Ideas & Inspirations

The crack of the bat, the rhythm of innings, the slow unfolding of a game that refuses to be rushed. Opening Day always feels like a reset, not just for teams but for anyone paying attention. The air shifts, the sun lingers a little longer, and the grass begins to reclaim its color. There is something grounding about it, something that signals movement, growth, and a return to possibility. I have always loved baseball for that reason. As a lifelong Cubs fan, I know something about patience, persistence, and the belief that the work eventually pays off. The game teaches you things if you let it. So there I was, tuned into the second game of the season, when a comment from the broadcast stopped me. The announcer mentioned a player's batting average, sitting around .300, and then said something that I could not shake: that player fails seven out of every ten times he steps to the plate. Said plainly, almost as an afterthought. And yet it landed like something worth sitting with. Becau...

Last week, I wrote about the beauty of a lived-in life. The idea came during a morning walk through my neighboring subdivision. It is brand new, while mine has clearly been around for a while. The new development was spotless. Fresh paint, perfect landscaping, sidewalks that looked untouched. Walking back into my own neighborhood, the contrast was immediate. Landscaping stones slightly out of place. A mailbox leaning just a little off center. Grass worn thin where people had cut across the yard instead of following the sidewalk. Nothing looked neglected. It just looked lived in. And honestly, I found it more interesting than the new one. Those small details told a story. Life had happened there. Since writing that piece, another thought has been sitting with me. It surfaced while working through a couple of repairs around the house. The first one involved a section of subflooring near the center of our home. Beneath the carpet, the wood had weakened over time. That part of the house co...

During this past holiday season, I attended my wife’s holiday party. It was exactly what you would expect from a room full of educators. Easy laughter, shared frustrations, food, drinks, and that lightened emotional state that comes when the end of a quarter and a break are finally in sight. As we sat talking, my wife and her colleagues started pointing out the “babies” who had recently joined her team. New teachers. Fresh energy. Wide-eyed optimism. At some point, we realized something that stopped us for a moment. Some of them were the same age as our own kids. Then one of her colleagues walked in, stopped in her tracks, and stared at me. She looked familiar, but I could not immediately place her. She eventually sat with us and said, almost casually, that I had been her principal at Thea Bowman. I was only at Thea Bowman for one year. It was my first year as a principal. I was thirty years old and, if I am honest, there were plenty of moments when I questioned whether I should be run...