Seeing Clearly: Denver Venture School: http://www.denverventureschool.org/

Friday, July 18, 2008

Denver Venture School: http://www.denverventureschool.org/

The first time I saw Ami, she was sitting quietly (one might say, contemplatively, now that I know her better!) in the teacher's lounge at Lakeshore Elementary School. She was a student teacher then, and during our first conversation I learned that she was already choosing among several job offers. That is the way it has been for Ami ever since; you see, she is a powerful combination of ambitious career woman, social activist and Buddha Mama (with a little Mary Poppins thrown in, Indian style). Ami taught at Lakeshore for a couple of years and then moved to Denver, sensing the need for a more diverse, urban community. She continued teaching the elementary level, then became a teacher coach, and then an assistant principal. She told me a story about a terrible day when she found herself in the middle of a huge gang fight, with police cars and ambulances and injured kids. Ami had never seen a fight before, and it must have been terrible for her, but it also, like everything in life, brought her farther along, and made her stronger. Ami has mentored students who no one thought would amount to anything, and they are amounting to a great deal with her support and love. This is why I know that her new high school in Denver is going to be a great success. I got to visit her school, freshly painted by 60 volunteers one weekend, while in Denver. We were with our friend Russ, who teaches in a very tony district in Connecticutt, and he was struck by the humble circumstances from which her new school is being born. This is a free charter school and the focus is on entrepreneurship. I encourage you to check out the Denver Venture School link (I put it on the subject line of this post) and see for yourself. The video, in which students are interviewed, is inspiring. Best wishes to my Ami as she begins this new chapter. I am betting on this school being amazing with her at the helm.

Oh, I must tell you, too, that Barak Obama visited her old school in June, and she was able to meet him and watch him in action with students. He spent the entire day there, folks. She said of him: "he is the real deal."

With people like Ami and Barak out there, I know we can do anything.

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The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.

a poem from TRAVELING MERCIES by Annie Lamott

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feeling we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--w.s. merwin

from Kabir, Indian mystic poet

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!...

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten--

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with

an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Night Letter to theReader by Billy Collins

Night Letter to the Reader

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,

a bird leaving the nest,

a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,

an ordinary insomniac

amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking

about something I heard at a party,

about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,

but as it is, I am simply conscious,

an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity

of the night and the slight zephyrs

that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out

and stands a little ahead,

her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you were even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

but this is what I want to do--

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

This poem does what all good art does-it makes my heart fill as I recognize myself in it, and I say, "yes! that is exactly it!" and I realize once again that I need to tell you so many things. I feel inspired. Alive.

There are not enough hours.

a note from Kevin Griffin, author and spritual leader from Shambhala