Hello, God, and thanks for the opportunities that I'm going to have today--the chances to work with other people, to help young people to learn, to enjoy their perspectives and feedback and effort. I really do appreciate the opportunity to be a teacher and to work with students who are doing their best to learn and to grow and to become something more than they are right now.
As you know, there are other elements in my life that have come up, especially concerning the school and its financial situation. The school is very broke, and that means that my days there are probably numbered. While I would be more than fine staying there, the lack of money there means that they'll need to do anything they can to save money, which probably means a very short tenure for me there. I have applied for a completely different job in a different district, and I do ask you to be with me during the process of that application. Financially, that job would be a great boon to Terry and me, and professionally it would mean an awful lot to me to be able to do new work that would affect more students and teachers in positive ways.
While I usually don't ask you for specific things--normally I'll just ask that your will be done--I would like to ask you for this new job. I don't want to spend another year getting to know these kids and then having to leave them after two short years. That's what has happened at two schools so far, and it's been very painful. Plus, as I said, the financial change would be very helpful to Terry and me, as we would be able to put money into retirement and pay off the debt that we have and take care of many other things that need to be taken care of. This job would be a wonderful opportunity to expand my own horizons and to help expand the horizons of many teachers and students, too. I know that I can do this job very, very well, and I would love the chance to tackle new challenges in my life.
That said, I won't resent you if I don't get it. I'm not asking with expectations. I'm just letting you know that this is something that I would definitely love to do, and something that would be very positive for me, Terry, and the people with whom I would work. I could bring a lot to this job, and I could do it very well. You know that in my life I've rarely pursued anything passionately, as there's always been fear that I would do so and then not get what I hoped to get. This time, I want to picture myself there, waking up on a chilly October morn in the mountains, walking to work in the brisk fall air, enjoying myself immensely while doing work that's very important and very beneficial to others.
A reply:
You've done what you can as far as actions are concerned. You've applied and you've written the letters you've needed to write. What will happen will happen for your best--and that's not to say that it's predestined or that you need to set yourself up for disappointment. There's a very good chance that what will happen will be that you get your job; there's a very good chance that you'll stay where you are and work with the kids you're working with now. My ways of doing things don't include predicting your future for you. But I would say this: keep having the positive thoughts, keep on envisioning yourself having that job and doing good for others. Much of the power of determining directions in your life I have given to you--it all isn't in my hands. Some of it is in your hands, in your minds. That other school district needs someone good, and yes, you are good at what you do, and you would be good to them. You also know that there are other people in this world who would be good for them, too. So do all that you can to make things work, and let go of the need to try to control things, the need to try to make things happen. Be ready to accept, be ready to love the results. Either way this goes, you will be fine.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
New problems
Good morning, God, and thanks much for this new day! I hope that I'm able to enjoy all it has to offer, that I'm able to make as much of it as is possible.
In the last couple of days, a couple of new problems have arisen from a couple of sources that were completely unexpected. It's not enough that I have an awful lot of work to do--even extra work that I've taken on--but now I have to deal with issues that I really shouldn't have to be dealing with. Is this the spice of life, or are these just annoyances that are going to keep me from addressing the issues that I really should be addressing? Will they be easy to take care of? My fear always is that they're going to be issues that drag on and on, even though that usually doesn't happen. I'll try to deal with them quickly and effectively, but since they depend upon the actions of other people, too, the outcomes aren't exactly in my control.
In any case, I do ask for your help in dealing with these issues. They won't be completely pleasant if they drag on and the stress continues, but if you could at least help me to deal with the stress and with the problems, I'd truly appreciate it.
Thanks!
A reply:
You've already felt a lifting of the stress as soon as you asked for my help. That's the first step, of course--to give the problem over to someone else so that you're not dealing with it alone.
You're dealing with the lifelong issue of having had to deal with problems on your own, too. Because of this, you dread problems more than some other people do. Since your parents weren't there for you to help you deal with most of your problems, you've grown up thinking that you have to do everything yourself. That in itself makes problems more drastic than they actually are. Just remember that it's up to you to do only what you can do, and trust that others will do what they're supposed to do. Make your effort, then leave it in my hands and the hands of others.
Problems aren't the problem--stress over the problems, fear that the problems will escalate and become much worse is the problem. Give your fear to me, and you'll find that your problems become completely different in your mind, which is where they exist mostly in the first place.
In the last couple of days, a couple of new problems have arisen from a couple of sources that were completely unexpected. It's not enough that I have an awful lot of work to do--even extra work that I've taken on--but now I have to deal with issues that I really shouldn't have to be dealing with. Is this the spice of life, or are these just annoyances that are going to keep me from addressing the issues that I really should be addressing? Will they be easy to take care of? My fear always is that they're going to be issues that drag on and on, even though that usually doesn't happen. I'll try to deal with them quickly and effectively, but since they depend upon the actions of other people, too, the outcomes aren't exactly in my control.
In any case, I do ask for your help in dealing with these issues. They won't be completely pleasant if they drag on and the stress continues, but if you could at least help me to deal with the stress and with the problems, I'd truly appreciate it.
Thanks!
A reply:
You've already felt a lifting of the stress as soon as you asked for my help. That's the first step, of course--to give the problem over to someone else so that you're not dealing with it alone.
You're dealing with the lifelong issue of having had to deal with problems on your own, too. Because of this, you dread problems more than some other people do. Since your parents weren't there for you to help you deal with most of your problems, you've grown up thinking that you have to do everything yourself. That in itself makes problems more drastic than they actually are. Just remember that it's up to you to do only what you can do, and trust that others will do what they're supposed to do. Make your effort, then leave it in my hands and the hands of others.
Problems aren't the problem--stress over the problems, fear that the problems will escalate and become much worse is the problem. Give your fear to me, and you'll find that your problems become completely different in your mind, which is where they exist mostly in the first place.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Good morning
Good morning, God, and thank you for this new day! I hope that I'm able to make the most of it and make some positive contributions to the lives of others, especially the students in my classes. Thanks for the opportunities to give and share!
A reply:
You're welcome.
A reply:
You're welcome.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Purpose?
Good morning, God, and thanks for this new day in our lives. It's going to be an interesting day, spent at a track meet rather than in class, and I am looking forward to being outdoors most of the day rather than inside. It makes a difference sometimes to get the fresh air and the sunshine rather than being in the artificial light for hours on end.
As time keeps rolling on and on, we find ourselves already in mid-April. Sometimes it seems that time crawls, yet sometimes it flies. Recently, it's been flying rather than crawling, which I suppose is good since we're approaching the end of the school year. Who wants time to crawl when summer break is coming up?
But whenever I think about time and the way it passes, I have to stop and consider my purpose here on this planet, and whether or not I'm coming close to fulfilling it. Am I on the right track to fulfill a worthwhile purpose here? Am I doing the right things or the wrong things? Is my life one that's going to matter in the long run, or will I be completely forgotten the moment I pass on--or ten days after I pass on? In all honesty, I'm not too concerned about being remembered, but I'm sure my ego would like to think that there are people here who will remember me fondly, or who will carry on some of my modest influence after I've departed.
I look at some people who don't do much of anything except watch television, buy groceries, eat, sleep, and watch more television, and I have to admit that I wonder at their purpose in life--are they really fulfilling a purpose now, or did they fulfill one earlier? Are they just hanging on to life because they're afraid of moving on, afraid of the unknown?
And who says that we have to fulfill any purpose at all? Isn't that my judgment of what we're supposed to do while we're alive creeping in? Is there a purpose to any of this, or will everything we ever did be for naught when human beings are no longer able to live on this planet? Perhaps our only purpose is to learn the lessons that we've come here to learn. If I think about it too much, it all seems rather silly, rather pointless--but that's more me than anything else.
A reply:
Your purpose is to love. To learn to love, to practice love, to receive love. That's it. If you over-intellectualize it (which I don't think you're doing, by the way), you can trivialize it by turning it into information or ideas that simply support your own perceptions, and life isn't to be trivialized because love isn't to be trivialized.
It's very easy to get caught up in the world's ideas of purpose and success. It's easy to feel that you're "coming up short" when you feel that your accomplishments don't measure up to those of others. And it's easy to look at others and wonder if they're doing what they should be doing and how that compares to what you're doing. But life isn't about comparison, either--life is about you finding your own way by finding your strengths and using them, and finding your weaknesses and dealing with them, either by accepting them or turning them into something else.
It's okay to think about purpose, because if you don't you very likely end up treading water. When you think about having a purpose to fulfill, then you're more likely to search out a purpose and try to fulfill it, rather than spending your time doing things that really don't matter, such as watching television or doing other things that are truly passive. Those things can be good from time to time as a sort of rest, but they do rob you of the motivation to do things that will make you feel much better overall.
Love is the most important power in the world. Love will lead you to help others, to give, to encourage, to share, to motivate. Love will help you to see your purpose, and that may range anywhere from bringing up your children well to treating your children's friends well to writing a book that will contribute to the lives of others--even if it's very few others.
Purpose. You look for your purpose in life, and that's good. But also consider the question from my perspective--if I created you as a piece of a much larger puzzle, then what might be your place in that puzzle?
As time keeps rolling on and on, we find ourselves already in mid-April. Sometimes it seems that time crawls, yet sometimes it flies. Recently, it's been flying rather than crawling, which I suppose is good since we're approaching the end of the school year. Who wants time to crawl when summer break is coming up?
But whenever I think about time and the way it passes, I have to stop and consider my purpose here on this planet, and whether or not I'm coming close to fulfilling it. Am I on the right track to fulfill a worthwhile purpose here? Am I doing the right things or the wrong things? Is my life one that's going to matter in the long run, or will I be completely forgotten the moment I pass on--or ten days after I pass on? In all honesty, I'm not too concerned about being remembered, but I'm sure my ego would like to think that there are people here who will remember me fondly, or who will carry on some of my modest influence after I've departed.
I look at some people who don't do much of anything except watch television, buy groceries, eat, sleep, and watch more television, and I have to admit that I wonder at their purpose in life--are they really fulfilling a purpose now, or did they fulfill one earlier? Are they just hanging on to life because they're afraid of moving on, afraid of the unknown?
And who says that we have to fulfill any purpose at all? Isn't that my judgment of what we're supposed to do while we're alive creeping in? Is there a purpose to any of this, or will everything we ever did be for naught when human beings are no longer able to live on this planet? Perhaps our only purpose is to learn the lessons that we've come here to learn. If I think about it too much, it all seems rather silly, rather pointless--but that's more me than anything else.
A reply:
Your purpose is to love. To learn to love, to practice love, to receive love. That's it. If you over-intellectualize it (which I don't think you're doing, by the way), you can trivialize it by turning it into information or ideas that simply support your own perceptions, and life isn't to be trivialized because love isn't to be trivialized.
It's very easy to get caught up in the world's ideas of purpose and success. It's easy to feel that you're "coming up short" when you feel that your accomplishments don't measure up to those of others. And it's easy to look at others and wonder if they're doing what they should be doing and how that compares to what you're doing. But life isn't about comparison, either--life is about you finding your own way by finding your strengths and using them, and finding your weaknesses and dealing with them, either by accepting them or turning them into something else.
It's okay to think about purpose, because if you don't you very likely end up treading water. When you think about having a purpose to fulfill, then you're more likely to search out a purpose and try to fulfill it, rather than spending your time doing things that really don't matter, such as watching television or doing other things that are truly passive. Those things can be good from time to time as a sort of rest, but they do rob you of the motivation to do things that will make you feel much better overall.
Love is the most important power in the world. Love will lead you to help others, to give, to encourage, to share, to motivate. Love will help you to see your purpose, and that may range anywhere from bringing up your children well to treating your children's friends well to writing a book that will contribute to the lives of others--even if it's very few others.
Purpose. You look for your purpose in life, and that's good. But also consider the question from my perspective--if I created you as a piece of a much larger puzzle, then what might be your place in that puzzle?
Monday, April 8, 2013
A new week
Good morning, God, and thanks for this new day--and this new week! I want to thank you for all of the opportunities that await me this week, chances to help, to heal, to learn and grow, to push my students in ways that will challenge them and help them to improve their skills and talents. A new week gives us all more chances to contribute to this world in positive, uplifting ways, looking past our own selfishness (while not ignoring our own needs) in order to help others to make the most of their lives.
While I'm really enthusiastic about the school year coming to an end, I don't want to make these last seven weeks wasteful or useless. There's still a lot to do, still a lot of learning and growing to go, and it would be tremendously unfair of me to check out mentally while my students still expect an awful lot of me--as well they should. So I would like to ask you to continue to be with me, to help me to get through each day in positive ways, rather than just being there and putting in the time necessary to earn a paycheck. I'd really appreciate all the help you can give me to stay focused, stay positive, and to help others to learn all they can.
Thanks!
While I'm really enthusiastic about the school year coming to an end, I don't want to make these last seven weeks wasteful or useless. There's still a lot to do, still a lot of learning and growing to go, and it would be tremendously unfair of me to check out mentally while my students still expect an awful lot of me--as well they should. So I would like to ask you to continue to be with me, to help me to get through each day in positive ways, rather than just being there and putting in the time necessary to earn a paycheck. I'd really appreciate all the help you can give me to stay focused, stay positive, and to help others to learn all they can.
Thanks!
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Good morning!
Good morning, God, and thank you very much for this new day in my life. I have a lot ahead of me on this day, and I do appreciate the fact that I have another day to live through, during which I can experience new things and be of some help to others, in my own little ways. I thank you for helping me to find positions and situations in which I can be of help, in which I can serve others by doing things for them that they need. I know that not all of my students want to learn all that I have to teach, of course, but at least I'm in a position in which I can have a bit of a positive influence.
I am concerned about the students here, though. I'm not sure if here is the town I'm in or the times I'm in, but for the most part, students don't seem to have much enthusiasm about learning at all. Is that because they don't care at all, or because they don't see much of a future for themselves? Is it because they're afraid of actually learning something, or because they're afraid that they won't learn it? In any case, it's a shame because for the most part, I see kids basically just wasting their time in class, doing assignments by copying and by rote, but not really learning the material that they should be learning.
This I think is the hardest part of teaching--watching young people not live up to their potential, not learn what they could be learning for their own good. We know the long-term benefits of what we're teaching, but the students can see only the short-term pain in the neck. They want to perform on tests and quizzes and papers and then just move on to the next thing, without really learning any of the material that we cover. There are, of course, the exceptions, those who strive to do well, but there don't seem to be as many of them. And maybe that's just me, remembering what things used to be like through rose-colored filters instead of seeing the reality.
These are just some concerns. I still do the best I can at what I do. I'll still try to help them learn. But there have to be better systems in which students can learn, achieve, excel. There have to be better paradigms to follow, if the kids aren't interested in this one.
A reply:
You're caught up in the age-old dynamic of seeing the young people as "not like we were." I'm glad to see, though, that you recognize that your perspective isn't necessarily accurate, and that you know that people have been saying such things about young people since people have been around. It's the oldest conflict in the book, more or less.
On the other hand, you also realize that young people these days are facing more challenges than young people ever have had to face. They face many more addictive games and pieces of technology, they have much less time with their parents and other significant adults, they receive more conflicting messages every day than any generation ever has, from all sorts of media that simply didn't exist when you were young.
They aren't much different than you were, or than your parents were. What's different is the world around them and the methods and strategies that they've developed to deal with that world. You're working with young people who have more information available to them than any generation before them, but who haven't been taught new ways of dealing with that information. They feel that they have access to everything, but they also feel very small and insignificant because they aren't able to reach a level of significance in their own worlds with their own families.
Keep working with them. Keep treating them with respect, and keep trying to help them succeed. That really is the most important thing of all--that they have adults in their lives who treat them well and who expect good things from them.
I am concerned about the students here, though. I'm not sure if here is the town I'm in or the times I'm in, but for the most part, students don't seem to have much enthusiasm about learning at all. Is that because they don't care at all, or because they don't see much of a future for themselves? Is it because they're afraid of actually learning something, or because they're afraid that they won't learn it? In any case, it's a shame because for the most part, I see kids basically just wasting their time in class, doing assignments by copying and by rote, but not really learning the material that they should be learning.
This I think is the hardest part of teaching--watching young people not live up to their potential, not learn what they could be learning for their own good. We know the long-term benefits of what we're teaching, but the students can see only the short-term pain in the neck. They want to perform on tests and quizzes and papers and then just move on to the next thing, without really learning any of the material that we cover. There are, of course, the exceptions, those who strive to do well, but there don't seem to be as many of them. And maybe that's just me, remembering what things used to be like through rose-colored filters instead of seeing the reality.
These are just some concerns. I still do the best I can at what I do. I'll still try to help them learn. But there have to be better systems in which students can learn, achieve, excel. There have to be better paradigms to follow, if the kids aren't interested in this one.
A reply:
You're caught up in the age-old dynamic of seeing the young people as "not like we were." I'm glad to see, though, that you recognize that your perspective isn't necessarily accurate, and that you know that people have been saying such things about young people since people have been around. It's the oldest conflict in the book, more or less.
On the other hand, you also realize that young people these days are facing more challenges than young people ever have had to face. They face many more addictive games and pieces of technology, they have much less time with their parents and other significant adults, they receive more conflicting messages every day than any generation ever has, from all sorts of media that simply didn't exist when you were young.
They aren't much different than you were, or than your parents were. What's different is the world around them and the methods and strategies that they've developed to deal with that world. You're working with young people who have more information available to them than any generation before them, but who haven't been taught new ways of dealing with that information. They feel that they have access to everything, but they also feel very small and insignificant because they aren't able to reach a level of significance in their own worlds with their own families.
Keep working with them. Keep treating them with respect, and keep trying to help them succeed. That really is the most important thing of all--that they have adults in their lives who treat them well and who expect good things from them.
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