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Instead of developing the child's own faculties of discernment, and teaching it to judge and think for itself, the teacher uses all his energies to stuff its head full of the ready-made thoughts of other people. The mistaken views of life, which spring from a false application of general ideas, have afterwards to be corrected by long years of experience; and it is seldom that they are wholly corrected.
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Arthur Schopenhauer (Studies in Pessimism (Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer))
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The study of Scripture I find to be quite like mastering an instrument. No one is so good that they cannot get any better; no one knows so much that they can know no more. A professional can spot an amateur or a lack of practice or experience a mile away. His technicality, his spiritual ear is razor-sharp. He is familiar with the common mistakes, the counter-arguments; and insofar as this, he can clearly distinguish the difference between honest critics of the Faith and mere fools who criticize that which they know nothing.
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Criss Jami (Healology)
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There was an advertisement in the newspaper for a teaching position in a school with the worst reputation in town, with the sort of class that no qualified teacher with all the parts of her brain correctly screwed together would voluntarily face. It was attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder before attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder had been invented. “There’s no hope for these boys and girls,” the headmaster soberly explained in the interview. “This is not education, this is storage.” Maybe Sonja understood how it felt to be described as such. The vacant position attracted only one applicant, and she got those boys and girls to read Shakespeare.
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Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove)
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In the nomadic age, the shepherd (nomeus) was the typical symbol of rule. In Statesman, Plato distinguishes the shepherd from the statesman: the nemein of the shepherd is concerned with the nourishment (trophe) of his flock, and the shepherd is a kind of god in relation to the animals he herds. In contrast, the statesman does not stand as far above the people he governs as does the shepherd above his flock. Thus, the image of the shepherd is applicable only when an illustration of the relation of a god to human beings is intended. The statesman does not nourish; he only tends to, provides for, looks after, takes care of. The apparently materialistic viewpoint of nourishment is based more on the concept of a god than on the political viewpoint separated from him, which leads to secularization. The separation of economics and politics, of private and public law, still today considered by noted teachers of law to be an essential guarantee of freedom.
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Carl Schmitt (The Nomos of the Earth: In the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum)
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Cramming seeks to stamp things in by intense application immediately before the ordeal. But a thing thus learned can form but few associations. On the other hand, the same thing recurring on different days, in different contexts, read, recited on, referred to again and again, related to other things and reviewed, gets well wrought into the mental structure.
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William James (Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals)
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If you can deny your talents, if you can conceal them from others or, even better, persuade yourself that they weren’t even given to you, you’re off the hook.
And being off the hook is a key element of the industrialized school’s promise. It lets parents off the hook, certainly, since the institution takes over the teaching. It lets teachers off the hook, since the curriculum is preordained and the results are tested. And it lets students off the hook, because the road is clearly marked and the map is handed to everyone.
If you stay on the path, do your college applications through the guidance office and your job hunting at the placement office, the future is not your fault.
That’s the refrain we hear often from frustrated job seekers, frustrated workers with stuck careers, and frustrated students in too much debt. 'I did what they told me to do and now I’m stuck and it’s not my fault.'
What they’ve exchanged for that deniability is their dreams, their chance for greatness. To go off the path is to claim responsibility for what happens next.
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Seth Godin
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Aside from the teachers’ pay, voting, education, and transportation cases that constantly occupied the LDF in its multipronged legal attack on Jim Crow, a steady stream of capital rape cases continually flooded its offices. Marshall had long been aware that such charges raised serious human rights issues, since the death penalty for rape was “a sentence that had been more consistently and more blatantly racist in application than any other in American law.
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Gilbert King (Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America)
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Of course present knowledge of psychology is nearer to zero than to complete perfection, and its applications to teaching must therefore be often incomplete, indefinite, and insecure. The application of psychology to teaching is more like that of botany and chemistry to farming than like that of physiology and pathology to medicine. Anyone of good sense can farm fairly well without science, and anyone of good sense can teach fairly well without knowing and applying psychology. Still, as the farmer with the knowledge of the applications of botany and chemistry to farming is, other things being equal, more successful than the farmer without it, so the teacher will, other things being equal, be the more successful who can apply psychology, the science of human nature, to the problems of the school. (pp. 9-10)
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Edward Lee Thorndike (The Principles of Teaching: Based on Psychology)
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Bloom identified a sequence of six learning objectives that he felt moved from lower-order to higher-order thinking: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. However, these ideas were just a theory and were not based on research on learning. Nonetheless, they have become codified into the way many teachers are taught to think about thinking.
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Ron Ritchhart (Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners)
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I had a strong bias in favor of Russian scientists; many can be put to active use as chess coaches (I also got a piano teacher out of the process). In addition, they are extremely helpful in the interview process. When MBAs apply for trading positions, they frequently boast “advanced” chess skills on their résumés. I recall the MBA career counselor at Wharton recommending our advertising chess skills “because it sounds intelligent and strategic.” MBAs, typically, can interpret their superficial knowledge of the rules of the game into “expertise.” We used to verify the accuracy of claims of chess expertise (and the character of the applicant) by pulling a chess set out of a drawer and telling the student, now turning pale: “Yuri will have a word with you.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto Book 1))
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So the fact that Nietzsche feels that Christ died too early is a general idea only; we really have the need to ask the question: "What would Jesus have taught if he had been a married man, with eight children for instance? How would he have dealt with certain situations in life which only occur when you are in life, when you share it?" Of course he was in his own life but it was a very partial one - he was not really in life as we know it. He would perhaps be a good teacher inasmuch as one is meant to live his particular life, the life of a philosophical tramp who really has the idealistic purpose of teaching a new saving truth, who recognizes no other responsibility. You see, he had no profession and no human connections which were valid to him. He separated himself from his family, was the lord of his disciples, who had to follow him while he had to follow no one, being under no obligations. This is an exceedingly simple situation, tragically simple, which is so rare that one cannot assume that the teaching coming from such a life can be possible or applicable to an entirely different type of life.
Jung, C. G.. Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939. Two Volumes: 1-2, unabridged (Jung Seminars) (p. 779-780)
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C.G. Jung (Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939 C.G. Jung)
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Is there another way to judge potential? NASA thought so. When they were soliciting applications for astronauts, they rejected people with pure histories of success and instead selected people who had had significant failures and bounced back from them. Jack Welch, the celebrated CEO of General Electric, chose executives on the basis of “runway,” their capacity for growth. And remember Marina Semyonova, the famed ballet teacher, who chose the students who were energized by criticism. They were all rejecting the idea of fixed ability and selecting instead for mindset.
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Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)
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After I left finance, I started attending some of the fashionable conferences attended by pre-rich and post-rich technology people and the new category of technology intellectuals. I was initially exhilarated to see them wearing no ties, as, living among tie-wearing abhorrent bankers, I had developed the illusion that anyone who doesn’t wear a tie was not an empty suit. But these conferences, while colorful and slick with computerized images and fancy animations, felt depressing. I knew I did not belong. It was not just their additive approach to the future (failure to subtract the fragile rather than add to destiny). It was not entirely their blindness by uncompromising neomania. It took a while for me to realize the reason: a profound lack of elegance. Technothinkers tend to have an “engineering mind”—to put it less politely, they have autistic tendencies. While they don’t usually wear ties, these types tend, of course, to exhibit all the textbook characteristics of nerdiness—mostly lack of charm, interest in objects instead of persons, causing them to neglect their looks. They love precision at the expense of applicability. And they typically share an absence of literary culture.
This absence of literary culture is actually a marker of future blindness because it is usually accompanied by a denigration of history, a byproduct of unconditional neomania. Outside of the niche and isolated genre of science fiction, literature is about the past. We do not learn physics or biology from medieval textbooks, but we still read Homer, Plato, or the very modern Shakespeare. We cannot talk about sculpture without knowledge of the works of Phidias, Michelangelo, or the great Canova. These are in the past, not in the future. Just by setting foot into a museum, the aesthetically minded person is connecting with the elders. Whether overtly or not, he will tend to acquire and respect historical knowledge, even if it is to reject it. And the past—properly handled, as we will see in the next section—is a much better teacher about the properties of the future than the present. To understand the future, you do not need technoautistic jargon, obsession with “killer apps,” these sort of things. You just need the following: some respect for the past, some curiosity about the historical record, a hunger for the wisdom of the elders, and a grasp of the notion of “heuristics,” these often unwritten rules of thumb that are so determining of survival. In other words, you will be forced to give weight to things that have been around, things that have survived.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder)
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And just as no adult is able to observe all those rules, it is also difficult for a child to observe all the rules. As the saying goes, if you brush someone, there is always dust. Children live from day to day committing innumerable petty offenses that correspond to adult breaches of the law or adult immorality. For not following the counsels or weekly instructions of the principal for not doing what the teacher said or what the student council had decided for not carrying the entreaties of parents or elders or for not observing what society considered to be acceptable behaviour-for these kinds of offenses, I became the object of the most rigid application of the regulations.
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Yi Mun-Yol (Our Twisted Hero)
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Everything we do and say will either underline or undermine our discipleship process.
As long as there is one unsaved person on my campus or in my city, then my church is not big enough.
One of the underlying principles of our discipleship strategy is that every believer can and should make disciples.
When a discipleship process fails, many times the fatal flaw is that the definition of discipleship is either unclear, unbiblical, or not commonly shared by the leadership team.
Write down what you love to do most, and then go do it with unbelievers. Whatever you love to do, turn it into an outreach.
You have to formulate a system that is appropriate for your cultural setting. Writing your own program for making disciples takes time, prayer, and some trial and error—just as it did with us. Learn and incorporate ideas from other churches around the world, but only after modification to make sure the strategies make sense in our culture and community.
Culture is changing so quickly that staying relevant requires our constant attention. If we allow ourselves to be distracted by focusing on the mechanics of our own efforts rather than our culture, we will become irrelevant almost overnight.
The easiest and most common way to fail at discipleship is to import a model or copy a method that worked somewhere else without first understanding the values that create a healthy discipleship culture. Principles and process are much more important than material, models, and methods.
The church is an organization that exists for its nonmembers.
Christianity does not promise a storm-free life. However, if we build our lives on biblical foundations, the storms of life will not destroy us. We cannot have lives that are storm-free, but we can become storm-proof.
Just as we have to figure out the most effective way to engage our community for Christ, we also have to figure out the most effective way to establish spiritual foundations in each unique context.
There is really only one biblical foundation we can build our lives on, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastors, teachers, and church staff believe their primary role is to serve as mentors. Their task is to equip every believer for the work of the ministry. It is not to do all the ministry, but to equip all the people to do it. Their top priority is to equip disciples to do ministry and to make disciples.
Do you spend more time ministering to people or preparing people to minister? No matter what your church responsibilities are, you can prepare others for the same ministry.
Insecurity in leadership is a deadly thing that will destroy any organization. It drives pastors and presidents to defensive positions, protecting their authority or exercising it simply to show who is the boss.
Disciple-making is a process that systematically moves people toward Christ and spiritual maturity; it is not a bunch of randomly disconnected church activities.
In the context of church leadership, one of the greatest and most important applications of faith is to trust the Holy Spirit to work in and through those you are leading. Without confidence that the Holy Spirit is in control, there is no empowering, no shared leadership, and, as a consequence, no multiplication.
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Steve Murrell (WikiChurch: Making Discipleship Engaging, Empowering, and Viral)
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I don’t know that this mode of teaching is applicable everywhere—I don’t know that we can in all subjects be comrades. But I think many of us who are teachers and professors have forgotten that the syllabus serves the student, and all around us are teachers, administrators, and columnists who seem to believe that material should be hard for the sake of it and that education itself is best when rendered not in wonder but in force. I have never formally issued a “trigger warning” or explicitly carved out a “safe space.” But I know that all readers do not come to a text equally. Some come surviving a rape, and some come caged in their assigned bodies, and some come having spent their entire young lives in classrooms with fellow students who made mascots of them. There seems to be an opportunity here, for comradeship, an invitation to allow for a more conversational literature, to revisit accepted ideas of voice and authority, to recognize that students are humans to be challenged, not animals to be broken and tamed.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Message)
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The declining age of learning and of mankind is marked, however, by the rise and rapid progress of the new Platonists. The school of Alexandria silenced those of Athens; and the ancient sects enrolled themselves under the banners of the more fashionable teachers, who recommended their system by the novelty of their method and the austerity of their manners. Several of these masters—Ammonius, Plotinus, Amelius, and Porphyry—were men of profound thought and intense application; but, by mistaking the true object of philosophy, their labors contributed much less to improve than to corrupt human understanding. The knowledge that is suited to our situation and powers, the whole compass of moral, natural and mathematical science, was neglected by the new Platonists; whilst they exhausted their strength in the verbal disputes of metaphysics, attempted to explore the secrets of the invisible world, and studied to reconcile Aristotle with Plato, on subjects of which both of these philosophers were as ignorant as the rest of mankind. Consuming their reason in these deep but unsubstantial meditations, their minds were exposed to illusions of fancy. They flattered themselves that they possessed the secret of disengaging the soul from its corporeal prison, claimed a familiar intercourse withe dæmons and spirits; and, by a very singular revolution, converted the study of philosophy into that of magic. The ancient sages had derided the popular superstition; after disguising its extravagance by the this pretense of allegory, the disciples of Plotinus and Porphyry becomes its most zealous defenders. As they agreed with the Christians in a few mysterious points of faith, they attacked the remainder of their theological system with all the fury of civil war. The new Platonists would scarcely deserve a place in the history of science, but in that of the church the mention of them will very frequently occur.
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Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I)
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Although thrilled that the era of the personal computer had arrived, he was afraid that he was going to miss the party. Slapping down seventy-five cents, he grabbed the issue and trotted through the slushy snow to the Harvard dorm room of Bill Gates, his high school buddy and fellow computer fanatic from Seattle, who had convinced him to drop out of college and move to Cambridge. “Hey, this thing is happening without us,” Allen declared. Gates began to rock back and forth, as he often did during moments of intensity. When he finished the article, he realized that Allen was right. For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business.1 Unlike the computer pioneers before him, Gates, who was born in 1955, had not grown up caring much about the hardware. He had never gotten his thrills by building Heathkit radios or soldering circuit boards. A high school physics teacher, annoyed by the arrogance Gates sometimes displayed while jockeying at the school’s timesharing terminal, had once assigned him the project of assembling a Radio Shack electronics kit. When Gates finally turned it in, the teacher recalled, “solder was dripping all over the back” and it didn’t work.2 For Gates, the magic of computers was not in their hardware circuits but in their software code. “We’re not hardware gurus, Paul,” he repeatedly pronounced whenever Allen proposed building a machine. “What we know is software.” Even his slightly older friend Allen, who had built shortwave radios, knew that the future belonged to the coders. “Hardware,” he admitted, “was not our area of expertise.”3 What Gates and Allen set out to do on that December day in 1974 when they first saw the Popular Electronics cover was to create the software for personal computers. More than that, they wanted to shift the balance in the emerging industry so that the hardware would become an interchangeable commodity, while those who created the operating system and application software would capture most of the profits.
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Walter Isaacson (The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution)
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Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th in New York City. Slim as they get, Thomas recently had his long sandy-blond hair cut short to look like the new James Bond (he took a photo of Daniel Craig to the barber). Unlike Bond, he prefers a uniform of cargo pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of one of his heroes: Frank Zappa. Thomas hangs out with five friends from the Anderson School. They are “the smart kids.” Thomas is one of them, and he likes belonging. Since Thomas could walk, he has constantly heard that he’s smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with this precocious child. When he applied to Anderson for kindergarten, his intelligence was statistically confirmed. The school is reserved for the top 1 percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn’t just score in the top 1 percent. He scored in the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ ” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t. For instance, in the early grades, Thomas wasn’t very good at spelling, so he simply demurred from spelling out loud. When Thomas took his first look at fractions, he balked. The biggest hurdle came in third grade. He was supposed to learn cursive penmanship, but he wouldn’t even try for weeks. By then, his teacher was demanding homework be completed in cursive. Rather than play catch-up on his penmanship, Thomas refused outright. Thomas’s father tried to reason with him. “Look, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you don’t have to put out some effort.” (Eventually, Thomas mastered cursive, but not without a lot of cajoling from his father.) Why does this child, who is measurably at the very top of the charts, lack confidence about his ability to tackle routine school challenges? Thomas is not alone. For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.
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Po Bronson (NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children)
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The process of receiving teaching depends upon the student giving something in return; some kind of psychological surrender is necessary, a gift of some sort. This is why we must discuss surrendering, opening, giving up expectations, before we can speak of the relationship between teacher and student. It is essential to surrender, to open yourself, to present whatever you are to the guru, rather than trying to present yourself as a worthwhile student. It does not matter how much you are willing to pay, how correctly you behave, how clever you are at saying the right thing to your teacher. It is not like having an interview for a job or buying a new car. Whether or not you will get the job depends upon your credentials, how well you are dressed, how beautifully your shoes are polished, how well you speak, how good your manners are. If you are buying a car, it is a matter of how much money you have and how good your credit is. But when it comes to spirituality, something more is required. It is not a matter of applying for a job, of dressing up to impress our potential employer. Such deception does not apply to an interview with a guru, because he sees right through us. He is amused if we dress up especially for the interview. Making ingratiating gestures is not applicable in this situation; in fact it is futile. We must make a real commitment to being open with our teacher; we must be willing to give up all our preconceptions. Milarepa expected Marpa to be a great scholar and a saintly person, dressed in yogic costume with beads, reciting mantras, meditating. Instead he found Marpa working on his farm, directing the laborers and plowing his land. I am afraid the word guru is overused in the West. It would be better to speak of one’s “spiritual friend,” because the teachings emphasize a mutual meeting of two minds. It is a matter of mutual communication, rather than a master-servant relationship between a highly evolved being and a miserable, confused one. In the master-servant relationship the highly evolved being may appear not even to be sitting on his seat but may seem to be floating, levitating, looking down at us. His voice is penetrating, pervading space. Every word, every cough, every movement that he makes is a gesture of wisdom. But this is a dream. A guru should be a spiritual friend who communicates and presents his qualities to us, as Marpa did with Milarepa and Naropa with Marpa. Marpa presented his quality of being a farmer-yogi. He happened to have seven children and a wife, and he looked after his farm, cultivating the land and supporting himself and his family. But these activities were just an ordinary part of his life. He cared for his students as he cared for his crops and family. He was so thorough, paying attention to every detail of his life, that he was able to be a competent teacher as well as a competent father and farmer. There was no physical or spiritual materialism in Marpa’s lifestyle at all. He did not emphasize spirituality and ignore his family or his physical relationship to the earth. If you are not involved with materialism, either spiritually or physically, then there is no emphasis made on any extreme. Nor is it helpful to choose someone for your guru simply because he is famous, someone who is renowned for having published stacks of books and converted thousands or millions of people. Instead the guideline is whether or not you are able actually to communicate with the person, directly and thoroughly. How much self-deception are you involved in? If you really open yourself to your spiritual friend, then you are bound to work together. Are you able to talk to him thoroughly and properly? Does he know anything about you? Does he know anything about himself, for that matter? Is the guru really able to see through your masks, communicate with you properly, directly? In searching for a teacher, this seems to be the guideline rather than fame or wisdom.
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Chögyam Trungpa (Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism)
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PART 1-Introduction I:1 A theoretical foundation such as the text is necessary as a background to make these exercises meaningful. Yet it is the exercises which will make the goal possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of these exercises to train the mind to think along the lines which the course sets forth. 2 The exercises are very simple. They do not require more than a few minutes, and it does not matter where or when you do them. They need no preparation. They are numbered, running from 1 to 365. The training period is one year. Do not undertake more than one exercise a day. 3 The purpose of these exercises is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now and the second with the restoration of sight. It is recommended that each exercise be repeated several times a day, preferably in a different place each time and, if possible, in every situation in which you spend any long period of time. The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another. 4 Unless specified to the contrary, the exercise should be practiced with the eyes open, since the aim is to learn how to see. The only rule that should be followed throughout is to practice the exercises with great specificity. Each one applies to every situation in which you find yourself and to everything you see in it. Each day’s exercises are planned around one central idea, the exercises themselves consisting of applying that idea to as many specifics as possible. Be sure that you do not decide that there are some things you see to which the idea for the day is inapplicable. The aim of the exercises will always be to increase the application of the idea to everything. This will not require effort. Only be sure that you make no exceptions in applying the idea. 5 Some of the ideas you will find hard to believe, and others will seem quite startling. It does not matter. You are merely asked to apply them to what you see. You are not asked to judge them nor even to believe them. You are asked only to use them. It is their use which will give them meaning to you and show you they are true. Remember only this—you need not believe them, you need not accept them, and you need not welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter nor decrease their efficacy. But allow yourself to make no exceptions in applying the ideas the exercises contain. Whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than this is required. Lesson 1 - Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything. 1 Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see: 2 This table does not mean anything. This chair does not mean anything. This hand does not mean anything. This foot does not mean anything. This pen does not mean anything. 3 Then look farther away from your immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range: 4 That door does not mean anything. That body does not mean anything. That lamp does not mean anything. That sign does not mean anything. That shadow does not mean anything. 5 Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement is merely applied to anything you see. As you practice applying the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned.
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Helen Schucman (A Course in Miracles: Workbook for Students/Manual for Teachers)
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If we fail to cultivate grit, it is also because we often grant little importance to the practice of making and the process that it can teach us throughout our lives. Inventions come from those who can view a familiar set of variables from a radical perspective and see new possibilities. Creative practice is one of the most effective teachers of the spry movement of this perspective shift. It offers agency, required for supple, nimble endurance that helps us to sense when the bridge is about to collapse. It lets us shift our frame, like a painter who stared at a set of canvas stretcher bars for years and one day saw its potential to be an original communication device. And then persisted for decades to realize its full application for the world.
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Sarah Lewis (The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery)
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Nowadays, focusing on transferring applicable knowledge is a very challenging task that all teachers face.
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Eraldo Banovac
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One must bear in mind, that those who have the true modern spirit need not modernise, just as those who are truly brave are not braggarts. Modernism is not in the dress of the Europeans; or in the hideous structures, where their children are interned when they take their lessons; or in the square houses with flat straight wall-surfaces, pierced with parallel lines of windows, where these people are caged in their lifetime; certainly modernism is not in their ladies' bonnets, carrying on them loads of incongruities. These are not modern, but merely European. True modernism is freedom of mind, not slavery of taste. It is independence of thought and action, not tutelage under European schoolmasters. It is science, but not its wrong application in life,—a mere imitation of our science teachers who reduce it into a superstition absurdly invoking its aid for all impossible purposes. Science, when it oversteps its limits and occupies the whole region of life, has its fascination. It looks so powerful because of its superficiality,—as does a hippopotamus which is very little else but physical. Science speaks of the struggle for existence, but forgets that man's existence is not merely of the surface. Man truly exists in the ideal of perfection, whose depth and height are not yet measured. Life based upon science is attractive to some men, because it has all the characteristics of sport; it feigns seriousness, but is not profound. When you go a-hunting, the less pity you have the better; for your one object is to chase the game and kill it, to feel that you are the greater animal, that your method of destruction is thorough and scientific. Because, therefore, a sportsman is only a superficial man,—his fullness of humanity not being there to hamper him,—he is successful in killing innocent life and is happy. And the life of science is that superficial life. It pursues success with skill and thoroughness, and takes no account of the higher nature of man. But even science cannot tow humanity against truth and be successful; and those whose minds are crude enough to plan their lives upon the supposition, that man is merely a hunter and his paradise the paradise of sportsman, will be rudely awakened in the midst of their trophies of skeletons and skulls.
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Rabindranath Tagore (The Spirit of Japan)
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parallel to all other ages, not a chronological series of events. Indeed, one of the great marvels of God’s gracious activity toward us is that it occurs in real time without being prejudiced in favor of any particular age. Just because we are the latest does not mean we are the best. The effects of sin prevent any age—including ours—from being “golden,” at least in the spiritual sense. Every Christian generation learns equally the lessons of Revelation—that God is in control, that the powers of the world are minuscule when compared with God, that God is as likely to work through apparent weakness and failure as through strength and success, and that in the end God’s people will prevail. Revelation is the last book of the Bible. It reveals important truths about the end times. But it is also last in another important sense—it calls on all the hermeneutical courage, wisdom, and maturity one can muster in order to be understood properly. In many ways it serves as a graduation exercise for the NIV Application Commentary Series, an opportunity to fully apply the many lessons we have learned in the Bridging Contexts sections of previous volumes. God’s time is his, not ours. The story of God’s gracious activity on our behalf will be fulfilled in a great and glorious conclusion. But all Christians, everywhere and at all times, have equal access to the time. That access has been and is made possible by God’s message in the book of Revelation. Terry C. Muck Author’s Preface AS A NEW CHRISTIAN recently converted from atheism, I eagerly hurried through Paul’s letters, reaching Revelation as soon as possible. Once I reached it, however, I could hardly understand a word of it. I listened attentively to the first few “prophecy teachers” I heard, but even if they had not contradicted one another, over the years I watched as most of their detailed predictions failed to materialize. Perhaps six years after my conversion, as I began to read Revelation in Greek for the first time, the book came alive to me. Because I was now moving through the text more carefully, I noticed the transitions and the structure, and I realized it was probably addressing something much different from what I had first supposed. At the same time, I catalogued parallels I found between Revelation and biblical prophets like Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. I also began reading an apocalypse contemporary with Revelation, 4 Ezra (2 Esdras in the Apocrypha), to learn more about the way Revelation’s original, first-century audience may have heard its claims. Yet even in my first two years as a Christian, Revelation and other end-time passages proved a turning point for me. As a young Christian, I was immediately schooled in a particular, popular end-time view, which I respectfully swallowed (the
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Craig S. Keener (Revelation (The NIV Application Commentary Book 20))
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Without wisdom, a teacher is nothing more than a research paper: a knowledge filled text which is boring and has no practical use. With wisdom, a teacher is like a great novel: a text filled with knowledge, practical applications and, above all, fun.
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Charbel Tadros
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1. Education. State briefly, but definitely, what schooling you have had, and in what subjects you specialized in school, giving the reasons for that specialization. 2. Experience. If you have had experience in connection with positions similar to the one you seek, describe it fully, state names and addresses of former employers. Be sure to bring out clearly any special experience you may have had which would equip you to fill the position you seek. 3. References. Practically every business firm desires to know all about the previous records, antecedents, etc., of prospective employees who seek positions of responsibility. Attach to your brief photostatic copies of letters from: a. Former employers. b. Teachers under whom you studied. c. Prominent people whose judgement may be relied upon. 4. Photograph of self. Attach to your brief a recent, unmounted photograph of yourself. 5. Apply for a specific position. Avoid application for a position without describing exactly what particular position you seek. Never apply for “just a position.” That indicates you lack specialized qualifications.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
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Thinking that a demonstration of the New Psychology’s practical applications might make it less threatening to traditionalists, Hall delivered a series of lectures on education in Boston (arranged by Charles Eliot). The lectures drew on the work of a man named Francis Parker, who had become famous as the superintendent of schools in Quincy, Massachusetts, and the founder of a theory of pedagogy known as “the Quincy system.” Parker had served as a colonel in the Union Army (he retained the title ever after); after the war, he had spent several years in Europe, returning with a philosophy of education derived from Kantian and Fichtean ideas of mental growth, and emphasizing the importance of experience in acquiring knowledge. Hall expressed the germ of the theory in recapitulationist language: “The pupil should, and in fact naturally does, repeat the course of the development of the race, and education is simply the expediting and shortening of this course.”24 The lectures, attended mostly by teachers, were hugely successful. Hall still couldn’t get a job. He started to think about going to medical school.
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Louis Menand (The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America)
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He showed us films. Obviously we loved teachers showing films: nap time, makeout time if applicable. But this one, Jesus, you needed to see how it came out. Men calling a strike, the company calling in the army to force them back to work, the miners saying guess what, we’ve got guns too. Serious shit. Battle of Blair Mountain, that turned into the biggest war in America ever, other than the civil one. Twenty thousand guys from all over these mountains, fighting in regiments. They wore red bandannas on their necks to show they were all on the same side, working men. Mr. Armstrong said people calling
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Barbara Kingsolver (Demon Copperhead)
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How do you avoid the English Trap? First, and perhaps most obviously, write in the first person. Get used to the idea of talking and writing about yourself. One technique I recommend: write your first draft as if you’re talking to your best friend. This will help you lay the groundwork. Second, don’t pontificate. Admissions officers don’t care how much you know about Robinson Crusoe or Elizabeth Bennett. They care how much you know about yourself. Finally, avoid formulas at all costs. Don’t let your personality fade into an English teacher’s notion of essay structure. Let it shine.
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Cassie Nichols (The College Essay Trap (2019 Edition): Rescue your college application essay from the "maybe" pile.)
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Similarly, when we as parents get in the habit of doing small things to make our children’s lives easier—when we clean up after them, drive them places that they could walk to, fill out applications for our teenagers, pay teenagers’ parking tickets, or regularly jump in to solve children’s problems with peers, teachers, or coaches—we run the risk of making our children more fragile, entitled, and self-occupied.
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Richard Weissbourd (The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development)
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The same thing appears in the nature and design of the sacraments, which God hath appointed. God, considering our frame, hath not only appointed that we should be told of the great things of the gospel, and of the redemption of Christ, and instructed in them by his word; but also that they should be, as it were, exhibited to our view, in sensible representations, in the sacraments, the more to affect us with them. And the impressing divine things on the hearts and affections of men, is evidently one great and main end for which God has ordained that his word delivered in the holy Scriptures, should be opened, applied, and set home upon men, in preaching. And therefore it does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend as well as preaching to give men a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the things of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word to men in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of the things of religion, and their own misery, and necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; and to stir up the pure minds of the saints, and quicken their affections, by often bringing the great things of religion to their remembrance, and setting them before them in their proper colors, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already, 2 Pet. 1:12, 13. And particularly, to promote those two affections in them, which are spoken of in the text, love and joy: "Christ gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; that the body of Christ might be edified in love," Eph. 4:11, 12, 16. The apostle in instructing and counseling Timothy concerning the work of the ministry, informs him that the great end of that word which a minister is to preach, is love or charity, 1 Tim. 3, 4, 5. And another affection which God has appointed preaching as a means to promote in the saints, is joy; and therefore ministers are called "helpers of their joy," 2 Cor. 1:24.
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Jonathan Edwards (Works of Jonathan Edwards. Volume One and Two, Religious Affections, Freedom of the Will, Treatise on Grace, Select Sermons, David Brainerd and more (mobi))
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SITUATION False teachers have always blemished the church. The false teachers in the Ephesian church did not believe Jesus was really human. They contradicted Scripture while appearing to be self-disciplined and morally righteous.
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Max Lucado (NKJV, The Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible: Inspirational Applications for Living Your Faith)
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The teacher must thoroughly understand each aspect of adaptability in order to pass it on to students, both real world applications of adaptability as well as theory. Some aspects that are associated with adaptability include: •Cognitive ability;172 • Problem-solving skills;173 and • Metacognitive skills; these comprise the ability to critically assess your own thoughts, always questioning, “Have I thought about this or that?” As well as looking from the outside in and saying, “What consequences does my decision have?
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Don Vandergriff (Raising the Bar)
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Google has made teaching more challenging because learners believe that Google is their answer. But the learners are only forced to classrooms because questions are with teachers. Will Bing become learners’ teacher by providing questions?
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Santosh Avvannavar (Get a Job WITHOUT an Interview - Google and Beyond: "We don't mind to lose a good applicant, but definitely not hire a bad applicant.")
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Luke 15 Jesus Tells the Parable of the Lost Sheep (159) 1Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. + 2This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! + 3So Jesus told them this story: 4“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? + 5And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
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Anonymous (Life Application Study Bible: New Living Translation)
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My eyes widened and my face turned red as embarrassment gushed through my person. I had never thought of myself in such a manner. But now I knew the reasons I was sought after by dominant, bearded Arab men. I understood why I had the power to make men feeble in the knees and languid at my commands. Victor’s words that morning certainly took on a new meaning in my adolescent life. Before I could continue to bask in this glorious revelation, my teacher suggested, “Use your temporal assets wisely, or you may end up like many before you, in self destructive jeopardy.” I stared at him, speechless. “Pay attention, young man…” he proceeded slowly. “There are four basic homoerotic notions in Arab societies: * First, the acknowledgment of male beauty, even in other males’ eyes, and its capability of inducing ‘fitna’ (disorder). * Second, the recognition of the natural vulnerability of a grown man to be charmed by a handsome adolescent, to the point that mainstream scholars and theologians urged readers to resist the related temptation that follows this natural appreciation. * Third, the affirmation that love and passion exist hand in hand with related dangers - and not just sexual desires - that might be the driving force in a man-to-man attraction. * Fourth, and certainly not the least, the focus in classical literature and poetry on man-boy love, whereas grown male attraction is marginalized and regarded as mujun (ribaldry) or sukhf (obscenity).” Señor Victor Angel Triqueros added, “No social definition of homosexuality existed in the Arab world during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. There was no native concept applicable to all and only those men who were sexually attracted to members of their own sex rather than to women. Therefore, no single word exists in Arabic to describe men engaging in same-sex relationships. But there is a categorization of sexual acts: language that uses such specific terms as liwat (anal sex), luti (active sodomite who prefers boys over women, ma’bun (passive sodomite), mukhannath (effeminate passive sodomite), mu’ajir (passive male prostitute), dabb (active sodomite who likes raping his victims in their sleep regardless of their age), musahiqa (lesbian), along with a string of others.
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Young (Turpitude (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 4))
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My math teacher sucked as a kid in school. I'd ask him why do you do the problem that way and he would say "because the book says to do it." Later I learned algebra and advanced calculus because a guy explained the application to me. I now know that “If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself.
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Marlan Rico Lee
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what’s going on at Young Achievers. The students are motivated to develop academic skills because they see the real-world application of what they’re doing—their teachers are always providing opportunities to share, apply, and demonstrate their learning.
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Gregory A. Smith (Place- and Community-Based Education in Schools)
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problem with age and grade equivalent scores is that instruments will vary in
the scoring. One publisher’s test could give a child a sixth grade, eighth month score (6.8),
and another publisher’s instrument could result in a score of 7.1. Although the two scores
may be related to small differences between the instruments, consumers of the scores may
have very different interpretations of scores that are really not all that discrepant. Another
problem with age or grade equivalent scores is that teachers or administrators may expect
all students to perform at or above their respective age or grade level. For example, teachers have been reprimanded because students have had scores below grade level.
These misconceptions fail to take into account that the instruments are norm-referenced;
thus, the expectations are that 50% of the students will fall above the appropriate age or grade
score and 50% will fall below this score. Therefore, in most classrooms, expecting all students
to fall above the mean is unrealistic as well as inappropriate given norm-referenced testing.
36 Section I Principles of Assessment
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial
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Susan C. Whiston (Principles and Applications of Assessment in Counseling)
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Church leaders, especially those who serve as the “main minister” or “pastor,” have difficult jobs. In many contexts they are expected to wear the multiple hats of social coordinator, superb orator (several times a week), sensitive and insightful counselor, administrator, motivator, teacher, evangelist, mender of relationships, “marryer,” and “buryer”—all the while cultivating an exemplary personal, spiritual, and family life. The pressure to spend hours in study, hours in the community, hours in visiting prospects, hours in counseling, hours in training the staff, and hours in prayer all add up to unrealistic expectations on the part of the church. The effect can be overwhelming.
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George H. Guthrie (Hebrews (The NIV Application Commentary Book 15))
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I made my mind up that this evening, after work, I would start taking applications for a new official sub. I
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Teresa Mummert (Honor Thy Teacher (Honor, #2))
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There is a powerful difference between picturing an image that does not relate to you, and recalling something specific that you are connected with. When memory experts memorize something that is idle or vain, they’re only attempting to picture an image that does not relate to them. They don’t have to daily apply the digits of mathematical pi to live by them. They don’t have to apply the Declaration of Independence in a practical day to day life. As if Americans say when living life, “As it is written in the Declaration of Independence.” So they teach you how to memorize things idly, where as it is better to make a heartfelt connection with the word of God. Therefore Beloved, read the scriptures first and have a full connection with it before you memorize. As we stated before, it is good to memorize what is speaking out to you in the scriptures. Where God is speaking to you and teaching you in the word is the best place to memorize. It makes an emotional connection with you, and it’s applicable to your life in the here and now. Seeing that it is immediately applicable to your life you’ll be able to make an emotional connection with what you are memorizing. As a result, when you are past these teachings and have full understanding, even years in the future you’ll still remember the scripture because it made an emotional connection with you. Much like reminiscing over the cottage experience, every time the topic is brought up you’ll have waves of scripture rushing to you for practical application. Therefore in this method we are seeking to make memorizing the scriptures an experience and not merely a task or a goal for godliness. When it is relevant to experiences there is more for the mind to grasp onto the memory with thereby giving greater longevity to the memory itself. Similar to the peg method where you create an image for the mind to have more to grasp onto, you are using an already existing “image” so to speak, that the mind will grasp onto harder. But why does it grasp harder? Because it isn’t something silly thought of by oneself but it is an ongoing experience that led to a reminiscent memory. Therefore memorize what God is speaking to you and what has strong meaning to you. Whatever jumps out at you from the pages is what the Lord wants you to be memorizing. Therefore as a good pupil and good student, memorize what the Lord your Teacher is giving you to memorize. In school we do not memorize anything but what the teacher gives us, otherwise it would serve no purpose. Likewise it serves a greater purpose to memorize what God is giving you in the here and now, versus memorizing something that is not applying to you at this moment. Yes, all the word of God applies to your life and it always will. But certain things are speaking true to the immediate lesson in life and thus the scriptures speak out to you, and seem alive. Therefore memorize the words that are alive and you will have a continuous living memory of the word of God.
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Adam Houge (How To Memorize The Bible Quick And Easy In 5 Simple Steps)
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Giving students more ownership does not mean that teachers give up their responsibility to direct student learning. Many apps and tools, such as wikis and blogs, allow teachers to access student work and monitor their progress. Formative assessment also provides information that teachers can use to recommend goals and strategies. Cloud applications, like calendars, can also be shared so teachers can make sure students meet standards while building critical self-direction skills.
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Peggy Grant (Personalized Learning: A Guide to Engaging Students with Technology)
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To the Teachers in Our Schools My Dear Brethren and Sisters: The Lord will work in behalf of all who will walk humbly with Him. He has placed you in a position of trust. Walk carefully before Him. God’s hand is on the wheel. He will guide the ship past the rocks into the haven. He will take the weak things of this world to confound the things that are mighty. I pray that you will make God your Counselor. You are not amenable to any man, but are under God’s direction. Keep close to Him. Do not take worldly ideas as your criterion. Let there be no departure from the Lord’s methods of working. Use not common fire, but the sacred fire of the Lord’s kindling. Be of good courage in your work. For many years I have kept before our people the need, in the education of the youth, of an equal taxation of the physical and mental powers. But for those who have never proved the value of the instruction given to combine manual training with the study of books, it is hard to understand and carry out the directions given. Do your best to impart to your students the blessings God has given you. With a deep, earnest desire to help them, carry them over the ground of knowledge. Come close to them. Unless teachers have the love and gentleness of Christ abounding in their hearts, they will manifest too much of the spirit of a harsh, domineering master. The Lord wishes you to learn how to use the gospel net. That you may be successful in your work, the meshes of your net must be close. The application of the Scriptures must be such that the meaning shall be easily discerned. Then make the most of drawing in [268] the net. Come right to the point. However great a man’s knowledge, it is of no avail unless he is able to communicate it to others. Let the pathos of your voice, its deep feeling, make an impression on hearts. Urge your students to surrender themselves to God. “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.” Jude 1:21-23. As you follow Christ’s example you will have the precious reward of seeing your students won to Him.
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Ellen Gould White (Testimonies for the Church Volume 7)
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Two of my teachers made a huge positive difference for me. One was my football coach who did not think I was a loser, and encouraged me to stay in school and keep trying. The other was a special ed teacher who realized that I had a reading disability but that I wasn’t retarded. She honestly told me that she wasn’t trained to help people with dyslexia but that she knew it existed and that it wasn’t my fault. She knew how hard I was trying. She spent a year teaching me to fill in the blanks on paperwork such as job applications so I would have that skill when I needed it. She also let me leave class early so I could saunter into the lunch room from the direction of the “regular” classrooms so other kids wouldn’t know I was a SPED.” —Eddie—
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Yvonna Graham (Dyslexia Tool Kit for Tutors and Parents: What to do when phonics isn't enough)
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improve your reflective thinking and writing skills with this feedback. Budget numerous additional hours for the following purposes: Research colleges; prepare for the SAT or ACT with Writing and SAT Subject Tests (“SAT IIs”), if these are not yet done by junior year; work with teachers, your school counselor, and any other non-school recommenders; attend college-related events; prepare for interviews; and take care of whatever else may be necessary to ensure you are submitting high-quality applications on time—on top of your busy schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Try not to take rejections personally. Acceptances or rejections—in regards to college admissions and life as a whole—should
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Jason L. Ma (Young Leaders 3.0: Stories, Insights, and Tips for Next-Generation Achievers)
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The magisterium, the Church’s teaching office, does not assert that in its proclamation of the faith it has exhausted every development, nuance, or application of the faith in the circumstances of our day. But the Church does define that the authoritative teachers of the faith will not lead us into error and away from Christ. No one else can rightfully make that claim. We turn to the teaching of the Church not for speculation, but for sure guidance on the way to eternal life with Christ.
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Donald Wuerl (New Evangelization: Passing on the Catholic Faith Today)
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In all such interpersonal relations, principles previously set forth in other sections of this book are applicable. The teacher must be careful to stress the urgency for reconciliation, the need for forgiveness and help, the importance of first removing the log from one’s own eye, and the necessity for attacking problems rather than people.
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Jay E. Adams (Competent to Counsel: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Jay Adams Library))
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The debate has been bounded by the rules of ordinary scientific discourse. This highly regulated space makes room for technical papers; grant applications; informal networks of students, teachers, and laboratories; official symposia to promote methods and interpretations; and finally, textbooks to socialize new scientists.
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Donna J. Haraway (Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature)
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By professionalism we have in mind the snare of reading the Scriptures principally with a view to their application to others, rather than first and foremost to applying them to our own lives; or praying for others publicly in a way we do not pray for ourselves in private; or doing things that are expected of a shepherd and teacher simply because they are expected, rather than out of joy because we know they please God. A danger inherent in being paid for a task is that we may end up doing it only as a job. We are not suggesting that those called to give their whole time to shepherding and teaching should not
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Derek J. Prime (On Being a Pastor: Understanding Our Calling and Work)
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research university that primarily awards master’s degrees and PhDs, JNU saw the number of seats offered to students wishing to enroll in a master’s or a doctoral program plummet by 84 percent, from 1,234 to 194 in one year.101 Furthermore, admissions committees were made up solely of experts appointed by the JNU vice-chancellor, flouting university statutes and guidelines followed by the University Grants Commission (UGC), which stipulate that academics should be involved.102 This made it possible to hire teachers from Hindu nationalist circles,103 with few qualifications,104 and some facing charges of plagiarism.105 In particular, several former ABVP student activists from JNU have been appointed as assistant professors even after being disqualified by the committee in charge of short-listing applicants.106 The vice-chancellor replaced deans in the School of Social Sciences without following appointment procedures, cutting the number of researchers by 80 percent and ceasing to apply rules JNU had set to ensure diversity through a mechanism taking into account the social background and geographic origin of its applicants.107 The new recruitment procedure strongly disadvantaged Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs, who used to make up nearly 50 percent of the student intake and who now accounted for a mere 7 percent. The vice-chancellor also issued ad hoc promotions, nominating recently appointed faculty members to the post of full professor. Conversely, the freeze on promotions for “antigovernment” teachers who should have been promoted on the basis of seniority prompted some of the diktat’s victims to take the matter to court.108 However, even after the court—taking note of the illegality of the rejection procedure—ordered a reexamination of the claimants’ promotions, the latter were once again denied.109
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Christophe Jaffrelot (Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy)
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In the forty-five years since “the War” the public schools had slowly but steadily multiplied. Most communities had a log schoolhouse within “walking distance of the scholars” (this phrase was applied to an area within a radius of four or five miles). Though statutes required all children to attend school for at least eight years, few bothered to do so and it is doubtful whether more than half the children had ever darkened a schoolhouse door. The school term continued to be three or four months; many of the teachers were coarse near-illiterates who sought to instill knowledge into the child’s head by constant application of a stick to his back.
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Harry M. Claudill (Night Comes To The Cumberlands: A Biography Of A Depressed Area)
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In hiring black teachers for segregated schools during Jim Crow, a leading southern official, Hoke Smith, made a deliberate decision: “When two Negro teachers applied to a school, to ‘take the less competent.’ ” It was a nakedly creative way to cripple black prospects for achievement. It put black children under the instruction of the least qualified teachers. It passed over the brightest, most accomplished applicants—in fact, punished excellence—while elevating the mediocre in a purposeful distortion of meritocracy. All of this created dissension in the lowest caste over the patent unfairness and worked to crush the ambitions of those with the most talent. In these and other ways, the caste system trained the people in the lowest caste that the only way to survive was to play the comforting role of servile incompetent. The caste system all but ensured black failure by preempting success.
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Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
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Before he could start writing Kilby’s application, though, Mosher had to resolve a fundamental tactical question. Anyone who applies for a patent has to decide whether he needs it for offensive or for defensive purposes—whether, to use lawyers’ favorite metaphor, he wants his patent to be a sword or a shield. The decision usually turns on the novelty of the invention. If somebody has a genuinely revolutionary idea, a breakthrough that his competitors are almost sure to copy, his lawyers will write a patent application they can use as a sword; they will describe the invention in such broad and encompassing terms that they can take it into court for an injunction against any competitor who tries to sell a product that is even remotely related. In contrast, an inventor whose idea is basically an extension of or an improvement on an earlier idea needs a patent application that will work as a shield—a defense against legal action by the sword wielders. Such a defensive patent is usually written in much narrower terms, emphasizing a specific improvement or a particular application of the idea that is not covered clearly in earlier patents. Probably the most famous sword in the history of the patent system was the sweeping application filed on February 14, 1876, by a teacher and part-time inventor named Alexander Graham Bell. That first telephone patent (No. 174,465) was so broad and inclusive that it became the cornerstone—after Bell and his partners had fought some 600 lawsuits against scores of competitors—of the largest corporate family in the world. In the nature of things, though, few inventions are so completely new that they don’t build on something from the past. The majority of patent applications, therefore, are written as shields—as improvements on some earlier invention. Some of the most important patents in American history fall into this category, including No. 586,193, “New and Useful Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses,” granted to Guglielmo Marconi in 1898; No. 621,195, “Improvements in and Relating to Navigable Balloons,” granted to Ferdinand Zeppelin in 1899; No. 686,046, “New and Useful Improvements in Motor Carriages,” granted to Henry Ford in 1901; and No. 821,393, “New and Useful Improvements in Flying Machines,” granted to Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1906.
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T.R. Reid (The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution)
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[He said] when you read the Bible17, you must think that here and now God is speaking with me. . . . He wasn’t as abstract as the Greek teachers and all the others. Rather, from the very beginning, he taught us that we had to read the Bible as it was directed at us, as the word of God directly to us. Not something general, not something generally applicable, but rather with a personal relationship to us.
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Eric Metaxas (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)
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When two Negro teachers applied to a school, to ‘take the less competent.’ ” It was a nakedly creative way to cripple black prospects for achievement. It put black children under the instruction of the least qualified teachers. It passed over the brightest, most accomplished applicants—in fact, punished excellence—while elevating the mediocre in a purposeful distortion of meritocracy.
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Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
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In cross-cultural communication a further step must be taken, the Christian teacher must re-apply revealed absolutes to persons living in a culture that is not the teacher’s own. The demands of this task highlight the importance of his being clear on what is absolute in the biblical presentation of the will and work of God and what is a culturally-relative application of it. Engaging in the task may help him toward clarity at this point by making him more alert than before to the presence in Scripture of culturally-conditioned applications of truth, which have to be adjusted according to the cultural variable.
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R.C. Sproul (Explaining Biblical Inerrancy: The Chicago Statements on Biblical Inerrancy, Hermeneutics, and Application with Official ICBI Commentary)
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1689: King William of Orange guarantees his subjects (except Catholics) the right to bear arms for self-defense in a new Bill of Rights. 1819: In response to civil unrest, a temporary Seizure of Arms Act is passed; it allows constables to search for, and confiscate, arms from people who are “dangerous to the public peace.” This expired after two years. 1870: A license is needed only if you want to carry a firearm outside of your home. 1903: The Pistols Act is introduced and seems to be full of common sense. No guns for drunks or the mentally insane, and licenses are required for handgun purchases. 1920: The Firearms Act ushers in the first registration system and gives police the power to deny a license to anyone “unfitted to be trusted with a firearm.” According to historian Clayton Cramer, this is the first true pivot point for the United Kingdom, as “the ownership of firearms ceased to be a right of Englishmen, and instead became a privilege.” 1937: An update to the Firearm Act is passed that raises the minimum age to buy a gun, gives police more power to regulate licenses, and bans most fully automatic weapons. The home secretary also rules that self-defense is no longer a valid reason to be granted a gun certificate. 1967: The Criminal Justice Act expands licensing to shotguns. 1968: Existing gun laws are placed into a single statute. Applicants have to show good reason for carrying ammunition and guns. The Home Office is also given the power to set fees for shotgun licenses. 1988: After the Hungerford Massacre, in which a crazy person uses two semi-automatic rifles to kill fifteen people, an amendment to the Firearms Act is passed. According to the BBC, this amendment “banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles; weapons which fire explosive ammunition; short shotguns with magazines; and elevated pump-action and self-loading rifles. Registration was also made mandatory for shotguns, which were required to be kept in secure storage.” 1997: After the Dunblane massacre results in the deaths of sixteen children and a teacher (the killer uses two pistols and two revolvers), another Firearms Act amendment is passed, this one essentially banning all handguns. 2006: After a series of gun-related homicides get national attention, the Violent Crime Reduction Act is passed, making it a crime to make or sell imitation guns and further restricting the use of “air weapons.
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Glenn Beck (Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns)
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A transparent admissions process fosters trust and confidence among applicants and their families, reflecting the school's commitment to fairness.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Setting specific deadlines for applications ensures that the admissions process remains organized and equitable for all prospective students.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Admissions committees meticulously evaluate each applicant to ensure they possess the qualities necessary to thrive in the school's academic environment.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Efficiency in enrolment and admissions processes is essential to provide timely responses to applicants and streamline administrative tasks.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Beyond the application process, various external factors can impact school enrolment, ranging from demographic shifts to competitive pressures in the local education landscape.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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A school's application process is a pivotal factor influencing enrolment numbers as it shapes the first impression prospective students have of the institution.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Personalizing the admissions experience shows genuine care and interest in each applicant, fostering strong relationships with prospective families.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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An inclusive admissions process considers various factors beyond academic performance, recognizing the unique strengths and potential of each applicant.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Providing clear communication and timely updates on admissions status is crucial to maintaining applicants' interest and engagement throughout the enrolment process.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Transparent admission policies and criteria foster trust and fairness, ensuring that all applicants are evaluated based on objective standards.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Timely communication of admission status demonstrates respect for applicants' time and commitment, enhancing their overall experience with the school.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Those who regard craft as a euphemism for elitism overlook the fact that craftsmanship need not be precious or effete; it can be practical, simple, an everyday thing: a well-made table, a sturdy chair, a butcher or tailor or travel agent who knows his or her business. A bricklayer or carpenter or teacher, a musician or salesperson, a writer of computer code—any and all can be craftsmen. Craftsmanship cements a relationship of trust between buyer and seller, worker and employer, and expects something of both. It is about caring about the work and its application. It is what distinguishes the work of humans from the work of machines, and it is everything that IKEA and other discounters are not.
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Ellen Ruppel Shell (Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture)
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want to support this contention by certain other statements. Here for instance is one, which, to me, has an almost amusing aspect to it. These proposals that we should preach less, and do various other things more, are of course not new at all. People seem to think that all this is quite new, and that it is the hallmark of modernity to decry or to depreciate preaching, and to put your emphasis on these other things. The simple answer to that is that there is nothing new about it. The actual form may be new, but the principle is certainly not a new one at all; indeed it has been the particular emphasis of this present century. Take all this new interest in the social application of the Gospel, and the idea of going to live amongst the people and to talk politics and to enter into their social affairs and so on. The simple answer to that is that until the First World War in this present century that was the real vogue in most Western countries. It was then called the ‘social gospel’, but it was precisely the same thing. The argument was that the old evangelical preaching of the Gospel was too personal, too simple, that it did not deal with the social problems and conditions. It was a part, of course, of the liberal, modernist, higher-critical view of the Scriptures and of our Lord. He was just a perfect man and a great teacher, a political agitator and reformer, and the great exemplar. He had come to do good, and the Sermon on the Mount was something that you could put into Acts of Parliament and turn into legislation. So you were going to make a perfect world. That was the old liberalism of the pre–1914 period. The very thing that is regarded as so new today, and what is regarded as the primary task of the Church, is something that has already been tried, and tried with great thoroughness in the early part of this century.
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D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Preaching and Preachers)
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Rapid learning classes extend beyond conventional teaching methods by incorporating transformative approaches. Teachers leverage rapid learning principles to equip students with essential skills for their future endeavours, ensuring that the learning experience goes beyond mere knowledge acquisition to encompass practical and applicable skills.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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That means that however funds are raised for community projects, the highest amount goes to educational facilities and teachers. The curriculum would be based on learning what it means to be a human being, or rather, a spiritual being living in a human body/world. Courses taught would include how to develop creativity, what it means to clear the psychological and emotional self, how to be in relationship with others, what steps must be taken to ensure basic needs are met for all souls in physical embodiment, the study of different soul paths for the purpose of understanding the viewpoints and perceptions of each group, etc. Second, resources would be devoted to scientific research and application. Specifically, funding would be allocated for alternative energy projects, agricultural advances, transportation systems, cleanup of the environment, and exploration of the cosmos. Third, emphasis would be placed on cultural advancement, including creative architecture, community gardens, cooperative building and re-building projects, implementation of new economic paradigms including enlightened currencies, and providing of the latest technological systems in every household that desires them (but not necessarily with emphasis on the latest gadgets for hours of mind-numbing entertainment). The priority here is to enable more efficient communication and awareness of world events for all souls. Also, it is important to be sure and include entertainment and down time. Fourth, opportunities would be provided to help individuals express their spiritual freedom. Encouragement and support will be given for souls to build churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, monasteries, healing retreat centers, therapy and holistic bodywork facilities, and more. The truth may be within, but it is helpful to have an outer environment that reflects the inner truth.
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Sal Rachele (Earth Awakens: Prophecy 2012–2030)
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The next hurdle is the recognition that we have many deeply ingrained habit patterns that take time—a lot of time—to change. At first the typical neophyte is sure that he or she has a tremendous capacity and will grow more quickly than others. Then the sobering realization dawns that the degree of self-transformation is equal to the effort made. If neophytes have persisted thus far, they will almost inevitably encounter doubt (samshaya)—doubt about their own capacity; doubt about their teacher; doubt about the efficacy of the teaching. It is not far from the truth to say that practitioners who do not befriend doubt are bound to become self-deluded. If there really is no doubt or self-delusion, then they are quite simply enlightened. Another obstacle, not often identified, is the fact that practitioners’ karmic tendencies (read unconscious or semiconscious habit patterns) are magnified because awareness is enhanced through regular practice. This can be likened to a bright searchlight shining deep into the well of the mind. In the depth of the unconscious reside all kinds of unpleasant realities that get flushed out by steady application to self-inspection and self-understanding. At times, the unconscious materials that drift into the conscious mind seem overwhelming, and then it becomes clear that spiritual life is a form of brinkmanship. The Indic tradition speaks of the razor-edged path. Gradually spiritual practitioners learn to overcome their intrinsic materialism (i.e., constantly thinking in terms of the visible reality only). There is a progressive loosening of the ego knot or “self-contraction” (ātma-samkoca) by which the ordinary individual anxiously seeks to hold everything together. Spiritual practitioners learn to be humorous about everything, including themselves. Life is seen from a new perspective: as a strange play in which we are willy-nilly involved and which we can either misunderstand and suffer or understand and transcend even while being fully engaged in its drama. Practitioners must prevail over spiritual materialism—the false sense of accumulating “higher” experiences. They can realize inner freedom only to the extent that even the goal of liberation is renounced. Liberation, or enlightenment, is not a thing to be attained or acquired. It is living in the moment from the most profound understanding and without egoic attachment to anything. Those who parade their extraordinary spiritual accomplishments in front of others are possibly the least illumined of all. They merely substitute material commodities for “spiritual” merchandise. The Indic heritage knows of many adepts who after years of intense practice achieved a high state of consciousness or astounding paranormal ability only to promptly plunge from grace. The higher the adept’s elevation, the steeper the drop into oblivion and misery. Therefore the authorities of Yoga ever admonish practitioners to be circumspect, to keep their attainments to themselves, to focus on the cultivation of moral integrity, understanding, self-transcendence, and not least service to others.
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Georg Feuerstein (The Deeper Dimension of Yoga: Theory and Practice)
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The recognition that love represents the highest morality was nowhere denied or contradicted, but this truth was so interwoven everywhere with all kinds of falsehoods which distorted it, that finally nothing of it remained but words. It was taught that this highest morality was only applicable to private life — for home use, as it were — but that in public life all forms of violence — such as imprisonment, executions, and wars — might be used for the protection of the majority against a minority of evildoers, though such means were diametrically opposed to any vestige of love. And though common sense indicated that if some men claim to decide who is to be subjected to violence of all kinds for the benefit of others, these men to whom violence is applied may, in turn, arrive at a similar conclusion with regard to those who have employed violence to them, and though the great religious teachers … foreseeing such a perversion of the law of love, have constantly drawn attention to the one invariable condition of love (namely, the enduring of injuries, insults, and violence of all kinds without resisting evil by evil) people continued — regardless of all that leads man forward — to try to unite the incompatibles: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so firmly established that the very people who recognize love as a virtue accept as lawful at the same time an order of life based on violence and allowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another.
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Leo Tolstoy
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On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog’s Head inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
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In 1921, Terman decided to make the study of the gifted his life work. Armed with a large grant from the Commonwealth Foundation, he put together a team of fieldworkers and sent them out into California’s elementary schools. Teachers were asked to nominate the brightest students in their classes. Those children were given an intelligence test. The students who scored in the top 10 percent were then given a second IQ test, and those who scored above 130 on that test were given a third IQ test, and from that set of results Terman selected the best and the brightest. By the time Terman was finished, he had sorted through the records of some 250,000 elementary and high school students, and identified 1,470 children whose IQs averaged over 140 and ranged as high as 200. That group of young geniuses came to be known as the “Termites,” and they were the subjects of what would become one of the most famous psychological studies in history. For the rest of his life, Terman watched over his charges like a mother hen. They were tracked and tested, measured and analyzed. Their educational attainments were noted, marriages followed, illnesses tabulated, psychological health charted, and every promotion and job change dutifully recorded. Terman wrote his recruits letters of recommendation for jobs and graduate school applications. He doled out a constant stream of advice and counsel, all the time recording his findings in thick red volumes entitled Genetic Studies of Genius.
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Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers: The Story of Success)
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When two Negro teachers applied to a school, to ‘take the less competent.’ ” It was a nakedly creative way to cripple black prospects for achievement. It put black children under the instruction of the least qualified teachers. It passed over the brightest, most accomplished applicants—in fact, punished excellence—while elevating the mediocre in a purposeful distortion of meritocracy. All of this created dissension in the lowest caste over the patent unfairness and worked to crush the ambitions of those with the most talent.
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Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
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Wisdom is the reasoned synthesis and acute application of knowledge to life’s greater goals and meaning. It’s a gift and collective treasure that requires years if not generations of blood, sweat, and tears, trial and error, heroism and tragedy to be honed, survive judgment, and be passed along to new stewards. Wisdom travels from mother to son, father to daughter, teacher to pupil, from master to fellow to apprentice. It is sweetest when given freely and most bitter when taken for granted. We can’t put a price on this invisible commodity. We can only hope to repay those charitable enough to have shared it with us.
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Rafael Moscatel (Tomorrow’s Jobs Today: Wisdom And Career Advice From Thought Leaders In Ai, Big Data, Blockchain, The Internet Of Things, Privacy, And More)
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The hard-won lesson of the last two centuries, which even many liberals don’t grasp, is that most injustices shrivel under the application of light. And light consists of photons called facts. Reiterating: we see zillionaire oligarchs finance relentless propaganda aimed at riling millions into hatred, and not only wrath aimed at powerless minorities. Just as dangerous is their campaign – stirring up that pre-existing SoA reflex – of open war against “knowledge elites” – precisely because those skill castes do have power! Civil servants, scientists, teachers, doctors, intel agents and so can do a lot to thwart the New Lords’ ambitions. All must be gelded. Broken to harness. Taught their place.
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David Brin (Polemical Judo: Memes for our Political Knife-fight)
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I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
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Tell me about a failure in your life and tell me why it occurred.” Does the applicant say he cannot think of one? If he can describe something he perceives as a failure, does he take responsibility for it or does he blame others (e.g., “I never graduated high school because those damned teachers didn’t know how to motivate me”)?
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Gavin de Becker (The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence)
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Furthermore, this submission is no more than a simple 'pedagogic’ method, one could say, of entirely transitory necessity; not only would a true spiritual teacher never abuse it, but he would use it only to enable his disciple to free himself from it as soon as possible, [...] Initiation ought precisely to lead to the fully realized and effective consciousness of the ‘Self, which can obviously be the case neither with children in the nursery nor with psychic automata. The initiatic ‘chain’ is not meant to bind the being, but on the contrary to furnish a support that allows it to raise itself indefinitely and to go beyond its limits as an individual and conditioned being. Even when there are contingent applications that can coexist secondarily with its essential goal, an initiatic organization has no use for blind and passive instruments, whose normal place could in any case only be in the profane world, since they lack all qualification. What must exist among all its members at all levels and in all functions is a conscious and voluntary collaboration that implies all the effective understanding of which each is capable; and no true hierarchy can be realized or maintained on any other basis than this.
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René Guénon (Perspectives on Initiation)
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We're not great spiritual teachers. We're just two seekers who have tried to put these principles at the center of our lives. They've worked for us. They still are working for us. And while we can't say we're all that realized or all that special, we can say with conviction that we live a life that is, all in all, astonishingly ordinary and very happily adequate.
Yeah, okay, but who are we?
We're a white, hetero, cisgender, middle-class, hyper-educated American couple who have studied with some of the great Asian and American Buddhist teachers alive today. We've been at it for about twenty years each. We've spent years in meditation retreat and years studying old Buddhist books, new Buddhist books, and a small mountain of psychology studies -- all in this sometimes bewildering attempt to live an ethical and energized life that will benefit us, we hope, and maybe even benefit others, too.
Craig has a PhD in psychology.
Devon was a classroom teacher for a decade before starting to teach meditation full-time.
We're basically here to pass on what we've learned to you in hope that it can be immediately applicable in your attempts to survive modern life with your heart and mind intact.
Now let's have some fun.
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Craig Hase (How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Survival Guide for Modern Life)
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For two decades, our escape defined me. It dominated my personality and compelled my every decision. By college, half my life had led up to our escape and the other half was spent reliving it, in churches and retreats where my mother made it a hagiograpihc journey, on college applications where it was a plea, at sleepovers where it was entertainment, and in discussion groups after public viewings of xenophobic melodrama like China Cry and Not Without my Daughter, films about Christian women facing death and escaping to America. Our story was a sacred thread woven into my identity. Sometimes people asked, But don't a lot of Christians live there? or Couldn't your mother just say she was Muslim? It would take me a long time to get over those kinds of questions. They felt like a bad grade, like a criticism of my face and body...Once in an Oklahoma church, a woman said, "Well, I sure do get it. You came for a better life." I thought I'd pass out -- a better life? In Isfahan, we had yellow spray roses, a pool. A glass enclosure shot up through our living room, and inside that was a tree. I had a tree inside my house; I had the papery hand of Morvarid, my friend nanny, a ninety-year-old village woman; I had my grandmother's fruit leather and Hotel Koorosh schnitzels and sour cherries and orchards and a farm - life in Iran was a fairytale. In Oklahoma, we lived in an apartment complex for the destitute and disenfranchised. Life was a big gray parking lot with cigarette butts baking in oil puddles, slick children idling in the beating sun, teachers who couldn't do math. I dedicated my youth and every ounce of my magic to get out of there. A better life? The words lodged in my ear like grit. Gradually, all those retellings felt like pandering. The skeptics drew their conclusions based on details that I had provided them: my childhood dreams of Kit Kats and flawless bananas. My academic ambitions. I thought of how my first retelling was in an asylum office in Italy: how merciless that with the sweat and dust of escape still on our brows, we had to turn our ordeal into a good, persuasive story or risk being sent back. Then, after asylum was secured, we had to relive that story again and again, to earn our place, to calm casual skeptics. Every day of her new life, the refugee is asked to differentiate herself from the opportunist, the economic migrant... Why do the native-born perpetuate this distinction? Why harm the vulnerable with the threat of this stigma? ...To draw a line around a birthright, a privilege. Unlike economic migrants, refugees have no agency; they are no threat. Often, they are so broken, they beg to be remade into the image of the native. As recipients of magnanimity, they can be pitied. But if you are born in the Third World, and you dare to make a move before you are shattered, your dreams are suspicious. You are a carpetbagger, an opportunist, a thief. You are reaching above your station.
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Dina Nayeri (The Ungrateful Refugee)
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Is there another way to judge potential? NASA thought so. When they were soliciting applications for astronauts, they rejected people with pure histories of success and instead selected people who had had significant failures and bounced back from them. Jack Welch, the celebrated CEO of General Electric, chose executives on the basis of “runway,” their capacity for growth. And remember Marina Semyonova, the famed ballet teacher, who chose the students who were energized by criticism. They were all rejecting the idea of fixed ability and selecting instead for mindset. Proving
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Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)
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One thing I do remember our preachers and Sunday school teachers telling us, however, is how much being a good person mattered. Your reputation, your integrity, your character—this was your currency. This warning was expressed in a variety of contexts and with a variety of applications. It was especially stressed during anxious election seasons, but it was a constant lesson from our elders, for whom personal integrity meant so, so much.
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Jared C. Wilson (The Gospel According to Satan: Eight Lies about God that Sound Like the Truth)
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being renewed or restored. I have met many Christians who love Jesus with all their hearts, but they say they have grown bored with worship, they just don’t feel the same sense of the presence of God they once did. Perhaps the problem is that God has called them to something new and yet they cling to something old. He is an infinite God and there are infinite ways to worship Him. We try reading books, or listening to CD’s of other people’s experience with God and try to duplicate that in our own lives. Yet, God may be trying to do something different in your own life. He may be trying to do something that is special for you and you alone. Maybe He is trying to make a Word that you, only you and you alone will hear within your own heart. God’s Word is only limited by the amount of your heart that you are willing to share with Him. We also learn that His compassions do not fail. The word fail has two possible roots, which could both be applicable to this verse. The first root word is kala’, which carries the idea of
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Chaim Bentorah (Hebrew Word Study: A Hebrew Teacher Finds Rest in the Heart of God)
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Your Behavioral Responses to Anxiety
The ways in which people react to social situations are often a result of physical and mental responses. Feeling anxious is a clue from your body that you are in danger and need to take action. However, because the danger is exaggerated, your actions often do not fit the situation and do not help you. Two typical behaviors are freezing and avoidance.
When people freeze in a situation, they cannot react. Movement, speech, and memory are all affected. You may have experienced freezing when a teacher called on you in class. When attention like that was placed upon you, you probably felt the physical responses of blushing, shortness of breath, and rapid heart rate, among others. You probably had negative thoughts running through your head, such as “I’m such an idiot. I look stupid.” As a result of the strong physical and mental reactions, you froze and were unable to remember the answer; perhaps you could not speak at all.
Because feelings of anxiety are unpleasant, some people try to avoid stressful situations altogether. If you are nervous around crowds of people, you may avoid going to parties or dances. If you are afraid of speaking in public, you probably avoid classes or situations in which you would be asked to speak or make a presentation.
There are also other, subtler forms of avoidance. If you are nervous in crowds, you may not avoid parties entirely, but you might leave early or latch onto one person the entire time. Or, you may distract yourself by daydreaming or flipping through CDs instead of talking with people.
Because of her social anxiety, Ruby hadn’t participated in any extracurricular activities during high school. At the beginning of her senior year, her guidance counselor told her she would have a better chance of getting into her top-choice college if she would join activities, so she joined the Spanish club.
The group was led by the Spanish teacher and met once a week before school. When Ruby joined, they were beginning to plan the annual fiesta, and there were many decisions to make. At first, the other students tried to include her and would ask her opinion about decorations or games, but Ruby was so anxious that she couldn’t respond. Soon, they stopped asking and left her alone.
Ruby thought she was being a part of the group simply by showing up, but she never volunteered for any of the planning committees and never offered suggestions. When it was time to fill out college applications, Ruby asked the Spanish teacher to write her a recommendation. The teacher said she couldn’t because she didn’t know Ruby well enough.
Patterns of avoidance may be so deeply ingrained in your lifestyle that you are not even aware that you are exhibiting them. Think carefully about your reactions to various situations. When you receive an invitation, do you instantly think of reasons why you can’t accept? When you are with a group of people, do you use escape mechanisms, such as reading a magazine, hiding in the restroom, or daydreaming?
Avoidance may help lessen your anxiety in the moment, but in the long run, it usually makes things worse. Life is very unsatisfying when you avoid so many situations, and such behavior hurts self-esteem and self-confidence.
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Heather Moehn (Social Anxiety (Coping With Series))