My Symphony

I've been at Augsburg College all week in a conference that discusses Paideia seminar practices for the classroom. It's been good and also very tiring. I don't have much to say outside of it because we are mining through texts all day and discussing in a very systematic way as we learn this process over and over again for our own classrooms. But I have been using a binder I usually have at school, and, when I need to zone out for a few seconds, have been mulling over a poem I have on the front of it that was written by William Ellery Channing.  Sometime a very long time ago I think.

This poem offers a look at so many good verbs. I put it on the front of my binder because these are the words I want to see when I glance down at my desk to grab papers or take attendance as I'm teaching. It is also going to be the motto for my way of life again in the 2011-2012 school year.  It's called 'My Symphony'. 

Prepare to be inspired.

"To live content with small means.
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion.
To be worthy not respectable,
and wealthy not rich.
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently,
act frankly, to listen to stars, birds, babes,
and sages with open heart, to bear all cheerfully,
do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common -

This is to be my symphony."

Also, earlier this week I spent a few hours reading in a lovely little park right outside of Augsburg. I stayed there after the seminar training because I had some free time before meeting friends. It was the definition of a perfect afternoon. I read, I stared off into the distance, I wondered about things, I breathed and watched the sun and leaves put shadows on things. It was a place heavy with peace, which was a realization I've had about other places.

Since the gratitude for that feeling came to me again, I decided to watch and look again for those places that also conjure up that same feeling.

And then, as I was walking to my car, I saw a plaque that stated that Murphy Square was literally the oldest park in the city of Minneapolis. Back in 1857 there was a big push for park development, and a man named Edward Murphy donated a few acres.


It was such a happy and historical moment and for some reason it made me very happy to know I'd been sitting in the oldest park in Minneapolis and I hadn't even known it.  I had enjoyed the park and suddenly it felt even more wonderful because I wondered about all of the people who had been just like me. Countless people in history walking along the paths and taking a little break under a tree and feeling that very same hush of peace.  It made everything bigger and wider, not contained and even better which is always one of the nicest things about life.