What are we teaching?

"The Desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but deep people." Richard Foster - Celebration of Discipline

What is with this idea that the smarter we get the happier we will be? I agree to the point that we need a level of intelligence to make the wild world in which we live tamer thus making it easier to fulfill our basic needs of food, water, and shelter. But beyond that trying to make our kids happy intellectual geniuses is ridiculous. There is an underlying current in our schools to drive our kids like race horses in training. If you don't think it's evident look at all the standardized testing our kids go through to see if they are keeping up with everyone else in the basis studies Math and English. What about teaching and testing the ways of the heart; relationships, love, communications skills of compassion, understanding, and helping one another. I think this system is doing a great injustice to our kids future by leaving out the learning of our heart. We leave making them deeper people up to chance. That’s pretty risky because as we leave the educational system and our thrown into the world we lack the understanding of the internal compass of our heart. We then rely on our schooling derived intellect that tells us to pursue what our mind wants which leads us to the whole culture thing of materialism and a life filled with whole lot of superficial stuff.

Our only hope is real life experiences of failure, loss and God to bring us back to the realization that it is depth of our hearts which really matter. Maybe it’s no coincidence the most popular book every written the Bible whole premise is teach us the way of our heart. It has taken loss, failure and most of all God to take my life's experiences to bring me this deeper level. The deeper I get, the more in touch I get with my heart, the more joy I experience. I just wish someone would of taught me this matter of the heart just like I was taught science and math. I agree with Foster, the world needs deeper people. Deeper people know the truth of the heart. Think about a happy joy filled person that you know. Are they the smartest? Are they the wealthiest? Wait don't make the mistake of just looking on the surface to judge their level of joy. You probably will need to get deep with them to really KNOW.

Longing

In our relationships and especially in our marriages there is a longing to be special to someone and most of us are severely disappointed when this longing for someone to know our heart is never pursued. Rare indeed is a women who has been sought after for who she is not because of what she can do, or what others can gain from her(money, sex, company), but simply for herself, for what God sees her as. Can you recall a time when a significant someone in your life sat you down with the sole purpose of wanting to know your heart more deeply? We wonder if there is anything in our heart worth KNOWING. If I am not pursued is it because there is something wrong with me, something when found out about me they will retreat even further away or not love me anymore or will it tarnish my outer beauty which is fading anyway. Fear rises to the surface and we suffice to tell ourselves it’s safer not to let others discover our true heart and we go on with the mundane busy life keeping things on the surface level. Then something huge interrupts our busy life like a death of someone close or a broken relationship/marriage do then realize that we wanted our heart to be known to them. Maybe them knowing it would of made a difference. Maybe it would of changed our relationship for the better. Maybe it would of ended a relationship that was doomed for failure before we both wasted years of over lives together. Maybe it would of saved their life or mine!

Coincidences

I am convinced all coincidences are messages from God. If you will a form of communication from the Divine. A communication that God needs/wants you/me to hear or understand. If coincidences come through both people, actions and objects it must mean God is in us and everything else from the wind to the car we drive. He is at the root of our intenstions, the place wher creation manifests itself. There are no coincidences in this life. God uses this form of communication to help us. I find that most coincidences make life easier or solves a present or potential future problem. Here is a example. Lost Something: I have been looking for my keys and having not said anything to anyone that I was looking for them, my son comes up to me and says Dad here are your keys you dropped them in the garage.” Thanks God I have looked all over for them.

Relationship

The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein

Supposedly a childrens book but much more than I can describe. Here is the video version of the book about 6 minutes long. Go ahead read/view it although I cannot be responsible for the outcome.




I read this book one night at a friends house and it grabbed my heart and squeezed it. Sometimes friends, lovers, spouses stagnate and some regress or deteriorate and what made a great relationship now does not work. We no longer fit together until we realize its not about fitting together but rolling side by side taking part in the STORY of each other's changes good and bad.

I am betting you felt some pain in your heart after reading this or for the rare person a feeling of satisfaction came over you. Which ever one I am glad it pierced your hear.

Holey Heart

My first poem.

In the center of my heart lies a hole
It is not a wound
It is not a lonely feeling
It is not a scary feeling
It has not gone away by ignoring it
It has not been filled by material success
It has not been filled by marriage
It has not been filled by having children
It has not been filled by any amount of attainment
Culture says it has the solution “the American Dream”
I know this not to be the truth, tried it
I cannot tell you why this hole exist
I know it is really deep or even bottomless
I know my mind wants to fill it by being busy
I know God created this hole
I know it takes faith to live with
I know it takes dependence to exist with
I know it has everything to do with my purpose
I know without it I am a robot
I know it is to know God
I know I can always find Him there
In the center of your heart, is there a hole too.

Here is a quote by Blaise Pascal which describes the hole and its diagnosis.

“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”