Before I tell you what is sitting at the corner of the big wooden desk in Room 304 of the local elementary school, I want to talk about rules.
Yes, I know: rules stink. Ask anybody. Ask me. Much of what drives us—the little devil at our shoulder that most times shouts a little louder than the angel sitting at the other—has rule breaking at its core. Rules are made to be broken. Color outside the lines. Right?
I don’t know anyone who likes rules. Then again, I don’t know anyone who thinks the world would be a better place without them.
In Room 304, this rule reigns supreme: you must have a pencil. No excuses. The pencil is mandatory. In an age when computers and tablets and smartphones rule, the world inside Room 304 is much more tangible. More basic. Work is done with paper and pencil. Every subject, every day. And as these bits of wood and graphite are both plentiful and exceedingly cheap, this seems like a rule easily enough followed.
You would be wrong.
These young elementary school kids, they don’t care about pencils.
Pencils don’t even enter into their minds. And so class must be interrupted each day as thirty children scramble to beg and borrow and steal something to write with in order that they may learn all about nouns and fractions and Chief Powhatan. And the teacher must punish the most egregious of offenders by sending them to a lonely back table for a punishment known as Think Time, which includes the filling out their name, crime, and reason for committing said crime on a single sheet of paper.
They never forget their Nike shoes. Or their Pokemons. And don’t even think they’d come to school without their iPhones. But a pencil? Please.
Kids these days, right? Sometimes all you can do is pray.
The worst of these offenders is a little girl who sits in the back of the second row. Quiet kid. Average student, though barely. She struggles. Doesn’t seem to study for her tests, and you can forget about any homework assignments. Jesus will come back before she remembers to bring a pencil to class.
It all got to be too much three days ago. Math class, and would you know it—no pencil again. To the back table she goes to fill out her Think Time report (she’s an expert at this, trust me).
She fills in her name, first and last.
Under “Reason”: I forgot my pensil.
Under “Why”: I got up lat. I had to get my bruther up. I had to get my sistr up. Mommie at wurk. Daddie don’t life with us. I had to get the dog up. The dog puked. My bruther cryed. My sistr spiled her milk. I cleened it up. I cleened my sistr. My dog puked agin. We went on the bus layte. I forgot my pensil.
Kids these days, right? Sometimes all you can do is pray.
I don’t think I need to tell you what went through the teacher’s mind when that confession was turned in. Teachers know. They hear the stories of students too poor to eat and with mommas hooked on meth and daddies gone to jail, fist-sized bruises blamed on rickety steps and half-shut doors. Teachers know, friend. They know and it breaks their hearts. I know this as fact, because I’m married to one.
That is why you will now find at the corner of the big wooden desk in Room 304 a ceramic container daily stocked with dozens of freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils, and a note taped to the front that reads “Grace Cup.” Because we all need rules, but sometimes those rules must be forgiven.
Today you will walk out your door into a world teeming with people carrying worries and wounds you will never see. A great many of those people will be so kind of heart that they set aside their troubles long enough to nod or smile or say hello. A few will even help you in some way large or small.
But there will be some as well who won’t follow the rules of Please and Thank you and Have a good day. They will be grumpy and mean. They will do horrible things. They will make you mourn the state of things.
That’s why my advice to you is carry a Grace Cup of your own. Dip into it frequently and as needed. For others, and for yourself, too. Because it is a hard business, this thing called living. Sometimes the dog pukes.
