I've had enough.

I've had enough.

Really.

Haven't you?

I'm tired of the hatred, fear, negativity, and discord.

I'm tired of the selfishness.

Most of all, I am tired of politicians-- most of whom don't represent the majority of their constituents (instead they represent the lobbyists) -- and the two major political parties who refuse to work together.

But even concerning people I know, I am tired of the conflicts, the misunderstandings, the arguing, the lies.

Yes, I said lies. And we're all guilty of spreading them.

"What?" you say. "I don't lie."

Maybe not intentionally. But every time you share something on social media without checking out the facts, you are helping to spread more lies. Gossip with a capital "G." People believe what they read. Don't. Anybody, any source, can start a rumor (lie) that somehow becomes "truth." Take it with a grain of salt.

In today's political climate, there is so much transparency, we no longer believe in our leaders. I can see why. They've done so much to disappoint. Before television, leaders were held in higher esteem because the common man didn't know as much about them. No doubt those leaders had their critics and naysayers. After all, the Civil War came about because of the southern states' fears of Abraham Lincoln, right?

It's just that it's worse now. Our freedom to criticize our leaders has led us to go to extremes, to the point that it is more than critical. It is vengeful.

As a Christian, that bothers me. We are taught in Scripture to honor those in authority. This command was given during a time of horrible Roman oppression. Yet those people were to honor their pagan leaders? Wow!

I find nothing in Scripture where Jesus or his followers ever criticized the Roman government. Read it. Read it closely. Let me know if you find it. I've looked and looked. I've never seen it.

Instead, they were told to honor them, as long as that honor did not result in disobedience to God's laws.

So how did Jesus and his followers hope to change the world? By political means? I don't see that.

No, by the message. The message of love and hope for redemption. Change the world one person at a time, not one agenda at a time.

That's not to say political change is not necessary from a moral stance. Slavery was a crime against man and had to stop. Laws exist concerning drunkenness and drugs because of the harm done to the innocent as well as an overall deterioration of society. Pro-life activists strive to protect the most innocent of all, the unborn. Because the unborn and children cannot fight for themselves, someone has to fight for them.

I could go on and on, but here are my thoughts about our country and the situation in which we find ourselves. President Bush had the "points of light" program. I call these my "points of enlightenment." For whatever my opinions are worth!

1. Stop the generalizing and labeling. Just because one person in a group does something bad, that doesn't make the entire group bad. Understand that and get over it.
2.  Politicians, your smear campaigns are exhausting. We'd love to see what you're for as much as what you're against. And don't make it personal. Each one of you has a skeleton in your closet somewhere. Stick to the issues. The most moral president we've ever had was Jimmy Carter, a man of strong Christian principles, but unfortunately, he was an ineffective president. A great man in many ways, but not a good leader for our country.
3. Stop being afraid based upon what people tell you. Research the topic. Read about it. Study it. Learn the truth of the matter. I am sorry, but the Obama Muslim thing was and is tiring. Personally, I don't think he is a Muslim. I do think he is a Muslim empathizer. That's my opinion based upon my research and observations. Could I be wrong? Sure. But I was not going to let others tell me what to believe. I researched for myself. Believing what people say without verifiable facts is the equivalent of believing what any preacher says without checking it out in the Bible.
4.  Let's work together. Let's find common ground. Don't compromise your core beliefs and principles, obviously, but be willing to listen. The Bible also reminds us to be swift to hear and slow to speak.

So before you Tweet something or share a link to Facebook, consider your reasons for doing it. Are your followers going to benefit from it? Is it for the good of your family, your community, your country? Or is it yet another poison to weaken our unity and faith?

We have to unite. Let's stop being Caucasian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, etc. Yes, we identify with our heritage. But let's recognize our unique heritages while at the same time just being Americans. (By the way, this idea came from one of my Facebook friends. Wise man.)

Sometimes we call it a racial problem, when it is actually a culture problem. Let's understand that and move on.

Yes, school's out for summer and it has been for three weeks in my neck of the woods. Strange to me that we get out for summer break in the middle of spring and start back to school in the middle of summer, but if that's how the powers that be want to schedule things, I am more than happy to go along with whatever they decide as long as I get the time off from teaching.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not lazy. My family can attest to that. My oldest son says I'm like a gerbil on crack, always moving, always completing a project, always doing something. I mean, here it is, a Sunday afternoon, and a lot of people my age are taking naps. Naps are not for me. Never have liked them. When I start liking them, you'll know I'm truly old or truly sick.

I'm not afraid of work. My dad started me working part-time with a paper route when I was 12, a job I kept until I was 14. It didn't take long to do each Friday afternoon, but at that age, it felt like eternity. Then he had me working two afternoons a week "stuffing" newspapers at the newspaper plant he managed. "Stuffing" papers is using glycerin on your hands to grab circulars or special sections of the newspaper to insert inside of another section. Large newspapers have machines that do it. Our small town had people. Like me, working alongside adults for two hours two afternoons a week. Once again, an eternity. When I was sixteen, he had me typing eight hours a day, four days a week. And so on and so on. My dad taught me to work.

But teaching. . .it's a different animal. I worked in banking for over eight years before I decided to enter the classroom as an ill-prepared French teacher. Oh, I was prepared for the French part. What I wasn't prepared for was the teaching part. I had never taken an education class or done one day of student teaching, so you can imagine how my year started.

Lesson #1 in teaching: if you start the year wrong, you're sunk for the rest of the year. The students take their cue the first day of class. If you come across as a push-over, that's exactly how they will treat you.

Add classroom management problems to learning how to design a lesson plan that is effective and manageable during the 50-minute class period and grading papers and notifying parents when students are struggling and sponsoring a club or two and working ballgames and taking education classes at the local university at night. . .Did I mention my first year of teaching was the absolute worst year of my life?

It was 30 years ago and I still try to block it from my memory. I felt like a total failure. I was a failure. I had gone from a self-confident loan officer and vice-president of a bank (yes, I did take a pay cut) to an obviously ineffective teacher who didn't know what she was doing. Luckily for me and my students, I finally figured it out and hopefully I've done and continue to do an okay job. But for the first five years -- oh, how I wanted to go back to banking and the adult world!

Why, you may wonder, did I stick with it? Truthfully, I did it because I was a mom and I wanted mom-friendly hours. I wanted to be at home when my children were out of school.

But no one told me that instead of working 40 to 45 hours a week like I did at the bank that I would be working 50 plus hours every week during the school year. So those mom-friendly hours weren't all that friendly during the school year, especially when my own children needed help with homework and I had 130 tests to grade.

Lesson #2 in teaching: if you do the job right, you will put in nine to ten hours or more every day including some work on the weekends. Saturday nights at home often mean grading papers while I semi-watch a television program. You have other assignments. If you teach in middle or high school, you have ballgames to work and also to attend. You are part of the school community, so you need to support the students in their extra-curricular efforts such as drama productions, fund-raisers, musical performances, and more.

I've gotten lazy after 30 years of it. I love my students and want to support them, but I don't go as much as I used to. I'm 60. I'm tired. But I'm still interested in the kids and what they accomplish.

Lesson #3 in teaching: if you want to be a really good teacher, you'd better learn how to act, at least a little. There are days you're just not going to be on top of your game. Your patience will be running short. You will have a personal problem eating at you and you don't want to teach those students the difference in a noun and a pronoun. Kids in high school are very perceptive. They'll figure out very quickly that something is wrong. If you don't want them know how you're feeling, act like everything's great. Especially when you've taught the same lesson six times that day and you think you're going to throw up if you have to teach it again. Well, maybe throw up is a harsh reaction. Let's just say you're tired at that point, but you need to be energetic.

Yes, school is out for summer. Teachers are catching up on lost sleep and enjoying some time off. A few are teaching summer school (bless their hearts, I've done it, meaning I had four weeks off in the summer). Some will be attending workshops or taking additional classes over the summer. Others will be looking for another job all summer and then resign themselves to staying with teaching when they can't find anything in their small town that pays as well as teaching does. And most, believe it or not, will already be thinking of next year and making plans for their new crop of students, thinking about how they will improve or change what they did the year before. It's just what teachers do.

Teaching is one of the hardest jobs I've ever had. (I was a principal for seven years, so I will reserve that experience for another blog). I envied teachers and their time off when I worked at the bank. After my first year, I realized if teachers had to teach 50 weeks out of the year like most jobs, no one would do it. It's tough, if done correctly.

But it's rewarding. I love my students. . . well, most of them. Maybe I love all of them, even the ones who aren't so likable, because I care about them and their futures. After all, agape love wants what is best for others, so I feel that for my students. I love my co-workers. We are part of a huge fraternity, and you can't really understand it unless you're one of us. We get it. Until you've walked in our shoes, you don't.

So to all of you teachers out there -- enjoy your summer. July 4 will be here before you know it (and admit it, when July 4 gets here you think the summer is almost over). To those of you not in education and working all summer, keep in mind that teaching is not what you think it is and maybe you made the right decision after all. :)