Time Capsule reposts blogs from years past.
In the eighth year of Teach & Serve, there are more than a few from which to choose!
Emboldened by the Homilies, Embarrassed in the Hallways
Originally published in March 2016
… starting soft and slow, like a small earthquake and when he lets go, half the valley shakes …
Neil Diamond, Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show
There’s little like the feeling of hearing a good homily or listening intently to a sermon or sharing that touches the heart and the mind. There’s a certain energy I feel when I’ve heard a terrific reflection – an energy that enlivens and emboldens. Like many people, I have been touched by homilies when I am at mass and other religious services be these homilies given by priests or deacons or lay women or men. I have heard words that have inspired, challenged and moved me and have left liturgies inspired to talk, to change and to do.
Likewise, I have gone to thousands of hours of workshops on teaching and administration, have heard from educators at professional development opportunities – conferences and the like – and have embraced the messages they’ve given. Leaving these PD opportunities I have walked away ready to change my teaching or my leadership. I have been motivated to be a better educator by what I have seen, what I have heard and the passion with which the message was delivered.
Inevitably, following these experiences, I head back to my life – to my desk or to my classroom – considering implementation of what I have heard, of what I have learned. And, without always being conscious of this fact, I begin a certain calculus: if the changes I have been inspired to envision deal with me and me alone and if they don’t represent much risk, they have a pretty good chance of happening. If they involve my relationships with others or require me bringing others on board for whatever change I am envisioning, they may well happen, but will take some work. If the changes are significant and will necessitate shifts in myself and others from ways we’re comfortable proceeding to ways we are not – ways that are new and different – then they chances they will occur fall. Tremendously.
So, personal easy changes I am willing to make. More challenging changes that involve others, I would like to make. Vast paradigm shifts for me and those around me, I am afraid to make.
Inspiration, where have you gone? Where was the boldness of the moment after the homily, during the applause at the conference, when I was writing my notes about a speech?
Let’s be honest: when were touched by someone’s words, when we’re challenged to alter our course, we’re not talking about the simple things, those things we can easily change in ourselves or ways in which we can quickly improve our environments at work, we’re talking about significant changes, sea changes.
It’s so much easier to smile about the homily and let it go. So many fewer feathers get ruffled when we say “yeah, I heard some really wonderful ideas at that conference last week” but we don’t really try to implement them. Our situations, personal and professional, seem somehow more secure when we’re not leading the call to action, the call to change.
I often feel emboldened by the homilies, but embarrassed in the hallways, as though my excitement over some message I’ve heard and want to share is somehow something of which to be ashamed, as if my interest in improvement and my desire to engage others on it is somehow silly.
For people who seek continual self-reflection and for institutions that are about perpetual self-renewal, embracing and preaching the message, singing the good news of who we are and what we can be is critically important.
Listen for what emboldens you, reach for what can improve you, search for that which will change your culture for the better. Don’t turn away from it. Don’t be embarrassed.
Be happy you heard the call.
It’s love, love Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show. Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes, ‘cause everyone knows about Brother Love’s show…