Sunday, November 11, 2018

The Vanishing Girl


The bell clanged loudly; it was time to go back to class. It was my duty, being the newest and youngest teacher at King Elementary School, in the ghetto, to supervise the children at recess and herd them back into the building when it ended.

I was busily doing so when I noticed a little Negro girl pressed close against the schoolyard’s iron fence, looking in from the outside. She appeared to be a year or so younger than the children in my class of first graders. She wore a handed down blue dress which was clean and neatly ironed, an old red jacket and sneakers without socks. Her hair was combed and braided with care, blue ribbons adorned each end. Her brown eyes, wide with wonder and excitement, disclosed that she had been watching the school children play. A tiny brown finger rested on her pale lips as if to hold back a secret wish ready to burst forth.

When the last of my wards was safely in the door, I looked for her, but she was gone. Had I only imagined her? As I looked around at the aging apartments across the street, I didn’t see her, but looking down by the fence I noticed a blue ribbon laying there on the ground! Perhaps I will see her in the school over the coming years!

Thursday, November 8, 2018

I AM



I was regretting the past
and fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:
“My name is I AM”
He paused.
I waited. He continued,
“When you live in the past
with its mistakes and regrets,
it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not I WAS.
When you live in the future,
with its problems and fears,
it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not I WILL BE.
When you live in this moment
it is not hard. I am here,
My name is I AM.”


by Helen Mallicoat