Samurai: An ancient warrior code of strength, honor, and loyalty. ***
Samurai Teaching: Having the STRENGTH to passionately believe in every student; the HONOR to teach them in the way they best learn; and the LOYALTY to never give up on any of them. ***
Sensational Living: How sensationally we do this for them now determines how well they will be able to sensationally do this for themselves and for others as adults.
The world just remembered the anniversary of 9-11. The taking of lives for the taking of lives, an eye-for-an-eye religious/political/economic crusade by warriors in the name of God and country.
I'm glad President Bush is bringing more troops home. I've never been the president of any country so I find it hard to judge and blast someone whose shoes I've never been in, no matter how much I may disagree with them.
Instead I try to understand and see where I can relate to them first, in order to take both sides to a higher level of thinking, feeling, and acting AFTER I better understand where they're coming from.
I'm protective over what I care about and love, and willing to fight for it. I've knocked a guy out for simply brushing the back his hand against my wife's rear. He disrespected her and violated her by touching her, so I touched him.
So if someone violated and touched the country I led, maybe I would be doing the same thing as President Bush. Maybe not. As explosive as my energy can ignite, taking a life for the taking of life just doesn't make any sense to me. I will beat a man for beating his child, but I will never kill him for killing. What's done is done, I can do nothing but cry, and try to get him to change and dedicate the rest of his life to creating more life.
Destroying more life for the destruction of life just ends up blinding and killing the world.
Giving your life for the creation of more life makes more sense.
In the movie, "Man on Fire", Denzel Washington's character is told by the kidnapper that he will release the little girl he is holding, if Denzel will give up his life in exchange for hers. .......A life for a life.
Have you ever heard a line in a movie that connects with you so much that everything around you stops? The words resonate in your heart and bounce around all over your soul, letting you know that it is perfect truth for you, the answers you are looking for. You are completely in the moment, in a place of zen.
This line is one of those lines for me. And after a week of remembering the anniversary of great tragedy and death, I realized yesterday marked the one week anniversary of offering a life for the life of another. One of my students got in trouble before class again, and knocked his desk over in anger when he came in.
I got in his face and spoke to him from the heart. I told him I would be in his face every single day for the rest of the year, and if he didn't like it, he had two choices to get me to stop; either to believe in himself as much as I did, or to put a bullet in my head to get rid of me. I told him he was worth risking my life for his life.
One week later, he became the top reader in minutes read, worked harder than I've ever seen, and was the Principal's Award Winner yesterday.
One week later.....He has LIFE!
You and I have life. What will we do with it? Will we go about our day just trying to get through it, focusing on all the things that are wrong? We will escape from believing in ourselves by instead believing in our favorite football team? I am a big fan of enjoying life and experiencing life's greatest pleasures. I am not a fan of escaping life by living through the actions and dreams of others.
I snuck Bella (4th grade) in from her lunch to say hello to her sister (kindergarten). Sofia is pointing to the love note I had hidden in her crayon box. sofia (Sofia, sitting on my lap as I'm typing this, just typed her own name, and says the note made her feel happy). Actions don't have to be big. In fact, it's the little ones that are appreciated fully that are spectacular. When Bella and I walked in to the room, Sofia burst out, "Daddy! You love me!)
Many, many people across the world did not wake up to today. Many more woke up detached from it by the beatings they've taken from life. I was one of them. Thank God (yes, as much as I've cursed you I still believe some higher power exists)....Thank God that I had one of my children with me.
Before I even opened my eyes I began to remember the week's beatings, and felt tired, worn out, doubted, rejected, etc. Then I opened my eyes, and saw the face of my Sofia. I saw love all over her. I ran my finger ever so lightly down the bridge of her nose, to her lips, and kissed her gently before gently hugging her. She turned and hugged me tightly while still sleeping. Love, the greatest of all life forces, raced into me and said prayers in my heart.
And love gives its life.......for a life, for at least one more day.
And I have the courage to share my stories of strength and struggles, confidence and insecurities, in hopes of giving my life to the life of another. And hoping that in doing so I am not seen as anything more than the reader sees themselves, and capable of nothing more than the reader sees themselves capable of .....
This is not about me, it is about "us", you and me...
Fully appreciating our lives, choosing to believe in ourselves and others for just one more day, and GIVING OUR LIVES...TO OTHER LIVES......for the CREATION OF LIFE!
160,000 of us WILL NOT have it tomorrow.
LIVE TODAY! MAKE CHANGE TODAY! GIVE YOUR OWN LIFE, YOUR BEST LIFE, TO LIFE...... TODAY!
Watch this video all the way to the very end. The more I watch it the more I get out of it. If if does the same for you, feel free to visit my MySpace homepage anytime, by clicking INNER STRENGTH, HARMONY, HAPPINESS & PASSION. You'll find it on the left side at the bottom. Have a great day today, no matter what....
If God is watching us, the least we can do is be entertaining. - (I don't know who said this but their sense of humor makes me laugh inside as much as the look on Bella's face and Sofia constantly flipping her sticky hair off her neck because it was so hot, which of course Brosden and I imitated to perfection until she ordered us to stop.)
Last night I got nothing done that I told myself I "needed" to do when I got home. I promised my son I'd play ONE game of Four Square, which turned into 40 games of Fun and Ridiculous Squares, Circles, and Hearts (Sofia's favorite shape although she "can't draw them berry well yet".)
By the time we were done playing I was so sweaty and tired that I took a shower and fell into bed, unable to do any of the many things I "had" to get done.
So when I woke up today I felt as if I had failed in some way, and that the walls before me I couldn't climb yesterday were now higher higher today. Sound familiar?
I honestly wondered if I wasn't anything more than a tiny little hardworking ant, and a source of great entertainment to some God up above.
I started to question the purpose of it all, ............until I looked at these pictures and the sleeping faces of the children I had co-created into this world. (I began writing this Friday morning but ran out of time to finish).
Still, I was less than confident that I could have the energy to give to everyone and everything in my life today. I had given away too much the day before.
Then I heard this from Wayne Dyer, paraphrasing:
Sages do not collect anything. They give everything, and the more they give, the more they haveto give. - Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching
So my challenge today, as is all of ours, was to be a little wiser, a little more "sagier", and a lot more likely to knock down the walls before me before the walls before me collapsed down upon me.
This way and that, The wind, blowing where it will, Drives the ship of the world.
But I am not shaken.
I am the unbounded deep In whom the waves of all the worlds Naturally rise and fall.
But I do not rise or fall.
- Ashtavakra Gita 7:1-2 “The Heart of Awareness”
We all have boundless oceans within us. We all are much greater than we can imagine. We are even greater than that.
I saw a license plate years ago when I first began teaching. It was on a very nice car. Instead of most vanity plates that say "look at me, look at what I've done, I am important because I have an expensive car" it said.........
"BE MORE"
I was inspired by that, and decided to take that message into the classroom, and into my life.
If you want more, be more.
What we get from the world is determined by what we give. It doesn't always happen right away, but it does happen.
It's a universal law following the same natural pattern as a plant growing underground before it sprouts, a person exercising before greater strength and fitness is gained, following good financial sense before wealth is attained, and giving the time and attention our children need when they're still children.
Whatever needs to be done, DO IT!
It CAN be done, and it DOES make a difference. Not only in your life, but in the lives of those who are touched by your efforts.
This is a learned behavior. And by digging deep to read that book, carry your child or toss the frisbee, it teaches our children to hold on to their dreams, and dig deep to get them.
See yourself as a boundless ocean of desire, with unbounded depths of energy, unshaken by any stormy winds, and steadfast in your creation of an incredible and limitless world of possibility.
"In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."
Sir Paul McCartney, "The End"
We all know how important it is to take the time to make the time for the loved ones in our lives. Or maybe we all don't. There are a lot of fathers and even some mothers who seem to give their children excuses for not spending time with them.
Instead of time we give them excuses. We're too busy making money, making a living, making excuses. It's as simple as that.
Making the time for those that are important to us can be done. We simply have to be honest with ourselves and determine what's most important to us, and what's most important to give our time to. It just takes a little creativity sometimes.
Working out keeps me balanced. Laughing keeps me light-hearted. I've found by incorporating my children I can have both while giving them my time.
There are always ways to make our children a part of our lives. If you feel you'd like more time with your kids, think of one way today to do this.
It's easier than you think.
It's more important than you know.
And it's more important to realize this now than after their gone.
Soon, I started getting an uneasy feeling in my stomach; a nagging thought that I know a kid who would actually do this ......
But why would my stomach hurt???
Oh No! It's because this kid reminds me of my own crazy, thrill-seeking son. As his father it worries me that he would want to try something like this.
Then it gets worse. This picture reminds me of myself! Now I understand why he tries these things.
When I drove my own parents crazy with worry, they said they were going to pray that I had a kid just like me.....
It looks like their prayers were answered. They must have been laughing hysterically for almost a decade now.
I quickly look around for my son to see where he is. Whew! He's sitting on the couch and watching, believe it or not, "What the Ancients Knew - The Greeks".
I lean over to kiss him and see he's taking notes on Pythagoras' theorem with a drawing he made labeled, "Zeus' Mount Olympus Death Ramp"....
.....the uneasy feeling has quickly come back.
I don't think we should educate crazy people. They become much too dangerous. Sure they may change the world by showing us the impossible is possible, but they may kill themselves doing it.
"I got two A's," the small boy cried.
