Sunday, May 01, 2005

crash and burn

i hate it when i am really excited about a bible study and it simply crashes and burns. that's what happened this morning. right now i'm in a time period where sunday mornings are simply not my favorite things. that happens from time to time. i don't feel like we're doing anything exciting and challenging right now and therefore it's sometimes a bit hum drum. i know myself well enough to know that most of these feelings come from my emotional cycle and that the feelings will disappear when the summer arrives. of course, my 11th & 12th grade sunday school class is a different story all together.

i usually look forward to my times with these kids each week. we usually have great discussions on scripture and how JESUS is changing our lives. i really enjoy the whole thing. i thought i was going to have the same experience today. i was really looking forward to what we were going to be discussing. i was convinced that it mattered and that the teens would get into discussing it. boy was i wrong. i don't know what was going on - probably a large dose of senioritis - but our discussion pretty much ended before it ever had a chance to get started. it was ugly.

after the lesson i quickly left the building feeling pretty dejected.

still i know that sometimes that garbage just happens. it could have been any combination of things - poor communication skills on my part, a lesson that wasn't just right for that time, a gorgeous day outside that had everyone wanting to get out of the building, young love, young hatred, who knows what it could have been. sometimes, no matter how well i have prepared, no matter how excited i am about what we are going to be dealing with, no matter how important i think the topic is ... sometimes for various reasons it's just not going to connect, the students' minds will go else where, and the whole thing is going to flop.

i know this is just going to happen every now and there nothing i can do about it. of course, that doesn't mean i have to like it when it does happen. i don't like it. in fact, i hate it.

on the good side - i have a student whose dad is a tour bus driver for the u2 vertigo tour and today he brought me one of the the tour's stage staff t-shirts.

3 Comments:

  • SHUT UP! You got a U2 Tour T-shirt! I told my parents that they could consider birthdays and Christmases a closed matter for the rest of my life if they could somehow come up with U2 tickets for this tour. Looks like that's not going to happen, either.

    Oh, yeah, sorry. I realize that most of your post was about something else entirely.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sunday, May 01, 2005 8:36:00 PM  

  • thanks for the "sorry" j.t. life is better now.

    the t-shirt is not really a "tour shirt" in the sense of a shirt you would buy when you went to a concert. rather, this is on of the shirts that the roadies where on stage. it's really pretty boring looking since they basically need just a black shirt to hide themselves with. there are just a few small markings on the shirt that signify it as the stage crew's shirt. ot's still quite cool.

    btw, i know the feeling on the tickets. pam and i are on again off again considering going to the houston show.

    By Blogger robert terrell, at Monday, May 02, 2005 8:05:00 PM  

  • dude..been there, done that, got that t-shirt...not the u2 one, but the other one...

    wanna know what is equally puzzling? The lesson that you didn't prepare for, have no confidence in, are completely positive that it is going to be the worse night of your life...then a Holy Moment happens.

    go figure...

    By Blogger Grant, at Monday, May 02, 2005 8:54:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home