Warrior Beat
Student Focused-World Class
Many of you have likely heard of author and speaker, Jen Hatmaker. This morning, I read the following reflection. The piece below is written to a female audience and speaks to the power of female relationships. While I ALWAYS appreciate a good article about strong women :0) , as I read these words, I actually likened more of the impact of its message to our Sevier family, than I did to female friendships. It made me consider the responsibility that each of us has to our school culture and it made me think about the power of a TRIBE.
As we prepare for a new school year, I encourage all of us to reflect on the words below as we each consider our own individual impact on the Sevier culture. It’s easy to be positive and collaborative in times of rest and celebration. During these times of peace, I often find it helpful to reflect upon and prepare for how I will respond and behave during of higher anxiety and stress. During those times, it’s sometimes easier to play the role of critic, to point fingers or to blame. Funny how things work, but one can’t be negative without feeling negative inside. And negativity cripples our ability to do good work and to be the ambassadors of hope that our students need and that our colleagues need to persevere and to be productive! Negativity and supporting the status quo is actually much easier than being a problem solver. Yet, sometimes and for whatever reason, we find it easier to rally around those who breathe “I told you so’s….” than to stand up and stand by those who are doing the hard work of protecting the weak and supporting what needs to be repaired and healed within a group.
What is powerful to me about the story below, is that it is only through the herd of elephants’ collaborative efforts, only through their fierce loyalty to the group and only through the courage of each elephant to support the TRIBE in times of trouble, that they succeed! What is exciting about the power of collaboration exemplified in the story, is that it breeds LIFE and CELEBRATION and GRATITUDE!
Enjoy the story below! Let’s commit to ourselves and to our TRIBE now…during our summer…during our time of rest…to stand together throughout the upcoming school-year. Let’s commit that when things get tough, that we will circle up and band together to protect our work, protect each other and protect our students in order to produce new life, new growth, new ideas, stronger students and a stronger school!
#proudtobeawarrior
#worldchangingwarriors
#iloveourtribe
A few months ago, my girl Nichole Nordeman sent me a picture and a story.
It's about female elephants. You know, as all good stories begin. See, in the wild, when a mama elephant is giving birth, all the other female elephants in the herd back around her in formation. They close ranks so that the delivering mama cannot even be seen in the middle. They stomp and kick up dirt and soil to throw attackers off the scent and basically act like a pack of badasses.
They surround the mama and incoming baby in protection, sending a clear signal to predators that if they want to attack their friend while she is vulnerable, they'll have to get through 40 tons of female aggression first.
When the baby elephant is delivered, the sister elephants do two things: they kick sand or dirt over the newborn to protect its fragile skin from the sun, and then they all start trumpeting, a female celebration of new life, of sisterhood, of something beautiful being born in a harsh, wild world despite enemies and attackers and predators and odds.
Scientists tell us this: They normally take this formation in only two cases - under attack by predators like lions, or during the birth of a new elephant.
This is what we do, girls. When our sisters are vulnerable, when they are giving birth to new life, new ideas, new ministries, new spaces, when they are under attack, when they need their people to surround them so they can create, deliver, heal, recover...we get in formation. We close ranks and literally have each others' backs. You want to mess with our sis? Come through us first. Good luck.
And when delivery comes, when new life makes its entrance, when healing finally begins, when the night has passed and our sister is ready to rise back up, we sound our trumpets because we saw it through together. We celebrate! We cheer! We raise our glasses and give thanks.
I have this picture saved in three different places and in a frame. (I also have an elephant ring given to me and my girlfriends from Tara Porter Livesay - it tells me: never alone.) Maybe you need this too. If you are closing ranks around a vulnerable sister, or if your girls have you surrounded while you are tender, this is how we do it.
There is no community like a community of women.
(Holly’s rephrasing: There is no TRIBE like the WARRIOR TRIBE )