the bureaucrats initiate the madness by proposing the reforms that subsequently get codified by the politicians. Either way, it’s a public education tale as old as time, and it would be comical if it weren’t exceedingly problematic and increasingly detrimental to children.

The most recent example in Tennessee comes in the form of T.C.A 49-6-3115, more commonly referred to as the Third Grade Retention Law. The law does not automatically require retention for a 3rd grader who performs below proficient on the state’s annual reading test. The law simply targets students who perform below a threshold deemed acceptable by the state legislature and then requires those students to navigate a confusing flow chart of contingencies until they successfully check enough boxes to be promoted, contingencies that will presumably cure their perceived academic ailments and magically open the door to fourth grade success.

T.C.A 49-6-3115 was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly in 2021 and scheduled to take effect in school year 2022-2023. Educators were remarkably quiet in the days and months between the passage of the law and its implementation. Perhaps we all assumed that the state legislature would come to its collective senses. We were wrong, and the chaos has begun. Tennessee schools are currently scrambling in preparation to retain an estimated 65% of our current 3rd graders…or provide legally prescribed interventions to avoid The Great Retention.

In spite of this chaos, educators don’t have to wonder what the fallout from the retention law will look like on our campuses. We have TCAP data from both 2021 and 2022. Analyzing 3rd grade ELA test results for current 4th graders can provide administrators with a pretty clear idea of what we can expect with regard to how many students are in jeopardy of being retained. But analyzing both 3rd and 4th grade ELA test results for current 5th graders yields even better information. In other words, not only can we predict the practical fallout, we can also estimate the number of students who will be unnecessarily punished by the law.

Are legislators aware that some students have historically scored somewhere BELOW PROFICIENT as 3rd graders, and then AT OR ABOVE PROFICIENT as 4th graders? It’s a verifiable fact. Do these politicians understand that many students manage to achieve grade-level reading proficiency without the burdensome interventions now codified into state statute? And the back-to-back testing years of 2021 and 2022 are not anomalies as they pertain to this fact; consecutive testing cycles prior to the pandemic reveal similar patterns.

The relatively small sample size to which I have access as a building administrator provides an interesting opportunity for analysis, although it would be fairly difficult to extrapolate these data beyond the walls of our specific school. The diversity of public schools across the state—and even within the same district—makes it impractical to generalize my findings, although I suspect that most administrators would find something similarly alarming within their own buildings. Make no mistake, some students will be unnecessarily retained if this law is not changed or repealed. The findings for my school are summarized in the list below.

• Number of 5th graders currently enrolled: 137
• Number of regular ed 5th graders who took the ELA TCAP on this campus as both 3rd and 4th graders: 83
• Number of regular ed 5th graders who took the ELA TCAP as both 3rd and 4th graders and scored somewhere BELOW PROFICIENT as 3rd graders: 19
• Number of regular ed 5th graders who took the ELA TCAP as both 3rd and 4th graders and scored somewhere BELOW PROFICIENT as 3rd graders BUT AT OR ABOVE PROFICIENT as 4th graders: 7

At my school, in other words, if the retention law had been actionable in 2021, exactly 19 of my rising 4th graders would have been in jeopardy of retention. That number represents an entire class of retained students. More alarmingly, 7 of these 19 students (more than 36%) would have been mistakenly targeted, given their subsequent score of proficient (or better) on their 4th grade TCAPs. It is important to reiterate that these year-over-year score improvements occurred without the new interventions required by the retention law. The takeaway? Promotion and retention decisions should never be made based upon a single data point. Educators understand this, and that’s why these types of decisions are best made as close to the students as possible and in collaboration with parents.

The deeply flawed law we now know as T.C.A 49-6-3115 was debated and passed by elected officials on Capitol Hill, many of whom have their own children or grandchildren enrolled in private schools (and effectively insulated from their overreaching legislation). The bill was signed into law by our governor, a mechanical engineer by trade and a cattle farmer by the grace of God. And now the unelected and underpaid folks at the TDOE have been left to manage the confusion the law has created. It’s a sad but familiar pattern for Tennessee educators. The TDOE’s best attempts at damage control can be found in the form of an incomplete list of FAQs available here. District- and school-level educators likely have a few more FAQs, some of which will be shared in an upcoming blog post.

The optimal decisions for public school students are made as close to those students as possible. Parents and teachers are clearly the closest. Here in Tennessee, Capitol Hill and Andrew Johnson Tower—the places where laws and policies are enacted—are hundreds of miles away from many of the students impacted by these directives. What a shame.

To conclude for now, is anyone else in favor of reminding elected officials and bureaucrats that Tennessee students are better governed by the educators within their schools and their districts? When it comes to decision-making for Tennessee’s public schools, the proximity of the decision makers will always determine the efficacy of the decisions. It really is as simple as location, location, location.

A battle currently rages in America for the minds of the most innocent and impressionable among us, our children. The battlefields appear to be elementary school libraries, and the weapon of mass indoctrination appears to be literature. How tragic.

From a public school perspective, the raging debate over books has very little to do with the validity of the causes being portrayed in trendy children’s literature or the messages of humanity being communicated. Who among us would deny that police brutality and excessive force are real concerns? What educated person would claim that race relations in America need no further attention? These are fact-based challenges we face and social burdens we carry as adults. But why would we deliberately expose innocent children to these adult problems?

Should a first grader who dresses up like his SRO on Community Helper Day be exposed to a library book villifying this same community helper as a baton-swinging, minority-hating monster? Would we compose and illustrate a children’s book depicting all clergy as child molesting pedophiles because an extreme minority of priests and pastors molest children? Should we publish kids’ books about arsonists masquerading as firefighters? Does a child really need to know that some firefighters deliberately set the fires they are called to extinguish? I see very little difference between these extreme examples and A Place Inside of Me, the children’s book currently being challenged across America.

Most children are developmentally incapable of reconciling these contrasting images of community helpers. They can’t yet wrestle with the metaphor of one bad apple, much less the idea of a few bad police officers. Typical elementary kids understand “good guys,” and they know about “bad guys.” We shouldn’t expect them to grapple with the fact that these two groups sometimes overlap. Not yet, anyway. Internal battles of cognitive dissonance are better saved for adults with a fully developed frontal cortex.

Children in general will soon enough learn that some cops are bad, some clergy commit heinous acts, and some fireman are arsonists. They don’t need to learn these things in elementary school libraries or classrooms. Kids should spend their innocent years learning about honesty and compassion, about caterpillars and butterflies, about subjects and verbs. This fallen world will creep into their lives soon enough, unfortunately. The job of parents and teachers is to serve as gatekeepers, protecting children from the evils of depravity until we can no longer do so. Educators should love first and teach second, using age-appropriate resources and apolitical literature. Elementary school is the wrong place for politics and the wrong time for exposing innocent children to ugly adult problems. Are we really willing to sit idly while coordinated attempts are made to jade kids and jeopardize their innocence? Our kids need courageous gatekeepers now more than ever.

Just my three cents worth (adjusted for inflation).

One of my favorite parts of spring is The Kentucky Derby. I especially enjoy all the back stories of the owners, the jockeys, and the trainers. Most of all, though, I enjoy the stories of the horses themselves. This year’s Derby winner, Medina Spirit, has one of the best stories ever, not to mention a great deal in common with underprivileged students.

Medina Spirit’s mother, Mongolian Changa, had an average pedigree, a below average race history, and an early retirement courtesy of a tendon injury. His father, Protonico, was a rather unimpressive sire, and big-name breeders showed little interest in him. The two equine afterthoughts (and first-time parents) turned out to be a match made in horse heaven. Medina Spirit was born on April 5, 2018.

Mongolian Changa was initially incapable of producing the milk and colostrum her foal desperately needed, so Medina Spirit was forced to feed on frozen milk from another mare on the Florida farm. Medina Spirit was described as a playful and competitive colt, but he was sent to auction in January of 2019 at the same time his mother was sold to another breeder. The colt was bought by a single bidder at a back-ring auction for yearlings with weak pedigrees. Medina Spirit was sold for the $1,000 minimum.

This past Saturday, the $1,000 yearling (and 12-1 underdog) led The Kentucky Derby from start to finish, beating million-dollar competitors with much more impressive pedigrees. The first-place payout was $1.86 million. Medina Spirit’s trainer, Bob Baffert, said it best: “That little horse has so much heart. He doesn’t know how much he cost.”

What a powerful reminder for educators. Pedigrees are not predictions. Some of our students experience inauspicious starts, survive challenging adult interactions, and grow alongside much more “pedigreed” peers. Those circumstances don’t have to define them, though. In fact, one caring adult can help a kid overcome all of them. Imagine what an entire team of caring adults can do.

No need to imagine–schools help underdog kids overcome circumstances every day. Educators change the world, one long shot at a time.

Let’s get back to school. Let’s get back to friendships, potato smiles, and learning. It’s time for students to enjoy some normalcy in a fun and familiar place. For many children, life away from school is neither normal, nor fun, and it would be a mistake for us to presume otherwise. Classrooms were built for learning and laughter; taxes were paid to educate kids in the most optimal way. It’s time for the majority of us to answer the school bell in person, at least those who can safely do so.

Clearly we face a new threat these days. Everyone realizes that pandemic risks can’t be completely controlled. If we could control them, they would cease to fit the very definition of the word “risk.” These threats can be managed, however, much like all other risks students face. Risk Management departments are pretty common. Risk Elimination departments don’t exist. And so it is in public education.

Schools don’t attempt to mitigate every risk with a one-size-fits-all approach. One-size-fits-all fits nobody well. Protecting kids from allergic reactions to food or bee stings, for example, looks far different than protecting them from playground accidents or crosswalk dangers. Johnny doesn’t forego recess because a bee sting could be catastrophic for him, and Susie doesn’t skip lunch because her peanut allergy produces anaphylactic shock. Billy uses the crosswalk safely every day, thanks to trained  school staff, and in spite of 350 rolling threats known as automobiles. Given the multitude of daily risks, schools remain statistically one of the safest environments in our culture because of caring adults who help students navigate threats. Our collective track record is nothing short of remarkable, and COVID-19 is not likely to change that. Schools have been managing ever-evolving risks since the days of one-room schoolhouses.

Certainly, school year 2020-2021 will be an experience unlike any other. Nonetheless, our students should still experience school year 2020-2021. These experiences should ideally be as close to normal as safely possible. We can implement common sense, protective measures for those students who attend in person. We can even provide virtual instruction for those students who don’t come to campus. Simulating social interactions in a virtual environment, on the other hand, is simply impossible. And social interactions are a critical part of the learning experience at all grade levels. Brick and mortar classrooms remain the best places for learning about core subjects, related arts, and social dynamics.

We need students back on campus. Our approach to risk management, like our approach to instruction, must remain differentiated. I believe it will. Do students and staff experience risks on a normal school day? Of course they do; however, the countless benefits of school, generally speaking, outweigh the costs of assuming those risks. That was true before this pandemic, and it holds true even now in these strange times with strange new threats. Let’s answer that school bell and get as many kids as possible back on campus, where learning is optimal and safety has always been the top priority. Besides, I can’t eat all these potato smiles by myself.

Like many families, the Duncans’ holiday routines and traditions are borderline sacred. Mother’s Day is for celebrating Mildred with flowers, cards, and a family meal. Father’s Day, with the exception of the flowers, is no different and allows us to honor Leroy. We gather for ham rolls on Easter, and we grill burgers on July 4th. Christmas Eve is for exchanging gifts, and New Year’s Day is for black eyed peas. This year, however, the gifts remain wrapped and the black eyed peas are still in the package, as I write from Mom’s bedside at St. Thomas Hospital. She was admitted the Friday before Christmas and the new year finds her still recovering. As it turns out, Mom got a pacemaker for Christmas and extended care for an intestinal obstruction. Christmas 2018 has been, well, different.

The enemy tries to convince me that different is bad. The Holy Spirit inspires me to believe otherwise. It’s hard to feel sorry for my family when other families would love to spend just one more Christmas with a lost loved one, inside a hospital or anywhere else. It’s difficult to gripe and moan about spending the holidays in a hospital room while service men and women spend months and even years separated from loved ones. The enemy tempts me to turn this holiday season into a Hee Haw skit . . . “Gloom, despair, and agony on me; deep, dark depression, excessive misery. If it weren’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me.” But what the enemy intends for harm, the Lord intends for good. The devil reveals a distorted perspective intended to steal Christmas, kill my family’s joy, and destroy our hope. But the devil is a liar.

God provides, through the lens of faith, a much clearer perspective. Mom’s sickness has brought unexpected blessings. Christmas 2018 has enabled my sisters and me to spend countless hours one-on-one with Mom. Together, we have enjoyed deep conversations. We have watched The Price is Right, Rachael Ray, and Charles Stanley sermons. Mom has kept us laughing with her quick wit and too many one liners to remember. Once when I asked her how she was doing, she said, “I’m stretched out on this bed like a new dollar.” After kitchen staff brought in her clear liquid breakfast, she excitedly proclaimed, “That’s too much for an elephant to eat!” Still the funniest comment came while we were watching The Young and the Restless, the “story” Mom has watched for more than 40 years. “There’s that Victoria,” she said. “She’s got about three men on the hook, and I don’t know which one she’s going to pick!” We shared a long laugh after that one.

There have been good days and bad days this Christmas season, but all days have offered blessings that would have been overlooked if we had chosen the enemy’s doom and gloom perspective. As believers, we have an alternative. Believers are not commanded to give thanks FOR all things, but we are commanded to give thanks IN all things. That perspective enables us to give thanks for several specific things in the midst of this particular challenge: days upon days of precious time with Mom; a revived prayer life; and the beautiful blessing of seeing Mom love on and minister to the staff who have provided her care. Her hospital door is a revolving one, with visits from nurses and techs who aren’t even assigned to her that particular day. Mom is a 78 year-old rock star at St. Thomas because nobody has a clearer perspective than her. She oozes the love of Christ.

Finally, my family has been reminded of a few important truths through Mom’s hospital stay. We have been reminded that traditions are less important than those with whom they are shared. We have been reminded that nothing is more precious than time spent with loved ones. Most importantly, we have been reminded that we don’t have to believe the enemy’s lies. The Duncans would, of course, choose Mom’s health over the hidden blessings of a hospital stay. But if the former is not possible, the latter should at least be recognized, if not cherished. What the enemy intends for harm, the Lord intends for good. No, we aren’t thankful for Mom’s sickness, but we have chosen to give thanks through it, as the Good Lord commands. And He is ever faithful.

Last night something strange happened. I watched a regular season hockey game on TV in its entirety. To make sure I experienced the totality of the event, I watched the pre-game, the post-game, and the intermission reports. Stranger still, this was a Thursday night when I could have been—normally would have been—watching the Philadelphia Eagles at the Carolina Panthers. That’s right, I chose to watch grown men on ice skates (okay, the Stars vs. the Predators) instead of an NFL game between two teams that were leading their respective divisions. I chose the NHL over the NFL last night, and it was absolutely magnificent. Surely this is a sign of the Apocalypse.

I was angry the day the Predators showed up in Nashville. As a basketball junkie in a city with a shiny new arena, I was admittedly still bitter that Nashville had been unsuccessful in bringing the NBA’s Sacramento Kings to Music City in 1996. “Great,” I thought, “here come the ice skating Europeans, Russians, and Canadians.” It wasn’t any kind of cultural prejudice—it’s just not easy to cheer for dudes whose names are impossible to pronounce playing a sport I had never played. Understand that I didn’t hate hockey. I supported it…sort of.

The EA Sports NHL game was my second favorite to play on my SEGA, behind only Madden NFL. That made me a hockey supporter, right? Heck, I even went to hockey games. In the early to mid 90s, my wife and I would cheer on Nashville’s minor league hockey team, the Knights, in person at the UFMA (Unidentified Flying Municipal Auditorium). Fresh out of college and newly married with no kids, these were double date nights with dear friends—friends who also went to church with a UFMA usher. Don’t judge me. Sure we got in free, but I paid for every single bag of deep-fried mini-donuts I bought from the concession guy, and I ate thousands of those things. Think round, bite-sized funnel cakes. Whatever I didn’t eat, I generally wore home. Clearly, I was a hockey concession supporter at the very least.

Fast-forward a few years. The Predators first home game was October 10, 1998 in the Gaylord Entertainment Center, affectionately referred to by locals as the GEC. Although I attended some games at the GEC the first few years, I generally did so imagining—wishing even—I was going to an NBA game instead. How could we waste that beautiful arena? The Hockey 101 segments on the jumbotron in those days were thoroughly embarrassing. Thanks to my SEGA, I knew every hockey rule there was to know, but apparently most Nashvillians did not. Looking back, I suppose I was a hockey snob if not a hockey fan.

The hype was definitely palpable that first year, but October 10, 1998 was not the day Nashville became a hockey town. How could it be? The Houston Oilers had relocated to Nashville and were playing at Vanderbilt, just a few blocks away from the GEC. Worse for the Predators, Adelphia Coliseum, a 69,000 seat football stadium, was being built just across the Cumberland River from the GEC. Thanks to a Music City Miracle and a Super Bowl run in 2000, Tennessee’s new NFL team, the Titans, had captivated the collective interest of what was already a dyed-in-the-wool football town. Nashville was absolutely rabid over the Titans. So rabid in fact, the city threw a Super Bowl LOSER parade…and more than 20,000 people attended…in 33 degree weather. A teacher at the time, I had students skip school to attend the parade. I excused their absences.

If never the most popular team in town, the Predators most definitely have always enjoyed a cult-like following throughout the team’s existence in Nashville. Home sellouts were never really uncommon, and Predators sweaters were regularly spotted around town. The NHL had carved out a nice little niche in Music City, but the team played second fiddle to the Titans. Nobody disputed that. The new millennium provided some special days in Predators history, to be sure. Much more nostalgic than anything else, none of the following events represent the day Nashville became a hockey town. All of these milestones happened while Music City was preoccupied with its beloved Titans. Until the day it wasn’t.

• October 7, 2000 – Predators win season opener against the Penguins in Tokyo, Japan
• December 6, 2001 – Predators record 100^th franchise win against the Senators
• April 7, 2004 – Predators play first playoff game, a 3-1 loss against the Red Wings
• April 11, 2004 – Predators log first playoff victory, a 2-1 win against the Red Wings
• July 19, 2007 – Predators fans rally to keep team in Nashville after owner, Craig Leipold, flirts with multiple buyers (7,500 fans attend, not counting George Plaster)
• April 24, 2011 – Predators record first playoff series win, beating the Ducks in six games
• April 20, 2012 – Predators win first round series for second consecutive year, beating the Red Wings in five games
• April 20, 2017 – Predators record first playoff series sweep against Blackhawks
• May 7, 2017 – Predators win a second-round playoff series for first time ever, defeating the Blues in six games.
• May 22, 2017 – Predators become Western Conference Champions for the first time, defeating the Ducks in six games
• May 29, 2017 – Predators play in first Stanley Cup Finals game, losing 5-3 to the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Penguins
• June 3, 2017 – Predators notch first Stanley Cup Finals win, beating the Penguins 5-1 at home.

Loyal Predators fans remember most, if not all, of these milestones. Many likely remember where they were when the team accomplished these things. But a dedicated subculture hardly a hockey town makes. The great irony in this story is that Nashville became a hockey town on a 90-degree day when the Predators were playing a meaningless preseason game in Columbus, Ohio some 377 miles away from Music City. In fact, the day Nashville became a hockey town had nothing to do with hockey at all. On a hot Sunday, September 24, 2017, the Tennessee Titans refused to take the field for the National Anthem before their home game against the Seattle Seahawks. While 53 misguided players and an entire coaching staff holed up in the locker room in the bowels of Nissan Stadium, Nashville’s sports culture changed forever.

Music City is now a hockey town, and a mediocre Titans team (whose last playoff win came in 2003 with Steve McNair at QB) should consider itself fortunate and humbly pick up the second fiddle. The funny thing about the ice-skating Europeans, Russians, and Canadians is that they all stand for our National Anthem, likely recognizing the uniqueness of their American opportunity and possibly even remembering real oppression in some of their home countries.

On September 24, 2017, while a group of under-achieving, overpaid football-players-turned-social-activists chose to disrespect America, grown men on ice skates whose names we can’t pronounce stole the collective heart of Music City. Like it or not, Nashville is now a hockey town. And that is the real Music City Miracle.

John Williams was a military veteran. That wasn’t the most interesting thing about him, though, because John Williams was also homeless. I met him on a cold January night many years ago when I picked him up from downtown Nashville. He was short in stature and had a head full of silver hair. He had only two other things with him that night, as I remember: a trash bag containing everything he owned and a nasty cough. It was the kind of cough that makes people wonder if something is medically wrong. Still, I drove away unconcerned with Mr. Williams in my back seat. My Sunday School class sponsored Room in the Inn twice each winter. John certainly wasn’t the only homeless man we had encountered with a wicked cough. He would, however, become the most memorable.

Room in the Inn is a ministry partnership between the organization that bears its name and local churches scattered throughout the Greater Nashville area. The ministry itself indirectly provides a multitude of resources for Nashville’s homeless population, including food, shelter, and job training. The only thing directly provided by Room in the Inn is Christ’s love—the only provision actually needed. John Williams was one of eight homeless men assigned to Long Hollow Baptist that Friday night—one of eight men entrusted to the overnight care of the Jon Duncan/Wayne Smith Small Group. If Room in the Inn leadership had recognized the dysfunction that was the “Jon Wayne Gang” they likely would have offered services to us on the spot. We affectionately referred to the class as the Land of Misfit Toys. Class members were in their 30s, 40s, or 50s and had children of all ages. The only thing some of us had in common was Jesus. But that common denominator meant that we enjoyed being together, and we enjoyed spending a Friday night serving those the world had forgotten.

I don’t remember very many details of that night prior to 12:30 a.m. I’m sure we had a delicious dinner with our guests, like always. Salad, pasta, and vegetable casseroles were the usual, and the men always loved the food. Sometimes we served dinner to the homeless on china with actual silverware. One or more of our guests would usually remark that it was way better than the pizza they had eaten the night before at a church whose name they had forgotten in a suburb they couldn’t remember. Coffee was a necessity. We typically had no scripture reading, no praise songs, and no formal invitation. The only prayer was usually a blessing over the food. In fact, the only thing we directly provided was Christ’s love—the only provision actually needed. One or two of the fellows were usually big talkers, but the remainder were either quite introverted or embarrassed by their need, content to go to bed immediately after eating. As I recall, John Williams finished dinner and went directly to the mattress he had claimed immediately upon his arrival. He was asleep on the vestibule floor by 9:00, not to be heard from again for three-and-a-half hours.

Wayne and I were settling into our makeshift beds in the church lobby, light green leather benches that looked far more comfortable than they actually were. We didn’t complain. Nothing like first-world suffering for Jesus, right? The lights were out, the crowd long gone since dinner cleanup had concluded. Several class members would return the following morning for breakfast duties and to tidy up after our guests. We had already played “the last word”—a ridiculous game in which Wayne and I deliberately tried to out-weird each other by saying the most random word before falling asleep. The last word was probably biscuit, nectar, or something similarly stupid, funny only to weirdos like us.

Although I don’t remember the last word of the night, I will never forget the next word we heard—INNKEEPER!! The voice sounded like someone who wanted to shout but didn’t have the lung capacity to do so. INNKEEPER!! We weren’t dreaming. One of our homeless guests, John Williams, attempted to call for help a few more times while Wayne and I just looked at each other, trying to determine who fit the description of innkeeper. Nothing like this had ever happened when we hosted the homeless before. It was supposed to be a tidy little package deal—pick up homeless men, feed them dinner, provide a shower and a bed, feed them breakfast, and drop them off in Nashville the next morning. In fact, I remember sharing with our class after we hosted a previous time that it all “just seems too easy.” Normally, the morning drivers just dropped off the men back at the ministry on Drexel Street and returned immediately to our comfortable, suburban lives in time for ball games, naps, or family time. My point was that being the hands and feet of Christ didn’t just happen in scheduled, twelve-hour increments, like hosting the homeless. “It just seems too easy” turned out to be prophetic words. The Lord has a sense of humor.

INNKEEPER!! We both incoherently concluded that Mr. Williams needed our help, so we staggered to our feet, still unsure of who wore that official title. When we got to Mr. Williams, he was struggling to breathe and told us that he was having chest pains. This dude needed a doctor, not an innkeeper, and certainly not two public school teachers. We called 9-1-1. The paramedics arrived quickly, did some preliminary diagnosis work, and wheeled John Williams out on a stretcher to the waiting ambulance. I followed in my car, leaving Wayne-the-Innkeeper in charge of the remaining seven men. Selfishly, it seemed like the easier job. The paramedics were taking care of Mr. Williams, and Wayne was taking care of the other guys. I had very little responsibility. I’m pretty good at very little responsibility.

At the ER, I watched just outside an observation room as a SWAT team of physicians and nurses swarmed the old man hooking up machines and asking questions. This was bad. The pace of the work became more frantic, and the door to the room was suddenly closed. This was worse. Unsure of what to do next, I found the waiting room and sat there for what seemed like an eternity. What was my next move? Who did I need to call? At some point, a doctor emerged and asked, “Is the family of John Williams here?” I was the only person in the waiting room. Bracing myself for the unthinkable, I muttered something like, “I’m just the innkeeper.” I managed to explain that John was a homeless man whom I had met only seven hours earlier. I told the doctor that he was part of a larger group my church was hosting overnight. The doctor said that Mr. Williams had suffered a serious heart attack but was now stable and would hopefully recover. “Now what?” I mumbled. The doctor said John had to be admitted to the hospital, but that wasn’t really what I meant. I’m not sure why, but I asked if I could see the old man, and the doctor led me to the room.

Mr. Williams was partially reclining in the bed and wearing no shirt. He had wires connected to his chest and an oxygen tube inserted into his nose. He was sweating profusely, his silver hair drenched, and still struggling to breathe. I guess this is what “stable” looks like, I thought. As I asked questions he was either unable or unwilling to answer, I wiped his brow with some tissues I found in the room, admittedly angry that a loved one was not available to do so. God had never asked me to be so personally involved in the life of a stranger…until the night He did. There literally was nobody else to help this man. As I headed back to the church later that morning, it occurred to me that innkeeper sounded much better than caretaker. Caretaker had a permanent ring to it.

Room in the Inn had no record of relatives for John Williams, so the Jon Wayne Gang became his de facto family during his hospital stay. Several class members visited him a few times during his recovery. We learned that he had served in the military and bounced around from city to city after his enlistment was over. He had worked mostly in food services but had never managed to scrape out much more than a minimal existence. There was no wife, no kids. I asked him if he knew Jesus, and he assured me that he had at some point in the past. “I have backslid,” he told me ashamedly. I assured him that I didn’t know any believers who had not backslid at some point in their walk. He seemed relieved to hear that and assured me that he had, in fact, professed faith in Christ at some point in his past. Mortality has a way of making men open to these kinds of conversations. I gave him a Bible only to learn that he was borderline illiterate. When he asked me to read it to him, I asked him what he wanted to hear about. He couldn’t decide, so I gave him the first three choices that popped into my head: Christ’s birth, His death and resurrection, or the early church. “I want to hear about the early church,” he said. “I already know about that other stuff.” I chuckled and began reading from the book of Acts, while he listened intently.

Over the next few days, John’s health improved. I brought him a portable CD player along with CDs of our pastor’s sermon series, Written in Red. He needed a brief tutorial on how to operate the CD player. Finally something I felt adequate to do. It never really occurred to me that the old man, now a heart patient, would soon be released and would resume his life on the streets of Nashville or some other city. Needless to say, I was completely unprepared when the hospital called with discharge orders. I was even less prepared for the list of medications that Mr. Williams now needed.

I remember it was absolutely frigid the day I picked John up from the hospital. My car heater was cranking full blast, as I drove this homeless veteran and his unfilled prescriptions to what felt like his funeral. “How can I just drop this guy off like nothing has happened?” I wondered. In a state of concealed panic, I called a relatively new class member, Kevin Eidson, who had helped us serve John and the other homeless men a couple of weeks earlier. Didn’t I remember Kevin mentioning that he was a pharmacist or something similar? My phone call interrupted Kevin’s lunch with his wife, but he graciously agreed to meet me immediately, and I drove directly to the restaurant. I showed him the stack of prescriptions, and they were miraculously filled free of charge within an hour. This pharmacist who had only recently started attending our small group turned out to be the Executive Director of the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy. God is so awesome.

Our class collected enough money to rent a room for Mr. Williams at the Hendersonville InTown Suites, where he stayed for several weeks and ate food lovingly supplied by class members. Several of us visited him regularly, but never for very long. He seemed to enjoy having control of his very own heater and kept the room like a sauna while he lounged in shorts and a t-shirt in early February. During Mr. Williams’ recovery, Jeff Morris–our church’s Room in the Inn coordinator–worked tirelessly to piece together a work history. John was entitled to military retirement, along with Social Security benefits. Apparently Mr. Williams had never stayed in one place long enough for anyone to help him. In fairness, maybe he didn’t want to be helped. Heart attacks aren’t always bad things, I guess. What the enemy intends for harm, the Lord intends for good. God showed off again with Social Security payments that began in record time, not to mention retroactive benefits that had accrued for several years and were paid in lump sum. Jeff had also managed to find a permanent home for Mr. Williams at Christian Towers, a retirement community in Gallatin, Tennessee. We could all envision John walking down to the town square daily for coffee with new friends and food that he could now afford on his own. He seemed excited, too.

On the day Jeff Morris arrived to take Mr. Williams to his new home, the happy story abruptly ended. Instead of finding John packed and ready to go, Jeff found him collapsed on the shower floor of his rented room. A brain aneurism killed John Williams before he could even begin his new life. The day he was supposed to move into his new home in Gallatin turned out to be the day he moved into his permanent home with Jesus. I don’t think he minded.

On this Memorial Day, I remember a veteran who was forgotten by the very country he served. John Williams defended his country honorably and then proceeded to live for decades with the dishonor of homelessness. I find comfort in the fact that for a few short weeks at the end of his life, John experienced the love of Christ exhibited by a group of unsuspecting Christians who thought we were just feeding eight homeless dudes some pasta and giving them a place to sleep on a cold winter night. The dishonored Mr. John Williams was ironically buried with full military honors and laid to rest at the Middle Tennessee State Veteran’s Cemetery in Pegram, Tennessee. No relatives could be found to attend the funeral. Mr. Williams is survived by two clueless innkeepers and a small group of believers who smothered him with Christ’s love, if only for a few weeks. We are all looking forward to seeing him again someday.

My fifteen-year-old daughter recently experienced her first plane ride. She flew from Nashville to Anaheim with a brief layover in Las Vegas. Those few hours of travel time were less anxious for her mom and me than they otherwise would have been, had she been flying alone. She and around thirty classmates, many of whom I have known for years, made the trip with trustworthy adult chaperones. No big deal. Still, there was that minor uneasiness any mom or dad would feel sending their child 36,000 feet above without direct parental supervision.

After boarding, she sent us a text to let us know that she had gotten a window seat, even though she boarded as part of the “B” group. Her excitement reminded me of my first flight many, many years ago and my surprise to find that Earth looks much different from above. I remember being shocked at the efficiency with which mankind had managed to subdivide God’s creation. Geometry took on a new meaning for me that day, as I peered out the small window to see squares, rectangles, and circles in various shades of green. In fact, the blues of the water seemed to be the only creation unmodified by property owners and surveyors. But even some of the blues were manmade shapes. God supplied the water, true, but humans still managed to figure out how to shape the reservoirs in many cases. Isn’t it interesting how the created insist upon helping the Creator?

I wonder if God gets a chuckle at our attempts to partition our lives into convenient little categories. The sectioned and quarantined landscapes that surprised me during my first flight are symbolic of my attempts to manage my dual citizenship – – being in this world, not of this world. How many of us treat our Heavenly Father like a neighbor, establishing property lines and building privacy fences? Even as believers, we work deliberately and strategically to partition our lives into spiritual zones – – a little Jesus here, but not there; a tidy tree line separating our Sundays from the other days; a neat little fence row to separate secular me from spiritual me. We convince ourselves that entertainment, particularly music and movies, requires spiritual subdivision. Many of us, if only for a brief season, have attempted to check God at the door to our workplaces and schools. Or we might have semi-consciously declared, “I’ll be right back, Lord,” as we disappeared through the gate to a less-than-Christlike event or crowd. And what about the online acreage of our lives? How many of us have attempted to post a “DO NOT ENTER” sign at the entrance of the virtual “Back 40” we call the internet. As if we can contain the Omnipresent. Isn’t it interesting how the created insist upon helping the Creator?

I would imagine that God is indeed disappointed at believers’ feeble attempts to compartmentalize our lives. He created us for companionship, so it is undoubtedly hurtful when we claim Him as our Father but occasionally insist on distancing ourselves from Him, like a middle schooler who asks to be dropped off as far away from school as possible. When God looks at our lives from 36 gazillion feet, does He see our virtual fence rows and imaginary tree lines, or does He see uninterrupted green pastures of faith hemmed in by only His still waters?

Be the God of my entire life, Lord. Remove the fence rows and tree lines. It’s all yours, anyway. “Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best Thought, by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my Light.”