Pardon me

LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Psalm 16:5-8

Good afternoon, well it’s almost evening now. St. John’s has some strange computer system which is not compatible with my computer so I am unable to be on their network in the mornings. There is a desktop in the classroom, in the future I will have to use that before class starts to send out the daily message. Today was my first official day with all my students. Some tall, some short but they all were amazing, a true breath of fresh air. When you look at young students sometimes you see such an innocence. Youth who sometimes have not been hardened by the trials and tribulations we face in the world.

When I introduced myself to the students, I started off by letting them know that I am a Christian man but that I was not arrogant enough to assume that they all were too. I let them know that I also enjoy the teachings of Buddhism and find good words in not only the Qur’an but other spiritual groups literature and their teachings. It was not until later on that I realized how I started off my introduction. I am positive that a year ago that would not have been the first words out of my mouth. So that got me to thinking about growth and the knowledge of knowing that God is the reason for all goodness and our existence. I share this because I thought what was most beautiful while looking out amongst these students was their diversity. Our differences; some wore traditional Muslim garb, while others cultural or spiritual backgrounds were not as obvious.

The beauty was that I saw God’s face in each and every one of these children. While so many fight over religion and debate each other about who is right and who is superior and so forth. The lessons in these children were that we are all God’s children. God has placed them in this program, whether they are of Asian decent or Haitian decent they all have a natural beauty within them. I saw a passion to want to help one another out, and they were kind to each other. As adults we can learn a lot from these students and their ways which seemed God filled to me. Peace and Grace be unto you!

The rain does not recognize anyone as a friend; it drenches all equally.

Tags: Allah, buddhism, buddhist, christ, christians, creator, dali lama, faith, God, hinduism, hindus, holy bible, hope, Jesus, jewish, jews, life, love, mohamed, muslims, pardon me, Qu’ran, religion, strength, torah, triumph

Spiritual Exercise | RSS 2.0 | Respond | Trackback |