“I cannot help believing in glorious things in a
blind sort of way.”
-- Dorothea Brooke, in George Eliot’s Middlemarch
I guess I’m
proud to say I am very similar to Dorothea Brooke, since I also believe in
glorious things and see glorious things around me where others sometimes see ordinariness. In my classroom, for
instance, I sense the presence of magnificence as soon as my students come
through the door. They don’t always make brilliant statements or give the best
answers, and sometimes their expressions show more world-weariness than
curiosity, but still, their hearts are holding steady in amazing ways, the
cells in their bodies are being reborn with wholesomeness each second, and
thoughts are throwing themselves around their minds like inspired dancers. My students, as well as their ageless and delighted teacher, are as much miracles as every sunrise is, or every slightest sway of
leaves in the fall. Why shouldn’t I believe in glorious things?
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