agape 10: Turn-arounds: a large school's and mine

The New York Times wrote about Brockton High's turnaround success story. The English department got every one to use writing in their curriculum, and they say stuff every day like, "When you're in college,. . . ."
Bottom-up reform, the principal at the time the movement started just let them go do it.

Today's message from God is ""When your soul finds Me, then real Life begins." That's really how I feel. Every morning I turn it all over to God with the prayer that this day will be a good one, that I'll be safe and stay out of trouble, that my kids will be happy and healthy, and each day since I made that change has been excellent. I really feel like Life has begun.

Daily despair, contemplation of death, thoughts magnetized to the worst the world has to offer--all that has been swept away.

Thank you God!

agape 9: Top teacher attributes according to Edutopia

http://www.edutopia.org/node/6997/done?sid=381683
Gets you to edutopia characteristics of the top teachers.
They had passion but left out "Love," which is really what separated out my favorite teacher of all time: Mrs. McDonald. Here's what today's Message from God said, exemplifying why she worked so well with all types of students:
"Shower love. Every mountain of difficulty will be laid low and all will know I am with you."
The truly amazing people I know do just that. It's not a trickle, not a splash, but a shower of love. And it's for all of humanity.
People like Gloria White Hammond and Alan Burt, my Uncle Steve, Ann McDonald--all rare specimens and highly precious, like individual Hope Diamonds.

agape 8: answered prayers or reasonable response?

"Why do you worry? I wait to give you all that is lovely. I can only bless glad thankful hearts," is the message from God. I am thankful. And I worry only briefly, after spurts of bitterness, that I will be bitter person, then I dismiss my bitterness and forget it before I know it.

Last night, my wife called to say that our youngest son was ill, suffering from extreme stomach pains. I lay in bed, thought about whether I should go over their house, prayed for our son, then got dressed, packed for the next day, and began the drive over.

As I drove, I called ahead, in case I was passing an ambulance in the night, headed down a different road. Our son, by then, was feeling better. In a conversation with the pediatrician on call, my wife had diagnosed that the pain was unlikely to be appendicitis. Fluids and potty time released some noxious gas; he was better.

Christain-Science cure by prayer? A scientist would say no. But in the very least, the prayer gave me the confidence to get up and act, and be a part of my family in a challenging time. So, I'm thankful.

agape 7: joy at the passing of Monday

"Retreat into a quiet place with Me. You will find restoration, joy, and healing."

I just did not write because a former student stopped by in search of a book I had filed as missing. Together, we went to the book room, rifled through all the Catcher in the Rye copies, and found her particular copy. A quiet place--the book room.
Probably not. I need to have some quiet place away from my mind, happy, but steadily unquiet, of late.
Here comes the first class.

agape 5: easing off writing

"When things do not work out as you planned, then smile at Me and say "Have Your Way then". Knowing that My Loving response will be the best for you." That about sums up how to go through life as a public school teacher. Plans in school are not constantly interrupted, but it's fair to say they're consistently interrupted. Particularly in this past week. So I didn't get to write every day. And some classes are on one thing, others on another. So to continue in this spiritual experiment, I'm going to put the specific care of certain students in the hands of God. Of course, I'll do my daily (or other daily) best with them in educational and behavioral terms, but the rest I'm going to put on a prayer list and see what God's "loving response" will be. Now, I'm off to coach youth soccer.

agape 6: go fast but don't hurry

"In your dark hours when human help fails, feel My Hand of Love press yours in silent understanding."

"Go fast but don't hurry" is an axiom from legendary basketball coach John Wooden. It makes a lot of sense given all the mistakes you make when you're hurrying, but the constant need, especially in basketball, to go fast--as fast as you can.

In teaching, you go as fast as you can between classes, just to get all the required stuff done. Right now, as I type, I've got all sorts fo things on my To-Do list, coupled with a burning desire to take a nap. My reluctance to write this "Teaching from the Heart of God" blog is doubled by the necessity to do the "to do"s and the complete indifference to God that my moment to moment instincts as a teacher take me on.

I'm grappling most with the notion that I'm acting out God's will in the classroom. Am I really doing that when I'm teaching grammar through sentence fixing exercises? When I'm reading a story aloud? When I'm guiding students to develop insights in their reading?

Aren't all these things just "doing the right thing"?

Isn't it kind of vacuous to claim that "doing the right thing" is God's will?

Circling around to the gift of reason from God leading me to do the right thing doesn't help me at all either.

But for now, I have surrendered reasoning about God. That practice never got me there in the past and is sure to lead me away in the present and future.

I'm just back from a nap. Maybe that was the heart of God embracing me. I'll feel better now that lunch break was coupled with nap time. I can do my best with my D period seminar, and in the spirit of surrender, I will point in acknowledgement to that idea expressed in the message from God quote--"when human help fails, feel my Hand of Love press yours in silent understanding."

agape 5: first day race

Not much time to type. Warp speed day 1. Here's the quote of the day:
"Trust in Me and leave to Me the choosing of the day and hour, then My miracle-working Power is made manifest."
This may be true, because I found an unattended $5 on the floor, which I will use for parking when I go to the Red Sox game tonight (my first since the 70's), thanks to the offer of 2 free tickets from a wonderful Chatham philanthropist.
I have been praying to find some wealthy person who would be willing to help Homeless not Hopeless, a non-profit organization on whose board I sit, move on to the next level.
HnotH helps people transition out of homelessness, taking them out of the shelter system, and giving them a hand-up not a hand-out. The last three days I have been praying, hoping, thinking, plotting on this topic and am really hopeful that this will be part of an answered prayer.
Or, at least, I'll see a good Red Sox game with my son and some nice people. This could be the "day and hour"

agape 4: thank you God for summer

Thank you God for summer.
I needed that time off because now I have to work doggedly to get myself ready for the first child through my door on the other side of this weekend, which will be marked by the arrival of an alleged hurricane before the day's end.
Emergency shelters are being set up here at the high school, and they're going to kick us drudges out at noon, so I need to work in a focused fashion. The storm should provide a few power outages at worst as far as I can tell. "Don't panic" they say, as the public is whipped into a frenzy. The storm news triggers in me a blase response. But I did put the porch furniture in the garage, just in case.

So before I launch into a day of preparation. Here's today's message from God quote:
"No day is lost which you have given Me to use."

Thank you God.

Each morning I have given the day over to you.
Initially, I did this to keep my self out of trouble in what was, in many ways, a failed life. At this point, I pray with an eagerness and curiousity so that I may see what magic and miracles will be manifest in my life.
This summer, yesterday, the day before, so on and so forth, has been a series of so many good moments that I definitely do not have time to list them here.

Therefor, I shall work again to manifest God's love today. Much of what I'll do will be the behind-the-scenes machinitations of classroom and lesson prep. But I am happy to have a job. I am happy to be employed to serve and help young people. I am happy to be married and have children. I am happy to be living on Cape Cod (even as a hurrican looms in on us). I feel truly blessed.

Let the challenges of the day begin.

Agape 3: dazed, confused, then deeply pleased

"The prayer of real Faith is a prayer of Joy that sees and knows the heart of Love. It rises to greet and is sure of a glad response."

Yesterday involved the drudgery of pulling the school year together. Meetings, discussions, lectures--all in a searing stew of humidity and heat. But I use the word "drudgery" with some hesitation because everyone in this education business is so nice, so helpful, so well-intentioned that it made me feel bad about dazed and confused in their presence.

I'm fearfully unprepared at the moment with scores of things I ought to be doing at this moment, but, having committed this year to write for God, teach for God, live for God (or the "Great Spirit which works through all things" as I say in my daily prayer), I'm writing now.

And I do have a lot to be grateful for from yesterday. It took leaving school and fielding a phone call from my best friend, who wanted to pull his family's Beatlecat boat before the incoming hurricane due tomorrow. First getting the family situated--Clay (10) to his buddy's birthday party; Grady (6) to my Mom's house--I took off in my Dad's old Cherokee and picked up the trailer in one part of town before heading to the boat ramp in another.

It was a gorgeous day for beach and boating, highlighted by the view from Round Cove in Harwich, looking out over the Cove, Wequasset Resort, Pleasant Bay and across the bay to Eastward Ho! golf course, Strong Island and Nauset Beach. The sweeping panorama is worth seeing again. Really seeing. And I saw it through fresh eyes as I waited for my friend and two of his daughters to sail into the cove.

Then, after pulling the boat from the water--my friend's 8 year-old doing much of the cranking!!!--the father of an old friend from back in the first decades of my life showed up. His son, Mark, whom I had not seen in twenty years, was about to sail into the cove. Having worked on the West Coast in adulthood, I hadn't thought about him for a long time, but I was terrifically excited to see him.

He hopped off the boat and we talked and I felt really, really good about the world.

So maybe that was the prayer of Joy opened up to me. I accept that gift--the unexpected visit of an old friend--with gratitude and happiness.

agape 2: getting started: 9/1/10

So trust and know I am leading you. Step with confidence in Me into each unknown day.

These lines from today's "Message from God" are reassuring. Inevitably, the start of a school day inspires urgency and a perpetual sense of being late, behind, inadequate, stupid, foolish, then relieved and energized by the bell and the successful completion of the first minute, the first activity, the sending of attendance, the resending of attendance, the first discussion, the first writing, the first, the first, the first, which makes it all easier for the second, the second minute, the second class, the second day, the second week, quarter, semester, then it's summer again.

So the day is "unknown" and anxiety/dread/fear are common emotions for breakfast and the car ride in. But, as an experienced teacher, the confidence pays off. It kicks in as easily as a pro tennis player's second serve. (It's US Open time, as always, in early September).

To respond to a latent question from the 8/25 post: how does God work?
I know that to even pose the thought is audacious, if not blasphemous, and certainly an indicator of delusion, but I have some answers to that question that seem to be working for me. I pretend not to originality; my answers are as old as the first religion.

Here's one: Pray, Have Faith, then Accept the results as God's answer. These answers, in the affirmative or negative, indicate whether you are ready for the prayer to be answered.

Here's another: the prayers, while they have to be self-less, other-centered and should not be intended to fulfill your narcissitic urges, have to be something which your action or inaction has an effect, otherwise you're not really working in God's agency.
My 6 year-old has a peer who prayed for doughnuts during church and then had his prayers answered in the coffee hour. That's fine, that's funny, and perfect for a 6 year old.

More seriously, what could a 6 year-old pray for his dying grandparent? Good health? Perhaps not. But good humor? Yes. Comfort? Yes. Companionship? Yes. Love? Most certainly.

I project forward to my students' appearance in my classroom next week right after Labor Day.
My power to help improve their world may be as weak as a 6 year-old's influence on a dying elder. Some students come from environments so bereft of positive support that they have built a wall of defiance that shields out the best-intentioned actions of a school staff.

Could I provide them with good humor? A safe place to be for 90 minutes? An adult presence, positive and consistent, geared towards a constant and never-ending improvement? Yes.

And what about Love?

That may sound a little creepy. The Love I mean, however, is what the Greeks called agape--the love of God, the sort of love a parent has for his own child, both conditional and unconditional.
A love that's there for the kid even when he has given up on himself. When every action shouts indifference or apathy or defeat. That's what I mean by Love.

My favorite teacher of all time, Mrs. Ann McDonald, who taught my senior honors English class back in high school, and to this day remains a great friend, told me before I started in this profession 13 years ago how she worked with the toughest students in the school. "I'd love them even more," she said. "No one's ever loved them appropriately. Soon enough, they get it, and love you back."

______________

The title for this journal collection is "The Heart of God" and I'll take time now to begin an attempted explanation of that concept.

In his 20th century classic, Khalil Ghibran wrote , "The Prophet" the following in his chapter on the topic of Love.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,then it
is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's
threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all
of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but
itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be
possessed; for love is sufficient unto love. When you love you should not
say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."And think
not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy,
directs your course."

There's so much in that paragraph to think about it boggles my mind to think I can cover it in a journal entry. Of course, I can't. Suffice it to say, that's what Love is like in teaching. It's not just peace and understanding. There's more than a few good cry's. And there's lots and lots of laughter. You can't direct the course of a student's life, but you try. I'll try.

I will try.

Right in the heart of God.