Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Whirlwind9832.jpg/250px-Whirlwind9832.jpg

A blog post under development is the utter futility of blogging. That’s a futile kind of statement, though. Blogging has an impact. What seems futile is the collective groaning about the state of education. Will education EVER be exactly what I want? Will I ever–through my work, or advocacy or complaints–achieve an educational system that meets everyone’s needs, that supports creative learners, etc.? It would be nice to think so, but despair is such a sweet alternative.

Just as I start to stare into that cup of elixir, a story comes to mind. I’m reminded of Anthony De Mello and a story he told once. If you’ve never read de Mello, then I encourage you to check him out. He wrote great stuff. In that story, a man is given a few wishes. He wishes for the usual stuff, but nothing seems to make him happy. Finally, he asks for what to wish for. He is counselled to wish to be grateful.

Be Grateful. When I remembered this story tonight, I immediately realized that the rush for everything…all the change I might desire in education…might happen. The truth is, I need to learn to be grateful. This was driven home as I reflect on the teacher college last week in Panama. Classrooms where one-computer is being piloted for use and no one has any idea of how to use it with their preservice teachers…only that this computer, a connection to the ethernet is part of the rennovation. The future is unwritten.

Be Grateful. Grateful for the good. Grateful for the bad. Grateful for everything…it’s about cultivating a desperate gratefulness, a desire to be grateful no matter what comes.

Grateful for the despair, grateful for the hope. Grateful for too few blogs, grateful for too many. Grateful that a teacher college is putting one computer in a room with 30 desks for preservice teachers. Grateful but not anxious. Grateful but not depressed. Grateful for being. Another one of my favorite de Mello stories is this one:

“Calamities can bring growth and Enlightenment,” said the Master.

And he explained it thus:

“Each day a bird would shelter in the withered branches of a tree that stood in the middle of a vast deserted plain. One day a whirlwind uprooted the tree, forcing the poor bird to fly a hundred miles in search of shelter — till it finally came to a forest of fruit-laden trees.”

And he concluded: “If the withered tree had survived, nothing would have induced the bird to give up its security and fly.”

Let me be grateful for the whirlwind when it comes.

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