Poems

I love LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching. I couldn't imagine any profession that would make me happier. The only other thing I really want to do with my life is to be a published poet on top of being a teacher so when I had that thought I felt like. WHY NOT? What is keeping my from publishing my own stuff on my blog. So periodically I will put a poem or two up.

Memory
by
ME

Sometimes it is enough
to remember

Remember
when you knew
Remember
when you were strong
Remember
when everything was before you
Remember
when prayers were answered
Remember
when Promises were fulfilled
Remember
when you had faith
Sometimes
it is dark
Scary
You feel all alone
LOST
In those times
REMEMBER
Sometimes it is enough
TO REMEMBER


Remember Me
by me

Lord remember me
I cannot go alone
Each day I stumble
You pick me up
When lost in darkness
You bring me light
My hope rests in you
Rests in your promises
You remembered Rachel
So Lord Remember Me

Lord remember me
I cling to my faith
Prophet's promises
and a father's blessing
I trust in the atonement
While I struggle through the days
I feel lonely
Yet, I know you are with me
You remembered Rachel
Oh, Lord Remember Me

I guess the theme for today....Remembering, like Erying I believe talked about in last October's conference. We are given events so that we can build our testimony and we need to record them so that we remember. When it is hard to see the end of a trial we hang out to what we have already felt from Heavenly Father.

Hope

Hope has been this big thing with me recently. Honestly, it started with a film. "The Dark Knight," I don't know if you have heard of it; it is just the film that is breaking all the records right now. Anyways, in the film they bring out the idea that hope is one of the most important things you need in society. To ruin people you need to kill all their hope. It also made me think what would I be willing to sacrifice to make sure that people, society,and my self still have hope? This pondering made me start to realize just how many people I let control hope in my life. Namely BOYS. When they pay attention to me I get hopefully then they do something and I lose all hope that I will ever get the desires of my heart. Now the church teaches us just how much faith and hope are tied together. When you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ you have hope and when you have hope you are showing your faith. So I thought about whether or not I have hope in the promises the Lord has made for me and I have a resounding answer to that question.....YES BEYOND A DOUBT, which means that I cannot give the control of my hope over to some boy or some job or some friend. I must maintain hope and that is to remember ALWAYS that I have hope because I have faith. So when hope does waver, which it does quite easily honestly, I need to step back and say where is my faith because if I have faith then I have hope. The Lord will fulfill his promises to me. HOPE! We cannot live without us because it makes us better people. I have hope that tomorrow will be better because I have faith in Christ. You can almost use the words interchangeable. I have faith tomorrow will be better or I have hope tomorrow will be better both mean the same thing if your hope is also based on Christ. As someone reminded me Faith is based on things you know are true though you can't see it and hope when also not based on the same thing can just be a wish. Well I am signing off with two poems because I love poetry.

Hope Abides
Sri Chinmoy

Hope abides; therefore I abide.
Countless frustrations have not cowed me.
I am still alive, vibrant with life.
The black cloud will disappear,
The morning sun will appear once again
In all its supernal glory.


Hope of Loving
Meister Eckhart

What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving, or being loved.

Extremes and Opposites

This is really an interesting topic to me especially since it has come up several times with different people. Well I decided that in a fit of insomnia I should blog about it. The first part of this is personality traits. Some of my best traits are directly tied to my worst traits. I care for people deeply and I never let go of a friend lightly. I stress about any time when I am consider to not be as close to someone and I can't sleep. Hmmm.....I wonder if I just figured out my problem tonight. When you get into my inner circle or inside my wall I never want to have you leave. I mean I am so protective of myself as is and it hurts to have someone I trust completely not in my life anymore. I care very deeply. I love teaching and I care and love my students like they were my own children to be separated from them for a whole summer is giving my anxiety added on to the fact that since I am changing schools I won't see them, but I digress. I really really love people and will do just about anything for someone who is my friend. Wake up at 3am to correct a paper no problem. Bake you your favorite pie because you had a bad day, I'll get right on it. Stay up till 1am though I am getting up a 5 because you need to talk, no problem. I would give an arm, a leg, anything for a friend. Most people admire this quality in me. But it leaves me vunerable to feeling and being used, which trust me I often do. Fine, I will host a dinner for you thank you for helping (though you never did) and making me do all the work and then making fun of me the entire dinner. Here let me take care of you, teach you how to dress, go to every one of your performances, print of pictures for you, celebrate your birthday, and support you in everything you do while you don't even remember when my birthday is and you forget to talk to me till you need something. The other problem is that this bend over backwards quality is directly linked to one of my most negative qualities. When I hate you I really really hate you. I don't hide it and I make sure you feel my wrath and once I hate you it is hard for me to stop. In other words I hold grudges and have a hard time forgiving people who hurt me, though I have gotten better recently I am still not there.
The other really extreme good quality is that when I am happy I am really happy. As my friend said, when I am happy and at my best I am addictive people can't handle not being around me. I have an energy that is contagious and an open heart that makes everyone feel comfortable. But on the flip side when I get depressed no one can handle me because I go so deep into my depression. Now this one has mellowed out a lot as I have grown up. I no longer go as deep and dark into my depression and I am more constantly and consistently happy but I can still get pretty bad.
Now this isn't a quality but another extreme to quote Anne of the Island which talks about this the best, "Those who soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which also suffer most sharply." It seems so true. When you learn to really enjoy life and you get happier than most people ever do you seem to also crash harder than other people. So in other words those who enjoy life the most also feel the pain the most and at not the most stable people emotional or they can be pretty stable but have really rough patches.
That leads me to my over arching question. Is it worth it? I mean seriously is it. Does that fact that I care so much make me a good teacher like I and others believe? If that is what makes me good do I have to hate so vehemently to keep my ability to care and love so much? Can I soften my hatred and still care as much? Or does it only work because I am so extreme? Also is it worth the crash to soar so high? This one especially relates to romance....Is is worthy liking a boy and giving him your all when you have so much experience getting hurt when the boy doesn't return your feelings or is it not worth it. Is the crash too painful and the high to short lived? But it is also all aspects of life because it is true the higher you soar the further down you have to go the hit the ground and it hurts. You love teaching and you love your students and you love your school and you don't want to leave and your school doesn't want you to leave but the school cannot get rid of the teacher who hates the students and hates teaching because he has tenure so after soaring high......CRASH you have to change schools and get a new job in a school that is farther away and not air conditioned. That crash hurt badly because I soared so high with my kids. But at the same time I wouldn't give up this past year and my kids at Dixon for all the money in the world, nor would I ever give up Sherri who inspires me even when I am apart from her. So I guess that is the answer. The crash makes the soaring that much better. After all, "There most be opposition in all things." If we don't know sorrow than how are we suppose to know what joy is. I would hope as I continue to improve that the extremes don't need to be in my personality traits but I would rather feel the sorrow and soar to the highest heights than I would want to avoid the crashes no matter how badly they hurt. Because after all when I fall I can get back up again.

Let me Fall by Alexz Johnson
....
I can't stop or give it up
I need to feel the pain

Can you hear me?
Don't come near me
You'll just get in my way
I'm only human
And there's nothing you can say

(Chorus]
Let me rise, let me fall
Let me breathe
I wanna lose control, I'm not afraid to lose it all
Let me break, let me crawl
Cause I will get up again if you let me fall

A lot of nothing

It is truly amazing to me how I can fill my life with a whole lot of nothing. I mean here it is my summer break and I only have so much time left to do what I want before my life is completely taken over by teaching again and though I have lists of things to do I am filling my days with nothing. That is right nothing. I do these mindless little projects but do not feel like I am doing anything that actually accomplishes something. I am creating ringtones, listening to music, trying to get a hold of my friend and all in vain but I am not doing the important things like set up my classroom (which after feeling my non-air conditioned room I am avoiding) and getting my car things taken care of I am doing a whole lot of nothing. A little reading, a little writing, and a little sun is it. Yet, some how I am still out of time to do some of the planning and going running everyday. I mean seriously.....WHERE HAS ALL THE TIME GONE? How come I am doing nothing but I still don't have enough hours in the day, Can Someone please explain it to me?

What are men to rocks and mountains

I had one of the moments last night. You know the moments when you realize just how small your problems really are and you get some perspective. It happened as it normally does. Up in the mountains away from the normal life.It really makes me think and wonder on life. I know that when I think of the eternal perspective that this time is but a moment but this fact is easy to forget. The mountains make it very very real to me. They have been here for hundreds of year and will be here long after I am dead (assuming the 2nd coming doesn't come). But you know what it made me realize that I have to do something I have been dreading for awhile now. And that was not a happy thought. I guess there is more to come on this front later.I just wanted to throw out the idea that nature is the answer. When I am out in the trees with the mountains all around me I feel safe and close to my Heavenly Father and I know the answers will come. I don't know if I will keep up blogging but I thought for now I might give it a try.