Groupings

Lately, I've been texting my granddaughter with math problems. Most of them are built on the problem before, only I've changed the order (transitive) or broken them apart (associative). As she continues to learn, I will push onward to introduce forms of inductions, offer insights to axioms...because, I think, I am forever a teacher. Screw the administrative system, if they did not exist to "measure and monitor" my performance, I would probably still be a teacher. As it is, I send text messages...and just wait for the light bulb to go off. And I get a kick out of watching my children...and grandchildren discover something they did not previously know.

I'm working on another retreat, of course. This one is not fun. I wonder sometimes, if I should have chosen to do the other one...or none of them...not because I don't love the work, but because I am always feeling tied up or restrained...or just an employee.  I do not like how I feel. And I do not like how I feel enough now to write about it, hoping that writing will make me change how I feel.

I've gained a lot of insight, as always...but the price often feels too high.  The last retreat I was on was so wonderful...that I suppose it would have been impossible for this one to compare to it. This feels like work. This feels like I ought to be getting paid to do it because there is no connection within me, no feeling of love. There is just work, and work needs to be done.

I do not like work. I like vocation. I like play. I like riding the waves with God, not climbing some damn hill because someone else told me to do it. I am not interested in linear thinking (to the extent that it brings some kind of physical reward).  I want to mentally jump off of some cliff...and see where God takes me.

I do not do well with authority...or administration.  And for now, that is where God has placed me. My response: yuck!

I have been perhaps passive aggressively butting heads with the reality I am in, but my playful side (and that's a pretty big side) recognizes what I am learning here. These things are good to know because it will help with my discernment in the future.  It will color how I decide to work later. I mean, if I don't have to be in a prison, then why would I put myself there? Right? 

I already have another retreat looming in the distance, I could focus my eyes on that. But I owe love and respect and care to what is in front of me right now...and I'd better make it into some kind of game...or I'll stop playing. 

When trapped in a classroom by the nuns who would not let me learn at my own pace...trying to destroy my enthusiasm with 500 lines of "I will not talk in class/the lavatory(we were not allowed to call it a bathroom...too sexual, I guess)/in line...whatever"  I would forever be imagining games in my head.  Flights of fancy into outer space, or more conveniently...out the window, sitting on the back of the riding mower that was teaching me about the Doppler effect as it traced its path up and down the hill near my classroom.  I will not be chained...even when the nuns would try to humiliate me with taping my mouth shut or tying me with ropes to my desk. 

Go ahead and try to kill my spirit. I will only come back stronger.

Definitely not a nun.

Perhaps not even a priest.

But I have faced so many different kinds of persecutions, I realized early on...you can play by their rules and kill your spirit...or you can make your own path...

Having made such a bold statement, it is obvious I have chosen "the hard way" to live. You learn rules by testing them, to see if they are valid, fair, appropriate...not simply convenient. If you choose to follow a rule, it is important to know why you follow it.
Psalm 32: if you force someone to believe, it's as if they did not believe at all. If they don't get it, then they won't get it. 
That's the hard way.  As soon as we became "smart" beings, we became responsible for the choices we make.  You can follow a rule, live well enough and be satisfied. But if your eye wanders off the rule...then you need to start to understand why you have chosen the rule. Otherwise you become like the parable of the prodigal son who stayed home: miserable because the "bad boy" is once again, getting all the attention.  The one who wandered understands now...and returns.  The one who stayed home is just bitter.  He doesn't know why he stayed home...or perhaps he does know why...and he is sad...but he doesn't understand anything.

So it's about grouping.  I have to always be aware of where I am in my journey...and I have to work hard to understand where the others are in their journey.  Then I have to make peace with the possibility that, even if I offer my work, nothing might be resolved. Some people are just not ready to drink the water. And I have to be "not angry" about that....

Most obviously because, I have one who is gracious enough to walk with me, who has travelled farther than me, who was willing to slow down so that we could share a journey for a time. I recognize that at least. At the very least, I must offer to others what is being offered to me. And that's kind of hard to do. 

Because I want to go faster, I want to know more before I die, to understand more, to live more.  And going slow makes me crazy inside.

But if maybe, I could just treat everyone like I treat my granddaughter...I throw out an idea...and wait for her to see what's there.  I don't mind waiting for her, because I love her so much.

I need to love others as much as I love my grandchildren.

Ah...at last...the lesson has been revealed.

okay. I'm done.