(Afterthought: Stream of consciousness blogging today – you’ve been warned)
Because I am broken I can see the cracks in a world created so carefully.
Cracks in the earth, cracks in relationships, cracks in our goals, understandings and beliefs; foundations. Cracks that become crags; that become seemingly unbridgeable and insatiably discouraging canyons. Canyons are capable of making us broken people wonder whether the land on the other side even exists – did we dream the land across the divide? Was the beauty an illusion in the desert? Drowning in the dust of this life, we often forget the creation we are meant to be. We forget our capabilities, we forgo our ambition and succumb to the failure, falling into the cracks.
And then there is this.
A friend posted this to me a couple of weeks ago and I can’t get it out of my mind:
Ecclesiastics 1:8-10 (NIV)
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
All things are more wearisome than I can say…
I have been in classrooms this quarter in which groups of teachers attempt to solve the problems of our students by attempting to figure out how to motivate them. How to help them recognize and reach their goals. Wearisome. Attempting to come up with something new, we search through tomes of previously published works by psychologists, educators and parents. We compare our own students to studies. We study and compare notes about how we have attempted to motivate the students.
Motivation is more than the reasons behind choosing to do something. Motivation involves the ability to take risks and fail. To fail and recognize that it is not the end of the world. Motivation means being flexible. Motivation takes inspiration – and we are back full circle to my focus a little over a year ago where I focused on finding my own inspiration. At that time, I came up with this:
The drawing in of breath.
I don’t know if that definition has the same tone in your reading as it does in mine, so I will attempt to express the way I interpret it. The drawing in of breath is literally what makes us continue to live – to breathe is to live and to willingly step into the next moment with the presence of mind (or subconscious realization) that that drawing in of breath will need to occur over and over again at infinitum in order to guarantee that life continues. (http://wp.me/p2D1vn-46)
Breathing – stepping forward willingly and recognizing the need for constantly doing the same thing over and over again – Nothing new under the sun
How do I pass on this idea? How do I choose to do it myself?… recognizing that each day may bring the same conversation, the same attempt to inspire, the same need to instill motivation….
Oh my goodness. When realizations hit, they hit hard and humble.
Friends: I complain a lot. It’s easy and I can blame it on my humanity or my socio-cultural background or the cultural and economic expectations that society places upon me. I can blame it on false expectations of what it means to be community.
Yikes. Community. That is where I’m being hit hard right now.
Choices and friendship and willful release.
I live and function within a community of people who are constantly coming and going. University towns are not meant for continuous habitation. People come to school, or come to research -and then move on. Likewise, many in my community are in some way or another attached to the Air Force base nearby. Also a community of people not meant to stay long. I complain about this constantly.
I complain because it seems, when you do plant roots and make a home in such a place, everyone is always leaving and we are left to start again at the beginning. – wearisome
and a reminder:
“The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;”
Never enough breath – never enough beginnings, endings, meetings, parting. Perhaps, a complaint that can turn into a thankful moment in which I get to recognize the constant flow of inspiration placed at my fingertips. Hammering out the habits of complaint. hammering out the cynicism.
How can I hope to inspire when I am stuck in my own canyons, willfully denying the paths to bridge the divide? I still do not know how to motivate or inspire, but I suppose my ability to teach these traits might be caught up in my own ability to own and practice them.
Hammering out the feeling that i’m doomed to failure before I begin.
Building a bridge across those canyons.
Recognizing the beauty within the broken. The light streaming through the cracks.
Over Around and Through 