WHAT HE CAN DO TO HELP
In the face of the disastrous news
on the morning show,
what he can do
is place the lid on the pot
in as precise a way as possible.
He can set the burner
so it becomes bright.
He can walk across the carpet
with contentment
and carefully find a shirt
and a complementary tie
in the closet. He can
pause and listen to the birds
preparing for their day.
He can marvel at the miracle
of fingers bending beautifully
to tie the tie.
TRUSTING NOW
Monday, May 19, 2008
Today I want to place all of my trust in God – in the everlasting and supreme Present Moment. I want to have complete confidence that each moment has exactly what is needed and is doing precisely the correct thing. I want to depend on the Present Moment to supply all my needs. It’s important that I expect with absolute assurance that each moment of the day will be utterly full of the most complete kind of power. I need to say to each moment, “I have total trust in you. I give myself to your care.”
ENDLESS SUPPLY
Sunday, May 18, 2008
I spend a great amount of time worrying about how my needs are going to be supplied, but the truth is that there’s an endless supply of all true necessities. In any situation I can imagine, what I really need is helpful ideas. My thoughts control my reality. What I think is what life becomes for me, and therefore commanding, constructive, and healing thoughts are the essential requirement in any circumstance. What’s wonderful about this is that there is no end to curative thoughts. Good ideas flow from a hidden and unending source; they are always as available as a spring of continuously flowing water. It’s utterly impossible to exhaust the stockpile of supportive ideas. Wherever I turn, there they are, just waiting to help. It’s never-ending money in a spiritual bank, and it makes me (and all of us) richer than the wealthiest person in the world.
ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER
Day 151, Friday, May 16
This morning, Bill was participating with his collaboration group in a thoughtful discussion, when he suddenly stood up, went behind the cabinet, and put a large puppet on his hand. I caught his eye and shook my head, and he immediately put the puppet down and said, “Uh, I don’t even know why I did that.” It was a good example of the thoughtlessness that operates in all of our lives now and then, but it was also an example of a young person’s ability to understand what had happened – to see that what he had just done was a mindless act. It was a wonderful insight on Bill’s part. For a moment he was able to step back and see himself as he truly was, something adults often spend decades learning how to do.
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I was impressed as I watched Sam, Bill, Tommy, and Jeff’s group editing their long collaborative essay. They had made copies of the essay for each person, and they sat quietly for perhaps 20 minutes -- reading, correcting, and discussing the paragraphs. They were as intensely involved as any adult committee would be. They discussed their work like a group of serious business people. Any passer-by would have thought, “There is a group of earnest students.”
NO DEFEAT EVER
Saturday, May 17, 2008
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory.”
-- 1 Corinthians 15:57
I’ve often seen the world as a place of endless competition inevitably ending in either victories or defeats, but when I’m thinking clearly, I know that only victory is possible. In order to have winners and losers, there must be division and separation – individual “teams” fighting it out – but in this universe, as I’m understanding better and better, there is only oneness. It’s a universe, not a mulitverse, and the entire universe itself always wins. It’s literally true that all things work together for good, for victory. Each moment of existence – mine or anything else’s – is a complete triumph for everything. The universe, of which I am a part, deserves a trophy every single second.
SITTING
He’s seen kids sitting on stones
when the sun was sitting on rooftops.
He’s seen a woman waving
as she sat on the beach
on a day that was
sitting beside her like a friend.
He’s seen a car sitting patiently
at the curb while a whole city
sat silently around it
at three-seventeen a.m.
He’s seen stones sitting
in peace in a world of war,
grass sitting on the restful soil,
the soil sitting with its families
on the suspended and soothing earth.
ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER
Day 150, Thursday, May 15
It occurred to me today that I might need to restrain, at least somewhat, my tendency to try to “improve” my English classes each year. I might need to practice a little more patience, develop a bit more “staying power”. I may want to control my sometimes obsessive tendency to rush in with small and large changes each year, and just be content with allowing my curriculum to evolve in a more natural and gradual manner. I started thinking about this, surprisingly, after reading Jane Austen’s
INTO THE OPEN
Friday, May 16, 2008
“God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.”
-- Romans 8:6, The Message
It became clear to me this morning that there are really only two ways of viewing life – as spacious or cramped. Reality is either a wide-open, boundless festival or a narrow, restricted prison. I’m either part of a limitless miracle or a tight and chaotic struggle. Unfortunately, I have spent a good part of my life believing in the latter. Life, for me, has been fairly “small”. I’ve often seen myself as a hugely insignificant and vulnerable mortal who’s forced to make a constant effort simply to survive from day to day. I’ve played out my days imagining myself on a very small stage surrounded by rigid boundaries. This morning, though, I’ve been able to see more clearly the other, entirely different, viewpoint. This view sees life as a being absolutely unlimited – without boundaries of any sort. In this view, the stage of life is unimaginably vaster than even the realms of the stars. There are no beginnings anywhere, and no endings. Nothing is separated from anything else, because there are no boundary lines. Every so-called “thing” and every experience blends into every other one to make a seamless, measureless whole. From this expansive viewpoint, nothing is more important than anything else, and no supposedly “individual” experience is more important than the overall, boundless whole. Each seemingly separate and crucial event is merely a wave in an infinite ocean. Perhaps I can look at life today from this thoroughly freeing perspective. Perhaps I can remind myself that the stage on which the universe (and I) play out the cosmic drama is larger than the distance between the farthest stars. It might help me to relax and enjoy the show.
WAITING PASSIONATELY
May 15, 2008
“Wait passionately for God.”
--Psalm 37:34, The Message
I would like to become an expert at “waiting”. I don’t mean the kind of waiting that involves being dissatisfied with the present and yearning for something better in the future. Quite the opposite. I want to be the kind of “waiter” who is perfectly content to stay exactly in the present -- to hang around to see what happens, to peacefully pass the time as life unfolds. I want to wait in the sense of being constantly in readiness for whatever the Universe has prepared. Like a good waiter, I want to “wait upon” the Universe (instead of little “me”) -- to serve its “needs”, to be in attendance on it. I want to “wait on” the present moment the way I might pay a visit to a very special person. And I want to do all this passionately. I want to wait with fervor for the next great miracle, which will unfold in the very next moment. Waiting should be my passion. Instead of always doing, dashing, starting out, sallying forth, proceeding, and advancing, I need to wait. If someone asks me what I do, I can say, “I wait.”
Day 149, Wednesday, May 14, 2008
A PIECE OF PAPER
He wonders what
a crumpled piece of paper
in a wastebasket
does all night.
Does it simply sit there
as the stars shed their inspiration
across the earth? Does it feel
the unfurling of the night
as the hours pass? Does it sense
that astonishing things are occurring
in countless places, that rivers
are rambling in lighthearted ways,
that streets are sleeping
after long hours with tires?
Does the crumpled paper
pretend to be someone’s
crumpled heart,
someone sitting in silence
as the stars pass
in procession overhead?
AN UNIMAGINABLE POWER
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
“Have we not all one Father?”
--Malachi 2:10
This morning I was struck, again, by this forceful thought: the power of each present moment is infinite. I’m not sure why that thought, which I have often pondered, felt so overpowering this morning, but it definitely did. As I stood in the bathroom shaving, I felt like I was part of an immeasurable force, one that has been exerting its steady and irresistible power for untold eons. It’s a power that seems to exist in time, over zillions of year, but actually it exists only in the present moment – right now. Absolutely all of this inestimable power – the “Father” that Malachi speaks of -- is present in each split second of life. It’s an astonishing truth to consider, one that makes shaving at 6:04 a.m. an especially notable experience.
Day 148, Tuesday, May 13
Today I came to school with a lighter heart than usual, mostly because I knew the entire day was already thoroughly planned. Recently I have been doing my planning early in the morning before school, but I’ve grown discontented with that procedure, so I decided to switch back to designing all my classes the afternoon and evening before. Yesterday afternoon, in my empty classroom, I looked over the lessons of that day, thought about what went right and wrong, and slowly put together the lessons for today. It was a calming and fulfilling process. After the usual triumphs and dissatisfactions of a long school day, it was comforting to quietly build a promising lesson plan for a new day. When I left my classroom, I felt that all was in order for a realistic likelihood of at least modest success today.
This likelihood became even stronger when I put on my iPod headphones this morning and listened to a Beethoven cello sonata. It was still only 6:30 a.m., and the school building and grounds were deserted except for the birds going about their early spring duties, so I felt pleasantly alone as I did a few chores in the classroom while listening to the music. I can’t think of a better way to “warm up” for a fine day of teaching than to enjoy some Beethoven chamber music.
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The students have been reviewing for the exam by making up exam questions each night, and it’s working quite efficiently. Each day they turn in their five or six questions, and then I use the questions to give oral quizzes to the students. It’s proving to be an excellent and almost enjoyable way of reviewing. Once again, after decades of teaching, a new idea has come to me and proven successful, and I can only wonder what took it so long to get here.
PRAISE
His hobby is praising.
He praises the crumbs on his desk
from last’s night’s snack.
He praises the three pencils
sitting side by side beside him.
He praises the trustworthy ticks
of the clock in the living room.
Outside, he praises the overcast sky,
and the rooftops resting at ease
beneath its softness.
HELPFULNESS
He lives in useful surroundings.
The stars carry their convenient lights
across the sky each night,
and a silver day usually dawns
in a completely constructive way.
Each hour is helpful to him,
and all the moments are worth
spending time with.
Everything seems handy.
The whole sky seems to be
standing by to help.
THE PRESENT MOMENT DOESN’T WORRY
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
This morning I awoke with the customary thought that I needed to get busy making plans for an excellent day. The thought came to me, as it habitually does, that if I wanted to be a first-rate person and teacher, I must immediately begin designing ways for that to happen. It was all up to me. I was the boss; if I didn’t arrange excellence for my life, who would? Luckily, a thought came to me that quickly dispelled that nonsense. I remembered, as I made the bed and sorted through the clothes for the day, that this day and everything that happens in it is designed by a far greater power than the feeble creature I call “me”. Some people call this power God or Allah or the Tao, but I often just called it The Present Moment, because the present moment literally contains all the power of the universe. There’s no power that doesn’t arise in the present moment and no event that doesn’t occur in the present. It’s where everything today will begin and end, where all authority will start and finish. The Present Moment, not I, will control, manage, and be in charge of everything today. What’s even more important, The Present Moment will always be perfect. Each moment will be exactly what it is and what it must be. Each moment can’t be any different, no worse and no better, which means each moment is absolutely ideal – just what the doctor ordered. With this in mind, how foolish is it for me to fuss about designing the ultimate day for myself. The fact is that each moment will be thoroughly unsurpassed, no matter what “I” decide to do.
ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER
Day 147, Monday, May 12, 2008
Today, during our literary discussion, I asked the students to not look at me. "Forget I'm here," I told them. "Look at your classmates when you're speaking." I've said that occasionally this year, but not nearly enough. It should be a major theme of my teaching -- that I am merely the background to the students' foreground. What happens in my classroom should never be about me but always about the students. They are front and center; I am off-stage clapping and giving encouragement. As the year goes by, they must be more and more and I less and less.
……………………….
This morning before school I read a few of my old journal entries about teaching, and it was a soothing and energizing experience. I read an entry about how much good I can bring to a student's life just by paying him or her a tiny compliment, and another entry talked about the importance of "constructing" each day in the classroom with as much care and precision as a builder constructs a new house. It was just a few brief minutes of quiet reading, but it unquestionably helped me prepare for the day ahead.
FOLLOWING INSTEAD OF LEADING
Monday, May 12, 2008
Today I would like to do more following than leading. It’s actually strange that I would think leading is even a possibility, since what is called “I” is not a separate physical entity, and is therefore, in fact, incapable of any kind of leading. The truth is that “I” am an inseparable part of an infinite Universe, and therefore the only option truly available is to follow this Universe as it works out its plan. The Universe knows what’s best for everything (it’s been taking care of its creation for immeasurable eons), and consequently “I” am in the best of hands. Like a drop of water in a measureless ocean, there’s no leading involved for me. All I have to do is ‘go with the flow’ -- and today, like any day, the flow will be harmonious and wholly advantageous for one and all.
SOMETHING TO MARVEL AT
He marvels at the orderliness of things.
These days the birds start singing
at precisely four-forty-seven,
and the newspaper man makes his stop
at the house next door at six-o-six.
Stranger still, his breath enters and leaves
with correctness, his quiet heart
carries on its duties in a trustworthy way,
and the stars stream
the way they’re supposed to stream.
It’s astonishing to consider this
as he eats his perfect piece of toast
and dawn delivers another ideal day
at his doorstep.
RESTRICTED OR INFINITE
May 11, 2008
The only question worth considering today is whether life is restricted or infinite. In one sense, that seems like a silly question to me, because I have built my entire life on the belief in its narrowness and limitations. Almost every moment of every day, I have thought of myself as a small, vulnerable person in a universe filled with constraints, restraints, curbs, and checks. Life, for me, has been like being in a small closet with countless threatening entities waiting just outside the door. There is another viewpoint, however – and it seems clear to me that it’s the correct one (even though it’s almost impossible for me to keep it in mind). This view sees life as utterly unlimited, like being part of a sky that has no beginning and no end. According to this view, there are no restrictions whatsoever because there are no material “things” to be restricted or do the restricting. There is only unlimited thought in an unlimited universe of Mind. This view says life should be like a constant and completely worry-free celebration.
Today would be a great day to begin actually believing this – and living accordingly.
Day 146, Friday, May 09, 2008
Today I found particular satisfaction in our brief silent reading time at the start of each class. By habit, the students now enter my classroom very quietly, take out their books, and begin reading. For about eight minutes, we all sit together as a small community of serious readers. The only sound is the quiet classical music playing on my computer and the occasional turning of pages. At one point today I looked up from my book, and what I saw was a circle of young people deeply immersed in the pleasures of reading. I was tempted to set my book down and just take in the scene, the better to fully appreciate my good fortune. Here I was, a man of grandfatherly age (66) sitting and reading with students young enough to be my grandchildren. There was silence, concentration, deep thinking, and great peace in the room. I marveled at it all for a moment or two. How, I thought, does this kind of serenity come to be? How did I get so lucky?
THERAPY
When his life becomes too busy,
he sometimes thinks of things
that are resting.
He thinks of pencils relaxing on desks,
patiently waiting to be used –
of carpets quietly lying on floors --
of doors standing peacefully
but with perfect posture,
poised to open or close.
He thinks of mountains taking a break
just where they’ve been taking a break
for thousands of years,
of rivers running
like serene runners running for fun.
He thinks of his own hands
that often relax at his side,
and of the few gentle dollars
that sometimes take it easy
in his pockets.
WASHING SPINACH
Washing spinach in the sink
while birds were singing outside
sent his mind down streets of satisfaction.
He strolled past bushes in bloom,
past cars that came from paradise,
past polite trees in their spring dresses.
The streets were singing
songs of strength,
and all the birds
were bright soldiers of independence
while the spinach
was shining under the fresh water.
AT 4:42 A.M.
There was Chopin piano music,
and a printer taking its time with documents,
and two pencils sitting side by side,
and a lamp with a green shade
that glowed like a gift.
There were his hands,
happy after being washed,
and his heart holding feelings
like sprays of flowers.
There was breath
bringing the universe in,
sending it out,
bringing it in.
ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER
Day 145, Friday, May 8, 2008
Today Jay was the maitre d’ for his class, and it was wonderful to see him leading the discussion – calling on his classmates, making transitions, and generally keeping things running smoothly. He’s a quiet boy who keeps to himself, so it was gratifying to see him handling the leadership duties so efficiently. It was a good experience for him, and I think his classmates enjoyed seeing him succeed.
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Jimmy was a star in class today. We read and discussed a poem a teacher had written about her mother’s death (she gave me permission to use it in class), and Jimmy explored the poem in greater depth than anyone. He was bent over the table with his pencil, carefully re-reading and underlining lines, and his comments were lengthy and insightful. Once again I was amazed as I thought back to the rather blasé and distractible Jimmy of last year.
Day 145, Thursday, May 08, 2008
Yesterday I held my first outdoor classes of the spring, and they were among the most stress-free classes I can recall. Of course, how could they be anything else, really, when the students and I are sitting in a sun-splashed, breezy garden having calm conversations about English matters? Even though we all sat up straight in our chairs (a requirement in my classes), there was a laid-back feeling to the class. The kids seemed entirely comfortable as we discussed Dickens and grammar issues in the easy-going air. This is especially interesting because I had talked with the students beforehand about being extra-serious when we’re outside among so many distractions. I told them I expected them to be entirely focused and earnest during the outdoor class, which you might think would lead them to be somewhat stiff and inexpressive. Far from it. As we sat among the blossoming trees and flowers, the kids spoke with a particular sense of independence and enthusiasm. Some of the typically quiet ones spoke with unusual eagerness, as if the spring air had gently stirred their thoughts and buoyed up their hearts.
ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER
Day 144, May 7, 2008
4:59 a.m.
At school today I would like to keep a “don’t know” mind. For most of my life, I’ve done exactly the opposite. I’ve driven myself to know as much as possible about as many things as possible. I’ve thought of myself as a little energizer bunny thinking machine, capable of defeating the world by recognizing, identifying, discerning, distinguishing, and knowing. It’s been me against life, and my main weapon has been my ability to think and know. Sadly, though, it’s gotten me pretty much nowhere. I’m usually fairly happy in my life, but rarely satisfied. There’s always something else to know, some new mystery to figure out and understand, and the figuring out and understanding only leads to the next mystery, usually bigger than the one before. The truth is, my energizer bunny mind is like a wee speck in an infinite universe of puzzles. What’s really dangerous about all this is that I continue to pretend that I’m making progress, that I’m solving the problem of life by knowing more and more. I see this in my work as a teacher. My students are as mysterious, as baffling, as shadowy, as inexplicable as the most distant galaxies, and yet I still pretend that I know how to teach them. I convince myself, over and over, that I’m “figuring them out”. It’s as if teaching a human being is as easy as learning to use a new computer: you simply get to know the machine, and, bingo, it works. Trouble is, students are not machines; they are more like vast and mystifying solar systems ... which brings me back to the “don’t know” mind. Today, instead of continuing with my charade of being the great ‘knower” who can gradually figure everything out and thus bring life under control, I would like to be the great un-knower who, moment by moment, stands before the immeasurable mystery of life. I’d like to continually admit that I actually know nothing at all, that the universe and I make up an utterly strange and incomprehensible mystery. Perhaps if I practice more of that kind of humble acceptance of ignorance in my teaching, I will become, oddly enough, a better and better teacher.
