Watching vs. Doing

I love music. I love listening to music, all kinds. But listening to classical music, especially string quartets is possibly the most enjoyable for me. I not only listen to these other musicians making the music, but I can see and feel what it would be like to play that music myself. When I play the music myself, I enter the world of that song along with all others who have played it in the past. Music has been a place to express myself emotionally and mentally.

I love sports. I love playing sports, all kinds. But watching basketball and disc golf is my favorite by far. I can share in the experience and love of the sport because of the way I feel while actually playing those sports.

There's something about doing rather than watching that has hit me for the past year of covid. I've consumed a lot of media, youtube, sports, tv shows, and movies. I've gained an appreciation for people who do gardening, people who run, people who take care of their physical health, and even writers who come up with some very good tv shows. However, I feel a whole lot better when I am the one making things happen, when I stir the pond (I feel like that's an expression?). 

I remember a game growing up called Steal the Bacon. There were two teams lines up at opposite ends of the gym/court/field. Each person had a number assigned to them. The judge called out "Three!" or some other number, and that particular number from each team ran to the center and tried to bring back the football or bowling pin from the middle without getting tagged by your opponent. This knowledge that your number could be called at any time kept me on my toes, brought the adrenaline of becoming a doer, not a watcher, partaking in the game and possibly making something happen for our team.

In leading BLOCK for the first time, I didn't want to create a bunch of watchers in the middle and high school students. I feel that their entire day is made up of watching. Watch your teachers and listen, come home and watch tv. Although zoom meetings are pretty much watching a phone or computer screen, I've been convicted to make it more interactive and allow the students to partake more, knowing that at any time I could ask them a question, or want their opinion on a topic, or ask them to share about their lives, or ask them to balance a book on their head.

Since January 12th, I feel that BLOCK has been more interactive and less of them coming to watch and see how I am going to teach them, entertain them, etc. Sure I can share about my own life, and yes, there is something to be said of wisdom, but I gotta be able to let the students try to do things, let them make their own mistakes, and be there for the times they are going through new things in life. So far, we've gotten to know some awesome students (emphasis on some, because attendance is currently low), but I'm optimistic and feel momentum for an improving program is close at hand.

If you are reading this, I'm going to be direct and state the obvious....you are reading a blog. If I were to encourage you to be a doer, here is something very practical and not very time-consuming that will be beneficial to you, to me, and to us.

What you can do right now:

-Pray that God will use zoom to extend our reach to more students than we could have ever predicted or expected in our own limited minds.

-Pray for our country. If you lean politically one way more than the other, pray for the other side, not like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11 ("God, I thank you that I am not like other people.") but like the tax collector in Luke 18:13 ("God, have mercy on me, a sinner.")

-Follow or "Like" us on Facebook, 2nd Mile Ministries.

Thank you to those who have used smile.amazon.com and designated us your charity of choice when ordering things on Amazon. I think we made like four times as much last month than in the previous month.