Resolution 2011: Do Less

I've been gone a while but now I am back. Hello again.

The sermon today (like many days) particularly hit home. Our pastor challenged us to do less. The three specific challenges were 1) Worry less, 2) Stop trying to please God, and 3) Do less. Number two may sound confusing, but when we break it down... God sees Christ when he looks at us. He doesn't love us more when we do good deeds, just like he doesn't love us less when we sin. Our good works do not get us into Heaven, and our sins do not send us to hell.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (New International Version)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Or...

Ephesians 2:8-9 (The Message)
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

The reason the "do less" sermon impacts me is because I am not comfortable being still. I become anxious when I am not busy. I think I fill my life with activity to keep my mind "busy" and not worry. A therapist once reminded me that we are human beings, not human "doings."

All this "busyness" is not healthy. It has brought me worry and pain. I have neglected family and friends because of it. I am spread so thin that I cannot do anything to the best of my ability. I often think of the art I could create if I committed to painting full-time. I have made the comment that I would be a better teacher if I wasn't in graduate school... to become a better teacher! It doesn't make sense.

2 Thessalonians 3:11 (New American Standard Bible)
For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.

So this year, instead of tacking on more, I am doing less.

Less worry
Less judgment
Less procrastination
Less alcohol
Less commitments (this is going to be tough)
Less TV
Less iPhone games
Less Facebook
Less high-sugar food
Less high-fat, high-cholesterol food
Less cussing
Less negativity
Less gossip
Less "busybody."

Child-driven Education

Teachers: Take 18 minutes out of your conference period and watch this. Don't argue with me, just do it.

Child Nutrition

According to this picture, we are feeding our children what, exactly?

Could have probably added a little orange to that yellow...

NYC

Boston

Hail to thee Bell High School, we love thee

I spent most winter Friday nights playing soccer on that field. That hard, concrete, plastic turf field...

Art can save the world.

Our one-sided education with the emphasis on knowledge has neglected those attributes of growth which are responsible for the development of the individual's sensibilities, for his spiritual life, as well as for his ability to live cooperatively in a society. The growing number of emotional and mental illnesses in this nation, the largest in any nation, as well as our inability to accept human beings first of all as human beings regardless of nationality, religion, race, creed or color, is a frightening sign and vividly points out that education so far has failed in one of its significant aims.... Art Education, introduced in the early years of childhood may well mean the difference between a flexible creative human being and one who, in spite of all learning, will not be able to apply it and will remain an individual who lacks inner resources and has difficulty in his relationship to the environment.
-Viktor Lowenfeld, 1957