The Way

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may house their bodies, but not souls.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent  forth.

The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let you bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.” Khalil Gibran

Today our grandson turns 5. It seems just like yesterday he was born. No, it seems like yesterday our children were little. It time is a dream, then I am living this glorious dream in vivid color. Watching Charlie grow and become a person in his own right is a gift. It’s his day. And for dinner we are having tacos and rolls–because that is what is favorite food is!

“Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. This is what life has taught me.” Katherine Mansfield

Is your life in order? If you slipped away in the middle of the night at the hands of an angel, would your loved ones know where everything is and what you want accomplished? If you look at each day as a life, then it makes sense to place your affairs in order each day, no matter what your age. Earlier we eliminated clutter in our lives. Today is a good day to place order in your life. Walk into each room in your house. Is it clean, neat, and orderly?  Are there items you can eliminate, or perhaps put away for another season? It’s part of the human experience to have clutter pile up, but what I’ve discovered that when my physical surroundings are chaotic and cluttered, it’s a sign that my inner life is out of balance. Getting organized has been one of my top priorities. My mind is clearer. I am more focused, and I get more accomplished. As a teacher, I learned to live by a lesson plan, which I transferred over to my personal life.

I have arrived at a place where my surroundings are neat, organized, and balanced. Even at work. Today is our annual “tag sale”. As I told our employees, no price is too low. This stuff needs to go. It’s amazing how much stuff piles up in the course of a year.

Becoming organized is a wonderful accomplishment. Create order in your life, then you won’t spend your life searching for your keys!

Tags: chaotic, clutter, order

“The aim of all education is, or should be, to teach people to educate themselves.” Arnold Toynbee

When I taught college English, I always told my students the responsibility of learning is on the learner. Sometimes you have gifted teachers, sometimes you have ordinary teachers, but it is your responsibility to learn. Don’t blame someone else. I can’t tell you how many times students and people have told me they got through high school without ever reading a book. First, I don’t believe you, and second, why would you do that to yourself? Confucius once said a wise man knows he knows nothing. There is so much to learn out in this vast universe we will never tap even a small portion.

For me, my lifelong love of learning began with reading. I grew up in a time when there were only three TV channels, in black and white, that went off air at eleven. Thus, we all became avid readers, a gift we gave to our children, who are passing it forward to their own children. You have to be motivated to stretch your mind and develop a curiosity toward learning. Your worldview will expand and you will derive countless hours of pleasure.

Take your journal. Write what interests you. What do you want to learn how to do? What books have you always wanted to read but never made the time? Reading tastes vary from person to person. The trick is to find a book you like, not a book someone else likes. Visit the library. Peruse the shelves. Visit the bookstore. I always told my students to read the first few pages to see if the narrative grabs you and the text is not over your reading level. There are three reading levels. Independent, where you are reading for pleasure. The words flow. You don’t have to look up meanings. Instructional: Where you are learning a task, skill, or a concept. Oftentimes, a teacher is instructing. Frustrational: A book that is way over your head and it is not fun to read. For me that would be Calculus.

Tags: reading levels