Apr 18

Apr 18 I Honor the Light Inside You

Today a teacher I started working with 16 years ago at Lee Richmond School, her name is Taryn, sent out a beautiful message on Facebook telling about her recent success in teaching (she is now teaching at the university level) and thanking me for having a role in her beginning.

I am honored by her kind and generous words.

Her post makes me think of how few times we slow down long enough to be gracious, to nod our head at someone who means something to us in ways we really cannot easily express.

We really are all here as a result of the millions of interactions we have had with other people in our lives to get us to the point where we are today. Me, I am grateful to all those who have touched my life. I hope you are grateful too.

It seems nowadays that we are so caught up in choosing sides, trying to do it all, or be who everyone thinks we should be that we forget that who we are is perfectly fine.

We need to take a moment and honor the light that is each one of us.

Honor your own light too. Some of us will be back in the classroom, in less than two weeks. Some of us will be working with 20 souls of light, some of us with many, many more than 20. I intend to honor the light that shines within my students the way Taryn honored me today.

The next time you are irritated with someone close to you, stop for a moment and just breathe. Honor the light that is within them.

I can guarantee you that there were days when Taryn was a first year teacher that she didn’t like me very much as her principal. But she still honors me.

Those people that you find so irritating, the ones that you really can’t stand, they have light within them to; you may just have to look really hard to see it. It might be a little weird that I am suggesting to you to honor people you can’t stand. But, I know you have people in your life that irritate you beyond belief. I know that there are people that you choose not to wave at when you catch a glimpse of them at the grocery store. I know that you probably put your head down and make a bee-line for the next aisle hoping that person didn’t see you. I’ve done it, so I am pretty sure you have done it.

Now, I am not professing that you try that ‘change yourself instead of wishing that others would change’, kind of thing. I never bought the line about that really working. It's way hard. No, I am just saying see the light in everyone all around you; seeing the light in others might just do good for your own light within.

And who knows, maybe like Taryn, you’ll be thanking someone in sixteen years who today is just pushing you to go places you don’t want to go, or someplace you didn’t think you could reach, or someplace you think you don’t deserve.

We all deserve the best. I honor the light inside of you.