Wednesday, October 03, 2012

GLORIOUS THINGS


“I cannot help believing in glorious things in a blind sort of way.”
     -- Dorothea Brooke, in George Eliot’s Middlemarch

     I guess I’m proud to say I am very similar to Dorothea Brooke, since I also believe in glorious things and see glorious things around me where others sometimes see ordinariness.  In my classroom, for instance, I sense the presence of magnificence as soon as my students come through the door. They don’t always make brilliant statements or give the best answers, and sometimes their expressions show more world-weariness than curiosity, but still, their hearts are holding steady in amazing ways, the cells in their bodies are being reborn with wholesomeness each second, and thoughts are throwing themselves around their minds like inspired dancers.  My students, as well as their ageless and delighted teacher, are as much miracles as every sunrise is, or every slightest sway of leaves in the fall. Why shouldn’t I believe in glorious things?  

No comments: