Team USA or Team Us?

"I know the fight is on the way...
When the sides have been chosen."
~Keep Your Eyes Open by Needtobreathe

Democrats vs. Republicans
Dogs vs. Cats
Obama vs Romney
Left vs. Right
PS3 vs. XBox 360
Jif vs. Peter Pan
Mac vs PC
The 1% vs. the 99%
USA vs. The World

There is competition everywhere. There is always one side against another. There is always a winner and always a loser. As I look forward to the upcoming 2012 Olympics, I realize one thing: there is only one race and that is the HUMAN race.

Every four years the Olympics arrive and viewers pick their events to follow. I usually like watching the gymnastics, some of the track and field events, and the swimming. Just like everyone else in America, I watch Team USA with great anticipation. I enjoy the medal count and I am always excited when I see USA crushing the competition in golds, silvers, and bronzes.  America has its highly trained competitors with major endorsements who prepare and train as their full-time job. Meanwhile, in some remote country a few fans gather around a small television to watch the warriors they have sent. Rarely do they ever win a medal, but they follow their athletes just the same. Many countries can barely afford the round-trip ticket for one person. Yet they send them anyway and cheer and smile when the finish line is crossed, whether or not a medal is involved.

The experience I mentioned in an earlier post about meeting a man from India on the flight to Chicago comes back to mind. As we huddled over the map of the world, I strangely realized we had a lot in common. He had lived in Atlanta, Georgia for three years so he understood a little bit of our culture. He had kids and a job. He had been to the Grand Canyon and had driven through Las Vegas. He had even taken his family to Disney World. He knew more about my country than I knew about his. Amazingly, he also spoke English along with three Indian dialects.

Many believe we are so different from people who live 10,000 miles away. Our skin color is different. We speak different languages. We worship a different way or not at all. And yet their hearts beat and pump the same kind of blood. They cry at weddings and funerals and they laugh at a giggling baby. They enjoy a good meal. They love being around their family. And they all have a heart that beats a final thump as breath leaves the lungs for one last time.

In the end, the competition that we thought was so important was evidently just a game. A game that we all have to play, though we play it in so many different ways. I guess what the Olympics teach me is that we all want to win and we all want to be proud of where we live. It makes me believe we are more alike than we are different. The thirst to win and succeed is ingrained in every individual on Earth.

The important point is that we finish strong. If we do, we are winners in the biggest game of all.

The Proof of Your Love

I am passing on the monologue from the song “The Proof of Your Love” from For King and Country. It is an excerpt from 1 Corinthians 13 in The Message. I love the way it states it so clearly and profoundly. No further commentary is necessary. The passage speaks for itself.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-7, The Message)

Skateboarding Bulldogs and “Little” Cities

“Cause if you never leave home, never let go
You'll never make it to the great unknown till you
Keep your eyes open, my love.” Keep Your Eyes Open from NEEDTOBREATHE

I recently spent six days in Michigan for the New Tech Network New Schools Conference. It was long and tiring and an amazing experience. We planned interactive projects to begin the school year and learned a complex yet stimulating model for project-based learning. However, it seems more lessons were learned from the journey (as always with me). Here are some interesting insights that came to me after the flurry of the week had ended:

1. The world is a big place, and we are a small part of it. The view from 30,000 feet is enlightening. Rivers seems like tiny twisting scribbles and cars are miniscule moving dots. Huge cities like Chicago look like a small rustic village on the banks of the great ocean that is Lake Michigan. Getting a plane’s eye view is enlightening and humbling and amazing all at the same time. It also makes you feel simultaneously powerful and powerless. You think: How can I, such a puny ant on the scale of the huge world, make any kind of difference? But rather than being depressed and feeling insignificant, I was actually just more on the reflective side. I decided that the difference I make is up to me, and that difference will be in MY little rustic village.

2. The amazing part of life is the journey, not the destination. Interacting with travelers on the airplane, speaking with individuals at the conference, and observing those we ran into at night in restaurants and on the street were great learning opportunities. I sat by a man from India on the plane ride to Chicago. We talked the whole time about life in India versus life in America. We took out the map of the world from the airline magazine and compared the places we had both been and would love to visit. He lamented his 24 more hours of plane travel to arrive at his home, but missed his loved ones just like I did. I also met teachers who face the same struggles as I do and have the same hopes and dreams, which makes the world seem a little smaller.

3. Look for opportunities all around you to change your thinking. On the way home from one of the local eateries we saw a woman jogging with an English bulldog behind her riding a skateboard. That is definitely something you don’t see every day.  Of course we had to get pictures. The dog seemed like it was so natural to ride a skateboard and his owner acted like it was another day at the park. I noticed that my engrained thinking about what the world should look like is colored by my own narrow views. Just when I think I have students figured out and I know the way I should visualize the learning process, my training at the conference showed me a new way. I moved outside of my little box and discovered a world that has no easy answers--unpredictable and new every time the sun rises.

At the risk of being cliché let me end with this: The joy is in the journey. May you open your mind to different ways of thinking and strive to make a difference as you travel the streets of your rustic village, always contemplating the view from above.

Playing in the Sprinkler 

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” ~Pablo Picasso

A few days ago I noticed that my waist was expanding and my pants were not, so I headed off toward the track to walk laps and run bleachers. On the way I noticed a few children in a nearby house playing in the sprinkler and water hose.  It was the perfect summer activity to beat the heat. Part of me wanted to pull over and run to the house and play in the water with them, but I figured that might prompt a call to the police or the funny farm. So I just smiled and kept going, a little jealous at their homemade water park.  At the track, it was the usual suspects. Housewives needing a break from the kids.  High school athletes trying to impress their girlfriends. Older men trying to regain some portion of their youth. And me of course. 

It was around 7:30PM so I noticed the automatic sprinklers were on watering the football fields. One of the sprinklers was not aimed correctly, which created a 10-foot spray onto the track. I noticed the errant sprayer after I had just passed it, so I wasn’t able to enjoy a cool relief from the heat. My next thought was: “I’ll catch it next time around.” Sadly when I returned, the timer had shut off and the watering session was finished for the night. My chance at a cool mist reprieve had passed.

As usual I wanted to make sense of the life lesson found in these two incidents.  It took me a few days to piece it together, but it finally came to me.  Why was I jealous of the children? I could easily turn on the sprinkler at home and dance around the front yard (most likely prompting a few snickers as people passed by). I believe what I was jealous about is the reality of my youth that has passed me by. The innocence and freedom that a child possesses can never be repeated or duplicated as we age.  But I believe we can learn a few lessons from the children. I think we are never too old to enjoy the spray of a sprinkler, eat a sno cone, make a loved one laugh with funny voices, or giggle at a Looney Toons marathon. 

Sadly, we wait too long to make moments of our own and share those childlike experiences with the ones we love. Like the sprinkler on the track, time passes before we know. The kids grow up. Your mom grows older. Long distance relationships with high school friends fade away.  Memories become a distant reality. Life passes by and doesn’t wait for us to catch up. I pray that we would not miss opportunities and realize we can never recapture a moment when it passes. Take time to stop and let the sprinkler come to you.

When we review memories made with those we love, how refreshing it is to not have any regrets when we look back at our lives.

Take the time to play in the sprinkler….no matter how silly you look and no matter who is watching.  

A Flat Tire..and a Winding Road

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."~ Marie Curie

I was alerted by a teacher yesterday that I had a flat tire. Somehow by the grace of God I made it all the way to school and a perfectly-placed nail brought the tire to rest on the pavement by the early part of the morning. With the help of the school's maintenance director, we changed to the temporary "donut" and I made plans to take the permanent tire to be patched after school.  The first lesson I learned is that there is no reason to get upset about things that are beyond my control. Flat tires will happen..and there is no reason to get mad, cry, or philosophize about them.  They only have to be changed. But the life lesson was not in the flat tire, but in the journey to fix it. 

I had to stay the entire day at the school to wait for the high school graduation that night at 7PM. I live too far away to drive home and back. But I needed my tire fixed so I decided to take it to get patched right after school. My first choice was a town about 18 miles away that I pass through every day.  There is a Walmart there  and various tire shops, so it was the obvious choice. However, a smaller town was about 9 miles away, although I had never been there except for passing through. So I had a choice: go with the obvious and familiar or take a chance on the unfamiliar. I chose the smaller town.

I asked for directions from a few teachers and headed off down the narrow highway toward my cutoff. I had never been on this road. After about a minute a wave of apprehension flowed through me…that surge of adrenaline and fear that comes from experiencing the unfamiliar. Why was I worried? At least three people had told me the directions (I should have trusted the first person since they live in the area). And yet my fear of the unknown brought me to a place of decision. I decided to keep going and, after a minute, the fear subsided and I felt a sense of trust and peace. I found the small town and the tire was fixed in no time flat (pun intended).

What was my biggest fear?  What was the worst that could happen? I realized that I am way too cautious with my life when it comes to the everyday trust that I need to live a stress-free life. I know God is in control and I know he is guiding me and leading me down that winding road. But do I trust that he is going to take care of my future?  Do I trust that he has the "directions"…even if I have never been there before? The truth is obvious…He DOES know the way. All I have to do is trust Him and follow. I also realized that the rush of adrenaline brought on by fear that I experienced can sometimes translate into excitement and anticipation instead of worry.

Is it naivety to trust the future and know that it will all work out? Or is it simply an expression of faith? Which brings me to a familiar verse that speaks to me in new ways as I contemplate the winding road: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Every winding road has a destination.  May I enjoy the journey.