Suffice it to say, many distractions invaded the business of educating in 2025. I am very thankful that I committed to a habit of reading a book (NOT the news, NOT social media) each morning; those 15-20 minutes over breakfast - which spawned spurts of study and annotation on the weekends and holidays, too – grounded me and centered my work around my locus of control. This was the approach I learned from 2016 to 2021, when we were bombarded and surrounded by rage and contagion. So I felt somewhat prepared for 2025, knowing I would want to keep my focus local. Even so, I could not have predicted how much this routine of daily reading would equip me to fend off the buzzing plagues, push-notice rage, and all the other external noises trying to subvert my priorities. Reading every morning truly inspired and empowered me to stay committed to my values and to the professionals and students I serve.
So what did I read? Just one book. The Bible.
And I read it. The whole thing. Cover to cover.
My wife introduced me to a reading plan designed to go through the Old and New Testaments, a few chapters at a time, over the course of a year. The plan is published by The Bible Recap with helpful introductory videos by the fantastic Bible Project. She had actually completed a plan like this before, and since 2024 saw us take some bold steps in our faith – including away from the church where we had spent the past eight years – I felt urgently called to walk through the Word with her. It harkened me back to my English teaching days: how would I have responded if one of my students built a thesis around a quotation without having read the full novel?
As we searched for a new church during the first third of the year, I found this journey of reading to be very grounding and affirming, as if the Holy Spirit was reassuring me, through the Word, that our criteria for the “right church” were good, and we need not plant ourselves until our hearts felt a divine embrace that welcomed us in. Just before Easter, we walked into the multipurpose room of Burbank Elementary and were awash in a profound affection pulsing through each family, pastor, usher, and greeter. We fell into Inspire’s loving and joyful community - ironically at a time when our morning Bible readings were still well within the Old Testament, often documenting terrible deeds and decisions and dictums. Yet, the verses also implied that this kind of chaos wasn’t what God wanted, so in a beautiful way, we saw in our new church a glimpse of what God wanted contrasted to what He saw in the BCE era. And I saw many parallels between the chaotic kingdoms of the Old Testament and the culture surrounding us right now. The timing was sacred; we saw a slice of what we needed to turn our broken chaos into a semblance of “heaven on earth.”
This is the full story of the Bible. We started in a garden, in an ecosystem created by God where we were generously provided for and breathing in perfect harmony with the rest of creation. But because He made us free beings with an independent will, it was inevitable that we would be tempted to pull away from God. And we were tempted and we did pull away, breaking the harmony, disrupting the ecosystem. God tries for centuries to bring us back together with him, but it gets harder since we also drive ourselves away from each other. We create chasms of judgement and violence and prejudice that keep unity at bay. God’s love pushes through, in the person of Jesus Christ, and He is able to teach and model, for the entire world, how love and compassion bridge those earthly divides and bring us back into divine harmony. We don’t achieve that new Eden by the time the Bible ends - that will require one more visit by Jesus. But we are now much better equipped to sow that garden amongst ourselves, reaching out and embracing each other like the interlaced system of roots that supports a majestic forest.
And so I step into a new semester, as an educator and leader, called to build more collaboration into my work. My prayer for more student contact has been steadily answered. Though it brings a bit of frantic on some days, I’m so grateful that students have found me and talked to me or reached out via email more than ever. I’m also trying to shape team meetings around dialogue, welcoming questions and discussions and diverse voices rather than reciting a slide-filled monologue. It often feels like sailing through a raucous ocean with a rare chance to anchor. Keeping an authentic, collaborative ecosystem alive feels anything but natural. It is daunting and exhausting precisely because it is so contrary to our culture. But we can’t let love fade, especially not now. Especially when “the patterns of this world” become hard, sharp, violent, oppressive, we must sow love into our shared soil. We must prioritize listening, curiosity, and empathy. We must seek genuine buy-in rather than punishing non-compliance. God absolutely wants us to know and care for each other, to be genuinely curious about each other.
Cynicism aimed at justice cannot break through; it’s too easily hijacked and just feeds a colonial system of hierarchy and oppression. Only when we honor our neighbors, learn their stories, and love their humanity can we rebuild the ecosystem and graft harmony back into our garden.
