Breed Love
Monday, September 23, 2019, 10:03 am
I spent this past weekend in Apalachicola Florida celebrating Mother’s (my grandmother) 99th birthday. She just called me to share that she was reflecting on the conversation we had about why earlier this year I closed GROW, a cooperative learning community (school) rooted in self-directed education that I co-founded in 2015. I shared with her that my insistence on having a program that was accessible to all no matter their socio-economic status created insurmountable challenges that ultimately proved to be unsustainable as a business. I knew that in order for my vision to come to fruition I would have to design myself out. So I removed myself and created a video to share with parents how they could facilitate self-directed education with their children on their own at home or in collaboration with other parents.
I told Mother that the awarenesses that I’ve come into through my work and research for creating the Theory of Indivisibility podcast which explores the inner workings of capitalism and other social systems have created challenges for me as I try to balance both making a sustainable living and living authentically in ways that don’t harm others indirectly.
While all of Mother’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren were together we took a moment to share our fondest memories of her. I spoke about how she was the epitome of love and how her maiden name Breedlove was so fitting. I shared with her how unconditional love had become the foundation of everything I stand for and work towards. When I was done speaking she said to me “I want you to read 1 Corinthians chapter 13 in the bible when you get home” and I told her that I would.
When she called me this morning she told me that what I told her about how I didn’t want to run a program that primarily served those who are economically privileged enough to pay tuition to send their children to an independent school she thought about how my stance was aligned with the verse in the bible that she asked me to read. I was both humbled and in awe of the fact that, at her age, she really absorbed our conversation and took the time to reflect on it.
I’m so grateful that I have a grandmother who has so much experience and wisdom that she is still capable of sharing with me at the age of 99.
Me and Mother (Ella Breedlove Speed)
1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)
If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
