One of the great challenges of our age is taking the time to reflect. This is all the more true in our walk of faith. We are surrounded by distractions and it is difficult to keep God in the forefront of our thoughts.

Years ago I read a classic devotional book that advised the reader to think of every interruption as an opportunity from God. Don’t be irritated by the interruption, the author said, but instead see it as a chance for God’s serendipity to be at work.

It seemed like great advice at the time. I still attempt to practice it. But in this age of connectedness, I think that advice is more appropriate for a monk in a monastery than it is for a person in a globalized world.

Instead of finding ways to utilize interruptions, we need to swing the pendulum toward minimizing interruptions. There are countless shiny things in our lives that create too many interruptions. There are far too many distractions. Instead of imposing a spiritual overlay on the issue by telling ourselves that each interruption or distraction is a moment to see God at work, we need to make the harder spiritual choice and stop the interruptions to begin with.

The challenge of our age is not to merely find God in the midst of interruptions; it’s to find quiet times that allow God to interrupt our distractions.

Then last year I was asked to speak at a Westmont event in Palo Alto. To my surprise and delight, Teresa Goines was also speaking at the event. And she was seated at my table. D’Aun and I loved getting to know her and hearing about her work. We were both struck by this beautiful woman working in the toughest part of town with the toughest kids. Her vision and passion were huge. It made us proud to see a fellow Westmont alum making such an impact.

A few months later, Teresa was gracious enough to invite us to the soft opening of a new location for Old Skool Cafe. It was a wonderful evening filled with singing waiters, musical prodigies, rapping table hosts, and former gang members turned gourmet chefs. All set in a 40′s style music club situated in a neighborhood that most folks avoid.

Much more could be said, but this video says it all. Old Skool is a great endeavor, one worthy of your support. Reward yourself — go to Old Skool and find out just how awesome it is. Tell Teresa I sent you.

A reminder, if you subscribe to this blog via email or RSS, you can watch the video here.

If you want to go, please let me know. Details below. Thanks!

When: Saturday, May 19th, 6 PM.
Where: At the home of Erik and Bonnie Hansen (address to be provided when you RSVP).
Childcare: Yes, childcare will be provided!
Dinner: We will have heavy hors d’oeuvres.
RSVP: Please email me or call 925-426-7284 to RSVP.

Brenda and Rosanne working with the students.

Along with her colleague Rosanne Swain, Brenda guided the students through a process of discovering their own racial identity. This workshop showed the students how important diversity is and it also reinforced a positive self-image. Based on Biblical principles, and often tracing the story of Esther, the curriculum was truly the integration of faith and learning. It gave the students something deep and meaningful to ponder as they grow from youth into adults.

This was unknown territory for all involved. The students certainly had never done anything like this. Neither had our PathLight leadership. Even Brenda and Rosanne were breaking new ground, as they had never before worked in Belize.

But due to their giftedness as teachers, Brenda and Rosanne pulled it all together and the student responses were amazing. Here are a few student quotes as examples:

“This weekend I learned that we cannot judge the book by its cover. Meaning that we cannot judge other people if we don’t know them from the inside.”

“This weekend I learned that we are made in God’s image and God loves us no matter from what culture and what language we speak; he loves us.”

“This weekend I learned that I don’t have to be ashamed of who am I or of where I come from.”

After watching the weekend unfold and seeing the change in the hearts of PathLight students, I was struck by the value of good teaching. Brenda and Rosanne kept those kids spellbound for two days. The classroom atmosphere was organized, fun, productive and generous. Best of all, the students grew spiritually and socially. Their hearts, minds and souls were touched.

What I saw reinforced what we all know: good teaching is transforming.

Over the past few months I’ve been sharing ideas, stories and videos about the work that PathLight does with teachers. We launched our Support A Teacher program (SAT) with the goal of building support for Belizean teachers. Supporting one teacher can impact thirty students, and watching Brenda and Rosanne in the classroom with fifty-plus students reinforced how important our SAT effort really is.

Today is National Teacher Day in the United States. It’s a day to celebrate the importance of teaching and honor those who dedicate their time to teaching. Perhaps today is a good day for you to reflect on the teachers you had as a student. Who stood out to you? Who showed that extra amount of patience when you struggled? Who made a difficult topic fun? Or as one professor I had once said, who turned the light on that made you go from merely attending a class to being a true learner?

If you can think of such a teacher in your life, I have a nice way to honor him or her. Make a gift to PathLight’s SAT program, tell them which teacher you wish to honor, and the PathLight folks will send a thank you note reflecting your appreciation. It’s a great way to say thank you to somebody that perhaps needs to hear that thanks. And a nice way to remember somebody that you may not have thought of in a long time.

In addition, your gift will impact an under-resourced teacher who desperately needs assistance. Most Belizean teachers have only a high school education and virtually no classroom budget. By honoring the man or woman who helped you learn, you will help a teacher do her job, which will in turn impact thirty under-privileged students in a classroom.

So can you help with this today? Please click here and fill out the online form. PathLight will get a letter of appreciation out to your teacher as soon as possible.

Thank you!

Will you help them out with this goal? I hope you will!

If you subscribe to this blog via email or RSS and are unable to view the video, please click here.

The phrase comes from the classic book Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. The book is set in Italy during World War II where the main character, Yossarian, is a bombardier who must fly dangerous missions. The military keeps raising the number of missions he must fly to complete his service, which frustrates him. The problem is that a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly missions. He’s considered sane if he requests not to fly those missions, and is then forced to fly them because he has proven his sanity by asking not to fly them. Catch 22.

The setting for the book is during World War II, but the book is not condemning that war. Instead, it is using that war as a backdrop to question the militaristic system our country created after the war. And it’s not just the military; the book lambasts any organizational structure that serves the organization more than the people in that organization.

Catch 22 became wildly popular as the 60′s turned into a decade of turbulence. The book spoke to a Vietnam War era audience that saw our leaders seeking to get out of the war but not knowing how to do so “with honor”. Catch 22 is one of the most clever condemnations of bureaucratic thinking run amok, so it naturally hit home in an era when America was questioning all of the leading institutions.

I first read this book in high school during the 70′s as Vietnam was winding down and Watergate was heating up. I loved Heller’s storyline because it was poking fun at the establishment — an establishment that I was raised to respect but be wary of. No matter what political views my family had (and it was varied with who you asked), each of us were then and remain distrustful of big … well, big anything. I was taught, without ever being told, to be skeptical of big government, big business, big media, and big institutions.

Let me emphasize that again. Skepticism was never overtly taught in our family. I was never told “don’t trust big government” or anything like that. But it was modeled for me. Self-determination was a highly valued trait in our family, and self-dependency was a strength to be admired. As I pointed out to my son recently, he can go back through centuries of family history and find that every one of his forefathers was self-employed. Working for the establishment is just not in our DNA.

When I read Catch 22 for the first time, it immediately became part of my language and world view. Here was a book that made me laugh, made me think, and gave expression to the general wariness that I had toward any “big” programs. At a time when it was easy to distrust the government, Catch 22 added fuel to the fire with a clever storyline that seemed so innocent at first. Only when you get swept up into the ridiculousness of it all do you find yourself laughing out loud at the insanity.

A book that gave voice to a developing value of mine at an age when I was establishing my own values … that’s a book that you remember forever. Thus Catch 22 is on my list of the books that most influenced my life.

Want to read more about my top 25? Here is the list thus far:

Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #20
Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #21
Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #22
Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #23
Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #24
Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #25

Here’s a photo of Mom celebrating her birthday when my sister took her out last night.

I’ve been staying at Jaguar Creek the last few days, and I am very impressed with how the staff has kept the property looking fantastic. Here are a few pictures to give you a taste of this wonderful place.

So this past weekend we hosted Brenda and her colleague Rosanne at the PathLight conference center in Belize. About fifty students, from first year high school students to college students, came to learn about how much God values them. Brenda and Rosanne did a wonderful job of sharing Biblical truths about the diversity within God’s Kingdom.

At first the students were a little cautious to engage in the conversation. That’s to be expected for a lot of reasons. Brenda and Rosanne were strangers to them, and diversity is not a common topic in Belize the way it is in the States. Plus being outgoing is not a cultural norm in Belize.

But as Brenda’s bubbly personality began to show, the kids began to warm to the topic. Rosanne showed pictures of her family (her father is African-American and her mother is Chinese), and it was amazing to see how the students locked in at that point. Through a series of games, videos and conversations, the students began to grow in their understanding of diversity. They began to see it as a value that goes to the core of their faith.

On the last day the students were asked to complete the sentence, “This weekend I learned that …” Writing on 3×5 cards, the responses were amazing. Here’s a sampling of those answers:

“This weekend I learned that Belize has many different cultures and that everyone has to be together as one in the view of God.”

“This weekend I learned that to be a good leader you don’t heed to be born from a leader. You just need to have responsibility and a great courage to do the things you want to gain your goals in life.”

“This weekend I learned that you should not judge a book by its colour.”

“This weekend i learned that … we are made in the image of God and we are special.”

Get the idea? There are many more answers and PathLight is going to share those over the next few weeks. It was so great to see these students — all of them poor, many from underrepresented communities, half of them girls — begin their journey to self-understanding and self-identity. God showed up this weekend, and it was marvelous to see!

Here are a few pictures I took (and I’m no photographer…sorry) to share with you: