Sabbath is here. Hafiz, the Sufi poet, wrote this wonderful poem which helps me understand Sabbath more fully. The third stanza speaks to the need to be present in the world. It is each Now that we can testify to the truth. Yet, this truth is always transient, because I recall it later incompletely.
I do not want to step so quickly
over the beautiful line on God’s palm
As I move through earth’s
Marketplace
Today
I do not want to touch any object in this world
Without my eyes testifying to the truth
That everything is
My Beloved
Something has happened
to my understanding of existence
That now always makes my heart full of wonder
and Kindness.
I do not
Want
To step so quickly
Over the sacred place on God’s body
That is right beneath
your own foot
As I dance with
Precious life
Today.
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About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
Teacher as Transformer 
A beautiful poem. So sacred. Thanks for sharing.
Karen
You are welcome Karen.
I will take the time and give the attention needed to savor this day.
That is an inspirational goal.
This is a general comment. Current events have convinced me that teachers can shape the world. Doctors say they save lives and command a very good income. But you shape lives.
In my eyes, your work cannot possibly be less important than that of a good doctor.
Thank you for the lovely comment Micheline.