A couple of nights ago I had a hard time falling asleep.  I analyzed this and tried to figure out what was happening. Was I anxious about something in the future? Not really. Was I upset about something that had happened? Not that I could think of. I finally put my finger on it--my head was so full of information that my mind was still spinning and taking it all in.  

I am reading books and listening to talks and podcasts for a big part of the day.  I have class discussions, ministering visits with a variety of people, and assignments to write.  I am drinking from a fire hose and learning so much. My mind is trying to process it all. I love being stretched.

Here are some nuggets I have been pondering:

"When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.  The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness. That is the friend who cares."

Henry Nouwen 

Hold a hand, listen, be present.

Master the present moment.

"What a precious vocation (Chaplaincy) we are a part of! To be invited into the worst moments in a person's life and attempt to bring the comfort of God to them is extremely precious."

Chaplain Stories Podcast

The opposite of anxiety is curiosity.

We have a crockpot God and a microwave mindset.

I am getting behind on posting about books I have read.  Here are three books I liked and quotes from each:

Legal status is, of course, an invisible trait.  In multi-ethnic America, is impossible to know whether someone is a United States-born citizen, a naturalized immigrant, a legal permanent resident, a visa holder, or an undocumented immigrant by simply appraising their appearance (pg. 94).

More than other immigration issues, the fate of undocumented children perhaps represented best the torn heart of immigration policy and politics in the United States over the past two decades (pg. 100).

 

 

Along the same lines, I have found that if we feed the unconscious, it will discover connections between what may appear to be disparate realities.  The path to artistic insight in one direction often involves deep study of another—the intuition makes uncanny connections that lead to a crystallization of fragmented notions (pg. 85).

It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set.  Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential (pg. 123).

Instead of running from our emotions or being swept away by their initial gusts, we should learn to sit with them, become at peace with their unique flavors, and ultimately discover deep pools of inspiration.  I have found that this is a natural process.  Once we build our tolerance for turbulence and are no longer upended by the swells of our emotional life, we can ride them and even pick up speed with their slopes (pg. 211).

 

A lot of people think that Chinese people are smarter.  No, they are not smarter.  They’re paying attention and they do their homework.  You look at the regular kids, and it’s not that they’re dumb; it’s just that they don’t put in as much effort (pg. 82).

Despite decades of institutional discrimination and racial prejudice, Asian Americans have seen their racial status change from unassimilable to exceptional, most notably in the domain of education (pg. 116).

Stereotypes are widely held, oversimplified, fixed images or ideas of particular groups (pg. 123). Stereotype promise leads to attitudes and actions (pg. 126). Teacher’s positive stereotypes of Asian American students can change the behavior of even some of the most mediocre students (pg. 127).