A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The heavens declare His righteousness, And all the peoples see His glory. Psalm 97:6

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. –Carl Sagan

Yesterday was a pretty full day: an early morning walk where I actually talked to a neighbor lady sitting on her front porch, tackling the repairing of Mary Anne’s so-many-years-ago tattered quilt, riding over to the Complete Streets Stakeholders Dialogue at the very cool Fire Central Place where I met some more very cool neighbor folks and filled the walls with sticky note dreams, hanging out with mom and helping her work through the primary election ballot, sharing some yummy snacks with Dre and Adam at America Eats, and joining in with 43 others on the sunset bike ride from Julian Wash facing right into the crazy beautiful sunset clouds over the Catalinas and which ended at the new Mercado Annex for a song, a trivia game, and a Happy 243 Birthday cake for Tucson. I won a t-shirt but quickly gave it away. Then home again, home again, to roasted cauliflower, a glass of Trader Joe's red blend and a happy chill with my roommate Maria. 

But upon reflection the next morning as I face my 10,000 Reasons list, I think the thing that impacted me the most was meeting Kirsten and Jonathan Phillips at the Public Brewhouse. And it was not so much even hanging out with them and hearing a bit about the rough but hopeful switchbacks and forth of their pilgrimage and watching their two beautiful and very hip children do their quiet and thoughtful thing, but in the background was Cameron Hood and his guitar. And his book. It was Public Brewhouse’s third year anniversary, and for some reason they were having a groovy back-to-the-70s theme that I appropriately dressed for by wearing my Marcia Grant high school gift of a dress straight from an Israeli commune. And the event had psychedelic flower power stickers and Mister Rogers posters. And Carl Sagan. Cameron was dressed up as his favorite scientist in a reddish maroon turtleneck and camel-colored polyester jacket and his first set was way-out-there space songs that attempt to capture the wonder of it all. And every few songs, Cameron would read excerpts of Sagan’s, and even though it didn’t really feel like we all were listening too well, I bet I wasn’t the only one who was profoundly shaken from my distracted prattling.

As I lay on the warm earth on Signal Hill last night I asked God the question: "Why is it that Thou dost allow us on this earth to do nearly all the talking? Why do we not always hear Thy voice, since Thou art so much wiser than we are?"

Oh, if we only let God have His full chance He will break our hearts with the glory of His revelation. February 25,1931, Letters by a Modern Mystic, Frank Laubach

May it be so.

Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world. -Malala Yousafzai

 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Psalm 5:3

When He went ashore, He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them and cured their sick. –Matthew 14:14

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. ... Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. –Henri Nouwen

Here I was engaging in the most glorious action of all human and of all superhuman life – I was communing with the very God of the universe himself. He was showing me His very heart, even the angels can do no more than this. I forgot that my being choked down against the bottom, of an ocean like an octopus, and like an octopus in disposition, too, makes no difference at all. A prison or a dungeon makes no difference if one is with God. We preach and profess that as true, and it is true, but upon my word I do not see many people who seem to have experienced it. I am exactly like these Moro women and children. “Bapa,” they say, “may I have this?” If I say “Yes,” they forget to take it, but if I say “No;” they beg me for it. August 21, 1930, Letters by a Modern Mystic, Frank Laubach

I sure saw a great crowd yesterday. It was our school's “Meet and Greet.”

One of my jobs as Magnet Coordinator is “increasing diversity,” and I humbly confess, I rocked the numbers this year, if statistics mean anything, which they do, in The District. In 1974, black and Latino students sued TUSD, alleging intentional segregation and unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of race and national origin. For some 40 years after the parties settled in 1978, TUSD has operated subject to a federally enforced desegregation order.

So yesterday I stood at the front door and welcomed each and every family to a brand new school year. Because of fears of malintentioned intruders, our doors must remain locked during school hours, so I stood there for three hours, with my foot jammed in the threshold, and my hand and smile outstretched. And I am pretty sure, for the most part, that this group of ever-so-diverse folk would not be welcomed so much at the other schools where I have taught. Just guessing, for a wide number of reasons, once again, most of them related to those statistics that now hang heavy over all school administrators’ heads.

After the Meet and Greet, the staff all filed into the library to listen to the part time school psychologist and the part time school speech therapist and the part time school nurse and the part time new exceptional needs aide and me, the new on-top-of-everything-else Reading Seed Coordinator, to review our two loaves and five fishes in order to feed this restless, hungry crowd spilling out to the very edge of legal class size limits.  We can’t turn anyone away. And as I looked around the rather tattered room, I know that each one of these folks has chosen not to turn anyone away. Working in The District is a choice.

The saddest conversations I overheard yesterday were the lunchroom chats, as yesterday was the first day we were to all sign up for our health care benefits. Guys, you cannot believe how rough it is. For each and every person sitting around the table filled with leftover bean taco fixings, insurance for their children is one third to one half of their monthly take-home paycheck. These monthly paychecks are under $2000 a month. One of the exceptional needs support teachers teared up. Yesterday we celebrated her pregnancy, after five years of hopeful waiting, at last she and her husband are expecting a child in March. She has no idea how they will make it financially. So now it turned into a bittersweet celebration as we scooped up salsa with slightly stale chips.

Then we all headed back to the classrooms. The classrooms with no air conditioning. Most of the teachers have gone out and bought those plastic box fans, but it is still a hot and sweaty chore, stapling cheerful charts and alphabets onto the sixty-year-old walls and rearranging and rearranging chairs and tables. The fifth grade teachers sent me to the warehouse for twenty more chairs because all of the classes have thirty students registered, and a bunch of other chairs are busted, but no more are to be had. The nice warehouse man said he would be on the lookout. I gave the teachers chairs out of my room, a book closet, where I hold Professional Learning Communities, and I will figure something out by next week. Actually, no one could fit into my room anyways, because there are thirty-two boxes of old texts to be shipped out… from when Ronald Reagan was president. I am a big fan of declutter. Mostly what I did all day was tall-person chores, reaching up high to stack and clip and detangle.

But there were happiest conversations I had were the “I missed you Ms. Christy” ones as little arms wrapped themselves around my long legs. And I gotta say, each and every one of these kiddos was ready for the new year. New haircuts, fancy dresses, slicked up shoes. Ready to dream big.

And I think back to the longing in my heart, my weekly Tuesday prayer to “make a difference in this hurting world.”

This is what I have asked for, again and again, from Abba, father.

Here I am, engaging in the most glorious action of all human and of all superhuman life – I am communing with the very God of the universe himself. He is showing me His very heart, even the angels can do no more than this.

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do for me.