Love and Hate: That Builds. That Hurts.

We all have our own opinions. I thank my sister-in-law for sharing Todd Starnes’s commentary, "The Devil Smiled" about one of this week's shootings. It allowed me to hone in on my own perspectives regarding our place and responsibilities today. Sometimes different, sometimes similar. I tried to respond within the same structure as Mr. Starnes wrote.

For whatever reason, I feel my perspective is at least a bit more...hopeful? It would really be sad if there was nothing you and I could do moving forward to make our world a brighter place.

Here it goes:

While I have absolutely no proof, I’m not in charge of whether I take the next breath or not, so I like to hope there’s something outside of me that powers everything: me, you, the birds, the trees, the water and land. Everything. That idea gives me hope.

Holding onto that idea, within that everything...

I see kids witnessing us adults say we’re all equal, but some get a pass when they do wrong & others get thrown away.

That hurts.

I see our Pledge says “under God”, but despite the fact many citizens cling to that phrase, we don’t serve the weakest and poorest as Jesus commanded. As all the big religions do. 

That hurts.

We ridicule women, LBGTIA, religions and ethnicities. Our ideas of “good and traditional” exclude so many in so many ways.

That hurts.

Corporations and rich people seem to play by different rules than the rest of us, so many ask, “Why bother?”. Protecting the self is becoming king.

That hurts.

We don’t talk about sex and violence openly. We don’t talk about love with one another. We just don’t talk with each other. 

That hurts.

If God is in all things, it’s in all of us and all of it. All we touch and see is originally God’s work. God can and should be beyond gender, politics, ethnicity, religion or country. We are the ones who turn on each other. We are the ones who decide to rip apart the beauty of what’s around us.

That hurts.

“The Devil” is our ego running a muck. It’s us. “The Devil” is us when we think we’re better or more right that someone else. 

What we call “the Devil” is hate. That hurts. We can do a lot to fix that.

What we call “God” is love. That builds. We can do a lot to build that.

Love...and Life

This past weekend, I immersed myself in a family wedding. What an uplifting experience.

We’ve lived away from our hometown for almost 20 years and have always been a bit quiet. I tell people that I’m a born introvert who’s learned to act like an extravert for brief periods of time. Growth mindset, right? I still can’t say it’s natural, however I enjoy it more and more as time goes on.

The power in this day became apparent when we were at the ceremony. The atmosphere was relaxed and convivial from the beginning. I’m more of spiritual person as opposed to a religious one. The priest set the tone for me well when his sermon focused on what love looks like in practice. I like descriptive examples, being a visual learner.

I began applying the term in my mind (yes, sorry, my mind did wander, I admit) in more broad terms than marital love. I looked around at the crowd. So many faces I either did not know or recollect only from years gone by. We change. We evolve. But there are some universals to consider.

What is this “love” thing?

I’ve been writing lately on teacher emotional & social support, the type 1 diabetes I have and of the hobbies and interests I have grown to embrace. There’s quite a bit of weight and seriousness (and sometimes complete fluff) to those subjects. I made some connections when I interchanged “love” and “life” in my mind that I thought were worth considering.

Life is passion.

When we’re really living, we are doing what makes us happy and fills our buckets. I’ve said this before: I want a life that I don’t feel the need to take a vacation from in order to escape from it. I wish that for everyone. Living with passion. Loving with passion. Those are huge gifts. Finding  ways to them can be a life’s work.

The passions in my life that I never dreamed of include learning to work with students, running, jamming to Korean pop, writing to and about teachers, blogging and having all this plus 2 children. Your passions will be wonderfully different than mine. There’s such beauty to that.

Life is sharing.

Oh, it’s so much easier to remain silent. It’s so much safer to fade into the woodwork. I have made a fool of myself and probably angered a person or two over the years as I’ve opened up more and more. However, I think I’ve helped once or twice. I've learned and grown immensely. I’ve included my voice with others’ voices in solidarity and I’ve been a voice of dissent that's lead to overall growth in our combined understandings. Sometimes, I do some good. Sometimes, I make huge mistakes. It’s important to keep trying and building.

Couples need to share things in order to build their ties. The same goes for all of us. Life is about making connections and seeing ourselves in others. There was a bunch of giving for this weekend’s successful (and fun) events- well before the wedding day. A reminder: when in doubt, give.

Life is everything and anything.

I’ve touched on it above but it bears repeating in detail. At this wedding, there was a rainbow of personalities, skills, beliefs, abilities, interests and perspectives in attendance. I have my thing. Every other person in that celebration had theirs. As it should be.

We danced. We sang. We ate. We drank. We laughed. We cried. Together.

We came from all directions and regardless of time and distance, shared experience brings us Together.

We’re stronger together. That’s love. That’s life.

Best wishes to the new couple and to all of us through Life!!

Love and life. Teachers love their lives but sometimes it gets away from us. We’re well into July- there’s still time to order a copy on Amazon of my guided journal, Dear Teachers, for yourself or the special teachers in your life! Dear Teachers makes a great gift of positive encouragement for education professionals- if you are an administrator, principal, youth group leader or home schooler please contact me to discuss its value to your staff!

Email me dearteachers2017@gmail.com for signed copies and special bulk pricing opportunities.

Fear and Loathing in 2016

2016 could be characterized in part by 2 very unsettling phrases I’ve heard over the year: “trust the process” and “post-truth”. In my mind, the root of both of these turns of words, and the reason they are so dangerous is this: fear.

In and of itself “trust the process” can be construed as something quite positive. Our democracy is a system that has run for hundreds of years- we should trust it. We work within corporations and other organizations with rules and codes of conduct- we should rely on them. However, when we actually feel the need to say the phrase “trust the process”, we should take a really hard look and consider. What is triggering it? Why is there enough doubt to inspire the speaking of it? What is going on to erode the innate sense of security we feel when we know (even though it’s not perfect) that we’re in a good place mentally, emotionally and physically?

Oxford Dictionaries has picked the word “post-truth” as the international word of the year for 2016. It’s an adjective to describe public opinion where the public’s beliefs are not based on facts but are based on ideas beyond or outside of actual facts. What can be legitimately demonstrated and proven is no longer important in a post-truth world.

If we can’t or don’t base our ideas and principles on facts, how can we trust the process?

The answer is simple: we can’t. We’d be living in fear and fear can eat us alive. Fear can tear us apart. Fear can keep us from doing anything at all or drive us to the unthinkable.

As we prepare for a new year, it behooves us all to think about what really matters to us and LIVE it. Let’s go BEYOND post-truth and base our actions on truth and love. To every person we meet and with every word we speak, we should act with earnest intention and not in fear, but in truth and love. Truth and love for self. Truth and love for other. Truth and love for us all.