Pain and Gain

Thankful today for suffering -- or more specifically, I'm thankful for progress that discipline brings.

There is a kind of suffering that leads to happiness, though I think this fact receives little press.

Years back, I heard a successful football coach tell his players:

“No matter what, you’re gonna suffer in life. You’ll either suffer the hard work that greatness requires, or you’ll suffer the pain of knowing you didn’t do all you could to achieve greatness."

Vacay

2 and 1/2 days of school vacation begin right now!

Life is good today.

What A Coincidence

Random thought about this blog:

I like the way the name (Daydreaming Mr.) and look (including the birds at the top of the page) for this blog were chosen before I ever knew the name my teenagers would use to address me every day ("Mister") and before I knew about the phenomenon of gorgeous flocks of white birds that always soar through the mountain sky here.

Doesn't Take Much To Please Me

I had a good time with the three-cheese grilled cheese sandwich someone
recommended at a local cafe.

Dinner for one was a success when I finally tried a lunch plate I heard about from one of the other foreign teachers.

I realize my introverted little experience in life is funny. To me, relationships are at the center of everything meaningful that happens for us humanoids. Even so, I tend to spend a substantial amount of time by myself. I guess there's never any guarantee that a person's location and luck will give him the kind of friends that making hanging out together a bunch seem desirable.

For me, there's a lot of solitude but also the tremendous blessing of being okay with it. I can see how feelings like sadness and depression would weigh heavy if I didn't have the benefit of this contentment.

My mom loves telling the story of how I was always the kind of kid that could play outside all by myself. Guess some things never change.

They Say It's A Lost Art

Think back:

remember the last time you got a two-page handwritten letter of gratitude from your boss?

Me neither.

But that's what I received this week. It felt pretty cool.

I think I was in high school the last time someone gave me personal correspondence of that length written by hand just for me.

Here Comes The Bride

My landlord's family is, like, 7 different kinds of awesome. And when the youngest brother got married over the weekend, guess who the family invited to the wedding...

What an honor for me!

The event was actually a religious ceremony held the day after Gerson and Melissa's marriage was made official in the town's municipal building.

I thought there was something really cool about doing it that way, as far as the bride and groom are concerned. It's as though the part of it all that's really only between the man and woman had its own space to take place privately for the two of them, with a following-day after party with friends and family all dressed up, smiling, celebrating, and eating good food.

Three of the Gonzalez sisters:
some of my most beautiful friends in Copan.

It's hard to overestimate how much the Gonzalez family has enriched my amazing experience here. Thinking about them yesterday, I asked the Lord to let his blessing fall on them for the blessing they've been to me.

You could probably guess that Xiomara, pictured here in green, is the crazy one!  Such a fun personality.

Torn

For some reason, thoughts of home have increased for me. This is unexpected since there was a long period when I wasn't sure I would ever care to live in the states again.

Today, also unexpected was the question that entered my mind at school as I walked past a group of teenagers:

Am I really ready to let the people of this gentle, humble culture out of my life forever?

Why Did I Come Here?

Maybe I had to leave home

to learn how to be home...
how to receive home
and have eyes to see home.

The time abroad has taught me what I couldn't know before --
the way to love and live a life that is simple, rich,

family-focused, free, and wealthy...
in a world that is needlessly busy and complicated,

hollow, shallow,

self-focused, stuff-focused, debt-filled and tied up and poor.

National Track Meet: The Results Are In

When I watched one of your discus throwers at practice during last year's season, I noticed some things that made me feel she showed a lot of promise.

Later, I remarked to the other coaches (and to the athlete herself) that I thought she could be really special as a thrower someday, though she would of course need to do the hard work required of a champion.

Her performance at the national track meet last year was not a source of pride for her, unfortunately. Even great track athletes don't necessarily win every time.

But now that the results are in for this year's national meet, I'd just like to point out that the young lady is the #2 thrower in the country...and it's only her junior year.

This is me bragging, with no shame and no apology.

Blindsided

Gotta love those experiences of being blindsided by little paws and arms attached to kids from the elementary school side of campus.

Frequent givers of hugs.

Pushers

Grateful today for beautiful humans who crashed into my youth, childhood, and young adult years, pushing me beyond what was previously comfortable for or required of me.

The challenges they set in front of me ended up revealing things I didn't know I was made of.

And these days, my high expectations for the teenagers at school remind me of all that.

Taking Honduras Home

This photo taken in a southeastern U.S. city sparked hope for my future.
It opened my thinking to possibilities I'm rather interested in for somehow bringing the simple peacefulness of
small town Honduras to my native land when I return there someday.