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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Community in a Time of Struggle

Today I opened the first three volumes of my Great Books series from 1952 by Encyclopedia Britannica, mostly to find the word “community” in the syntopicon which makes up volumes two and three of the set. These two volumes contain over 100 major themes that frame up what is called “the great conversation”.  At first, I found myself disappointed at not finding the word community as an entry or essay topic in the syntopicon, but then I took a second look and recognized a new perspective on the matter. The specific topic of community was not granted an essay in and of itself because the entire series is about community. Every one of the topics who found their themes in the contents of these volumes, every one of the 54 volume set of books, is flooded from cover to cover with community. Whether the theme is angel or aristocracy, hypothesis or habit, liberty or law, wealth or wisdom; from Aeschylus to Freud, these volumes in their contents validate the importa
Post a Comment
Read more

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 experienced in th
Post a Comment
Read more

Window Streaks and Learning

Early in my marriage, my wife and I would infrequently haul out rolls of paper towel and window spray for the detestable work of washing windows.  One of us worked on the outside and the other from in the house. Inevitably, one of us would tap in the window and point to a streak or spot that the other had missed.  The trouble was that the person with the spot or streak couldn’t see it.  We simply needed to trust each other’s eyes, follow the pointing finger, reapply the spray and wipe a bit longer.   At times the work leads to laughter, sometimes not. Just this week I relearned the wisdom of this lesson again, twice: once in my classroom, once in another venue. Both reminded me of how much I need to continue learning. The classroom application came in a class in which I had been practicing a concept that I had been teaching the students for over two weeks and which would be on an up and coming test.  Though the students could work magic with the concept in a closed context
Post a Comment
Read more