Looking East

In the silence of a Saturday morning, I'm reflecting on the week behind me. Actually, I don't imagine the past stretching out behind me, as if it were an ever growing timeline of moments and words that extends out behind me in some physical capacity. And since I don't feel this, I shouldn't say it that way. I tend to think of the past as perpetually extending east. It's not "back a few years ago" in my head or even "back in high school," but east. Therefore, since I am facing east in my morning chair, I guess I am facing the past, facing what God has taught me or will teach me in further reflection.

Sometimes I feel like I live for the weekend, always looking west (to the future) to when I will be able to sleep in or grade or read in peace. Rest. However, the weekends roll around, and they tend to be filled with about the same amount of stress as the weeks. Mostly because me, being over-ambitious, declare I am going to get a significant amount of grading done, and I complete half of it. Or none of it. Rarely do my weekends actually turn out the way I want them to.

But how can I complain? I still get weekends and don't have to hold a second job that fills my time on the weekends as well. Or have one job that I work 7 days a week. I am thankful.

But back to looking east, I realize that my week was successful in some ways, and in other ways, it fell flat. Conversations with students lacking patience might be what some of them needed to hear. Conversations filled with too much patience for students might do more hurt that good. Conversations with students containing too much caring for students well-being might color my view of students. Sometimes I feel like my classroom is a fish-bowl, and the student I see is all that matters. But other people have opinions of students and know more about their lives. I need to learn how to be more well-rounded with my students. But I will never agree that all students deserve the same treatment. What is fair is not always equal.

So looking west, I hope that my heart can be in the right place, that my love for my students can be Christ's love. And I can help them in my classroom, whether it be a fish-bowl or not.