Happiness is Searching for You

Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
- Hafiz

Listen to the music of your joy.  Follow your bliss.  Let your heartstrings guide you.  Bring forth your beauty in your own unique style.

The answer to "What should I do?" is easy.  Do what brings you joy.

Let your joy be of service to others and you will be happy for a lifetime.

On Purpose

There is a place that you are to fill that no one else can fill; something you are to do, which no one else can do.  - Florence Scovel Shinn

We are all here on purpose.  Discovering our life's mission is a great gift.  You are unique in all life.  You are here for a special and sacred purpose.  Accept your responsibility.  Step into your destiny with sincere intention and deep kindness.  Be all you came here to be.

Love the Shadow

Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.  - Rainer Maria Rilke

The only answer is love - love for the shadow and darkness within each of us.  As we own our darkness, we rejoice in our own light.  We each cry out for love.  The only sane and satisfactory response to the challenges of life is love.

Gratitude

Simple acts of gratitude are healthy for the giver and the receiver.  Gratitude – like your daily exercise, relaxation, and good nutrition – needs to be practiced on a regular basis.  Consistency brings health and wellness.  Showing appreciation, creating a gratitude list, keeping a journal, and writing letters of thankfulness all have positive effects.  They also help others “pay it forward.”

There is no small gratitude.  Simple thank you’s for someone listening to you, preparing a meal, taking out the trash, cleaning up after ourselves, help with bags of groceries or books… all acts of gratitude are beneficial.

In our schools, we can model gratitude for our students by thanking them kindly for focusing their attention, following the rules, keeping each other physically and emotionally safe, being kind, including others in activities, helping with homework, and being quiet when needed. 

Gratitude will help our students repeat the positive behavior. 

Repeated positive behaviors, like gratitude, benefit everyone.

A Critical Time In American Education

We are at a critical time in American education.  We are being asked to believe that nothing is real unless it is measurable.  Test scores – if you can’t measure it, it’s not real.  The over-reliance on test scores is going to destroy education.  We are focusing on things (test scores) rather than human beings and relationships.  We are encouraged to focus on “hard data” (which is more easily measured), rather than “soft skills” (which is more difficult to measure).  If we believe that only what is measurable is more real, it is easier to disregard the soft stuff.  We are spending so much time on quantitative, data-driven decisions that the quality of interpersonal relationships, sense of purpose, and character development is now a distant second in value.  The reality is that “soft skills” are the hardest to develop.  Maybe it is because they are so hard to develop, and measure, that we fear them and relegate them to second-class status.  Current research from the Collaborative for Academic and Social Emotional Learning shows that “soft skills” (respect, responsibility, and relationships) are the primary factors in lifetime success or failure.

Measurement is not the villain.  The problem is a loss of balance between social emotional learning and academic skills.  It is in the balance and integration of academics with social emotional learning that we will find whole, healthy, and successful learners.  We cannot become so focused on tests and quantitative data that we forget the essentials of good judgment and learning.

Love Is Who We Are

Love is who we are.  Lovingness is an attitude.  It transforms our vision and experience of the world.  We focus on gratitude and forgiveness rather than being right.  We express love by acknowledging contributions others have brought into our lives. 

Love is a way of being.  Love is the way we relate to life.

"I did do something."

Past the teacher came the depressed child, and the abused child, and the addicted child, and the impoverished child.  Loving them all, the teacher knelt and prayed, “Dear Heavenly Father, how is it that a loving creator can allow such pain in his children and do nothing to save them?”

And out of the silence, God said, “I did do something.  I made you.”

Everyday Miracles

There are two ways to live your life. 

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

- Albert Einstein

I live with miracles every day.  I know that tears heal, courage is embracing vulnerability, forgiveness nourishes both the giver and the receiver, and kindness is great strength.  We all have experienced loss and pain.  We all have had others ridicule and reject us.  We stand up in life because we can and we must.  We love because it is our nature.  We see beauty in all things because we are unafraid of being authentic.  We are not alone. 

You are the miracle the world needs now.

LifeSkills Conference 2014

“No one can really know what you are called to or what you are capable of but you. 
Even if no one sees or understands, you are irreplaceable.”
– Mark Nepo

Every summer the Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation brings children ages 12-17 from throughout the world to the Patton Campus in Elizabethtown, PA to experience what they are capable of.  Through a series of social emotional, mental, and physical challenges, we invite over 100 students and 30 staff to explore leadership from the inside out.  Through safe and supportive, developmentally appropriate groups (teams) we explore our capabilities, significance, and worthiness.  Some students arrive cautious and tentative and leave empowered, knowing they are capable of greatness.  They leave with written plans of action defining how they will be servant leaders to their schools, communities, houses of worship, organizations, and families.  The Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation, through the Life Skills Conference, is positively impacting school organizations, school buildings, and school districts.  The Life Skills staff and participants return to their schools and help them understand the integration of social emotional learning with academic achievement. 

The essence of our work in the Pennsylvania Masonic Life Skills Conference is to create caring and compassionate young men and women.  Change agents who understand that leadership is not about accolades, but about helping all to achieve.  An essential ingredient in that achievement is the service we must provide to our communities and fellow human beings.  As we serve others, we improve.  Our prosperity is not only measured in acquisitions and bank statements.  Our prosperity is also measured in the joy of making our world a bit better because of our contribution.  Kind-heartedness and genuine concern for the welfare of others is our life’s work.  Every step forward in service and leadership benefits everyone.

The Pennsylvania Masonic Life Skills Conference will be held July 20-25, 2014.