Leopard lives and works. Took me about 90 minutes.

Off to see Elizabeth today. We haven’t been in a movie theater since I joined Netflix.

One of my mentors and heroes is a man named Henry Walters. He came to OBI from many years as a pastor and public school administrator. His wife passed away here, and he stayed on teaching and eventually serving as principal. He retired and continued working with students in a state placement facility as a chaplain. He’s a brilliant, eclectic, quick-witted, jazz-loving, book-reading combination of Socrates, Steve Brown and Mike Yaconelli. Many of the men (and many, many of our male students/graduates) have been befriended and mentored by Henry and love him dearly. This past week he had a massive stroke, is paralyzed and has lost his speech. He’s in a rehab center in Lexington and several of us hope to see him soon. I can only imagine what it must be like to be trapped inside a body that cannot move or communicate. Pray for Henry, his family, and those caring for him. He gave us many great years and we love him.

At OBI, this has been a week that we’ll be talking about for many years to come. Events planned and unplanned came together, and our school community lost- through expulsion- more students in 4 days than we usually lose in half the year. Very, very painful. Lots of tears. But also lots of blessings as I’ve seen some amazing examples of repentance, forgiveness and love. One thing that remains with me is what a toxic culture so many of our students have absorbed. What goes in does come out, and it’s sad. Pray for me this weekend as I preach twice to the students and try to encourage them. Everyone lost friends and it’s hard to grieve and then move on, but that is what needs to happen. So please pray again.

Richard: I have many thoughts on that video. The main one is this: Any decent classroom teacher should work on the assumption that education can be promoted in classes, but it happens spontaneously, at moments in, but (mostly) outside of, class, in ways that transcend the entire process of formal school. Any of us with an education know this. It is a combination of teachers, books, moments, anger, reason, relationships, discoveries, eurekas and so on. School takes up too much time- I totally agree with that- but anyone who thinks “school=education” is in the dark.