Back to School Night
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 09/17/2015 - 22:04As we went through our final back to school night at Amity Middle School in Bethany, there were several things going through my mind. This was the school that Kim went to and she talked about remembering which seat she sat in for different classes. Fiona’s social studies teacher gave us a pop quiz in which we were asked things about what we remembered from junior high school. It raises an interesting question: What do we want our children to get out of junior high school?
It seems like by the time junior high school comes around, many parents are focused on making sure that their kids will do well in the rat race. They need to get good grades in junior high school so they will do well in high school, so they will do well in college, so they will get a good job, so they can support their family as their kids repeat the same cycle.
The high stakes testing just reinforces this. Yet is this really what we should be striving for? Or, are we testing the wrong thing?
I thought back to the nursery school each of my daughters attended. It was part of an alternative private school that focused on love of learning as being the ultimate goal. What makes learning exciting? Some of it is how interestingly it is taught. Some of it is how well it is related back to everyone’s life. Some of it is simply, well, how much fun it is.
I believe that love of learning is much more important than just about anything that is tested these days. Love of learning will make just about any career, any life, more enjoyable.
If you look at the current social climate, you can see the effects of what is going on in education. Are more of your friends talking about how much they love their job, or how much they hate their job? Are they talking about how much they like current political leaders, or how much they dislike current political leaders?
Our system is broken, and a big part of it is the loss of fun, something we are losing earlier and earlier in life. So, as I think back on Fiona’s teachers that I met this evening, I find I remember the ones that were talking about what they do to make the material fun and interesting.
Daily Journaling
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 09/16/2015 - 22:50Another very long day comes to a close. A full day of work, 150 miles in the car, two hours of a choir rehearsal. Now, home long enough to catch up on a little bit of the news. Mayors in Harford and New London appear to have lost their primaries. A large earthquake in Chile and a tsunami alert for Hawaii. The latest GOP debate.
These quick notes remind me of when I was writing in my journal every day over thirty years ago. Some of the entries were not particularly interesting, but it kept me writing. It kept me focused.
I’ll break a rule, and have something light to eat, even though it is after 8 PM. I didn’t have time for dinner tonight. Then, it will be time for sleep.
Discernment MOOC
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 09/15/2015 - 22:14In the middle of what I described yesterday as a week that I expect to be very long, I received an email today about another step in my spiritual journey. The Diocesan Dean of Formation sent me an email saying that she had invited my parish priest to form a discernment group for me.
For those not acquainted with the language or the process it describes, people seeking a greater understand of how they can best serve God, including the possibility of becoming a priest, enter a discernment process. In Connecticut, a parish will organize a discernment group for a person in this process. It is a small group that meets around nine times to help the person get a better sense of what God is calling the person to.
As a blogger, living much of my life out loud, online, I am looking for the best ways to connect this process with my online writing. It is challenging because the face to face group is confidential. So, instead of writing about that group I hope to write about the questions being posed and the insights I gain from the group and invite a larger online community to share, in a more public manner, their thoughts which might also help me in my discernment process.
This online process, might take the form akin to a connectivist MOOC. I hope to learn more about my journey both in a private confidential small face to face group as well as in a large public online group. I hope that others, participating in the online group, might learn more about their journey as well, and that we might all learn more about how learning and spiritual growth can take place online in the twenty-first century.
I expect it will still be a few weeks before my face to face discernment group starts, and I’m thinking that the Discernment MOOC should parallel that, so I won’t dive into the core of the discernment MOOC for a few weeks. Until then, I am just floating this idea. What are your thoughts? Are you interested in participating? Do you know others that might be interested? Are there things I should consider or avoid?
A Long Week
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 09/14/2015 - 20:22It has been a long day. Tomorrow will be even longer. In fact, the whole week is going to be very long. There is plenty to write about. Technology. Politics. Spirituality. There is all that is happening in the news. This is the pleasant weather as summer appears to be yielding, at least for the day, to fall. The ideas I’m most interested in will take more energy to write than I currently have.
I read through Facebook, looking for a thread, for a writing prompt. I glance at the news. Nothing simple to write about. So, I’ll head off to bed early. Perhaps my dreams will be inspiring and I’ll find a moment to write, sometime, tomorrow.
Reimagining Discernment
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 09/13/2015 - 19:15I am trying to get a clearer sense of how I can better serve God in the twenty first century. In the Episcopal Church there are certain steps that need to be taken if that calling leads to becoming a priest. The church is also reimagining what it should look like in the twenty first century, so part of my process includes reimaging discernment.
As a starting point, I have a strong sense that God is calling me to the priesthood. I’m not exactly sure why, and I hope to get a better sense of that as time goes on. I hesitate to say this out of fear of being mistaken and embarrassed, or of somehow jinxing the process, but I hope my thoughts here will be helpful for others seeking discernment, whether or not it is in the Episcopal Church, and whether or not it might lead to Holy Orders.
I remember, years ago, hanging out with very committed fundamentalist evangelists who would often say things beginning with something like, “God has told me that you should … “. How do you respond to something like that? I eventually discovered a response that seemed to affirm the speaker, while leaving plenty of room to explore what God really thinks I should be doing. “That’s great! Pray that God tells me the same thing.”
It seems like something similar should apply in the discernment process. For Episcopalians, with their Trinitarian views, as well as their commitment to the three legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, a three legged response to discernment makes sense.
To me, the discernment process is about aligning my will with the will of the church and the will of God. We need to find, and act, on God’s will. We need to seek to discern God’s will. We need to seek to align our will to God’s will. I suspect we all have a bit of Jonah in us, a hesitancy or fear of responding to God. We also need to seek to better understand the needs of our church. What does our church need? By way of analogy, if a football team needs running backs, but not another quarter back, then seeking to be a quarter back is going to be much more difficult. We should seek to serve where we will be of the most value.
What does God want? What does the organizations we are part of need? What are we willing to do? It seems like three questions all of us should be asking about our lives, no matter what we are seeking to do and no matter what organizations we are seeking to do it within.
