is what you get

lynn nelson, the leader/guru of GPWP, the writing project at ASU told our class, maybe fifteen years ago, that when he entered a classroom he told the kids his one requirement was that they care... and if they did not care that they pretend to care until they did, because it was by pretending that they learned to not care.

Wayne Dyer said in an audio recording I listened to over and over again until I had it down to rote memory, that the world and the people in it were perfect just the way they were. That children starving in Africa was perfect, and the fact that we couldn't stand it was perfect, too.

I recall sitting in the steam room at the gym years ago with my eyes closed. I was trying, pretending really, to see my daughters as perfect just as they were. They were teenagers. They were doing some very distressing things. I was beginning to realize I could not control all the outcomes, and that the only person I could really influence was myself. One of the things I needed to do was to become more peaceful inside. That required letting go. Seeing them as okay, perfect as they were, was a key component of the process.

And a funny thing happened... as I pretended... as I slowly turned my way of thinking about them around... they changed. Now maybe they just grew up, but I do not think that was the whole thing. I think that when I changed how I thought about them, that gave them the opportunity and encouragement to grow into the good and lovely young women they have become.

What you see is what you get. Studies have been done in classrooms where a teacher is told at the beginning of the year that hers is a gifted class, and by the end of the year that class's test scores show dramatic improvement. Conversely, teachers who are told they have a slow group, have shown much less improvement.

A couple of days ago I wrote about how we see people. I wrote about looking for one positive thing to say, about how change could happen and does happen one person at a time. This is not about saying nice things, although kind words do make a difference. This is about changing your perception... about knowing that Jesus dwells just as surely within George Bush and Dick Cheney (I know, hard to swallow) as it does within Desmond Tutu.

A sixteen year old girl, whose name I do not remember, wrote a poem called We Are The Thunderstorm. In it she said that alone we are like drops of rain hitting the dry earth, making no discernible impact, but together we are like a thunderstorm, quenching thirst, washing away grime. And yet it takes each raindrop.

So I pretend until I learn. I pretend I am having a great day and then realize that my day has improved. I pretend that I see Jesus, an essential and unquestionable good, within a surly eighth grade student and find that they have become people I like. I cling to the idea that the world is unfolding just as it should and work at convincing myself that my being here does make a difference. I read about chaos theory which says a butterfly in Canada fluttering its wings can effect the weather patterns on the Indian Ocean and I pray I am that butterfly.

Wayne Dyer says believing is seeing... but I think it sometimes is a long road to belief... so in the meantime, just pretend. Because, in my experience, what you even just pretend to see, is what you often get.