There was a moment today when I actually raised my arms in exasperation at my repeated attempts to guide one of my students to redoing his HW he had done incorrectly.
"Why would I want you to FAIL?"
I'm sure having my arms up in the air and the tone of my voice really sent home the message that I cared. Obviously, being in the moment sometimes delivers the opposite effect.
Like this past Thursday on Valentine's Eve, when I was mad with my wife for being out late with our son (isn't it all about routines? We think our kids go to bed should equal some sort of merit badge) and the next morning I find a gift on my work tray. Shamed!
Imagine Joshua, newly anointed the head cheese over the Isrealites as they entered their promised land. I'm sure he had to been thinking, "Do I really have to lead these stiff-necked people? I mean, come on Lord, they pretty much put Moses IN THE GRAVE."
Leadership is not always what it's cracked up to be.
This past Friday I went back to team building for my fifth graders. We first rated 8 aspects of our life (mentioned in this great TED talk about "Hacking your Education"), like Health, Exercise, our Relationships and how we manage stress. I challenged them to focus on one aspect of their lives that they could begin making an impact today. And we also challenged ourselves to work on the aspects of our lives that would be the hardest to change. Anytime I do these team building exercises, inevitably it requires me to make a self-evaluation of my own life.
What kind of leader am I? What kind of leader do I want to be? Better yet, what kind of leader is God calling me to be?
We place our concerns in front of the Lord's will. I'm no exception. I take a parenting class mainly because I'd like to think that the imprint I'm making in my son and daughter's lives are making some kind of impact. And that's another fallacy--my imprint. God didn't allow us to have kids so that we could imprint them with our agendas, stresses, garbage and baggage. We are all dysfunctional to a point. My son has my temper but he has his mother's love. My youngest daughter has my personality and her mother's sense of awareness. Our eldest has even picked up our stress management tips for life (for example, we like to freak out!).
So tonight in parenting class we used Play-Doh to make an object that symbolizes our kids. I tried making a trophy, because my son treats every activity as if it is his last. In his world, participation trophies are for suckers. First place is all that matters. We then were told to ball up the Play-doh, squeeze it as hard as we could and observe.
What resided in our palm was the imprint of our life on them. You could see the lines of our fingertips in the imperfect, malleable clay. That's what we do as parents. We twirls our girls in the air when they dress like a princess and we use words in situations that aren't always in balance. I know that I've gotten more excited knowing Cruz wanted to play baseball than wanting to work on a Lego set. It's those subtle cues that we take for granted. Our kids misbehave and we wonder why they acted the way they did. They choose a sport or activity we tried or accomplished back in our days and we rejoice. Anything that doesn't fit that mold gets a hesitant, "Oh, yeah?" as if we are questioning their decisions.
But we are only the conduit of God's will. We seek and place our identity in so many things, things we allow ourselves to get trapped in--by gender, religious affiliation, race, creed, sexual orientation, the neighborhood we live in. None of that really matters in the end. You think someone is going to put bumper stickers on my coffin, one for each of my interests and associations. One for my church home, one for living in Texas, one for being a Buckeye, etc. Imagine being a kid and having all that weight of expectation thrown upon you?
I've self-reflected enough on my own childhood. That's been blogged about before. I don't look back on those days too much anymore. I've forgiven, or at least I've told myself that, but more importantly, I've begun to turn into a new facet which is more reliant on the future. What legacy am I leaving for the kids? What eternal practices will make the difference in their lives long after I'm gone?
Another point I picked up on in class are the several identities we carry throughout our everyday life. We have our church friends, we act one way at work and we act differently in front of our families. I'm guilty of this too. Some of my Christian friends are just as nutty as I am. We're constantly joking and being borderline inappropriate. Laughter has always been my pipeline to God. If I couldn't laugh every day, or if that joy of laughter were somehow taken away--that would be a personal hell. At work I strive to carry the light into dark places. I'm surrounded by Christian co-workers, but sometimes we're hustling from one project to the next that we rarely focus on anything but test results and discipline. One could argue that God is absent from our schools because the very people he has instructed to lead--the Joshuas--have forsaken him for lesson plans. We've convinced ourselves that busyness equals productivity, that "too much on our plates" is some new world badge of honor that wins you nothing. Other times I feel stunted by the fact that I want to yell my love of Jesus to the rooftops but fear losing my job for being some zealous nut. Will the students understand that the activity we will do on Friday will be centered on their self-identity, even when I can't even mention that their true identities have already been emblazoned on their hearts before they were even a thought?
I guess this is why I wear Christian themed t-shirts, and drive the van with the personalized license plates that sound out "De Colores." I have officially placed my identity in outward Christian projections. I do want others to identify me as such, but do I always have the confidence to do the same when I'm not dressed in my threads of conscious?
And all the while God is waving His arms in front of me like some Holy Spirit filled balloon man outside of a used car lot, saying, "But I don't want you to FAIL, but you keep doing the same thing!"
Or he taps us on the shoulder when we doubt as says something to us like, "Red Sea," in a manner that suggests why we even question his might. "Did I mention manna, too?" God is there giving us that I-told-you-look of a dear friend that loves you enough to tell you the truth.
Other times he reminds you that leaders come in all shapes in sizes. They are the guys who are "twinning" with jr high students because he wore the same hoodie. Or the text messages you get from complete strangers who want to know when the next offering of men's programming is going to start. Or the hug from a friend and the conversation you have about your past week. You've seen them not a few days before at church but you can't wait to hear your last name called from across the hallway in that in-joke, playful manner that you understand.
"Cor-doooo-va!"
It's time I start listening and return the call.
No comments:
Post a Comment