The silence between the notes

 Trigger warning: Hot button topic ahead. I’m looking for insights and solutions, not complaints. Goodness knows our world has plenty of criticisms right now, so let’s focus on insights and solutions here! 🤍 ——————————————————— I have worked in education for over 20 years. Clarification— I have OVERWORKED myself in education for 20 years. For the first decade, I really thought that’s what I needed to do. I thought that’s what my students needed me to do. Then after years of hard work, constant self-evaluation, additional degrees, and endless professional development goals… my family experienced several traumatic situations, and I realized I couldn’t actually do it all. I couldn’t be there for my students 60 hours a week while caring for my family 60 hours a week too. (And I certainly hadn’t even considered if I should be taking care of myself at any point.)  When I began mentoring incoming teachers at the university, I made it a priority to teach my candidates that they shoul...

  I'm an incredibly private person when it comes to my inner questions and fears and ideals. I've only ever shared those with a short list of individual confidants. Although I doubt that most people in my world really realize that there's so much they don't know about me...because I'm also an unusually philosophical and reflective person, and I DO SHARE those reflections sincerely and authentically with my friends/coworkers/etc. when I feel it's important to our purpose or our working relationship. But it's also likely that there are more sensitive, even controversial topics hidden deep below the surface of what I'm comfortable sharing...Until someone manages to open the floodgates and establish themselves as trustworthy enough to handle the rest...then since all of my ideas somehow relate to one another, I can't seem to stop until I explain all of them at once to the poor unsuspecting soul who offered to listen for the first few minutes. ...

It seemed so simple. For my 10th birthday, I asked for my party colors to be pink , blue , and yellow —so there would be something for girls, boys, and anyone who didn’t like the color the color they were “supposed to like.” Lol. Because who says all girls have to like pink? Or all boys have to prefer blue?? Out of the mouth of babes, right?!  Just a few short 10...20...ish years later, I find that it's no longer so simple. As grown ups, we seem to have a lot of concrete ideas about what the people around us--including the children around us--do and wear and feel and express. But when...and why...did we start to think this was worth judging?? As people, we are so much more than pink or blue, or skirts or ties, or other people’s expectations of our identity! And that’s not meant as a new age idea or liberal agenda—I believe this idea can be completely independent from social or political propaganda. It’s simply about respect, and in some cases, about the willingness ...

Here I am again, after months of writing things and not posting them. I have in fact had a lot on my mind. (Those of you who know me personally are not at all shocked, I'm sure, but maybe someone out there doesn't yet realize that, so I felt it was fair to say.) But my whole life, I've done this thing where I have too much to say so I say nothing for a while while it bubbles up inside...then I try saying something and it all comes whipping out like a hurricane of nonsense...so then I go back to bottling it up and stating my need for "processing time." Guess that's what's been happening with my sporadic posting for the last few years too. Who would have guessed? Then there's this other thing I do when I don't know what to say--I obsess over a song, poem, essay, etc. in which someone else said what I couldn't. So to that end, I'm directing you to a few two articles by a cause that I admire very much: To Write Love on Her Arms. If you haven...

WARNING: A moment of transparency, and a rather long post ahead.  Yesterday, I had my 3rd teaching evaluation of the year and the administrator asked my students a variety of questions, one of which was "Does your teacher demonstrate enthusiasm in her job?" One dancer laughed and said, "She has more energy than the rest of us every morning." Since this was a student I've known years, I later confessed that I'm usually faking my 6AM energy, but that by pretending I'm excited in beginning of each day, I usually make the energy become a reality. (With the help of my 9AM dose of caffeine and B vitamins, at least until it wears off.) She was surprised that she didn't know how I'd really felt all this time.  And I realized several of my mostly-on-line friends have mentioned similar ideas recently, with kind words about how fun or funny or happy my life seems to be.  (Although those who know me best can attest to what you're about to learn......

You might have a selfie addiction if: 1) Your solo pics outnumber the pics of all your friends, family, and the rest of the natural world...combined.  2) You can snap a self portrait in a single shot but you need twelve tries to take a picture of a person or object in front of you.  3) You've crafted such an exquisite collection of online self-images that people don't recognize you when you meet again in person.  4) You choose your clothes or jewelry based on how they'll make your cleavage look in your pictures that night.  5) You've run out of reasons to take "legitimate" selfies (I.e. Just chopped off three inches of hair, just got a massive sunburn, just wanted a creeper pic with the celebrity you're stalking), and you've resorted to posting each selfie with a favorite song lyric or motivational quote just to give the illusion of purpose.  Now, about this #Selfie song. Any chance it will help these addicts take a more realistic look ...

Do not think too  highly...or too lowly...of yourself. No matter how broken you are--and we are ALL broken--you are loved and valued by Christ. These ideas struck me during today's sermon on the book of Romans, and I connected them with my recent attempts to reconcile our world's views on self-image and value.  I wish more people could manage to love and value each other *despite* our brokenness. Instead, some people act like their own value is increased by finding or judging others' faults, while some act like love means never acknowledging the faults of those around us. But I think we need to be willing to see those faults--in our friends, family members, employees, students, and ourselves--and then we need to help them see how very loved they still are *despite* those shortcomings. This is how we build trust as a unified body and how we inspire growth as a source of encouragement.  I don't want friends, family, employers, students, dancers who ignore my f...

Well, maybe I don't really want to stay that way, but when Jewel sings those words, I think maybe it's OK to be so sensitive. Sometimes it can wear me down, and sometimes I wonder why I can't just brush things off like others do, but sometimes I think that I should be grateful for being wired this way. I should be grateful because being sensitive allows me to see so much! I see hidden talents, and sometimes hidden hurts, that others can't see in themselves. I see potential in progress, and moments of perfection in otherwise imperfect performances. I see beauty in places that others find mundane. I see blessings in challenges. I see happiness in tears. I see strength in scars. I see art in all things. Then why do I sometimes dream of changing? People with these sensitivities tend to hide their true feelings, and that means we tend to feel alone in our vulnerability. But I know there are others out there, and I hope that maybe one or more of them...