Day 20: “Teach Us To Delight In Simple Things”

When I was teaching, there was always a time in the lesson, or the week, or the chapter when I knew we needed to make a connection.

I am sure there is some sort of 2014 educational term for such a method.


When I started teaching high school English in 1975 at Van Vleck High School in Van Vleck , Texas, that method was based solely on instincts.

I just knew we (the teacher and the students) needed to pause for a moment and re-group.

And so I followed that instinctual system for the next 32 years of my career.


So where are we today in this process of writing for 31 days?

Is the message still clear?

Everything I write at White Spray Paint conveys one simple message:  finding and enjoying simple things.


Rudyard Kipling said it best.                  "Teach us to delight in simple things."



For the four years I attended and graduated from Saint Mary’s Hall in San Antonio, this quote as the school’s motto, was everywhere.

As a 14 year old girl , I mistakenly thought enjoying simple things was a goal, or something you learned.

Why else would it be the motto at a boarding school?


I was wrong.

Enjoying simple things, whatever they may be, is a state of being- not a goal.


In my experience, I can’t make that happen.


The paradox is that even though I can’t make that happen,  I can achieve it quickly and easily, as long as it is

a feeling I PREFER – over all of the busyness and seriousness of life.


I hope that is the message you hear here- in all of the quirkiness and ‘you’re not going to believe what happened to me’ things I share.