In the Morning When I Rise

1 Cor 13. "... if I have not love... " Every Sunday I make lunches for the work week. I do this in such a way that I package all of the lunch elements so that it's pretty fast to put a lunch together in my lunch box the night before the following day. A bag of grapes, tomatoes, cheese and usually carrots. A bag of nuts and raisins, maybe some other snack mix thing. A few fruits, including a banana. And, the last item to go in is whatever the "main" is. Usually a burrito or some kind of leftover. But today I threw in a PB&J sandwich. It got me thinking about hand pies; I had seen a documentary featuring a Southern chef who was fascinated with them for a time and she gave a history. I think she explored their Latin American roots to a large extent, because that's what made it up to Mississippi from tomales and such. Not exactly sure on that. What I did give pause to as I was prepping was the difference between a sandwich and a hand pie, and what that might...

Here I find myself. Right now!  But am I really?  I think that I am very much a futurist. When I consider myself, and where my head is when it is in the clouds, I am often thinking about some future proposition. Fantasizing. And while this feature of myself has its charms, and even its benefits in creative thinking, it is also something to transcend . The framework of the enneagram, a lens through which I see myself, assumes that every individual has maladaptive traits that disable the individual to the heightened experience that he or she is capable of, perhaps even destined for. These traits need to be seen, and that individual should evolve to transform weakness into strength. I am not entirely sure the prescription for this process, but the idea I very much like.  As I was riding my bike yesterday, I rode past a patch of mixed grass life near railroad tracks. I considered how easy it is for plant life to flourish, comparing that with how difficult it is for people to ...

When I moved to Memphis I wanted so badly to fit in. I was excited about being in a new context, about landing in a place where, at last!, I would be meaningfully working to make a difference in the lives of people that really needed someone like me. But it was a myth of a story I was telling myself that just wasn't true. But perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh; really, it was a story that was still immature.  I'm listening now to the audiobook Pedagogy of the Oppressed . It's strongly resonating with me. I am seeing more clearly why I feel like I don't fit here in Memphis. There are lots of reasons. I'm not from here, and Memphians tend to want local solutions... and I can dig that. It's a stretch to trust an outsider solution (though, for sure, one that should be made sometimes). Somehow I don't match up to what an administrator should be. I'm not good with laws and policy, I'm much more inclined by the spirit of a thing, good practice. I'm in...

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” ~Abraham Lincoln "Wax on, wax off" ~Mr. Miyagi God forbid we make a mistake! In the information age, it seems all the more compelling that we should never come into error. We have all of history as a basis for our decisions, how could it be that we repeat a mistake of a time past, one documented in bits accessible within milliseconds by Google search? There is a logic to that, but most would agree that, for humans, the appropriate orientation is to err.  I begin here, in error, because it is perhaps the place that I get tripped up so often. My wife has called me an "end game" thinker. My head is in the future. And I have made plans and interiorly navigated a path (only known to me) to that end, despite who might be the people that need to bring us to the end, or any of the contingencies that will be encountered to shape the actual "road to the end".  I hate the idea ...

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. Phil 4:11 The  Lord  is my shepherd; I shall not want. Psalm 23:1 “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ~ CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory I am not certain, at this moment, how need, want, and desire relate to each other, but I have cleared a small passage of time to consider. Keys, in the way that women who care about you will do, was critical of my passiveness and indirectness. She's right. I tend to make recommendations by implication ("here's a potential problem"), rather than directly stating what I think should be done, and I tend to allow th...

Gratitude and humility are inseparable, you know. ~Gary Black (Southland Church) https://southland.church/devotions/show-week/thats-not-fair-the-greatest-one-is-the-humble-one We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground that we should ultimately thank. ~Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, if Fortunate I haven't written for a bit of time. I was starting to wonder if this pursuit was worth it, to write a passage twice a week. I was wondering if I might switch to something shorter and daily. I still wonder that, but this morning, whether to encourage me to continue in my previous pursuit or because I needed the message I do not know, I received a message fairly loud and clear: the inextricable relationship between humility and gratitude. You cannot have one without the other.  In a burst of pride I was eager to find where I had written on this before, thinking, "I've probably written about this several times", and I may have written about it somewhere...

This morning in the wee hours I was thinking about work and work people. I was thinking about why Dr. Rob got to be principal and I didn't. What were my failings, what were my trappings? Oh, my thoughts weren't specifically about "what makes him better than me", but the self-reflection was about us in contrast, most likely. As I was considering, I had a thought whiz in that I thought indicated growth on my part. I thought, if it came down to it being necessary, and Dr. Rob were getting into a battle of wills, that I might say something like, "how many times have you been a jerk with me? You really have to start to answer that question and figure out why or it could end up being a hindrance to you." As usual, it sounded right in my head, but the context of the situation made it seem plausible to say it, and have it be received. But the critical factor in it being received well, if at all, would have been in its power to convince Dr. Rob that it was really in ...