The Summer of My Discontent

“Intention, good or bad, is not enough.”

~John Steinbeck, from The Winter of Our Discontent

For many years I was taught that being discontented is a bad thing.  As Christians, I was told, we should always be filled with joy and that discontent is a sign of weakness. I was told we should never be unhappy with our life because we have so much to be thankful for, especially in America.  Maybe it is a defect in my personality, but I have always disagreed slightly with that philosophy.

For years, I was continually fighting my weight.  I was in a constant struggle with food that I always lost.  At some point, I resigned to the fact that I had no control over food, that I could not exercise regularly because of a plethora of reasons, and that I just needed to accept my life in its current state.  It was the same with my job.  I had dreamed of getting my doctorate and teaching at the college level, but more than once I gave up on that dream as well. In a sense, I was content with the person I had become, but hating that person at the same time.  Because that was my present reality, I felt that would be my reality for the rest of my life.

Then the age of 40 reared its ugly head.  Forty is a magical and terrifying age.  It is not the age to look back and have regrets or look forward with dread. I had done many great things: successful teacher, loving father, active in my church and singing regularly, and a seemingly happy husband. But under the surface bubbled an insecure person that was bursting at the seams to get out and do something different.  This was not the person I wanted to be and I felt I had to make a change for the sake of my sanity. 

Now I am happier than I have ever been, and one reason for that transformation is because of my discontent.  I want to be a better professor next year than I was this year.  I want to learn more every day, gain more skills, teach different classes, improve my writing, and open up a part of myself that I never knew existed.  I want to continually improve my fitness level and find new challenges to pursue. I kept most of my weight off in the last five years, ran a whole 5K, and pushed myself in the gym every time I went.  But that is not enough.  I know I can do better, push myself harder, run faster, or make changes that will make me feel better about my body.

I know skeptics will say: “How do you know when you have reached the point where you are happy with yourself?”  If they say that, they have missed the whole point. I never want to be content with where I am. I know someday I will look back and applaud what I have accomplished, but I hope that I will still be pursuing new challenges until the day I die. I want to be like Betty White, still acting in her 90s. I want to be Willie Nelson (minus his obvious bad habit), who got a Black Belt in Karate at 82.  I want to be like Bill Cosby, still active and extremely funny well into his 80s.  I don’t want to worry about death at every corner, but I want to naively pretend I will live forever. 

Yes, I am an idealist, but that is the way I choose to live.  I want to always be looking for the next challenge, reading the next book, or wondering what is around the next corner.  I want to continually be striving to improve myself, as well as taking care of the ones I love, supporting my children as they transform into adults, training my body into submission, becoming a more effective college instructor and mentor, and seizing ways to make a difference in other peoples’ lives every day. 

Will you join me? The only limits you have are the ones you place on yourself.

Let’s get going!  It is a long summer, so we better get started.

For the Love of Nature, Part II

“We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive.”~Aldo Leopold

Part I of this story began almost 20 years ago.  I was teaching an environmental unit with my middle school science students called “Mission:  New Earth”.  We decorated the room, had guest speakers, worked in teams, and recorded video commercials to promote starting over on a new planet after ours was left desolate and depleted.  It was Project Based Learning before I even knew what I was doing; back then we called it interdisciplinary learning. I truly enjoyed teaching the unit and had it published in Science Scope in 1997. 

After teaching that project for four years, I moved to a different middle school and conducted field trips to a local watershed with my seventh grade science students.  In 1998, Gary Endsley and I started the Environmental Technology Camps with Texas Parks and Wildlife and I became involved with River Basins Institute. We conducted the camps for five years and they were very successful.  During that time, I also taught High School Biology and Environmental Science in Queen City and even started an outdoor learning center.

The summer camps featured field trips and science activities in the morning and technology applications in the afternoon.  We offered day camps for middle school and elementary students, including Creepy Crawley Critters, Archaeology Academy, and Junior Master Gardener.  We learned about forestry and tested water and took field trips to local water treatment plants and the Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens.  The highlight of the summer was a three-day trip to Caddo Lake, where we met with Wildlife Biologists, took boat rides, tested water, and stayed in cabins. 

The camps eventually lost their funding and my time at River Basins Institute ended, but my love for nature never did. Gary and I got busy with other interests and I began working on a lifelong dream of getting my doctorate and teaching at the college level. Now that I am settled into a job preparing science and math teachers, my love for nature and environmental science has been rekindled. I am currently working on strengthening a partnership between UTeach and River Legacy Living Science Center in Arlington. I will also attend an environmental camp this summer sponsored by Luminant Energy.

As I walked today on a local nature trail in DFW, I was struck with the connections between man and his local environment.  On my left side was the Trinity River, wetlands, and fields of wildflowers.  I could hear the chirping of birds, saw a turtle getting warm on a log, watched a majestic Great Blue Heron take wing, and saw a long garter snake race across the sidewalk.  On my right, I could hear the roar of cars and diesels moving across George Bush Tollway (Hwy 161).  It seemed like such a contrast. Some would think it is sad that man has encroached on nature and taken away the luster of the natural world. But I see it differently. I am blessed that I can experience a place where people recognize the eternal interplay between man and nature.  It is not an either/or scenario.  It will always be a balance between the needs of mankind (transportation, housing, etc.) and the magnificence of nature. I want to teach students that we must create harmony between the two.  But we must also teach our children the importance of nature and let them see its value, beauty, and necessity.

I hope I can instill a wonder for nature and a love for the environment in my future teachers.  It is not a distraction, but a necessity if we hope to protect this wondrous world that we have been given, as we gently pass it to the next generation.  

A Call for Equality and Action (Feminism is Not Just for Females Anymore)

“Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

One of the many things I have learned during this year of living in the big city is how to understand people that are different than myself.  I purposefully became an Affiliate Faculty of the Center for African American Studies. I also audited a class called Introduction to African American Studies. Being a white male, many would think I do not belong there. But what I have learned has been priceless.  To understand a culture other than my own is truly a gift.

I also want to understand the plight of females in a male-dominated world.  In my time here, I have also come to realize how women have been marginalized throughout history.  They were only given the right to vote less than 100 years ago.  In many parts of the world, they are still not permitted to speak or attend school.  I am specifically interested in why they are in such low numbers in the fields of science and technology. So what is happening in society and what can we do about it? I think we need more males who recognize that they can be categorized as feminists.

Many people fight for the rights of minorities, but do not see the stereotypes, abuse, and miscategorization of women as a problem.  Women are told they should keep quiet and let men run the show. They are denied equal wages, told what to do with their bodies (mostly by men in power), and told that they cause themselves to be raped by the way they dress.  They are also used as sex symbols and asked to follow a standard of beauty that is rare and fake.  I know men have their own problems, but how many men have been raped and then told it was because their jeans were too tight or the shirt they were wearing showed their muscles. It is crazy, but that is how our messed-up world works many times.

They deserve more than respect, they deserve an equal place in society.  We need to showcase the female heroes such as the Rosey the Riveters, the senators and doctors, entertainers, housewives, astronauts, and engineers that have enriched out lives.  We also need to recognize the women who work so hard to raise their families when fathers are absent or abusive.  Women deserve to be respected, which includes being protected from abuse at the hands of boyfriends and husbands.

Recently, I have been observing classrooms and, more than once, the teachers have overlooked the female students, asked more difficult questions of the male students, let them drive the conversations, and allowed male students to “save” the females students after they could not answer a question.  It is so subtle that no one even notices the bias.  We have to train teachers to have equal expectations of all their students and push their female students to pursue any career they want, even those traditionally held by men.

I am calling on men to stand up for women, show them respect, allow them to be leaders in society and the church, and help pass legislation to make prostitution, pornography, and the exploitation of women through human trafficking a thing of the past.  We need men strong and confident enough to call themselves feminists and willing to fight for the other half of our society.

Colors

When we gaze upon the many colors of our skin,

We seek to understand how those colors create

attitudes or bring to mind stories from history clouded with hate; lead

others to think their colors are more pure than the rest.

Like a box of crayons, each color brings forth a memory or

emotion or feeling; many constructed by rules we have set.

Each color in the box has a story—of struggle and perseverance,

            hoping for others to have a vision that is both

            clear and colorful at the same time.

As I see students pass, I see the culture in their eyes.

As they speak, a choir of melodies brings their culture alive.

Although I cannot understand them, I speak their language of equality

            and feel their need for respect, their need to open the eyes of the

            blind and the colorblind.

Every color in the box has a beautiful story to tell and a resilient future to build.

4-16-14

Man in the Middle

“One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!"  But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  "And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."  And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!"  And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."  Luke 23: 39-43

I am a Christian. I have many beliefs that are not popular with fundamentalist views, but neither am I resigned to the drone of atheist naysayers. Both sides have the right to speak, and they both raise their voices like a sounding gong. In the middle is where I sit.  Waiting. Listening.  Hoping the clamor will cease.  But it never does. Why can’t I turn and run to one side or the other?  Why can’t I latch on to the certainty of a side and hold on tight.

Both sides clench tight to their ideologies, blinded by knowledge.  Both sides try to outscream the other.  Both sides snear and turn their heads, sticking their fingers in their ears and humming a tune like immature children on a playground.  Many people appear to meet in the middle, like boxers.  They shake hands, but then go back to their corners before proceeding to beat each other to a bloody pulp.

I always go back to the person of Jesus.  A man on a cross, hanging there for us.  Between two thieves arguing over their crimes.  Jesus speaks blessings on one and is silent to the other. Why is that so? Then it hit me.  Humility.  The criminal who begged for mercy was humble, to the point of asking for blessings even though he was just as guilty as the other man.  Jesus was always a man in the middle.  He was caught between the emptiness and fickleness of the crowd, following him for a mouth full of bread, and the Pharisees blinded by their own righteousness.  I sometimes wonder where I would have been.  Was there anyone else in the middle in Jesus’ time? 

The disciples, for whatever reason unique to each one, stayed with Jesus.  He had the answers.  He had the “words of life.”  They had nowhere else to go. To leave Jesus was to leave their source of strength.  To leave him meant disappearing into the crowd or parading around the temple in fine robes. Either choice was unacceptable.

Recently, I have learned that I ride the middle of controversial issues so many times.  I want to make both sides happy.  I want to keep the peace; to be a peacemaker.  Although it is not a comfortable place to be, that is where I choose to stay.  It is painful, like a teacher breaking up a fight between two bullies, catching the brunt of their anger.  The balm that soothes my heart is the phrase “I see your point.”  I don’t expect them to change, because bullies rarely do. But the hope of communication and lasting peace is more than pie in the sky.  It is the hope of all mankind. Throughout history we have failed to make peace materialize. But I will never give up.

I am not talking about Utopia, because I don’t believe it exists. But I do believe in the peaceful innocence of two small children walking hand in hand, and pray that someday we may find the peace of a small child in a world full of bullies.