Hooked Over

[Norine Wiltshire]

Fishingis a favorite outdoor pastime for many people. Alone or with friends and family, fishing can be a fun and relaxing opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. In 2020, over 55 million people fished at least once, many of them on public lands and waters. From the calm of fly fishing in a Montana stream to the thrill of sportfishing in the Gulf of Mexico, fishing is a great way to support conservation and inspire your next outdoor adventure story.

You can learn more about how fish populations are managed by visiting a hatchery. The National Fish Hatchery System raises and stocks over 98 million fish every year to support recreational fishing, Tribal subsistence fisheries, and the recovery and restoration of imperiled species. These facilities study fish species and propagate and release them in large numbers. Producing fish is an irreplaceable tool in managing or restoring fisheries, whether they are imperiled or game fish species. Hatcheries complement habitat conservation.

One thing every angler needs is a state license. Buying a fishing license is quick, easy and directly contributes toward conservation efforts. In most states, you can purchase licenses online, by phone or at retail establishments.

Anxious, overweight and friendless at 13, tobacco and pot relieved my social awkwardness and miraculously suppressed my appetite. I was nervous to start college early, so I became popular as the fun girl who threw wild soirees. (Well, wild for Michigan.) We shared smokes, booze (my drink was vodka and Tab), a water bong, magic mushrooms and the occasional Xanax. I relished the role of bohemian poet, sure I needed to be wacked out to write. I clung to those crutches for decades.

Without my old self-soothing methods, my nerves frayed and my patience was nonexistent. But I allowed my discomfort to surface and to play itself out, telling its own story. Nights and weekends I let myself cry, scrawling purple poetry into my journal, playing Bob Dylan bootlegs lamenting that everybody must not get stoned.

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Graham Bible Church was born in 2003 out of a prayer meeting. I was asked to preach by 13 new friends who wanted to see God change their tiny town. I loved that group with all my heart. The fondness of those early days still brings tears to my eyes.

Immaturity led to foolish decisions in preaching and leadership, but God blessed us in spite of them. Our storefront gathering grew from 13 to a fire-code-violating 120 in about nine months. The growth was encouraging, but also disillusioning.

I knew my sin grieved God, but my confessions were aimed more at hushing my guilt than getting the help I needed. Every two or three months I would indulge in a binge of pornography. This was followed by grief, private confessions of how much I hated sin and how much I loved Jesus, and personal resolutions to never do it again. I remember feeling like the Israelites on spin cycle in the book of Judges. Sin. Grief. Weeping. Peace. Over and over and over again.

What made matters more difficult was the abundance of fruit God was producing through me. Our church had several hundred people coming. Lives were being changed. So I assumed God was overlooking my sin. I assumed I was somehow exempt from the destruction so many others had known.

For the next hour I chronicled my sin for everyone in attendance. Another elder facilitated questions. Some people wept. Some yelled. Some stared with eyes that pierced more deeply than a sword. Some hugged afterward. Some walked away and never spoke to me again.

Coming into the light was scary. I handed over the reins of control to God, and other people. For so long I tried to control my world by covering up my sin, but God summoned me to surrender. I could do nothing in those days but open my hands and allow him to work through imperfect people and an imperfect process, in his perfect way.

A few months into the process, several beloved mentors encouraged me to leave and begin afresh elsewhere. But deep down, I knew that unless my church fired me, I should stay, no matter how awful the process. God convinced me through his Word that my sin had made this mess, and I needed to remain and endure its effects.

Many began confessing their own hidden sins. Self-righteousness was expelled, and supernatural healing came for me and for the church family that remained. I stayed on as the pastor for another two years before God led me away from that flock.

Garrett Kell (ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary) is lead pastor of Del Ray Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition. He and his wife, Carrie, have six children. You can follow him on Twitter.

Each pillow had a theme and color (because colors are important to little kids). We also purchased a reading book to go along with the theme of the pillows. For example, one of the reading pillows featured unicorns. So, we bought a story book about unicorns and a unicorn coloring book and put them in the pocket of the pillow.

You could also use an app like Word or even Canva to type your names, like CORA. Then print out the letters, cut them out like a stencil, and trace them onto your fabric and then cut out the letters.

Learn how to make a Reading Pillow. You can select to make a 16", 18", or 20" reading pillow cover. Add a book or two and a little flashlight and you have the perfect gift that encourages children to read!

Thanks for the tutorial; looking to make this as a Christmas gift.

Question: did you hem the overlapping edges of the top and bottom back pieces before attaching? Is that measurement included in the cut-size of the fabric pieces?

But now Sarah was being presented with a way to repair some of the relationships that she had hurt. Sarah and the rest of us brainstormed things she could do to eliminate the root causes of her harmful choices, heal relationships with fellow students and improve her chances of graduating on time.

In the weeks that followed, Sarah completed these three items, as well as voluntarily wrote letters of apology to the adults she had affected. She was not a perfect student, but she never repeated the same behaviors. Her advisory class enjoyed the discussion she led, and they grew stronger as a group because of the honesty and vulnerability of all the students who shared their experiences. Not only did she begin attending the student government meetings, she really enjoyed them. Almost unbelievably, months later, she was voted president of the whole group!

Critics of the RJ approach contend that the punishments are not harsh enough. To be honest, I never thought suspensions were that harsh, at least not compared to the intense emotion and introspective conversations Sarah went through. Not to mention she had to face the many students who had heard about her mistake and act as a school leader despite the shame she must have felt.

Further, I saw that when a student makes a poor choice, far too often students from disadvantaged backgrounds pay a significantly higher price for their actions than their more privileged counterparts. Students from poverty, especially those of minority backgrounds, and those with learning disabilities face higher rates of suspension, drop-out and more severe punishments in general.

As someone who wanted to help these vulnerable groups, I knew that the traditional discipline system was broken. I saw the advisory structure, restorative practices and student-empowered approaches to make absolute common sense.

I am grateful to my advisory student Ryan Thon, now a student at Western Washington University, who made it his senior thesis project to solidify RJ practices at our school and allowed me to be his mentor.

What started as a stressful night as a chaperone for a school trip emerged as the beginning of a great journey in discovering how discipline can actually be a positive experience for everyone involved. Can you imagine that?! I can, because I have now seen it repeatedly with my own eyes.

When asked to reflect on her experience with Restorative Justice, she wrote to me, My experience was one of the most effective disciplinary approaches that I have ever been confronted with. It made me understand how my actions affected people not only directly, but how my actions set off a series of events. Seeing this reality and being given a second chance made me so thankful.

It is inspiring to hear Sarah speak of this turning point in her high school career with such maturity. I could not imagine this transformation happening had she simply faced a traditional school suspension (which could have been up to 90 days in Washington state). School, at its best, is about learning new skills, academically and emotionally, not simply maintaining the facade of perfection that most traditional schools are expecting and requiring.

David Levine holds a teaching certification in English Language Arts grades 7-12 and an MFA in creative writing. He has worked as an educator in Big Picture public high schools for the past eight years in Brooklyn, New York; Seattle, and now in the Bronx, where he is currently a Restorative Justice facilitator, dean and teaching coach.

Defendants who are 18 years old and younger will have the same access to legal counsel as adults in Washington, starting next January. That new law trails another juvenile justice reform, which took effect on July 25, aimed at trimming the number of youth in foster care who wind up in juvenile detention.

JJIE is published by the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University. The Center aims to discover new ways to produce financially sustainable, high quality and ethically sound journalism via applied research, collaborations and advancing innovative projects. The Center publishes multiple projects including JJIE, Fresh Take Georgia and Bokeh Focus. Read more

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