Author: Rebecca

I wrote this post 3 years ago, and many things have changed. Children have grown, new loved ones have joined us while others have gone on. Mama went on ahead of us last year, though we still feel her near, see and hear her in our hearts and in the faces and voices of loved ones who remember her with smiles and laughter.

But yesterday, Christmas Eve, this post kept surfacing in my mind, so I wanted to share it with you again. The Magi, as you all know, were the three kings who brought gifts to a baby in a manger in Bethlehem ~ spices and incense and gold, the story goes. But the true gift, symbolized by those and the ones we give to each other, isn’t one that can spoil or be used up or melted down.

May you be blessed by the true gift of the Magi, today and every day of the year.

____________________

November, 2010

Today is my beloved’s birthday, and this year, for the first time in a long time, I’d bought something to give to him on his birthday specifically for his birthday. Not that we don’t buy each other things, but up until recently we felt we really couldn’t afford to give each other birthday, anniversary, christmas gifts etc.

I put the emphasis on “we felt” because that was exactly what it was: a feeling. A belief. And one of the worst beliefs one can harbor.

But this year, I ordered some things for him online (which will get here a week late because somebody left it until the last minute ~ hmm, now who could that be?) and went to the mall to pick up a couple of other gifts for him, a chore that was lightened considerably for me (I hate going to the mall) and made much more fun by having some of my girls along.

So this morning, we woke relatively early for what is often the only day of the week we get to sleep in, and he got up and went to make the coffee as he usually does. I slept for a bit longer, knowing he likes at least a few minutes to himself when he gets up in the morning, and because I wanted him to think I was only making the bed and whatnot while I folded together his sweatshirt and the bob marly tee I’d gotten at the mall, and wrapped a bright ribbon around the “package” they made, tucking a new lighter I’d gotten him under the ribbon.

As I came down the stairs with it, he said good morning, with his back to me (his computer faces the stairs and he was on it), and I said good morning and how good the coffee smelled. Then, do you know what my dear love said he wanted for his birthday?

“Today is my birthday and I want to make one birthday request,” he said, still not looking at me.

I said “What’s that, my love?” with a smile in my voice as he turned and saw the gift for him in my hands. He frowned at me, then saw the lighter tied into the bow and laughed (it’s a joke between us how he’s always stealing my lighters ~ and then losing them).

But after he’d opened his gift and said thank you, he said: “but you know what my real birthday wish is? Next payday I want to put away $100 toward your iPod (that he’s planning to buy me for Christmas). I don’t want to get to Christmas and have you decide there’s some reason we can’t afford to get you an iPod.”

A legitimate worry, because it’s a bad habit of mine (or it used to be) to buy things they want for people I love and then (since I paid the  bills and handled the money and therefore knew “better” uses for it) basically deny them the same pleasure because whatever it was was “too expensive.” It’s a habit I learned from my mama, who still does it to this day, and one, I’m sorry to say, I passed on to some of my children. I wish I had known better before, and I hope they learn better before their little ones are old enough to start doing the same.

I say that because I also woke up with the sadness and worry, which is a constant thread that lingers behind everything else that takes up my days, about a very sad situation that’s going on between two people I love. A large part of the problem is that one of the two sacrifices most of the things that one wants and some of the things that one needs, even things that are medically necessary, for the other and their children, while the other does not think to do those things until it’s perhaps too late, and perhaps worse, doesn’t even acknowledge the sacrifice.

Now, I didn’t cut off my hair to buy him a fob for his beloved pocket watch, and he didn’t sell his watch to buy combs for my hair, and perhaps it’s just because the holidays are coming up, but it made me think of the O’ Henry story, this modern day gift of the magi: that my love’s first thought on his birthday was of something he wants to give to me.

Yes, parents sacrifice for their kids, that’s part of loving your children and teaching them to do the same when they grow up and have kids of their own. But another lesson children need to see and internalize to be happy in love when they’re grown is this: that lovers who truly love one another not only sacrifice for each other, but each also thinks of the other’s needs and wants first, and in so doing, shows that he or she loves the other more than him or herself.

That is the true gift of the magi.

Here, this morning, it’s grey with the promise of snow in the color of the sky, or perhaps just of a cold misty-rain like we had last night. Either way, I’m off to look up the showtimes and ticket availability for Harry Potter today, and then to do one thing and another before we go.

I don’t know what it’s like where you are ~ but I hope that inside, at least, it’s bright and warm.

_________

“Sounds like a revival,” Scott says when Marty has “Holly Holy” played for his entrance-into-the-arena song – and, as it was no doubt meant to be, that statement is prophetic. An old fashioned revival is a apt metaphor for the re-igniting of spirit that takes place in Scott and flows out from him to inspire everyone in his sphere. In case you couldn’t tell, Here Comes the Boom, totally rocks the teacher-movie.

In that fight Scott (Kevin James) knocks out the leprechaun-haired fighter that stole his entrance song, and that win, lucky punch or not, is the turning point, the beginning of the revival of everything Scott once believed in, the things that made him become a teacher in the first place. In a casual conversation with Bella (Salma Hayek) the next day, he defines the problems with a system that says “you can’t speed up to help the gifted ones, you can’t slow down to help the slower ones” illustrating how easy it is to become disillusioned and give up ~ to stagnate ~ when one works in a model that requires of teachers not that they share their energy and enthusiasm but only that they move the students through like “cattle.” He hits all the marks in the space of about 30 seconds, and in so doing, defines the real problem.

He doesn’t say everything right, but he says the right things
Disillusionment with an antiquated educational model that rewards uniformity and does everything it can to stamp out the original and unique (which it, simultaneously, claims to covet and admire) isn’t a new concept, and Scott’s vocalization of it isn’t especially eloquent ~ except, somehow, it is.

Ditto his observation to Malia’s father that his problems with his business are his, not his daughter’s, and, to the principal, that this (mixed martial arts competitions for money) wasn’t “plan A” ~  even if those statements are followed with “now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to teach and then I have to roll around with a sweaty guy from Holland.” (You recognize, immediately, the what the…? look in his eyes as what he just said replays in his mind ~ well, you do if you’re me and things don’t always come out of your mouth the way you lined them up in your head.)

“All that decays . . . can be restored”
It’s no coincidence that the content of that next class is a discussion of “what happens to a stagnant cell?” or that the method of teaching is a return to the unconventional, and to the energy and enthusiasm with which Scott entered in to this profession. It’s the beginning of the restoration ~ “the way a cut heals” ~  for the music program and Marty’s job, yes, but those practical considerations almost become secondary as you watch Scott come back to life and the ripple effect his own return from stagnation has on everyone around him. “And when all the cells work together? [. . . ] The entire system is healed.”

Marty’s “you can quit right now” speech gives me chills
Before the final round of his big MMA fight, when Scott feels that he may not be able to finish, Marty (Henry Winkler) shows Scott what he can’t see for himself (illustrated, physically, by his blurred vision): that he’s already accomplished what is most important. He has done what teachers are meant to do. On the heels of that revelation, whether or not he wins, whether or not he gets the money to save Marty’s job ~ none of that matters. The “system” has been healed, and living, will find a way to continue.

“Where I am, what I am, what I believe in… Holly holy….”
There’s a lot more here, and so much of it inspiring and funny and heartwarming ~ but, as much as I love being the person who turned someone on to a great movie, I try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, so you get to have the surprises and laughs and welling emotion as they were meant to come.

And I definitely won’t deny you the wry delight of recognizing for yourself the several nods to the Rocky movies. I’ll also leave it as an exercise for the student to mine the wealth of layered meaning and story and popular culture ~ the performances turned in by Bas Rutten (Niko) and Charice (Malia) that literally sing, for instance ~ along with the metaphors, and microcosm-to-macrocosm foreshadowing, all delivered with the indelible stamp of everyman accessibility that is so Kevin James.  As for me ….

Here Comes the Boom is, literally, the most inspiring why-teachers-become-teachers movie I’ve seen since To Sir, With Love ~ bar none ~ and Biology teacher Scott Voss (Kevin James) shines,  an everyday hero unawares.

“In him this glowed, when all beside had ceased to glow.”

believe ~

Rebecca