On my wildflower ramble this afternoon, I came to this bend in the road where I had to stop.  The wind was playing the corn like a flute or like some exotic percussion instrument, and all I could do was stop and listen.  I took in the astounding beauty of sound and sight for the longest time, took out my camera and snapped away.  But then I had to close my eyes and let mystery take hold.  How can we explain how dried corn and painted skies and wind can heal the wounded soul?  How can we explain the presence of a farming grandfather long since passed and the barefooted essence of a feminine God on such an ordinary road among such humble elements?  Heartbeats pulsing like drums came to me and asked for prayer.  "We don't yet know how to arrive here.  We don't yet know how to trust what is natural and unencumbered. Won't you pray for us, sister?"  And so I did.  I prayed for them and for myself with the broadest of hopes that we will all arrive here again safely... and that we will steadily learn to trust the mysterious presence that sustains us in our knowing and in all that is unknown.

Years ago, I was teaching in a public school setting, and I watched a vibrant teacher go flat.  She was one of those people who knew all along that teaching was her calling.  She devoted her life to children, to finding the good humor in most situations, and to figuring out how to successfully stick with one profession until she retired.  What started happening at some point along the way was that she became the ‘chosen’ teacher for those students who made most teachers pull their hair out.  She somehow was selected year after year to teach those little ones who challenged the patience of saints. And it wasn’t one or two along the way… oh, no.  She would have a class full of those rowdy rascals.  The first couple of years, she managed.  But then, I started to notice she looked really tired.  And then I started to notice an edge in her voice as I passed her in the hallway.  When we would all line up at the end of the day to take our classes to the buses, she would often sound like a teacher who needed a break.

At some point, the gossip mill shared that she had been written up, and later that she was on probation for that edge she had in her voice with children.  The term ‘burned out’ also surfaced and quite naturally so.  It’s always easy to label someone.  We don’t notice the progression.  We don’t pay attention to the small requests for support or the need to undergird those we ask the most of.  We just wait for the ball to drop, for the one mistake that sends up the red flag and the need to correct or worse… the need to punish.
 
Recently, a friend of mine who is also a professional in the educational world, lost her mother to cancer.  She has high demands in her work, has also invested her entire professional career to the service of children, and remains devoted to the students she serves.  She took some time off in the last days of her mother’s life, and now it would benefit her to have some time and space in which to grieve.  The news is that in her job… there is no bereavement leave.  The news is that in her job… she may not use sick leave to grieve her mother’s passing.  So, she will come to work, and she will do her best to work and grieve.  At some point, she may have an edge in her voice or she may miss a beat in her mound of educational paperwork.  And then, at some point, the words will come, “What seems to be the matter? The quality of your work is not what it was…”

We create impossible situations for people and then we ask, “What is wrong?  Why aren’t you happy?  Why can’t you do better?  Why is it so hard for you to do what is asked of you?”  Systems are notorious for this.  Systems love to stick to the surface of things, to take what makes great sense and just toss it out for what is nonsensical.  Systems disengage from the soul of circumstances and the soul of those who serve people rather than cater to the whimsy of systems.  Systems love to hit good people over the head and then ask why there is a lack of trust.

Our educational systems may be failing the students, but this is only because the system is failing the teachers.  When you beat the passion out of the classroom, when you prioritize paperwork and testing over relationships, and when you continue to watch and promote the eventual departure of the most amazing teachers… the only thing that can possibly happen is to watch the students fail.

And we wonder why kids shoot kids.  And we wonder why planes are flown into towers.  And we question how it is that depression and poverty and wars and drug overdoses just continue to be the headline news.  We are too busy micromanaging what is least important.  We are too busy analyzing data and comparing which school, which county, which nation is the greatest in the world.  What is on paper has become more important than what is in the heart.  We want to prove to everyone that we are the most successful no matter how that happens or who gets lost along the way.

If you want a conversation about how to begin to heal that which is broken… begin with a teacher who has been broken by a really faulty educational system.  Begin with someone who once attended church but who now finds Spirit more easily outside of the institution of religion.  Begin with the kid who feels guilty for failing math even when his art delights not only his heart but the hearts of others.  Begin with the people who have a million creative ideas who were never once asked to share them.  Begin with the handful people who have yet to be trampled by the obsessive need to compete and who still love to laugh and ride bikes just for fun.  Begin with the one person who is least on your radar.

We can simply keep to the current path.  We can stay at the surface, play the bureaucratic games with skill, and pretend that everything is fine.  We can continue to perpetually suck the life out of life.  Or we can begin to notice that the ice is actually really thin and the sound of cracking might be more important than the gold medal we hope to achieve.  It’s time to show up, my friends, to the matters at hand.  We cannot continue to wait.  We cannot continue to waste the most beautiful of souls.  There is more.  There is so much more.

I cannot ignore the cool breeze today.  The heat and humidity have given way to something freer, something that soothes every ache and every forlorn wandering.  It is tempting to acknowledge the movement, the sounds, the lulling, and then move on.  But something is calling, and callings take time to decipher.  This will have to be church today.  There is nothing in this moment that says rush to shower and dress and drive a distance to bump into what is already here.  Spirit isn’t requiring anything of you today.  Spirit has an open invitation to love what is present in this very place.

I am thankful for this understanding.  We need people and rituals with people.  We need to do all that we can to be of service and to be a student always in this school of life.  But more and more I find that quiet time in which to detach is intricate to the well-being of the soul.  Of late, I thirst for time in which to simply sit.  Not create.  Not fix.  Not communicate.  Not worry.  Not persist towards the next item on the ‘to do’ list.  Just sit.  Maybe walk.  Maybe roam.  But not much past those gentle activities.  Let the mind and the hands and the soul grow quiet and still.  Allow this wind today to sweep away the heaviest of cobwebs that constrict the interplay of joy and sorrow, and instead, let the body and the mind refresh.

We come into this world fully known to ourselves and our Maker.  Somewhere along the way, we lose or forget or become so bombarded by this earthly life that the knowledge of who we are and how we are meant to be in this world becomes what we seek to connect with once again.  We can spend years practicing this return.  We can explore lots of paths.  We can try on lots of jobs and organizations and practices trying to discover where we fit and what brings us life and joy.  And then we can arrive in this place of understanding, and finally feel we have embraced the fullness of self to only realize that we still must compromise, still must give our time, energy, and focus to days full of what do not match our understandings.  This is where I am in my life.  This is why when God’s Spirit comes to me in wind on my little front porch, and I have the chance to do something that makes sense to my soul… I must honor it.

We are in a conflicted time.  I cannot even bear to list again the sadnesses and the insanities taking place each day both near and far.  Everyday our heart breaks or learn how not to break.  We’ve just got to keep going, right?  Like those pillars of caterpillars in “Hope for the Flowers.”  Remember that book?  All of those caterpillars trying to get to the top for something that they have no idea of… but something that all of them think will give them what they want or need.  And they hurt each other on the way up, and they devote all of their time and energy to the quest even as they witness more and more caterpillars falling, falling, falling.

Soon we encounter Yellow and Stripe, who both decide to come down from the pile and go still.  They were scoffed at by the others… but they trusted that deeper intuition.  Whether you’ve read this book or not, you know what happens when caterpillars go still.  Do you know what happens when you grow still?

To you and to me:  Keep going when you need to keep going.  Do what you must when you must.  Allow every part of you to deepen and radiate and give.  But when your soul calls you away and when the breeze whispers your name… invite the path to nowhere to carry you home