Skip to main content

Water, Tea, and a Spot of Time


Life seems full of coincidences.  We run into people just after we think about them.  We hear a song in our heads and shortly thereafter hear it on the radio.
Sooner or later; though, what seems at first to be coincidence actually proves to have more purpose.  

Here’s an example… 
I recently read the story in John 4 where Jesus was tired on a journey.  Being near Jacob’s well, he stopped for a while to refresh himself with a drink of water.  What came as a result of this water stop was a conversation with a Samaritan woman at that well.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but what came as a result of the conversation was life.  The words exchanged there were nothing less than an example of hospitality, love, care, and a model for us to follow.

Just a few days after reading this passage, I was blessed by an encounter with a student while I was on my way to fill my water bottle.  This student didn’t have the life matters of the woman at the well, but life was indeed weighing her down heavily.  She too was walking to a well (the same drinking fountain where I wanted to fill my water bottle).  When I asked her how she was doing, her eyes filled with tears.  Drinking fountain water suddenly didn’t seem good enough at that point, so I asked her if she wanted to have some tea.  My classroom is outfitted with a hot water cooker (Please don’t tell my secret.)and an abundant stock of tea, so I invited her to sit in on my class for a minute and let the teabag do its work in the hot water.  

My class was fortunately in the middle of a group project, which afforded me a few minutes to chat with this student.  It was a time of life-giving words.  She was able to unload her struggles, which, though not excessively large in the grand scheme of things, were certainly very heavy to her.  A mere 5 or so minutes, a spot of time really, gave her the space to regain herself and find new perspective…and in that spot of time, I learned a new meaning for a story that I had read a few days earlier.  What a gift a person can find in the middle of a trip to the water fountain, some tea and a spot of time!

Coincidence?  Hmmm.


I invite you to visit me at my author website: scatteringseedinteaching.pickerd.com ,

on LinkedIn, and at my Facebook Author Page.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Caring for our Students through the Work we Assign

November 20, 2015 Caring for our Students through the Work we Assign When I was young, I worked on my grandfather’s farm from February until the harvest in the fall. One day during our lunch break, my grandfather began reminiscing about the “good old days”. Whenever grandpa told a story, we listened, partially because he didn’t tell very many stories. It also owed to the fact that his dry sense of humor usually left you laughing, if you listened well. Grandpa related a story from growing up during the Great Depression and how, to help get people back to work, certain jobs were created. One particular job that Grandpa could remember was the moving of dirt. Each morning, when Grandpa and the other men arrived on the job site, they were handed their shovels and work gloves and sent to the task of moving a pile of dirt and gravel from one side of a work site to the other. By the end of the day, if the men worked hard, the job would be complete. Then they would sign out and...

Maintaining the Road of Learning

I have spent my entire life living in Michigan, the Great Lakes State, the state of ever-changing   weather,  the state with two seasons (despite claims to the contrary); Winter and Road Repair... a state   loaded with metaphor potential. And in as far as this is all true, I would like to link a Michigan-related  metaphor to learning and an encouraging recent experience. One month ago, I welcomed a brand new group of foreign language students into my classroom. This group had been blessed by the energy of a very gifted and caring colleague of mine for the first three trimesters of their learning, and because of this, I knew that they had come to me well- prepared. So immediately, on the first day of class, we launched into learning...learning about each other, learning about our interests, our fears, our hopes, all of those first day activities. In a very short time; however, it became clear that this class was different from others that I had ...
SHARE YOUR STORY As I grew up, I listened to my grandparents, great aunts and uncles and my parents spin stories of “the good old days.”   “Great Grandpa did this…,” my grandma would begin.   “Oh yea,” My great aunt would reply, “Well, Aunt Beatrice did that…”  As I sat and listened, my imagination ran wild with pictures, some of which were actually based on places I had visited and people I had known.    I pictured younger versions of the people before me, and my mind’s video editor filled in the rest of the picture for me. Recently I listened to a podcast about the brain and what is happening when we use language.    In the podcast, Dr. Ginger Campbell interviewed Ben Berger about his book,  Louder than Words.  Listening to this podcast, I took away some wonderful insight that helps me as a teacher, and it easily connects to stories and teaching. As it turns out, the excitement that helps us remember all of the stor...