Words cannot express how humbled I felt when Mr. Lymon shared that the words I wrote last Summer helped to inspire your show. Surrounded by a few of my students, I watched you display your craft with so much energy, so much passion, so much FIRE, that goosebumps covered my skin, and my eyes filled with tears. To imagine that I had any small part of the phenomenal art that you shared with the crowd is simply unfathomable.
It's interesting to note that when I started this blog back during the summer, I was "on fire" for the new year to come. I had learned so many new things about teaching and learning, and I was literally burning with anticipation to begin teaching my new class. My fire for teaching is like those blazing wildfires out West.
Unpredictable. Unassailable. Undaunted.
I decided that starting a blog would be perfect for sharing all of the things that my students and I would be learning and experiencing everyday. I envisioned myself blogging once or twice a week about our journey together, complete with photographs and student bloggers. I built a fire beneath myself, and boy was it blazing!
Well, let me tell you...left untended, a fire will sometimes burn out! Somehow, in the midst of all the singing, talking, reading, laughing, painting, talking, writing, quarreling, dancing, talking, tree hugging, crying, counting, and - did I mention talking?- teaching, my blog was neglected. Sure, I would think of it at midnight when I couldn't sleep, as if it were an ember waiting for me to come and stir the flame back to life. But, there's just so much a girl can do in a day, so there it remained...buried...or so I thought.
Little did I know that this tiny spark had ignited a fire in Tony Lymon, drummer extraordinaire, and that like an Olympic torch bearer, he was passing the flame on to each of you, and that you would soon use it to literally Ignite the World. (For those of you who don't know, the PHS Indoor Percussion Ensemble competes this Friday, April 19, in Dayton, Ohio, in the Scholastic Division of the WORLD Class Championships. I learned last night that there are only twenty ensembles on the planet who qualify for this elite division, and, yes, PHS is home to one of these.)
What thrills me most about this story is that the words displayed on your screen last night:
One spark can change a room...
And, if a spark can change a room, it can change a city...
And, if a spark can change a city, it can change a state...
And, if a spark can change a state, it can change a nation...
And, if a spark can change a nation...
A SPARK CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!
...were justified.
You see, sometimes we start a fire with very well defined intentions. We plot and plan tirelessly before ever daring to strike the very first match. We collect the best fuel we can find, arrange and rearrange the components, and practice for every conceivable scenario. We seek permission from the Fire Marshall again and again, afraid of taking a step in the wrong direction. When we finally find the courage to light the flame, we tend that fire in every way possible. We consult fire management experts and spend hours researching the best way to make our fire grow and fulfill whatever goal we have set for it. We plan and plot tirelessly to ensure that the fire does exactly what the manuals say it should do. We talk ourselves out of taking too many risks with the fire in fear that we might burn down the whole house! But, somehow, in all of this planning and plotting, our original passion can often be extinguished. We find ourselves stomping out other fires that have ignited all around us while we were preoccupied, reducing "our fire" to a formula that we could manage comfortably. We end up tired... burned out... We become fire fighters rather than flame igniters, focused on keeping the fire contained rather that letting it do what fires are meant to do.
To me, the best, the most beautiful, the most powerful fire is the one we don't even know we set. The one that began with the tiny spark of a brilliant idea. The one that rages out of control.
Unpredictable. Unassailable. Undaunted.
As I watched your show unfold last night, I was reminded yet again about how truly easy it is to make an impact. One person literally can impact the world. The catch is, more often than not, it's not usually in the way we planned. And the bonus is, our impact often comes back to us on a much larger scale than we ever anticipated, just as that tiny spark did for me last night.
Jeremiah 20:9 says, "His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." On Friday, my Kindergarten class and I will be watching from Petal as you let go of the spark within. Don't hold anything back! Release the fire inside of you, and let it Ignite the World. Please know that 24 bright and shining children will be cheering you on and singing:
Tonight......
We are young....
So let's set the world on fire...
We can burn brighter....
Than the sun!
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