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Tuesdays With The Angels vs Name Calling
Lately, I’ve watched the news and tweets with much concern. Name calling is so unhealthy for all our souls and so hurtful for our children to witness. Whatever happened to a healthy debate? In high school the debate team is never allowed to name call.
We know our children are watching and wondering why so many politicians and grown ups have succumbed to name calling. So what to do? I ask the angels. The thought comes to me that being examples of kindness and respect in our own words to everyone is the only way. Talking to the children about using respectful kind words is key to a happy life for us all.
Tuesdays With The Angels-Children and Love
Children love and angels. These words are the beautiful words we need to fill our hearts with now. The future of our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren is in our hands. I have committed myself to writing words of love, heartfelt pieces of thought out lovely words and stories in my novels to take the reader to the best place on earth, thinking about love. Blessed are those of us who thwart everyday evil, prejudice and hate. Love is winning. We will ask angels to come to our aide helping us with as many whispers of guiding hope they can find. Love will always win over hate but love needs us all to sail our ships to love’s shoreline.
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Tuesdays With The Angels-Special Children and the Bully
Years ago I was interviewing for a job and witnessed a sad example of bullying a student I’ll call Jenette. She was a teenager with a developmental disability in a vocational class. Jenette was shy and timid around her teacher. The teacher seemed to thrive on controlling her students with her loud voice. She yelled at all the students including Jenette. Jenette would calm herself by talking out loud. She’d say repeatedly, “I’m okay, it’s okay.”
I’ve never forgotten that example of bullying all these years later. Jenette had found a way to calm herself. But the next year she had a different teacher. I became her teacher and so there was no need to calm herself down for I never once yelled at any of my students. I encouraged Jenette and the others making sure learning vocational skills would be fun.Of course I knew I had angels on my shoulder.
Tuesdays With The Angels-Angels Win Bullies Lose
Oh yes we’ve all been bullied. Recently, I remembered a long ago instance I must have placed in the back corner of my mind. Writing about bullying brought it back. “Look at the baby cry.” That’s what I heard one day in Kindergarten. It’s a memory that makes me ponder now these decades later.
The schoolyards of yesterday seem to be played out by adults in our midst today. Shouldn’t we the grown ups now be the role models of respectful behavior to our children and grandchildren? What’s happened I think is some adults have lost their way. Some are playing into the bullies fiery words by matching with their own fire.
So way back in Kindergarten, a lesson was learned that must have brought me to this place of writing books about angels. You see the one who taunted me back then was my Kindergarten teacher. Years later I became a teacher of children with Special Needs. I tried to be a good role model of how to treat others. If a Kindergartner bullied by her teacher can grow up strong and kind then anybody can. Although I didn’t see them, the angels were at my side.
Tuesdays With The Angels-Special Needs Students and Bullying in the workplace
When I first started teaching vocational skills to kids with special needs I was in awe of their enthusiasm for volunteering so perhaps eventually they could secure a paying job. I was an idealist and still have great expectations of my fellow man. But one of my first attempts to get a student a volunteer few hours at a book store near our town college didn’t go well.
I always brought the student with me as I looked for placement for volunteering. I always explained to management we were from the high school work program and we would have someone with the student coaching at all times until such time as they could work on their own. The book store would be a great volunteer sight for the student.
I must say I was mortified when the manager said in front of the student,” I don’t want these kind of kids in this store!!” I was taught to be polite and so I turned around and walked out. If my student noticed the disgust in the managers voice I don’t know, however, I never went back to that store in my thirteen years working the job I loved in the work program.
As I wrote my novel Town of Angels I remembered that manager’s unforgettable bullying. Yet I am happy to report for years many employers were gracious and loved our students. Most students excelled and became productive members of the community .
Where does cruelty come from I wondered as I wrote my novel? Perhaps it comes from the bully’s inferior attitude toward themselves. How sad to think that manager would never know the joy and hope that radiates from these special individuals. The angels not only sent me wonderful students to teach all those years but taught me something else. They taught me to just walk away from a bully that long ago day.
Tuesdays With The Angels-Angel vs. Bully
When I first started teaching Special Education years ago, I learned a valuable lesson about bullying. For bullying can come from anyone, child or adult. I taught students that were labeled Mentally Retarded but they weren’t retarded at all.These eleven to thirteen year old students were socio-economically deprived. The materials were scarce and I had to use my creativity and own materials to teach them reading.
The first week I taught reading I would call on them to read. I was shocked when one boy named Michael got up and stuttered with the words. He didn’t normally stutter when he spoke. Some of the kids laughed. I realized then he had been bullied by students or perhaps even a teacher and calling on him to read made him stutter and anxious.
For the rest of my career I always asked first, “Who would like to read?” Michael taught me a very valuable lesson. I learned to respect and honor the students, being sensitive to their needs and character. It was honor to be all my students’ teacher. I was young and inexperienced but an angel must have been on my shoulder.
Tuesdays With The Angels-The Moon
A quote I live by was written by the seventeenth century Japanese haiku poet, Mizuta Masahide. It represented to him the meaning of life.
“Barn’s burned down,now I see the moon.”
Looking up at the moon is an important part of my own life. This quote helped me move forward after my daughter passed away as well as all the hard times of my life. The meaning of looking to the future with hope gave me comfort. I found hope in many places. From reading the late Reverend Norman Vincent Peale’s writings to watching Oprah’s inspirational TV shows, I found my own way to go on searching for life’s meaning. I read and try to be kind always while taking in the blessings of God’s beautiful earth, sky and moon.
Whenever I look at the moon I know that I’m looking up not down or behind me. I’m searching for answers for I have dreams to still fulfill with as much inspiration as I can find. In my novels the moon is aways present. Some characters look up and moon bathe by it’s light. In my novel Town of Angels, Angel Ken reads by the light of the moon and he and the other angels sail on angels wings into the night helping others. From Masahide to Oprah, I’ve learned to look up in hope.This is what the angels have given me. They’ve given me the moon.
Tuesdays With The Angels-Angels vs Bully and Courage
Fort Courage is the place I go when trying to find peace. Our children must learn to find courage so they are able to handle bullying. Teaching children to find courage is one of the most important lessons a parent and educator can do. Remember a time when you were bullied? I do. And yet those times were lessons weren’t they? I’ve heard it said that the bully is a teacher of sorts. Bullies are really teaching us how not to be like them. Finding a place in our hearts where courage lies fills us with triumph. Just as the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz found the courage he so desperately sought, adults and children alike can find their own way to courage. For courage was always there inside the Lion’s heart. The angels made sure of that.
Tuesdays With The Angels-Angels and Fort Courage
There’s a place I go to whenever I need to. It’s not a place I can walk, drive or fly to but a place I can go to find peace in my own mind. I drove on a highway to New Mexico years ago after my daughter died. It seemed the angels had placed a sign on the way just for me. It was near an Native American Reservation. I knew instantly the name was meant for the peace of mind I needed to pull myself to. It is such a beautiful name, Fort Courage.
That memory of the sign etched in my mind still helps me travel the journey I am on to find peace. Over twenty years have come and gone but I know one thing for sure. All of us lose ones we love, all of us suffer pain and longing for those we must wait to see again in the great beyond.
But to find courage is a blessing. The angels have such a place in my life that I ask them all the time to give me courage and strength for the days ahead. I ask them please take me to Fort Courage. Help me find peace, the peace of knowing a beautiful reunion lies ahead.
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