The opportunity [educators have] is to nourish our students; evolving senses of self in ways that strengthen their confidence, awaken their curiosity, and cultivate their sensitivity toward others. -Dennis Shirley & Andy Hargreaves

This summer I’ve been participating in an on-line book club sponsored by Boston College. We’re reading The Age of Identity together, exploring how young people view themselves and how schools can support students by creating and sustaining spaces of belonging. I am finding it informative and engaging, both as an educator and a parent. The on-line blogs and discussion portals, along with the weekly podcasts, are well organized and thought-provoking.

Speaking of thought-provoking, yesterday I spent the day with nearly 200 student leaders from the schools that I support. I admire their commitment and enthusiasm! AND I appreciate the dedication of the teachers who accompany them throughout their weeklong experience. Similar retreat-type experiences for me, beginning while I was in high school, changed the trajectory of my life and so I hold sincere appreciation for the potential impact of these immersive learning and communal gatherings upon the young whom we serve.

This week I share an image of the students’ closing prayer from yesterday’s morning service, as an invitation for us to continually consider how we can build bridges of belonging within and across our communities. There’s a lot going on in society today…blessings on your week ahead!

Pope Francis calls [us to]…“the culture of encounter,” a way of walking together in which love opens us to our difference. Francis teaches that this kind of love draws us out of ourselves into fuller existence. Sr Mary McGlone

Over the weekend, when I visited our neighborhood farmers’ market, I chatted it up with of our regular vendors. Our family loves the berries and stone fruit he grows. Our fruit friend said to me, “los peaches estan good” this week…and I was struck by how frequently our regular exchanges interchange English and Spanish. To me, it was a nice reminder of the power of relationships and communication….a reminder that I’m finding useful as I settle back into work this week.

Our kids are out on family trips, visiting with friends, and soon will be off to camp in another two weeks. I love this time of year, not only for the natural refresh and re-set that occurs professionally given my educational focus, but most importantly due to the quality time together with my family. We enjoyed some recent glorious time off to the woods and at the beach, and summer continues!

Yesterday I opened a board meeting with this below reflection. Grounding myself in the power of patience is a constant need in all aspects of my life:) Enjoy and blessings on your week ahead!

A Reflection on Patience               From Gracious Goodness by Melannie Svoboda, SND

Patient people are more flexible with time than impatient people. Impatient people exist in only one time frame—their own. They are comfortable with only one schedule—theirs. They want things done when they want things done. And they expect the rest of the world to adapt to their schedule. If they want their child to be potty trained by twenty-four months and he is not by twenty-six, they get angry. If they have to stand in line at the store while an elderly lady ahead of them carries on a brief conversation with the cashier, they get upset because that lady is disrupting their schedule.

Patient people, on the other hand, can flow back and forth between different time frames. They know, for example, that potty training a child may necessitate entering a time frame other than their own. Waiting in line for a few extra moments while an elderly lady chats with a cashier invites patient people to momentarily set aside their own schedule. They enter with compassion the schedule of another, someone who is lonely and who may have more time than she knows what to do with.

Recently I did some creative imagining and took a walk with Patience. When I asked her, “What can I do to become more like you?” she thought for a moment, smiled warmly, and said, “Plant an acorn. . . .Befriend a turtle. . . .Teach a child.”

Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the word, and never stops at all. -Emily Dickenson

A colleague gifted me this book earlier this spring, Such Dizzy Natural Happiness. Among the many things I enjoy about being on vacation, my family’s shared love of reading is such a gift and is a relaxing way for us to spend time together. Surrounded by natural beauty helps, too. This week I share the below translation of the Lord’s Prayer, and this video rendition referred to by author Patrick Hannon, along with my recommendation as a good read for anyone seeking a spiritual pick-me-up.

Blessings on your week ahead!

Lord’s Prayer, from the original Aramaic Translation

by Neil Douglas Klotz in Prayers of the Cosmos


O Birther! Father- Mother of the Cosmos
Focus your light within us – make it useful.
Create your reign of unity now
Through our fiery hearts and willing hands
Help us love beyond our ideals
and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.
Animate the earth within us: we then
feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all.
Untangle the knots within
so that we can mend our hearts’ simple ties to each other.
Don’t let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.
Out of you, the astonishing fire,
Returning light and sound to the cosmos.
Amen.

To attain political and economic justice, a spiritual revolution is required. -Robert Erlewine

I am at the beach with my family for the week, relieved to mark the end to another school year. As the son of a teacher, I have spent my entire life living by the academic calendar, and have come to appreciate the spiritual benefit of marking the end to each year through ritual time with family, resting, and reading. Playing wiffle ball, riding waves, watching family movies, and long walks together bring me such comfort and solace. And it turns out our puppy chews the walls and doors at rental homes, too.

The best I can offer this week are links to the books I am currently enjoying, along with an inspirational quote from one of my favorite spiritual authors. I hope that you too find some time for rest and rejuvenation this summer. Blessings on your week ahead!

Having the faith to take life one piece at a time – to live it in the knowledge that there is something of God now, here at this moment- is the essence of happiness.

– Sr. Joan Chittister

Books I recommend from my reading this week:

The Golden Gate: Amy Chua

On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service: Anthony Fauci

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness: Jonathan Haidt

A Calamity of Souls: David Baldacci

Thunder in the Soul: To be Known By God: Abraham Joshua Heschel

Gratitude creates a space within us in which we receive and celebrate life as a gift to be savored here and now. -Kathy Hendricks

“Perhaps the greatest gift we can give ourselves is a pause to bravely face the revelation of God in the still, small tones God frequently uses. The murmuring of God invites us to abandon our tendency to run away, and instead, to step into silence and behold an answer to our needs.” -Nicki Verplogen

How can we make prayer not merely something that we do, but something that we are?  —Kallistos Ware 

I am thinking about the notion of prayer quite a bit, especially as I prepare for a year-end retreat I help to lead each year, for the administrators of our District. In my household, summer reigns now with relaxed schedules and an easygoing type of pace to the days (other than the typical flurry of summer camps and sports and upcoming travel). I often find that school leaders yearn for this type of pacing as they embark upon summer. And I know as a parent, I too am eager for the pace to someday become more manageable:)

And so in the meantime, I give thanks for the experiences I share with colleagues, family, and friends. I take an unexpected half-day inconvenience of an emergency car maintenance appointment as a gift of time to share with my daughter as I work in a nearby coffee shop. Kairos moments, in God’s time, are what I constantly try to recognize in my daily life. Ultimately, I strive to keep the faith.

Blessings on your week ahead!

 For that is what the world needs: not persons who say prayers from time to time, but persons who are prayer all the time.- Kallistos Ware

Love is the single most powerful and important word and notion in culture and language. Until the power of love supersedes the love of power, we have no chance of ever being successful. -Bill Walton

The weeks are flying by as summer rapidly approaches. I find or create mini-retreat moments of reflection whenever I can. I have eleven minutes in between meetings and so I take advantage of this window to share the below resources. Blessings on your week ahead!

God’s Time – Sr. Jeana Visel

It takes a lot of faith to wait on God. God makes promises of mercy, promises of goodness, promises of love, but sometimes we have to wait a long time to see their fulfillment. I marvel at societies that can think in terms of waiting generations for God’s vindication, when I can hardly wait a few days, weeks, months, or a year. It can be difficult not to lose hope when faced with disappointment and hardship that just seem to go on.

Nevertheless, we are asked to be patient and to trust in the mercy of God. God is trustworthy, Christ is coming again, and if we pay attention, the first hints of the fulfillment of God’s promises invite us to rejoice.

Blue, Red and Grey– The Who (cover by Eddie Vedder)

Some people seem so obsessed with the morning
Get up early just to watch the sun rise
Some people like it more when there’s fire in the sky
Worship the sun when it’s high

Some people go for those sultry evenings
Sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day

I like every second
So long as you are on my mind
Every moment has its special charm
It’s alright when you’re around, rain or shine

I know a crowd who only live after midnight
Their faces always seem so pale
And then there’s friends of mine who must have sunlight
They say a sun tan never fails

I know a man who works the night shift
He’s lucky to get a job and some pay
And I like every minute of the day

I dig every second
I can laugh in the snow and rain
I get a buzz from being cold and wet
The pleasure seems to balance out the pain

And so you see that I’m completely crazy
I even shun the south of France
The people on the hill, they say I’m lazy
But when they sleep, I sing and dance

Some people have to have the sultry evenings
Cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every minute of the day

The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?  —Dorothy Day 

A best practice that our team employs supplements our regular “business” meetings with additional “book club” conversations. Each year we select 2 or 3 different readings- sometimes books, sometimes articles- that we identify as helping to support our professional and personal growth. Especially as a remote team, I find this practice a unifying experience. This morning we wrapped up our final “book club” discussion of the year, and I share an excerpt below.

“We have to imagine communities where more attention is paid to openness and welcoming of those who come from outside than to go to the protection and defense of whose who are inside. Communities that are more concerns with building bridges than building walls.” Good idea, thanks to Brother Antonio Botana, FSC in MEL 58 (p. 91).

Also I am pleased to cut and paste one more pearl of wisdom from a weekly email from the Center for Action and Contemplation:

“Love may or may not provide a way through to a solution to our predicament, but it will provide a way forward in our predicament, one step into the unknown at a time. Even if we lose hope for a good outcome, we need not lose hope of being good people.”  
—Brian D. McLaren

Blessings on your week ahead!

Never underestimate the power of being seen. -Brené Brown

Today I started work on a retreat I am leading next month, and I recalled one of my favorite quotes on seeing and belonging that I plan to use for the retreat – see the below reflection from Ronald Rolheiser. I’m also happy to share a new Tiny Desk concert that motivated me today during some welcome time at my desk. Blessings on your week ahead!

Blessing As Seeing

To really see someone, especially someone who looks up to you, is to give that
person an important blessing. In a gaze of recognition, of understanding, in an
appreciative look, there is deep blessing. Often, it is not so important that we say
much to those for whom we are significant, but it is very important that we see
them. . . .


Good kings and queens see their people; good parents see their kids; good teachers
see their students; good pastors see their parishioners; good coaches see their
players; good executives see their employees; and in really good restaurants the
owner comes round to the tables and sees his or her customers, and the customers
are, without being able to explain why, grateful that the owner took the time and
pain to see them. We are blessed by being seen. . . .


. . . today the young are not being seen enough in this way. Our youth . . . are acting
out in all kinds of ways as a means of getting our attention. They want to, and they
need to, be seen by us – parents, adults, teachers, priests, leaders. They need our
blessing. They need to see, right in our eyes, the radical acceptance of their reality,
and they need to read in our eyes the words: “You are my beloved child; in you I am
well pleased.” Youth need our appreciative gaze; mostly they simply need our gaze.
One of the deepest hungers inside young people is the hunger for adult connection,
the desire to be recognized, seen, by a significant adult.


The surface often belies this. We can easily be fooled and put off here. Our young
people will, precisely, tend to give us the impression that they neither want nor
need us, that we should go away and leave them to their own world. Nothing could
be further from the truth. They desperately need, and badly want, the blessing that
comes from our gaze and presence. They need us to see them. In the end, more
than they want our words, they want our gaze.


— Ronald Rolheiser

We tend to complicate our faith, but when we, like the disciples, remember what matters, we return to our roots of love. -Valerie Schultz

This week I share a reflection and a poem that each came my way in recent days. I am thinking quite a bit about transitions at this time of year, as the schools I support wind down…and my home life winds up toward the summer ahead. Life is full and God is good.

Blessings on your week ahead!

Presence of God – Sr. Pat Kozak, CSJ

First, stay alert. Recognize that the power of God can make its appearance in unlikely times and places.

Second, remember that it is God who is ever “making all things new.”

Third, don’t miss the moment. Act on the grace as it comes to you.

What surprises might lie ahead for us today?

Dreams– By Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged brid

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.