Time to unclench your hands from the steering wheel. Time to hit the brakes. Time to stand and stretch. Time to uncrinkle my brain. Time to breathe some fresh air.
Crazy how long and how short this quarter has been for me. How about for you? I feel a bit like the picture. It’s so beautiful outside, but I’m melting! All of that delicious ice cream slipping past the cone, dripping down the side with the delicious taste being wasted rather than tasted.
Are you like me? There have been 65 days in 2020, but they each seem like they have been 29 hours long. There have been 65 days in 2020, but not 65 hours of time dedicated to family and friends and the things that matter most. At least it feels that way. Perhaps my math is slightly off, but the goals I set for more family time and more balance do not seem to be realized.
I work with people who are counting the milliseconds until spring break. They regularly announce it. Much to my annoyance, I keep hearing the sands of time clinking in the glass, each one reminding me that the to do list is building more rapidly than the completed list. However, each time I dedicate blocks of time for things in my real life, so to speak, I know it is coming at a cost of the accumulating to do list.
So, why am I whining to you? Well, the truth is that I love what I am doing, but I want to improve the manner in which I am doing it. Maybe you do as well. I keep seeing Angela Watson’s work a 40 hour week program and I have seen some of the tips from those who have taken the class. I wonder if it is worth the time and money to take the class. I know how to make files, touch papers once, not grade everything, put my head down during my break. I don’t know how to turn down a student who needs my help with math. I don’t know how to turn away a friend whose son has made some bad choices and needs comfort. I don’t know how to ignore the parent who is at their wits end dealing with their teenager in a world that is fraught with ways to drift off course. I don’t know how to ignore a text that asks me to pray. So, that said, I’ll bet you don’t either.
This week, I am purposing to rejoice in every thing that gets done. Not just the items from my list, but also from the list of things that give me pleasure that never joins the to do list. Helping a friend see perspective when her middle school kid behaved in a way that was an embarrassment to her and a detriment to him was truly an honor. I have to rejoice that I was available, and that her need exceeded the pile of tests I should have graded at that time. I’m glad she knew she could depend on me for advice and for perspective and comfort. I’m glad it helped her. That is more satisfying than checking off the last item on the list.
People matter. Giving counts. Love lasts. To do lists, well, they can always change and grow, but they can never replace the joy of helping. I love marking things off the list, of course, but how empty would my life be if I didn’t have friends, family and students to love and to bless and to help. I’m very rich. I just have to be okay with having a to do list that exceeds my available time.
So maybe, with full respect to the Bible, I will write myself a I Corinthians 13 teacher adaptation, and remember the greatest thing we can ever do is to love. Maybe I should stop wanting to mark off the to do list before spring break, and think about the good we can do outside the list. In the meantime, here’s a reminder of what the Bible actually says about love (charity).
13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
First published March 7, 2020
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