"Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end." "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

*Names and events changed to protect the honor of the deceased. He was a great person, he just took hard turns. If you knew him to, understand we were friends and I still treasure knowing him, but he did help me understand some hard truths about life that I think are worthwhile to share honestly.

In 1999 Elie Wiesel, author of Night and survivor of Jewish internment camps, spoke in invitations of the Clintons and said this:
Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.
Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.
Mr. Wiesel is a great author, and this speech in its entirety is one I use in my AP Language class. In fact we cover it about two weeks from now as a sample of argumentation and to study the use of rhetorical questions, which this piece uses effectively. The speech is available here: http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/wiesel.htm

In church today Kim used a well known Wiesel quote that this later speech branches off from:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

In our day it is a bit different than Wiesel’s, as the indifference of the people around the persecuted Jews did result in death, but the theme is true in all times. My biggest experience with this is a bit personal, and somewhat painful, but part of the reason I teach in the area I do and part of why I am pursuing the grad school degree I have chosen.

I had a friend in high school that was incredibly intelligent. We played a game together, Magic the Gathering, great for nerds with imagination, brain power, and spare time. We had a group of students that would play Magic in the debate room during ELO. We would travel to tournaments out of town together, play test in town, and honestly a good chunk of my social time in high school and college centers on this card game. It’s how I met my husband. My friend from high school was a great debater, national level. He lived two blocks away from me. We didn’t share many interests outside of Magic and philosophy, but that was enough to build a friendship. We were very different people though, especially in high school. Not many people would pick us out to be friends. I was an athlete, an A student, and he was a student who removed himself from the gifted program, talked openly about drug use, and didn’t get to walk across the stage with his graduating class.


*Ryan is probably the most intelligent person I’ve been friends with. However he fell into the trap of apathy, indifference, and underachievement. I remember one time asking him why he smoked and he told me “Darcy I’m about 350 lbs and I’ve already had heart trouble. I know I’m going to die early, so why waste the time not enjoying it?” He had a scar on his hand from being so fall over drunk that he cut himself when he crashed to the ground with a glass bottle of alcohol. I’ve never used any drugs, but I got a good drug education from Ryan because he seemed to try everything once and always wanted to tell the story. Ryan was also one of the most oddly moral individuals I have met. He would never cheat, lie, or steal and held to a strict moral code to himself, even if unconventional. He cared about helping people, thought America could do more for it’s people; yet, he never was able to really care about himself because he pictured his life ending early due to his health conditions. It did.

I admired Ryan, and yet always worried about him. He had so much talent, and in certain areas so much passion, but he just wouldn’t do the things he needed to do to take care of himself. A friend of mine went to pick him up one Saturday morning for a Magic tournament in Wichita. Ryan was at his computer, not breathing, not moving. He’d had a breathing mask that he was supposed to wear at night, and maybe he fell asleep at the computer without thinking of using it, who knows, but he didn’t go with my friend that day.

I can’t remember how many conversations I had with Ryan where he would tell me my belief in God was stupid, or that I tried too hard to succeed in a world where the American dream is corrupt, or that I was too naive, too idealistic. And yet he had a goodness to him: I knew he was idealistic, and in areas willfully naïve. And from our conversations I knew that at least at one time he believed in God. He changed a lot in high school.

I remember going over to his house once soon after his father had been arrested. He told me his dad was gone for awhile, but didn’t say where, or why. By his junior year he would tell anyone his father had been arrested for drug related crimes. By the time I was in my junior year in college Ryan and I got along less. He seemed to be drifting further away from who he once was, who I thought he wanted to be. His drug use got heavier. I remember not wanting to be around him anymore because he was more openly argumentative, told me more often I had stupid ideas, and really almost seemed to have an ego complex about his abilities. I knew he was going in a bad direction, and I became indifferent to my friend, didn’t talk to him, avoided places he would be, and at a point our relationship was openly confrontational. We had grown apart.

When he died I didn’t know what to think. Part of me said that’s what he was aiming for with his behaviors anyway, to die young. Part of me prayed for his soul and hoped his soul actually wanted prayer. I couldn’t believe it, didn’t know what to think of it, didn’t know how to make sense of it. My heart hurt for him, yet I wasn’t surprised, and I didn’t know how to express it. I still haven’t talked to his mother about it.

There were times he was hurtful to me, ugly to me, he probably wasn’t the best influence to be around, and yet I knew he was a good person; he was just wrapped up so far in a path of bad decisions. But there was a real quantifiable point in my life where I gave up on him. I said he had gone too far, seemed to difficult to be around. It probably wasn’t my job to save him. Whose job is it to save another free-willed individual? And he did push away attempts to help him see optimism again, to see himself as valuable in the long term scope of health and life. I don’t really know all the details of his health condition… but I still wonder if there were things that could have been done to help him feel more fulfilled and less self destructive. I still shake my head in wonder about Ryan’s story.

But when I go into my classroom I know I don’t want to let my gifted boys follow that type of path. I know there are individuals that school just doesn’t provide much intellectual stimulation for, who goals seem to matter less for, who have a struggling home life – who become apathetic, indifferent. I loved Ryan as a friend, and really wish his story would have ended better, even when we came across our tough times. But I don’t want to let that happen to anyone else. I don’t want to become indifferent to anyone else who I care about and stand idly by as they fall deeper and deeper into self destructive behavior. It’s hard to be close to someone who is caustic to themselves and abrasive towards you, but I really wish I wouldn’t have a walked away from him as a friend. I don’t think I could have changed much of anything about him or for him, but I didn’t give him the chance to ask for help towards the end. I shut the door. I remember him when I teach, and try to give even more patience to the kids that seem to be pushing everyone away that want them to care for themselves, because if you let someone push away everyone who encourages taking care of yourself the only friends the person will have left are the ones who indulge in and encourage those self destructive behaviors that live for the moment and burn up the future. I failed in my love for my friend because I became indifferent, gave up on everything but telling my husband (who was also his friend) that Ryan was once quite different. I still pray for his soul, but I hope that isn’t the only thing I can do for the next person like Ryan that I meet in life.

*Names and events changed to protect the honor of the deceased. He was a great person, he just took hard turns. If you knew him to, understand we were friends and I still treasure knowing him, but he did help me understand some hard truths about life that I think are worthwhile to share honestly.

Two Prongs of Faith: Why 'Love your neighbor as yourself' scratches when it pokes

Today in church Greg talked about circles and ellipses, and how so much of what we center our faith around stems from one focus on God, but can be separated into two foci to create instead of a circle, ellipses. My favorite example of this two foci center is of the greatest commandments in Mathew 22:36-40:

Matthew 22:36-40 (New International Version)
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[a] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[b] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
The complicated truth behind this commandment is that it asks for our faith to be two fold: we have the personal aspect where we give our entire inner being to God, and we have the external aspect where through our relationship with God we are able to love our imperfect neighbors as we would ourselves. Why is this complicated? The first of the greatest commandments is the one that seems easier, as it appears to be something we control, something we decide. I can choose to love God right? Well here comes the second part: human beings. God is perfect, human beings are not. I can choose to love something perfect, but now I also have to love his creation which has fallen from any initial perfection? Tough stuff.
I have neighbors that leave beer cans in my yard. I have neighbors that play rap songs with curse words loudly from their car as they sit on the porch. I have a neighbor who really only talks to me about 1) mowing, 2) painting my house and 3) the property value of the neighborhood. I am supposed to love them as myself? It’s hard enough for me not be selfish just when considering my husband!

In last week’s writing (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=152227440814) I wrote that after my brother’s death I struggled in high school because:
“I was stuck in high school where people get stoned, drunk, get into fist fights, drop out to work at McDonalds, have babies at 15, lie, cheat, and curse their creator. I saw people that didn’t have a blessing like my brother, saw how lost our society can be, watched as wandering souls hurt each other. And I began to struggle with my faith.”
And yet for my profession I have chosen to go back into high school as a teacher, and love it. My neighbors don’t always make the choices I would make, and neither do my students, and I don’t always make the choices I want to in regard to my students either unfortunately. But I know from the greatest commandment that it matters that I try. I know that community matters, that people who aren’t like me matter, that it isn’t my job to be an isolated island and listen to the bell tolling it’s doom for others. As John Donne expresses, that bell that tolls for one of us tolls for all of us:

“No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
We are connected. We are Humanity.

So fact 1) human beings are not always easy to like. Yet – fact 2) we are connected in our common human destiny as God’s creation. Jesus commanded us not only to like our neighbor, but to love them, and not just to love them, but to love them as ourselves… whoa, every single one of them? Just who is my neighbor? The difficult concept wrapped up in the word ‘neighbor’ is we all know that when Jesus says ‘neighbor’ he means even our enemies, even the down trodden, the kid that gets stoned when he skips class, the 20 year old who has three kids and no high school degree, the person who stole the food out of my freezer in the garage (maybe to feed his family), the people that would and have hurt us the most, those that wouldn’t consider us when breaking our world – those are who we are asked to love as ourselves.
So that means I practice tolerance right? Make sure I don’t cause trouble and get along with everyone, but I don’t have to actually engage or interact do I? And there Jesus borders on asking too much.
And yet – he practiced it. Luke 23 shows us the story:
23:33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
The people ask for his death, mock his supposed powers, and cast lots to see who gets to take greatest advantage of his death. And he loves them, even in their ignorance. Humanity is flawed, and so often ignorant, and yet the model of goodness forgives those that would do him the most harm. He commands us to do the same. What a weighty request… all the pain I’ve felt from another’s malice, or even ignorance, I am to forgive? More than to forgive I am to love? As myself? Jesus has made me uncomfortable.
That is where he wins his glory. He has made me uncomfortable; I’ve come to realize that my introspective faith is good, but he asks more of me – he wants me to engage with humanity and build community by loving my neighbors as myself, giving of myself. Can’t I keep my own moral standards high (because that is hard enough…) and win the nod of the Kingdom? No. I must love God and his creation. Wow, I have some work to do.
So back to the facts – 1) humans aren’t always easy to like, yet we are connected. 2) In God’s wisdom in knowing our connection, Jesus commanded us to love one another. 3) I’m not there yet. Isn’t that the most beautiful part? In church God spoke to me today and asked me to grow. The words of Christ made me uncomfortable, helped remove some apathy, and if I pursue his commandments… I will grow. Questions are worth asking, and the Good Book is worth reading. Thank God for making faith complicated, difficult, deep, beautiful, and above all fulfilling even when I don’t know the answers.

****Where do I get my inspiration to write? Here in Salina, KS at First Christian Church on 2727 E Crawford pastored by Kim and Greg Rea. http://salinadisciples.org/Come join us some Sunday!

Add me on facebook to see my note collection: Darcy Leech

The Image of Innocene and the Darkest Night - A Story of How We Prevail

In loving tribute to my brother Dustin Ryan Bartz

April 18, 1989 - Sept 23 2002

On the cross the only sinless man to ever live expresses the dark hour of the soul: “My God, My God! Why Have You Forsaken Me?” Jesus Christ, more connected to God than any of us, felt the isolation, the loneliness, and the grief of separation. The dark hour of the soul seems to be something inevitable, and paradoxically something beautiful.

In life we strive for the feeling of connection with God and His creation around us, for reassurance of his love, for comfort, and gratification for our good deeds. But stories like that of Job or Josiah let us know that life is not always balanced on what we perceive as a fair system of justice; the Bible shows again and again that we should not fairly expect good reward for good deed. Look at Christ – not a blemish and his own people would accept nothing but his execution. Something in the course of life, in what it is to be a Christian seeking God, says that we don’t get to have a rosy walk only through the alluring garden of love and comfort. God put thorns on roses for a reason and that image serves as good symbolism for a Christian life.

My dark night of the soul comes at age 16, probably two months after my brother had past away. Just this Friday, someone who knew my brother described him to me as ‘the image of innocence.’ He was 13 when he past away, about 10 years after the doctors expected him to die. Dustin was born with myotonic dystrophy, a severe muscular disease that in essence spreads muscle cells too thin to function on a full level. He also had a birth complication – he was born with water on the brain, an undeveloped language area. My brother never spoke nor walked, but he could grunt in 100 different tones, use basic sign language, and had a laugh that spoke the universal language. My brother would lay on the floor with his Mickey Mouse puppet, toss the puppet aside, stare up towards the ceiling, and laugh as if watching some great show the rest of us could not see. I was told by multiple people that he laughed at the sky because he saw the angels dance.

My brother was born when I was 3 years old. Before I even met him, I was told my brother would likely pass away before I did. My family always treated my brother’s life as a gift, as a rare blessing given to us to help reveal what life is really about and share his laughter with a world that needed touched by his simple joys. He is still to this day the best person I have ever been graced to know. Constantly he outpaced doctor’s expectations. He might have lived in the hospital the first three years of his life, but that boy lived. The doctors said he wouldn’t survive, wouldn’t live past three, then seven, then twelve. The heart is the biggest muscle in the body, and at age thirteen my brother’s heart stretched too thin.

I remember the morning I walked up stairs, saw him lying down sleeping, pausing at the door waiting for his breath. He took a deep breath and I walked out the door, never to see him breathe again. I never said goodbye, didn’t hug him that day, and didn’t get to tell him I loved him. During a chemistry test later that day I was called into the office. I took two steps out of my classroom and I either heard in my head or thought to myself (however these things happen) “your brother is dead.” I stopped in my tracks, shook my head no, said he had to be fine, took a drink from the fountain, and finished the trip to the office. My parents were both there, and my mother had been crying. My mother was the one to tell me, “Darcy, your brother is dead.” I stood stone faced and all I could say was “I know.” I didn’t cry for another 10 minutes, but tears weren’t rare after that. My brother had a cold as he had 100 times before; that was it. The simple fact was his heart couldn’t support his maturing body anymore. He was probably 5’6, 130 (and remember he couldn’t walk, so we carried and lifted).

The days after my brother’s death were when I came to realize how much love and support existed for my family. We had a kitchen full of casseroles, friends sending baskets of cards, and family constantly at our side. Those days are why I will give my best to Salina for as long as I can, because they gave their best to my family. God’s body wrapped their loving arms around us and carried us through.

It was the months after that were tough. I kept going to school, to practice, tried to go on with my life. But my world had changed, I was different; I had seen the innocence of the human soul through my brother and the goodness of God’s people through the community. I wanted to be something more for God, for myself… and you know what? I was stuck in high school where people get stoned, drunk, get into fist fights, drop out to work at McDonalds, have babies at 15, lie, cheat, and curse their creator. I saw people that didn’t have a blessing like my brother, saw how lost our society can be, watched as wandering souls hurt each other. And I began to struggle with my faith.

The night I struggled most with the darkness I cried until my body shook, felt weak with the sorrow, and let myself turn to rage. I first punched a pillow, then threw it, but the pillow’s softness wasn’t enough. I had kept one of my brother’s toys, a system of hoops and turns with different shaped beads, and threw it with all my strength against a concrete wall. When I saw it break I told God just how angry I was, how unfair it was to show me beauty and innocence then make me go on in a world without my brother, in a world of dirt, filth, treachery, and pain. I told God He was failing His creation because when people can be so beautiful we instead choose to be so plain, and ugly. I held it against God that he would give me sight of goodness, and yet make me wallow in muck. I cried myself to sleep that night, a sleep of darkness without any dreams, and woke only to sleep walk through the next few days letting life go by in drifting haze.

I can’t tell you what changed my mind, only that good habits saved me. I still went to church, because it was what I had the habit of doing; went to youth group, not because I felt called to God, but because it was what I had been doing. And God worked through them. When I was too angry to let God talk to me, he talked through people subtly and found a way back in. And today I wouldn’t consider myself a pessimist, but I would tell you that humanity is fallen, and that society is not as God intended, but what changed is that I wouldn’t want to run away from it. I came out of my dark night because people supported me, and that’s what I want to do with my light that I have now – use it through relationships to support people for God, and not when it’s easy, but especially when they are too angry to hear him. We can’t see God’s goodness everywhere we look, but we know it’s there, and we seek to let it grown. We all know life can be tough, and that’s exactly why we need each other, need good habits, because when we do come across the dark night of the soul it isn’t ourselves that pull us out, but God’s creations around us that bring us back to ourselves, our purpose, and our God.

The toy I broke that night still sits on a dresser downstairs, a bit caved it from its broken piece. It was my brother’s favorite, representing his joy, my pain, my anger, and my growth. On my sentimental days I go and push the beads, spin them up the incline and thank God for the gift my brother was, for how beautiful he was to have in my life, and for having the love and wisdom to pull me from my rage against Him and bring me out a better person. That time in my life was my trail by fire, an unpleasant time that I would never want to go through again, but would never want to miss. God had a plan even in the pain, teaching me about myself and His way to make me who I need to be for him. Life isn’t a fairy tale, and God isn’t a teddy bear, and the universe is better because of that. Christ’s willingness to suffer to the point of feeling forsaken is what saves humanity. His perseverance through the darkest night any of God’s creation has ever faced is why we can receive God’s grace. Our willingness to not have an easy charmed life of pleasure is why we choose to be Christians, and our perseverance through the dark nights is why we can spread God’s light.

Teaching, Pride, and Disrespect Through the Lens of Jonah

One of the biggest areas of growth my first year of teaching was learning to work with students who flat out didn’t like me, particularly girls. My first two weeks were especially tenuous, as two different girls told me that they F*ing hated me or my class as they stormed out my door. (I sent neither of them to the office before hand, they decided they wanted to leave themselves.) At first I wondered if I was too abrasive, my rules too exacting, then I learned a bit of the history of the girls. Both had dropped out of school before and both had returned to try and complete their high school degree. One (we will call her Jane) was the daughter of a single mother basically raising herself and her sister, and the other (we will call her Eva) was well known around the school to be the female gang leader. After Jane left my classroom I called the office. Once the office got a hold of her she cursed at them too and ended up in ISS. She caused trouble in ISS, added to her time, and her answer to that was to drop out.

Eva was in my class until about semester, and we developed a very good relationship. She got in trouble with a few teachers and the school was mulling over options. The principle talked to me about her and I pleaded for her case saying I know she was behind, and she had some temper issues, but she seemed determined and really worked hard when she did set her mind to it. The office told her what I said, and she started to warm up to me. I also had her boyfriend in my ELO. Everyone told me to watch out, that I had the two gang leaders of the school in my class and that they would do everything they could to cause trouble. And it was hard to handle at first, but Eva did try exceptionally hard to catch up and graduate, and her boyfriend was a natural poet. He might have struggled with the language, but he had a passionate heart that sung in his writing. Both Eva and her boyfriend (call him Juan) dropped by semester.

I thought I had won by building a positive relationship w/ Eva. Then she left school. She was enrolled in online school, and I still pray that she completes that. I had built a great relationship with her boyfriend, connected to two of the toughest kids on my roster, and lost them both. I saw Juan just the other day playing basketball as I rode my bike past. He smiled real big and said hi. He dropped out to become a brick layer, enticing him with 15 an hour for hard manual labor. I hope in my heart he is doing well.

The heart breaking truth is most of the kids that didn’t like me for whatever reason, weren’t around by second semester. The drop out rate isn’t good, and it is the kids that it takes effort to teach that leave the school system. This year I haven’t been F bombed yet, and maybe that’s because I’m more comfortable with my control, maybe because I have a little credibility as a second year teacher, but overall I consider that a sign of my growth. I do however had students that are just as difficult, that can’t seem to get along with anyone, that don’t fit into the school system. I’ve had two girls tell me they don’t like me and request to leave for the office, and by what I’ve heard I’m not the only one they don’t get along with. What I did better this year was not getting in a power struggle. I talked to one girl in the hallway, tried to express that I was on her side, that I was willing to accommodate, and she still seems to hate my guts, but she has never blown up in my classroom and maybe one day she will give me the chance to build a relationship that can lead to her success. The other girl walked out of the room to the counselor, yelled at him, went to the asst. principal, and said enough to be put in ISS.

These are the students that would consider me the enemy, for whatever reason. These are the students that are at risk. These are the students I pray for the most.In church today we covered the story of Jonah, and how resistant he was to carry the message of God. Jonah’s resistance came from the fact that he recognized God’s word would save the people he gave the message to, and those people were his enemy. In the end God chastises his prophet for valuing his own hatred over God’s grace, that he let his pride and personal interest interfere with his God-given purpose.

As a teacher I can’t be a prophet for God, nor do I intent to, but the message carries over in an analogous application. My job is to educate my students, all of them, ‘whatever it takes.’ In analogy Jonah’s job was to send God’s message to God’s people, even if it was his enemy. My students sometimes resist me, and some create obstacles to successful classroom management, and if I allowed myself pessimism I could call them enemies, or at least impediments, to the goal-oriented environment of my classroom. However, like Jonah it is my calling to not let my pride, my personal bias, my pre judgments, or how these people have treated me get in the way of my mission. I need to accept that it is my calling to educate even the difficult, even those who don’t like me, those who don’t fit in the school, those who make the hallway rowdy, show up late to class, try to sleep through the reading… all of those I have been called to teach.

It would be easy to be selfish, say that if they can’t conform to the values of the dominant culture they will never get anywhere in life and look for ways to push them out of my classroom instead of spending lots of time, energy, and effort trying to save a student that might break my heart by dropping out. It would be easy to say there is no hope for a kid that can’t show up on time, flies gang colors in their back pocket, turns in 1 of 5 homework assignments, smokes weed, or can’t respect authority. But that’s not my job. It’s hard to win the battle with students who consider you the enemy, but it is never going to be my call to say who can’t succeed and I hope I never cut off my effort based on my own judgments. Like Jonah, I am not the one to decide who is or is not worthy. So while I hope I never get f-bombed to my face again, I do pray that whenever a student does show me resistance or treats me like an enemy that I try hard to find a way to make peace, create a relationship that learning can stem from. I’m not a teacher to make enemies, and when a kid doesn’t like me, I hope I try extra hard to find a way to keep the door open, because sadly enough doors will close without me pushing any shut.

So here is my prayer for the day:

God even if they spit on me in disrespect, please help me to never let my pride be more important than the value of a person. Even when I am disrespected please help me to see the love you have for all of your creation, be patient, and give your love another chance to take root.

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off, and sometimes it means chosing not to be pissed off yourself.

A few days ago I posted a quote on my status that “sometimes being responsible means pissing people off,” and that has something I had learned to be true through being a team captain, coach, teacher, wife, friend… pretty much any relationship of learning and growth. This weekend at our volleyball tournament I shared this quote with two of my seniors. This is a difficult lesson to learn as a team leader because by the time you’re a senior or team leader popularity comes naturally, and we all enjoy popularity. We all want to be liked and looked up to by the younger people that work with us. And that is a good goal.

One senior in particular is a very nice, balanced, quite, and well centered person. She really doesn’t like to be mean. I told her that her leadership this weekend was great, but if she really wanted our team to succeed she would have to be willing to hold people accountable during practice and make sure that everyone does the repetitions, no one cheats in conditioning drills, and that if someone is unfocused she could call attention to it and have them focus. Helping to ensure such items are in place would have her doing actions that could be interpreted as mean. This presented a challenge for her. I told her it should never be her goal to be mean, but when she has a dream or works hard for goals, sometimes you have to make people uncomfortable with just enjoying the current time and delay gratification until the goal is reached. She agreed with the idea and put it into practice soon after. Next game in a huddle she told a player directly “if you would have called that ball I wouldn’t have had to dive after it. I don’t mean to be mean or anything, but it would help us out if you talked more.” I was very proud of her, and her teammate handled it well. My leader though kept apologizing to the girl, making it obvious such a comment was still uncomfortable to give, which shows how nice she is at heart. I think she will successfully become a leader who can care about people.

I’ve played on a team where the team captain was very popular and really enjoyed that. She was also good at giving directions. However, she would sometimes break her own advice, drink before games, slack off during practice. She had the leadership skills, she just didn’t have the selflessness to be a truly effective leader. Her game day field leadership was top notch, however the split image of game day, practice, and Friday night didn’t inspire loyalty in all her fellow players, in fact made some envious and bitter. I think she grew quite a bit from the first year she was captain to the second, and I’m sure quite a bit since then, and I really do enjoy her as a person, have a very high respect for her, and am very glad for our years together, but it taught me a lesson of leadership: while sometimes being responsible means pissing people off, true leadership means you walk the way you talk so that you don’t piss people off.

In church today pastor Kim went into how we can convey a point without attacking a person and ruining a relationship and fracturing the good image of Christian ethics. She mentioned an example of a pastor who works to spread God’s message to those who work at pornographic book stores or other parts of the sex industry. I’d read the article she was referencing in a magazine called Leadership which focuses on issues that face the church. The pastor in the article would go to pornography conventions and give out Bibles. He also volunteers to clean the toilets of a local pornographic bookstore every Sunday. In this kind of situation, leadership, help, guidance, assistance, whatever, can’t be done by pissing people off; it has to be done by building relationships and having an open door.

It would be too easy to picket outside the pornography convention and have people walk in perhaps a little ashamed, but we have to ask ourselves: is that really effective in spreading the word of God? People are tricky, and at our heart we are relationship based creatures. And while it is true that leadership does sometimes require us to make people angry, it is also true that sometimes really offering love to someone means to forgo being pissed off, to get over that in order to be able to establish a relationship that allows a subtle message to be heard that if clanged like a gong would be ignored.

The full facebook status said: Sometimes being responsible means pissing people off; you don't gain much by pleasing a den of thieves. And this holds true; however, the key is sometimes. Being responsible sometimes means doing everything your self restraint will allow to not piss someone off. Sometimes what you get by pleasing a den of thieves is the chance to build a relationship and affect change. I’m not saying we should comply, or blend into the ethics of what we don’t agree with, but sometimes you have to consciously look for the person over the fault to be able to be responsible, to be able to show God’s love.

In my opinion the best leaders will have a versatile skill set: they will be able to give difficult advice, they will value a goal oriented environment over popularity and short term enjoyment, they will be able to follow the lines they lay for others themselves, and they will be willing to control those natural emotions of outrage, hate, and fear in order to instead express open arms, opportunity, and love for those who probably already feel forsaken. As Christians we don’t have an easy road in our current society, and perhaps the most important thing we can ask for in prayer for ourselves is the wisdom of discretion.

If I have to give all of me - what is it that does the giving? A musing on God

When I think of the big picture of my life I feel like I am rather well on track; it’s the day to day stuff that gets me. When I think of my goals, where I want to go in life, what it’s all for, it is easy to say that I make God a priority in my life, but that’s because I don’t have to do it, just think it. When I wake up in the morning and start my routine, when I do things to get by, pay the bills, relax and unwind, that’s when I find it hard to claim I made God a priority. I can do the long range goals. I can say in my head and on paper that I want to give my life to God, but carrying it out is where I want to improve.

Today in church (First Christian Church, 2727 E Crawford in Salina http://salinadisciples.org/ ) Greg (or Pastor Rea if you like that better in a story) covered the story of Isaiah. Isaiah is one of the lucky ones, blessed with a vision of God (Isa 6). On the flip side of the coin he is one of the unlucky ones because God asks him to make those who are comfortable in their ways uncomfortable enough to turn to God to grow, and to make those who are uncomfortable because the world is hard feel comforted by the people of God. To a lot of us (and we all do at times) who seek our own pleasures and assurances, this makes him a bit unpopular.

And this is where it gets difficult to live out the idea of giving our life to God on a day to day basis: God asks us to be in the world, but not of it. Most of the dominant powers of the world, the driving forces in human decision, aren’t in line with the virtues of the Bible. We make decisions based of our desire for wealth and security, and the world of money is very much imbued with the icon/idol of sex appeal. We make decisions based on our own futures, forgetting that the earthly existence is temporal. We make decisions based on our needs – which is what happens in a world based on survival. But God asks us to transcend that. God asks us to live for others, to give of ourselves, to dedicate ourselves to Him who unless we are completely blessed we will never see face to face until our earthly lives are over. God asks us to be better than the society around us, more than our animalistic nature, and to overcome the insidious and admittedly sneaky idols of money, lust, popularity, enjoyment, acceptance, and all the creature comforts that trap us into being ‘of the world’ rather than living in the world FOR God.

The society around is a fine place, and God is working in it… but… society does not exist for God. Society is self serving. The hardest part of living day to day for God and dedicating our lives to Him is that we can no longer accept the status quo of society. Being a good citizen by not causing harm is not enough; our call is to do good. Chasing the American dream of a happy family and wealth is not enough because we are asked to lift up those around us. The challenging part about God is that he expects a lot. Society lets us get by, asks us to contribute maybe every once and awhile – and that’s good. But God created us, we are his image – God wants all of us. And that is a challenge we should wake up every morning happy to embrace. Someone cares enough about us to expect more of us. So here is my new morning mantra, I plan to ask myself each morning: Darcy, God wants all of you. What is something you can do today to give more? We are not meant to just fit into society, we are meant to make a positive impact on society and bring change for God.

It’s like being the student the teacher sees potential in and wants more from. It’s like being the athlete the coach wants to build the program around and asks to find a way to step it up in effort and leadership. It’s like being the friend that is relied on to carry someone through the tough times and enjoy the good times. It’s like being the worker that is asked to carry the load through budget cuts because of talent, dedication, and character. It is being the Christian made by God’s grace and infinite wisdom to serve His great plan and exist in a relationship of love with our Creator. Just ‘living’ isn’t enough, we are meant to live with a purpose, a purpose of service for Someone who loves us enough to want all of us.And by all of us, I don’t just mean all of you, but the every one of His creation, all of humanity, the ones like you and the ones not like you, the ones you agree with and the ones that you don’t agree with. It isn’t an easy call, but God has great expectations for us, and we get there by trying!

Need a Writing Coach?

Need an essay coach?
Essay editing services available from an AP Language and Composition teacher looking for extra cash.

Writing based credentials:

3.98 GPA – My only B came when I was wedding planning, playing softball, taking classes, and substituting at the same time.
Dual major in English Education and Philosophy
Senior Seminar Paper Published in Lysande Uppsatser
President and Co-Founder of the Creative Writing Club at Bethany College
AP Language and Composition Teacher
Scored a 5 on AP English test
34 in reading comprehension on ACT

I can do essay coaching in person, by phone, facebook, twitter, with a rhetoric textbook, just the basics, or in groups. I’m flexible. I’m comfortable with any level of writing, from making complete sentences and paragraphing to implementing advanced rhetorical strategies such as anaphora, epistrophe, or asyndeton. I also have experience working with English language learners. I believe having another language as your first is a strength that allows a fresh approach to English and can create interesting metaphors.

Services available:
Editing
Tutoring
Writing Coach
Essay planning and outlining
Formatting for APA, MLA, Terabian, Chicago, etc.

What I will not do – write a paper that gets your name put on it.

Add me as a facebook friend – Darcy Leech – and you can check through my notes to find writing samples I created while in college.


First three students I coach at any given college get their first session free; after that prices are low and discounted if you make my work easy by becoming a better writer or if you can refer friends to me.