Category: quote

Truth, Love and Despair

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

“When I despair, I remember all that through history the way of truth and love have always won.  There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.  Think of it – always.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Truth and love.  How do those ideas manifest themselves on a daily basis?  Do they frame our days, or are they simply reminders that hang out there somewhere, waiting to be knocked about when things get rough?

LOVE

Truth and love.  Do they cram themselves into our every movement, our every thought, our every action?  Do we wear them on our sleeve, or bury them deep in our chest?

Truth and love.  What about when deceit and hate smack us in the face and knock us down without offering a hand up?  What then?  Does the tyrant smirk and turn their back, not worried about us finding the strength to attack back?

Truth and love.  Do the emails, the rejection letters, the pink slips, show us?  They think they’re doing the right thing, following the protocol, but they are neglecting to see the human inside, the person that feels the sting and disappointment.

They forget about my fire.

truth love and despair

Truth and love.  When I despair, truth and love have shown me what to do. To think of our children and what is best for them.   To do the right thing, even when nobody is looking.  Assume positive intention.  To look into another’s eyes and see how we are all more similar than we are different.
When I despair, I remember they may seem invincible.  They may seem to have won.
But when I despair, I think of the power of truth and love and know they are wrong.
I have won.

I am the one who is invincible.

Always.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
TwitterFacebookLinkedInPinterestGoogle PlusYelp

The Universe is Taking Care of Me

Posted on February 6, 2012 by

Sometimes we all are so caught up in how we want things to be. Who will win an election, who will find the right relationship, what college our kids will be accepted to, what treatment will be found for an illness, what job might open up for us. We face these all-important, and sometimes critical, issues in life. However, I wonder if perhaps we are all just trying a bit too hard to make it happen.

I will admit I am a cerebral person. I stay up in my head all the time. I like it there. I like to think, to ponder, to imagine what if. I have never been one to jump into huge risks, or vocalize my thoughts immediately as they come to mind. I keep them ‘up there’.

Interestingly, I also wear them on my sleeve. Emotional, shy, sensitive – all adjectives used to describe me my entire life. It’s hard to feel intensely and try to keep it inside. I’ve never been good at lying or keeping secrets. Mix that all together, and I often find myself missing opportunities, misunderstood, or thinking of what I ‘should have said’ 30 minutes after the occasion ended.

So in the last few years I have kind of surprised myself. Surprised my family and my colleagues, too. I’ve decided that I needed to let these feelings and thoughts out of my head and heart and put them in motion. Like a slow leak in a balloon, I let the control in my head move towards my center. Using my contemplative nature, instead of thinking it out I let it settle and sink in. I acted on intuition over intellect and to my great surprise, amazing things started to happen.

I found myself in the mountains of Nicaragua, along with my children and complete strangers, mucking in the dirt and rocks to build a school. I found myself teaching and coordinating a new program at my school to help kids and families find their confidence and success. I found myself on a zip line flying over the jungle to challenge my fear of heights. I found myself applying and earning a government grant to study global education, with plane tickets for Washington D.C. and Indonesia. I found myself writing, testing the voice that began to emerge and finding new writing friends to share and learn with. Now, I find myself writing for Yahoo, my thoughts and words about education and parenting shared with an unlimited audience.

None of these experiences would have happened if I remained locked inside my head. There are too many reasons I could create to explain them away. There are too many risks, too many challenges, too many other people who would be better suited. Except that, the universe is taking care of me.

My writing friend Brenda Moguez, who shares her head and heart with the universe on a regular basis, writes in her blog ‘Passionate Pursuits’, “just once, this singular time, I’d like a leg up, the map, the golden key, the spoonful of sugar, the ruby slippers, and one of the wishes Genie gave to Aladdin. It’s ballsy of me to ask, I know, but I have good reason. I looked at karma’s life ledgers and I am showing a substantial overpayment. The same auditors, who tally the votes for the Academy Awards, keep karma’s book, so the numbers are accurate. Trust me.”

I couldn’t agree more. Karma’s life ledgers do keep the tally marks next to our name. Santa Claus does know who has been naughty and who has been nice. Cinderella’s fairy godmother does turn a pumpkin into a carriage so she can meet her handsome prince. And the Blue Fairy does bring Pinocchio back to life after he proves his bravery, honesty and selflessness.

But all of those magical experiences would remain in the ledger book if not for one thing: the voice and actions that put them out into the universe to be answered. As the great philosopher Bill Cosby says, “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”

Is this what holds so many of us back?  It’s our lives; we have to want it to happen.

In the end, I believe a combination of desire and action allows the universe to move. Trusting that we will be taken care of, that things will happen the way that they are supposed to, not necessarily how we think they should.

That, and a bit of fairy dust.

 

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
TwitterFacebookLinkedInPinterestGoogle PlusYelp

Friday Photo: Some Soup and a Story

Posted on January 14, 2012 by


“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

For a moment on Wednesday night, I was worried.  20 freshmen and sophomores, gas stoves, sharp knives and the need to prepare and serve dinner for 40+ people in less than an hour?  I questioned my choices.

As my students trickled into the shelter that night I quickly jumped into teacher mode and soon had the industrial sized kitchen humming with activity.  Onions were chopped, meat was browning, cornbread was mixing up and tables were being set. 

Little by little, my nervousness was replaced by problem solving.  No measuring cup? No problem – use an app to convert cups to tablespoons.  No, I don’t know how to use an industrial sized coffee maker – find someone to help you. And they did.

After a while, any passerby might have thought these kids were running the kitchen of the best restaurant in town.  They were even wiping up after themselves!  As they cooked they bonded with each other, and eased their own jitters about meeting the strangers waiting outside the door.

The real lesson came after the food was prepared and the homeless guests lined up to be served.  With eagerness and compassion, these children served men and women who were actually not so different from themselves. Slowly they ventured towards the dinner tables

Sitting side by side and sharing a meal broke down the scariness.  Stories began to move back and forth, child and adult bonding over simple food and a common desire to get to know each other’s story.  I stood back and watched the transformation, and beamed with pride at the acts of compassionate justice occurring before my eyes.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
TwitterFacebookLinkedInPinterestGoogle PlusYelp

A Deadly Difference: The Story of Thong Hy Huynh

Posted on September 23, 2011 by

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
When I first started teaching I worked in a rough neighborhood.  It was completely different from where I grew up-no long, winding bike paths, well manicured little league fields, or bountiful Farmer’s Markets.  There was no nearby college, rich with cultural opportunities, nor any kids hanging out at the public library.  Instead, there was concrete, apartments, iron gates and bars on windows.  There were grassy areas devoid of dogs on leashes or children on swings.  It was different, and I was a bit intimidated.
Where I went to high school

The 25 mile commute each day from the bubble of a community I grew up in took me from a place where crime wasn’t something we worried about. We hardly ever locked our doors, and if we broke curfew (or any other teenage rule) someone always saw us and informed our parents.  We knew everyone at school, and there was no escaping a reputation that siblings had left behind.  We went to school from kindergarten through graduation among children we played in sandboxes with-some might have called it utopia.  Until one day…

May 4, 1983:

Thong Hy Huynh was a new kid in town.  His family had recently immigrated from Vietnam, hoping for a better life. He was quiet-in fact, so quiet that I never even met him. I never knew his name until the day he was killed on campus.

On that day, life in our idyllic little town changed forever.  One minute we were walking to Home Ec during our senior year, preparing for another period of delightful cooking instruction.  The next minute, total chaos erupted just around the corner from our classroom.  People were screaming and a huge crowd hovered near the art room.  For a moment I thought it must be just another fight-not that fighting was an everyday occurrence.  But the teacher’s grave expressions and composed panic told me this was more-much more.

Thong was different.  He didn’t speak English fluently, and had seen horrors in his native country we can only imagine.  At that moment on May 4, he was defending a friend who was being tormented by a red haired, light skinned bully.  Words were exchanged, and before anyone knew it Thong was down, stabbed and bleeding to death.

Eight years after his death, I remember what I felt when I began teaching in my new community.  I felt different.  I was out of my comfort zone.  I felt scared and insecure.  But after a few weeks, I felt myself relaxing. I felt the love and trust of my students and their parents as they realized my care was genuine, and my passion for teaching began to override my fears of being ‘different’.

I don’t think it was until then, years after Thong died, that I really realized what Maya Angelou was saying.  And now, when my daughter walks past his memorial plaque at the high school I hope she understands.  Actually, I know she understands.  Because what I learned from Thong and my students is a part of me, and the message flows from my heart and actions into my children at home and at school.  We ARE more alike than we know, and being different is what makes life such a beautiful experience.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
TwitterFacebookLinkedInPinterestGoogle PlusYelp