I awake this Father’s Day morning blessed to have two wonderful children. What an awesome gift and an awesome responsibility to father children! Silly to celebrate on a given Sunday in that every day feels like Father’s Day to me. I bask in that glow, and then my mind turns to work. Sad, but true. Crack of dawn on Father’s Day and I am thinking, and worrying and processing things Edna. My kids will forgive me, because they know that is how it has always been.
I have an incredibly high tolerance for what I call creative tension. That is the space between the identification of a difficult problem and the resolution of that problem. That space, that in-between time, creates a tension, a pain, a fear, a worry, an angst in an organization that is very difficult to tolerate for most. I tolerate it better than most. One of my favorite quotations comes from H.L. Mencken: “For every complex problem there is a simple solution, and it is wrong.” It is between the posing or discovery of the problem and the arrival or discovery of the solution that creative tension exists. I feel it. It can gnaw at your guts and we want to rush to confrontation, decision-making, resolve. If we do so without reflection, without examination of our core beliefs, then we are likely to create worse problems down the road. I am not willing to seek simple resolve for the sake of releasing tension. I am willing to sit with it, seek insight, seek discovery, seek information, and then select an answer. I will also confess I seek divine help and inspiration. I am not in control, I am not omniscient. I have a job to do, inspired by the supernatural and addressed with whatever God-given gifts and whatever learnings and experiences I bring to the table. I am just willing to sit with the tension awaiting resolve longer than most.
Approaching tough problems like this can be very frustrating to those around me who await a decision, I know. They feel angst. Fix it! Resolve it! Decide and be done! A newly found dear friend shared recent fortune cookie wisdom with me, “Life always gets harder near the summit.” How true. We are in the hard part near the summit. We, as a system are in the midst of creative tension. Who will do what? Who will stay? Who will go? What is going on? What are the changes coming?
I know some of those answers. I will stay. I wrestled with it, I have struggled, the Board has struggled and our relationship is not perfect, but it is getting better, more so as we are honest and open and re-build our mutual confidence. I had to make that decision first, though, candidly it continues to resurface as the Board and I encounter new obstacles and new problems, but for now, I have committed. If that helps you with your creative tension then that is good.
I know some of you have decided to stay and I celebrate that. I also celebrate all the hours of talk we have had, the new friendships and professional bonds that we have created. What a wonderful group of human beings you are and it is my pleasure to work with you for the coming year. Thanks.
I know who I will recommend for some of our vacant positions. That is good and it shall be clear as of Wednesday morning, 6/20, who those people are. I have my reasons for each recommendation, and despite what you may speculate on Facebook, the reasons are grounded in what I see as the nature of the issues we have recently faced and the talents and abilities of folks I know. I want trust back in this system. I want you to trust me. I want the Board to trust me. I want to trust the Board. Tuesday night is an important step toward achieving those goals.
For other issues and problems and uncertainties I continue to sit with the tension. My creative tension over Richard is resolved. He has left us and will be OK. He and I will be OK. It is my hope that we can help him celebrate his new position and that he can help us recover by not attacking from without. My creative tension over Melissa’s departure is not resolved, but I am working on it and trust her to help me work on it. I have relied on her as my professional friend and confidant for so long that there is an ache in my heart as she prepares to depart. I want to be clear with her before she leaves. I care for and respect her tremendously, will miss her terribly, and want to remain both friends and colleagues. If we can accomplish that, I will be well. I believe the same is true for her.
I am deeply concerned about teachers who have decided to leave us, especially high school teachers. I beseech those who have considered leaving and are on the cusp of committing to that departure to sit with your own creative tension. Please do not make a significant professional decision motivated by personal pain and confusion. Career decisions should never be made in pain and angst. Sit with it. Edna kids need you. We want you to stay. If you were meant to teach in an inner city junior high then that is where you would have been all along. This calling, this profession is bigger than any one of us. Be where you need to be, wherever that is. In that way you will best serve kids.
So, the creative tension continues, but shall be resolved soon. I sit with it. I ponder it. I gnaw at it and it at me. But I have a job to do and so do you. Kids will come to school this fall and we will be ready. Join us, celebrate with us, and remain with us. It will be worth it. It will be better!
Now, back to my children to celebrate Father’s Day!
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