WILL #10

What I Learned Lately (WILL 13/14 #10) by Dr. Josh Garcia @Garciaj9Josh


11/26/2013
“Gravity – I can’t see you but I can feel your ever presence”


In the past two weeks, I have been absent from my reflections.  As I paused long enough to ask why, I found that I feared the truth of my perceptions and the reality that they create in our shared world.  The past few weeks have been surrounded by the sickness of family and friends, the death of a local hero, the mislabeling of information that determines “success” and the “high” of hope and optimism that tomorrow will bring a better day.  This conflict of emotions have left me tired and cold.
During this time I have been left to question.  Why do we work so hard for the particular?  Through this questioning, I have once again been warmed by the sense of the reflection.  I have come to learn that in the particular is the universal.  By not letting the system of gravity change us, we instead change the system.  In other words, in the fight for a specific or particular cause we are ultimately hoping to make a universal change for a better world.  It is not the instant gratification we seek in our daily battles, but rather the idea that somehow and in some way our world will be better from our daily efforts.  As the days get darker and the colder, I find that I need to reflect even harder to keep my internal fire burning.  Fortunately, I don’t need to seek to far for inspiration.  I am extremely thankful for my teachers and I am thankful for being apart our team.   A team that is relentlessly focusing on the particular child, all the time knowing that we are ultimately fighting for a universal better world for all our children.


Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Finally from Marilyn Nelson,
“Dusting”
Thank you for these tiny particles of ocean salt, pearl-necklace viruses, winged protozoans: for the infinite, intricate shapes of submicroscopic living things.

For algae spores and fungus spores, bonded by vital mutual genetic cooperation, spreading their inseparable lives from equator to pole.

My hand, my arm, make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore, for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.

Cross-posted: http://edge.ascd.org/_What-I-Learned-Lately-WILL-1314-10/blog/6558162/127586.html