|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| well it turns out that i can access xanga now that i'm unexpectedly back in the states for a week. the last 33 hours have been a blur. i had called home just 60 hours ago and everything was fine. my father was in a nursing home because of complications with his feeding tube but was doing well and had good energy. he was scheduled to get his flu shot on thursday and i was hoping that he would be home by the weekend. life went on for me in shanghai...teaching, coaching, attending small group...until i received a phone call from my mother on thursday night informing me that my father had passed away from complications related to pneumonia that had apparently been spreading at the nursing home.
i bought a ticket in the morning and made arrangements to be out of school for almost a week. teaching on friday came naturally and yet was other worldly. told the people who needed to know that day what happened but otherwise, did not mention it to anyone else until an e-mail that i sent to the high school teachers from the plane. i just wanted to get through the day that's all a blur. i'll let my students know on sunday through e-mail while sending them their assignments and notes or practice routines. we were told to plan for how to teach without being present in case of a swine flu school closure. i never would have thought that i would be doing this for another reason.
the next few days could be very telling of the family situation in the states. i don't know where it will lead and how it will impact contract decisions next month or travel plans for the coming year. but i do covet your prayers for my family, for the grieving process and for wisdom about the future. thank you all for your love and support through the years and how you've lifted me up already. | | |
| my life since finals has been busy. in the midst of grading papers, preparing reviews and final exams, giving final exams and grading them, while also working on report cards, i spent every other waking moment packing, and packing, and packing...well, i had help from my "dept head," an alum who i helped coach but never taught, and 4 AP and 1 pre-AP chem students who came in after the school year was officially over to put in 5-7 hours of work. that plus and all-nighter and several other late nights at school, and i was able to pack up a wet lab/classroom, an office and a chemical storage room. during one 40 hr sequence, i left school for a grand total of 4 hrs for a graduation dinner...
 
i spent a weekend in seoul to visit my friend grace, who was teaching there, and enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with her, visit some sites, and to worship together. i'm glad she eventually found a church home in seoul where she felt comfortable and with a pastor that challenged her through his preaching.
the flight home to the u.s. my flight took an extra 1.5 hrs because of a russian volcano (though it's really nothing compared to the travel adventures of my friend mike su.) missed my connection and was just able to get on the last flight via stand-by. since then it's been one thing after another, helping with stuff for my parents, helping to take care of my niece and nephews, and my brother's wedding. wedding photos to come later, but...
the paradox that is my niece:
 
my nephews:
 
| | |
| the text to my nhs speech that ended up being the speech for 3 honor societies:
Good evening parents, friends, colleagues, honored guests and especially to you the students. It is a great privilege to be speaking to you tonight. For tonight we celebrate your induction to the National Honor Societies. I congratulate you and your parents for this achievement, for being examples of the four requirements of the NHS: scholarship, leadership, community service, and character. These requirements are what make these such a fitting honor societies for Concordia, where leadership, community service and character are valued as much, if not more, than just scholarship, and are incorportated into the our ESLR’s.
What we celebrate is not just your GPA but the sum of you. We celebrate not just the numbers that the world views as most important but the quality of you. We celebrate your scholarship and academic success, your leadership and example, your sacrifice in serving your community–at Concordia, in Shanghai, in China, and the world, and your character and integrity that makes all of this worthwhile. In the words of Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings “…you have shown your quality, sir – the very highest” and we salute you.
But, your story doesn’t end here and I therefore challenge you to grow in your quality, in each of these four areas, by what may be the most difficult thing you do as students, as workers, as citizens of the industrial world. I challenge you to forget the game that lies before you, a game that gives some panic attacks or ulcers and drives others to a web of deceit, betrayal, and sabotage. It’s a game that can perhaps explain so much of what is happening in this world today. It’s the numbers game, played in a world where numbers rule.
No offence to the math department, but, although numbers are important – GPA, class rank, number of awards, AP and SAT scores, titles – they are important indicators of your progress, but they should not rule over you. They should not drive your decisions and distract you from what is most important. When it comes to life, Machiavelli got it wrong when he said the ends justify the means. Life is not a state function where the only thing that matters is the end result. In life, the process and the reasoning are everything. If you focus on what you need to do, what you should do, and not on what looks better, the results will follow.
Focus on the learning. True scholarship lies not in the grade, score or award, but in the process of learning, from our successes but even more so from our failures. When your focus is solely on the numbers, you leave no room for mistakes and you leave no room for improvement. Now, I’m not saying that you should not desire to be successful, but when the desire for success petrifies you from uncertainty, then the future of innovation looks grim. Spend time reflecting on your learning processes. Analyze your mistakes and learn from them. Analyze your successes and learn how to do it better. The true reward of scholarship lies not in your GPA or college acceptance or job title but in the person who you become…a SCHOLAR.
Focus on being an example. Leadership is not about years, money, title or office. It’s not about checking something off on a laundry list of requirements. It’s not about what you tell others to do but what you do. It’s not about what you can get but what you are willing to give. And it’s not about getting people to follow you but about people wanting to follow you. Charles Barkley once had a very popular ad campaign…”I am not a role model.” Unfortunately, he was a role model. Just because he didn’t want to be one didn’t negate the fact that children were looking up to him. Each one of you is a leader, not because you are part of NHS, not because of your titles, not because of your grades, but because wherever you go, whether you know or not, you are influencing others by their observations of you. The question is not “am I a role model?” but rather “what kind of role model do I want to be?” Desire to be the best role model you can be with integrity, compassion, sacrifice…desire to be a LEADER.
Focus on the wellbeing of others. True service lies not within what you do but why you do it. Bill and Melinda Gates wrote, “We created the Gates Foundation in 2000 because we believe in the principle that every human life has equal worth…Today, billions of people never even have the chance to live a healthy, productive life. We want to help all people get that opportunity.” Does this reflect your motivation? Why do you want to serve? Is it another checked box? Is it to make you feel better? Is the focus of your service, what you are most concerned about, yourself? Audrey Hepburn once said, “I think I’ve been terribly privileged and it’s logic that somebody who is privileged should do something for those who are not.” Every one of you is privileged, by the grace of God, and every one of you has a responsibility to help those who are not. And you have, but I ask you to reflect on your motivation. Reflect on the blessings you have received. Then, invest in the lives of others and be a blessing. Then you will experience one of life’s greatest joys…seeing the joy of life in others…and you will be a SERVANT.
Focus on your heart. Your true character is defined in your heart and is revealed through your thoughts and actions, whether you are alone or in a crowd, in the midst of adversity or jubilation. It defines who you are, free of the outer influences, and determines who you are as a true scholar, leader, and servant. Character is therefore the most difficult of the four areas to grow and also the most important. Some people, they say, are “rotten to the core.” The truth is that we all are and we spend our lives either producing rotten fruit or trying to change to produce good fruit. But it goes beyond changing our outward behaviors and really focusing on who we are deep within our hearts, desiring for real change, and understanding how that change can happen so that we can become the SCHOLARS, LEADERS, and SERVANTS we are meant to be.
It’s a difficult journey, an epic journey, a life’s journey, one that will change you forever. But it is a journey worth taking because it leads to the person who you can become, who you are destined to become, who society desperately needs you to become and model, and it leads an incredible future of so much promise and hope, not only for yourself but also for the world that eagerly awaits your coming.
I congratulate you on your induction into the school’s National Honor Societies and your acceptance of the responsibilities it entails and hope that you find the joy in this journey set before you. Thank you.
| | |
| part of my job description involves leading high school chapel. last year, i only led it once. this year, every teacher is required to lead chapel twice. this is the chapel devotion i led this past week along with some of the slides....
The Life Worth Living
So before I begin with the slides, I want you to think how much you would give to live the life of your choosing…How much would you pay to live the life of your favorite star or character? How much would you pay to live life as the greatest basketball player to ever play the game? How much would you pay to have all your favorite designers at your beckon call? How much would you pay to go to your dream school and graduate from it at the top of your class? How much would you give so a friend could live a life of their choosing?
So what did I do for Christmas? I went to Cambodia and when you are in Cambodia, you must go see the temple ruins of Angkor. And, as you explore the temple ruins, examining the relief work and architectural design,
as you watch how nature tries to reclaim what was taken away, you marvel at the magnitude of human effort and the creativity and you see the beauty of the surroundings
and the people. Yet, at the same time, you cannot help but notice the signs of struggle of past and present in the people
as they struggle with poverty, the destruction of the decades past….and then you are reminded that
this is also Cambodia. The evidence of the genocidal efforts of the Khmer Rouge, destroying at first their rivals, the intellectual, the educated, and then turning on the very people who worked for them before turning on each other. You are reminded of the
evil men can do. And as I reflected, I could not help but think what caused this is pride, arrogance, lust for power, hatred, and fear, characteristics found in varying degrees in everyone around us. And I think, “are we capable of this?”
But it’s Christmas and after seeing and thinking of such things, I needed to find good, to find hope for these people, and so I attended a cello concert led by this man, Beat Richner, a doctor with a heart for Cambodia and I learn of his story….
And then I visit another place and I learn of this man, Kenro Izu, who, while taking photographs at Angkor, watched a father hold his daughter in his arms as she died, not because she could not be helped, but because the help was not available and so…
And I can’t think of hope for suffering children, the future, without thinking about this woman, Audrey Hepburn, whom I greatly respect for her devotion to children…
So what do these three people have in common…they found for themselves…
“A life worth living.” They each devoted their lives to the cause of suffering children, using their unique gifts and talents, working tirelessly. Why?...so that the children could simply live. And then try live a life out of poverty. Now, how much would you give to live the life of your choosing? How much would you give for your friend?
And I could easily from this point use this verse from 2 Corinthians…
to talk to you about the value and deeper meaning of serving others, but you as a student body have servant hearts and it’s one of the qualities I am most proud of about you. I cannot describe to my friends what type of school this is without talking about your hearts for service and everything you do from the interim service projects to various fundraisers to 30 hour Famine. No, what I have to talk about is much more important…
It’s about the “the life worth living”…so wait, what is the difference? The difference is that the life worth living is not a life you or I can live. The life worth living was lived once and will never need to be lived again, and it starts with Christmas. My advisory class was given an assignment over Christmas break to reflect on the meaning of sacrifice. And the first questioned asked by a student was “isn’t sacrifice normally associated with Good Friday and Easter?” Yes, it is, but really it’s all connected but the start is Christmas because that is when Jesus began living the life worth living, a life of full obedience and faith, of full sacrifice and loss, of death and utter abandonment, but a life of complete victory. This life, to live among us and to live the life that we were supposed to live for the sole purpose of dying the excruciating death that we were supposed to die because of our sin, is the life worth living. How do I know? Because of how much it cost to be able to live it.
In Philippians it says….
so what did Jesus give up to live this life, what did He sacrifice for Christmas…equality with God, authority over the entire universe, His relationship with the Father, His own life…everything. He sacrificed everything. That’s how much He was willing to pay to live this life. That’s how much it is worth. That’s how much He needed to live it. Why? Because He lived it for you. Because He wants to spend eternity with you. Because He loves you and you are worth everything.
| | |
|
