Category Archives: Life

February 2, 2017 · 8:46 am

Peace Be With You

Sunday morning. The sun brightens the stain glass windows, painting the floor in an array of colors. Everyone is standing as the priest talks through The Liturgy of the Eucharist.

“And the Lord’s peace be with you.”

“And also with you,” the congregation replies.

“Let us offer each other the sign of peace,” says the priest.

The church fills with the rumble of members turning to shake hands and say ‘peace be with you’ with their family and then with those around them. Now I am not Catholic, my wife and children are. This post isn’t about religion or beliefs. It is about the importance of being open as a person, even for a few seconds.

Again, I am not Catholic, and to be honest this moment in the service use to make me feel uncomfortable. I would shake hands with people with my eyes down and mumble something to them.

But as my family started to grow, and even to this day, my children have taught me the importance of this moment. When my oldest was about two years old and even now with my youngest daughter, who is three, started to shake hands with the people around me, I saw the beauty in the moment. But also noticed a sad truth.

My children can’t wait to shake hands with the people around us. Their little hands sticking out, waiting for the chance to make a connection. Over the years I have noticed how their eagerness and joy would affect the adults they shook hands with. The adults would smile and even lean down to say ‘peace be with you.’

But when they would shake hands with me, you could see the wall go up. There would be a hesitation in the moment and their eyes would go down. Now, I was the same way. I felt the same wall, would keep my eyes down. As if the person in front of me could hurt me in that 10 seconds of interaction. But I believed they could. And I think many adults feel something like that, too.

Why?

It is too simple of an answer, but I think the reason is because we have been hurt, we are afraid, and as adults it is simply easier to have a wall in place. And today? No doubt. Our society right now is in turmoil. We are disconnected from each other. Again, this is not a political post, but a chance for me to share with you a sign of peace.

My children have taught me that sharing a handshake is awesome. Society is trying to teach me different. This last Sunday I followed my children’s lesson. I made sure I looked at the person in the eye, smiled, and clearly said,

peace-be-with-you

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January 3, 2017 · 8:35 am

#oneword2017

Designed by second son.

Designed by second son.

This is the third year my family has participated in choosing One Word to focus on for the upcoming year. This year we decorated a box with our words and wrote why we chose that word on a tag that was then placed inside the box. The plan is to share events that highlighted our words during Sunday dinner. We will write out the event and place them in the box.

My word this year is BE. I’ve blogged about the idea behind my word in the post, Greatness. My goal this year is to BE the person I am instead of trying to be that person. It’s a small difference in thinking, but instead of trying to be a good husband, I will be a good husband. That means I do what it takes. If I just try, I give myself a built-in excuse to fail.

Not this year. This is my year to BE.

Share your One Word stories with me in the comment section or on Twitter. Here is to a great 2017.

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December 20, 2016 · 11:35 am

My Holiday Wish

wish

With only a few days until Christmas and a week before New Years, my thoughts fluctuate between what I could have done better last year and what I want the next year to be like. In a time where it seems our society is divided, where hate is easy to express, I wish you strength of spirit. I hope your life shines with joy even in the face of hardships.

I look forward to sharing this next year with you, to making it the best year yet.

 

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November 29, 2016 · 10:41 am

The Gift

the-gift

What do you think is inside? Socks, a gift card, a new Bluetooth speaker, or maybe a half empty jar of mayonnaise? How would you react to each of those possibilities?

At the beginning of the month I attended a conference in Portland, Oregon. The final keynote was a local improv group, Brainwave Improv Company. The conference attendees were separated into five teams. At the end of the keynote each team would actually play an improv game and be awarded points. Think Whose Line is it Anyway.

While working in our groups the members of Brainwaves taught us a few different improv games (one of which would be the one we were judged on). Through those games the actors discussed aspects of improv that correlated to dealing with people at work and life. The same principles that made for a great improv session can be used to build strong relationships at work and home. One of my team’s games was “Gift Giving”.

The idea is simple. Two people exchange gifts. The person giving the gift could not say what it was, but through their actions give a hint to what it might be. A person might seem to be lifting a huge box to give to the other person, or act like the box was moving. The person receiving the gift had to take the gift, “open” it, and share what the gift actually was. Of course the whole game is to be funny, but the lesson the actors shared was powerful.

Brainwaves first shared the idea that in improv everything is a gift; a line, a situation, a moment of silence, anything can be used by the actors to make the game / scene funny. As actors they had to be open to whatever the “gift” might be and adapt, even if they had an idea ready to use. To make a scene flow they had to embrace the gift of the situation.  They then moved the idea to work and life by teaching us how to play the game, “Gift Giving”. See, the real responsibility for the game is on the person receiving the gift. The whole game centers on how that person reacts to the gift, even when it is something crazy or unwanted.

If the person receiving the gift responds in a negative way the whole scene falls apart… You see where this is going don’t you? We have all been on both sides of this situation. We have received a gift that we didn’t like. We have given a gift only to seen the rejection in their face when they opened it. The scene falls apart.

To play the game we had to love what was in the gift. We had to carry the game with our reaction. But the actors took the idea a step deeper. Remember that in improv anything is a gift to the other actors. Brainwaves pushed that idea to dealing with everyday life. How did we act when presented with situations at work? How did we responded when we have to work with someone we don’t like? How do we respond to a child spilling milk? Yes, it is the attitude cliche. We have all heard, in some way, that your attitude is the key to handling life. But what got me about how Brainwaves addressed the issue was the metaphor of a gift.

In my house a gift is a way someone shows that they care about you. (Yes, it is one of my dadisms for my kids.) Now, I’m not naive. I know that tragic things happen to us. We get our hearts broken. Life can blindside us and drop us to our knees. Yet, how many success stories come from those tragedies? How many people took the situation as a gift and ran with it? Not to mention just using the idea to handle our everyday mishaps. What gift have you been given today? Did the scene fall apart? Or did you run with it?

 

 

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October 6, 2016 · 11:49 am

Hard Conversations

I’ve become a fan of Ben Rector. My second son, who is into electronic / dance music, actually shared his music with me. He said I would like it. He was right. Ben Rector has a song, “Like The World Is Going To End,” that has gotten me thinking. Well actually, it is a few lines from that song that got me thinking.

say-till-then

This idea runs through the song until in the last verse he sings that he would bring everyone he loved to California so everyone could say the things they were scared to say till then.

What really got me thinking was the idea that they wouldn’t be sharing secrets or past hurts, but speaking honestly about their love for each other. How scary is that?

How hard is it for us to tell someone how much you truly love them?  Now, I am not diminishing the power of saying “I love you” to family and friends. I’m talking about expressing our emotions openly to someone. That is hard for a few reasons. First because we have to remove all our defenses to that person. Our heart is out in the open and it bruises easily. Second, even for me, sometimes we just can’t find the words… or the words we have don’t even come close to revealing the depth of our feelings. Even as a poet, I can not tell my wife how beautiful she is when she smiles as she plays or interacts with our children. Or explain to my little girls the rush I get when they run to hug me when I get home.

Back to the song. Back to the idea that Ben Rector is sharing in the song. We should be telling our family and friends how much they mean to us, how much we love them. We should do this more than we do. No matter how hard it is. How scared we are to open up. Because I love how he ends the line, “till then.” In the song he is referencing the idea that the world is going to end. But I feel that he is also hinting at that once you decide to share your love with others you’ll wonder why you waited.

I hope you have some hard conversations today because

“Now that I think about it. Maybe we should always live like the world is gonna end.”
-Ben Rector

 

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September 2, 2016 · 2:31 pm

Love this Life Gives You

There has been a line from Tim McGraw’s song “Humble and Kind” that brings me to tears every time I hear it.

Quote With

How many moments have I lost over the years?

“Hold on, I’m tired. Give me a second,” I would say as my daughter just wants a hug. So, she just heads to her room to play alone.

Or I would just holler to my wife that I was home, then sit in the chair and turn on the TV. I might ask what’s for dinner as she walks into the room.

Or the thousands of letters or cards I never sent to friends and family.

Or how many summer nights I could have sat outside watching the stars with my sons.

Love is not only given but it is received. And sometimes that is the hardest part of the equation because we let so many insignificant things fill our time. We miss the purest expressions of love from others because our attention is on other things. I take for granted that my family will be happy to see me when I get home. I take for granted that the stars will shine tomorrow night. I’ll write that letter, later.

If we would take the time to recognize the love we receive from others, I believe we would be amazed on how deep this life can be. In any given moment this life is showing us that we are loved. We give love, but we must also receive it. Today is too wonderful to take it for granted.

Here is the song the line comes from:

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August 26, 2016 · 1:49 pm

What I Learned from My Students

It has been an interesting year for a number of reasons. But this post is about what I’ve learned from my students over the past year. Some background information, last year was my first year teaching a regular lecture college course for Central Community College (CCC). This semester I am teaching an online course for CCC. In the past I have taught the early entry courses for seniors taking dual credit courses through CCC. Even though I taught a college course, my everyday teacher life was centered in the high school routine. There is a difference between high school students and college students at CCC. This is what I’ve learned.

Education Matters

Even though I lost students over the year to a wide range of issues (I’ll talk about that in a few lines), students understood that gaining an education was important for them to reach their professional goals. I had one student who used her lunch break to attend my class. She would arrive a few minutes late, in her nursing outfit from work, and was raising a family. Another student had worked construction for almost two decades and loved it. But an accident kept him from returning to that job. He was studying business in hopes that he could return to the company in a new position.

My students understood that getting an education was going to help them reach their goals. But it is not easy.

Life Can Be a Hurdle

In high school, life is school. Football games, dances, school, they are all part of the everyday experience. For many of my students at CCC class was just a section of their life. I had students in class that ranged from 18 to 63 years old. I have a student right now who is traveling the world and taking my course online to get some general education credits handled before he comes back to the States. I had a young man at the age of 21 who had already gone through rehab twice.

I am proud to be a part, however small, of their lives. But life did cause some hurdles that challenged my approach to teaching. One aspect was the workload I expected from them. It made me think about what was really important for them in my course. This was hard for me because I love sharing extra material, to try to foster learning beyond the curriculum. I had to consider what I asked of them regarding assignments and homework. Not that I took it easier on them, but it forced me to align my course work according to importance and expected time spent on it. A simple example is that I used class time to handle small assignments and tried to give feedback on those right away because many of the assignments connect to their essays (which are the major assignments for the course). This allowed my students to work on the essay at home with more confidence in their ability to accomplish the writing.

Education versus Learning

This area is still challenging me, and maybe it always will. But not in the way you might think. I know many of my students only take my course because it is a general education course that all programs require. I actually lean on that idea to emphasize the importance of taking the course. I repeat, over and over, and over, that the number one goal is to help them become better writers for this course, for upcoming courses, and even for life. I present them with a WHY. Many of my students just want the credit, I know this. But their learning is their education which is their life, their goals. My battle is in creating a course, an assignment, or developing content that aligns to that WHY. And yes, I believe it matters.

The student who used her lunch hour to attend my class has two children and she revealed why it matters. During one session on writing with tone/voice, I was discussing how this characteristic of writing was the reason we like certain books, songs, and other media. I continued to expand on how important word choice  was in creating that tone or finding their own voice. Unbeknownst to me at the time I connected the WHY to her life when I lead a discussion on how hard it can be to write a personal letter to someone expressing our feelings (word choice/tone). I shared a personal example of writing a card for my son, and even how hard it was for me to get that card right. I happened to then share that that type of writing was just as important as an essay for my class, which I believe. At the end of that semester, which ended in December, that student sent me an email to tell me that she was excited to write a Christmas letter to her children and husband sharing how much she loved them. She wanted to make these letters a new tradition for her family.

What my students taught me was that education matters, for their goals, for their life.

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April 26, 2016 · 9:34 pm

Death

I cried today because of an email delivery failure.

I sent a group message about a guest blog post I wrote. I received the basic message for when an email account is no longer active.
MailMessage

The account was for my good friend Graci. I attended her funeral last Wednesday. She passed away from cancer. She would like the  blog post I wrote.

This post is not going to repeat the cliche that we should live like everyday could be our last. This isn’t about making sure we tell the people we care the most about that we love them. These things are true. We know it. What we forget is how permanent Death is.

I will never again text Graci to have a good day. There will no longer be crazy life conversations in her office. She will not read this blog post. Death is permanent. That is why it is so hard to deal with. Graci’s funeral was filled with family and friends. She lived out her faith. She made people feel loved everyday. The service helped us celebrate her life, but death is permanent. Death removes all possibilities. That is what hurts. The lost chance to live like today was our last day.

 

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March 3, 2016 · 8:11 am

Light-up Shoes

Shoes“My shoes?” my youngest daughter asks. Right now almost everything is a question.

“My daddy?” she asks after daycare.

“Yep, I’m your daddy,” I would say. Then she would smile. I totally understand Tim McGraw’s song “Grown Men Don’t Cry” now.

But back to the shoes. They are light-up Paw Patrol shoes. My little girl ran around the living room making the shoes light up. Every few seconds she would ask if I had seen the lights on her shoes. Then she would ask mom, the girls, my oldest son. “See my shoes?”

I will be honest, I was hit with the fact that I would soon not buy another pair of light-up shoes. I’m pretty sure that every one of my kids have gotten a pair of light-up shoes. They would run around making them light up.  They would smile. It was the best day of their young lives the day they got light-up shoes. Such a simple thing, but brings such a pure joy.

My oldest son was eating a quick breakfast, he had speech practice this morning. But he stopped and responded to his sister. I wondered if I had done anything for him so he felt like he was having the best day of his young life. I was a washed with dad guilt. Raising six kids, being a husband, being in the middle of figuring out a career, can make life feel restricted and stressful. But it is the small things that make the biggest difference in this world.

Love is expressed in the small things, an unexpected hug, a funny GIF sent in an email/text. A handwritten note can clear away the storm clouds. A favorite drink or candy bar can change a person’s view. Or having pockets…

My daughter stops in front of me. Her hands are stuffed into her little front pockets of her pants. “I have pockets!” It is not a question. Then she takes off running with her hands still stuffed into her pockets. My dad instincts kick in, I hope she doesn’t fall as she makes it to the front door.

“My coat?” she asks with a smile.

It’s going to be a great day, even if I do shed a tear.

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March 2, 2016 · 2:49 pm

Greatness

Good morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. I don’t know when you might come across this post, but I wrote it for you.

Let’s cut to the chase, we need you to be great today. No, seriously. We need you to be on your game today. We need you to be a great mother or father, a great friend, a great person, a great writer, a great YOU.  Here’s why.

The world has enough average people. The world has too many below average people. The world has enough hate, disrespect, and coldness. What we need is you to be great.  To be strong. To live your life to the fullest at this moment.

I can hear some of you, life is too hard to be great. Thank you for proving my point. How is being less than your best helping make your life better? It is not. I know that it can be crazy getting the kids ready for the day. But being average, being rattled, being short and snippy at the kids does not make the moment better. Being at your best is not a guarantee that getting the kids ready in the morning will not be work, but it sure makes the moment better.

Life can be hard. I know that.  Which is even more of a reason for you to be great, to live your life to your greatest potential. Your life needs you to rise up to a higher level.

I can hear you, too. I’ve tried being better but it didn’t work. Yoda was right when he said:

Do or not do

The word TRY gives us an excuse not to succeed. To not be our best. It deflects the responsibility of our lives to an abstract idea or worse to another person.  You either live to your potential or you don’t.  Stop trying. We need you to BE GREAT. Your family, your dreams, your life needs your greatness. I know you you know it. Now live it.


Share this with anyone you know who might need a reminder that we need their greatness.

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