From the back of a pizza box, shortened:

"The CEO says to the teacher: 'Teaching. Ha. What sort of a person becomes a teacher, thinks their best option in life is to teach. Pathetic. You're a teacher, so tell me, What do you make?"
"The teacher to the CEO: 'I make students sit up in class, make them pay attention when they don't want to, make them achieve more than they thought possible etc, etc. In short, I make a difference.'"

Nice, oh so nice to see a young person up front leading worship

-and not part of a 'youth nite'-
-and not playing a special instrument-
-and not for an offertory-
-and not with a special introduction-

but just up front and that without commentary because why would we comment, because, of course people of all ages are going to lead, because,

This is the Church.

"Let a collection of yahoos but take of their clothes and trounce around stage shouting obscenities, and a breakthrough in dramatic art is announced and applauded." -Malcolm Muggeridge

I made my a second pilgrimage to MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, over Christmas Break.

I love modern art. I love abstract expressionism, and concrete music. I love when things are hinted at, not said explicitly, when the listener, or viewer, is challenged to put things together for herself. So I went, expecting a fine meal.

I ran into a student and his parents at Ikea, one day.

The student teacher relationship is in a constant state of flux. But it is a slow flux. The bumps and vagaries of daily in and outs are not nearly as important as the overall meta-curriculum that over arches the years of student teacher interaction. It is this long handed view that I have in mind when I think of the relationship, certainly not the constant flux of the in and out.

"So what is Empathy? Empathy is the ability to comprehend with accuracy the precise thoughts and motivations of other people in such a way that they would say "Yes! That is exactly where I am coming from!"

I have, for a long time, been turned off by some models of psychology because they seemed constructed and/or contrived. For some, "New is True", but as far as I go, if I can't locate the idea somewhere in history, it's as good as rubbish. There is nothing new under the sun.

Nothing new here I'm afraid.

How do we decide? The existentialists leave us alone to make our decisions. I used to think that Christian Existentialism was a beautiful thing. I paint the picture of my life and then at the end, God and I sit down and look at the finished product, the product of my brushstrokes. He tells me what I did right and wrong and shows me how he blended the strokes I'd messed up.

But lately and increasingly, I am plain beginning to fear using the wrong colours.