In Search of Peace

Lately I have found a few moments where my body is still,  but in that physical stillness, my mind continues to race furiously onward.  In fact, my mind seems even busier when my body is still.  This cycle of never being at peace has been tough on me this week.  It seems that for every step that I have taken with the hope that it will bring a little calm, there is a stronger force that pushes me backward and my frantic mental movement continues.  This is not a good place for me to be.  I realize that I am trying to do to many different things, all of which I enjoy, but taken together cause my actions, thoughts, and intentions to be disjunct and unfocused.  Something has got to change.  I'm not sure what, but something...

Thoughts On Time

Time, invisible

Yet touching everything.

It leaves a deep scar.

KEB 10-07-15

An Object Lesson

I don't like it when the universe feels the need to teach me a lesson somewhat subversively, but that is exactly what happened today.  For no reason that I can identify, I managed to leave the house this morning without my phone.  I realized this about half way to school.  On most mornings, we could have turned around and run home to get it, but today the traffic was terrible.  Weber would have surely been late for school had we done this, so somewhat reluctantly, I said that I could do without it for today.

This should have been no big deal, right?  Not too long ago, no one carried phones around and the world continued to function.  I know that I don't use my phone for as many things as some; I do still keep a paper calendar.  However, I am more tethered to it than I wish I was.  Just how much so became painfully obvious today.

Here are all the things that ran through my mind today as I made peace with the fact that I would be phone-less

• What if a student texts me regarding class?  If I don't respond, they will think that I am ignoring them.
• I won't have my clock.
• I won't have a metronome.
• I can't check my email.
• I can't take roll in class.
• I won't get the text alert if we have "an incident" on campus.
• I'll have to walk home without being able to call for help if anything should happen.
• I won't be able to talk to Weber at lunch.

How ridiculous are all these concerns??  Well, except maybe the one about campus emergency alerts.  I am embarrassed to admit that these were real thoughts for me today.  And to top it all off, this thought also crossed my mind, "Boy am I glad that I don't use Apple Pay at Subway on campus.  At least I can still get a diet coke!"

As it turned out, when I got home and was reunited with my phone, I had had a text from a student saying that he wouldn't be in class and asking for assignments.  He is a student who is never absent and I was a little worried when he was not in class this morning.  I apologized for not responding sooner.  I think I was more concerned about that than he was.  Other than that, I managed just fine.  Today made me think about the fact that I rely too heavily on my phone for way too many things.  I have definitely been left with some food for thought.

Since we missed our midday conversation, Weber and I shared our day after we got home from school 

while we watched the newest resident of our backyard.

Optimistic Tuesday

Despite the fact that we are two weeks into fall according to the calendar, the weather here has not gotten the official word.  Temperatures are in the 90's and the summer annuals are still in full bloom.  The oak tree has dropped a few leaves, so I am being optimistic that sometime soon fall will arive in more than name!

If you are interested, here is the link to today's Tuesday in Texas post on Pixels, Plates, and LOLs.  Tracey and I are sharing on thoughts on morning people vs. night owls.

Reflecting on Francis

With prayers for a blessed rememberance of Brother Francis...

What might Francis say to us today?

What Now, Francis?

Waste not
your tears on me.
on what was
or could have been,
maybe should have been.

Save your weeping
for those who live-
the hungry, the thirsty, the cold,
the sick, the beaten down, the longing-
for those who still have breath.

Turn all of your tears to hope
To fuel God's work-
the death of injustice, pain, and suffering-
with joy.

Cry not for me;
I have eternal life in Christ.
Weep only,
as I do,
for God's hurting people on earth.

KEB

Apples and Tamales

 Today is Food Friday, which means I spent a good part of the day cooking and taking photographs along the way to post on Pixels, Plates, and LOLs! Click on over for some tasty apple recipes.

I played for a service tonight at the Interfaith Peace Chapel.  It was a Taize service with a celebration of the Transitus of St. Francis.  Both are moving services in their own right, but experiencing them together was exceptionally moving.

After the service, a few of us went to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.  As we were walking in, I was struck by the shapes, lines, lights, and darks of the pathway leading in.

And yes, I had tamales for dinner.

Where I Work

Today's Capture Your 365 photo prompt is "Where I Work."  I was excited by this prompt because it encouraged me to take photos in a place where I normally am not thinking about my camera.  The sad part here is that it is the place that I have come nearly every work day for the past 23 years and of which I have very few photos.

As I walked in to school this morning, I was thinking about the possibilities for today's photo.  So many aspects of where I work would be worthy of a photo to represent my workplace - my students, my colleagues, the quirky details of my classroom or the music building, or perhaps a bigger picture of our campus.   

My teaching day began at 7:30am.  These were the students that I missed seeing on Tuesday when I was home sick.  Even though they had a test, they asked how I was feeling and we're glad that I was back.  This made for a wonderful start to my day.

I continued through the morning teaching back to back classes - lecturing in some, returning tests in another, and testing again in my last class of the day.  And then I went to lunch.  As I always do, I checked my personal email and Facebook expecting to find my email full of ads and my Facebook feed full of beautiful photos posted by my fellow CY365ers.  Instead, my phone's home screen was filled with news alerts about another mass shooting.  This one in  Oregon.  This one on a community college campus.  Suddenly,  my perspective on where I work changed.

Where I work is on a community college campus much like that of Umpqua Community College, the site of today's shooting rampage.  Every day I stand up in the front of a classroom filled with students just like those who were injured and killed today.  And every day, that scenario that unfolded in Oregon could have just as easily be where I work - in a classroom that I enter each day, without any reservation.

Those students at Umpqua Community College were in only the first week of their fall semester.  A morning and a  semester that for them began full of possibilities, hopes, and dreams ended in a few short minutes.  What could have been, no longer given a chance.  The lives of all those  sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, and lovers who were working to better themselves by gaining an education now, rather than earning a college degree, earn a place in history as ten more innocent people taken by gun violence in this country.  

This is where I work.  In a classroom full of students striving to realize their dreams.  In a classroom where the reality is that those dreams can be shattered far more quickly and easily than they can be realized.  This is where I work.  On a college campus in a state whose legislature has voted to permit the legal possession of guns on our college campuses.   This is where I work.  

This is where I work.  Giving my all to every student with whom I share a classroom.  Hoping that I can play at least a small part in helping to make each of their dreams come true.  Praying that the senseless violence that has struck so many students in so many schools in so many places

 ceases and that none of us has to experience fear in any classroom.  This is where I work.

My heart aches for all of those whose lives are forever changed by the events on the Umpqua Community College campus today.  I pray for this college community, for the family and friends of those who were injured and those who lost their lives, for the students and staff who will return to that campus next week trying to move forward, for all those who enter classrooms around the world every day, for all those who believe that violence is an answer.   This is where I work.