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| Sometimes when things get stressful you have to draw up some new pre-twinkle flash cards |
We've been working super hard on the November Suzuki Association of Minnesota Fall workshop. It's gonna be great but we have to get the news out there and get people to actually sign up!
Sometimes you just nag, nag, nag because people in your own house leave SO MUCH STUFF everywhere.
Tra la la.
I brought St. Francis in from the garden and put him on the staircase. I'm reading a book about him, and here is a great quote:
Fear, constriction, and resentment are seen by spiritual teachers to be an inherent blindness that must be overcome. Those emotions cannot get you anywhere, certainly not anywhere good. Thus all mystics (St. Francis) are positive people--or they are not mystics! Their spiritual warfare is precisely the work of recognizing and then handing over all of their inner negativity and fear to God. The great paradox here is that such a victory is a total gift from God and yet somehow you must want it very much. Page 9, Eager to Love, The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, by Richard Rohr.
He goes on to reference Philippians 2, verses 12 through 16 which I'll let you look up if the spirit moves you.
This is the biggest deal. To turn over negativity at every moment, every day. That is our warfare. At least it's mine. I'm guessing it's also for teachers, parents and everyone else. We have to develop the conscious habit of being positive. And recommit again and again and again. We have to practice being positive. We must want it very much.
It just always catches me off guard, like when the driver behind me is flailing her arms in anger because I didn't turn fast enough. It takes constant practice to create calm.
I tell parents, don't let practice be negative for more than a day. Reflect and change things up. It's our responsibility.
It's not just a stifling or denial of human nature, there is plenty of real bad stuff out there and our kids and students are gonna do plenty of truly annoying things. We have to correct the behavior. We just have a responsibility to our people to do this in a positive way.
I return to that mantra. Correct the behavior, correct the behavior, correct the behavior. Don't get swallowed up in negativity and project the end of the world onto your daughters inability to tidy her room or your student's complete lack of practice or the helplessness of whatever is on the news.
Work out your positivity with fear and trembling. This is our work. This is our responsibility.
This may be our greatest responsibility. To remain positive again and again and again. Moment by moment, breath by breath.
No one ever practiced because they got yelled at. Nobody ever gained a spark of joy tidying their things without a hopeful process. No one ever signed up for a workshop because the committee got cross. And I don't have a cute little answer for the gun control. How do you teach a nation that their lives and the lives of others are sacred, it's not a game to play. One kid at a time, sweet Jesus.
What the heck, I'm gonna close with that scripture anyway. . .
"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." Philippians 2:12-16.
We must want it very much. I think that is enough for now.
"Love Wins!"
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