It was last Thursday afternoon and I was pulling into my assigned high school to pick up the students for their trip home. I knew that something bad had happened because the students that were hanging around the school were not as animated as usual and there weren’t as many students. The seven police cars that were surrounding the building added to the evidence that ‘something was up’.
Soon, the students that rode my bus started getting on and each one had a lot to tell me about what had happened. I became very concerned to learn that two students were in the hospital with knife wounds. There had been a stabbing. I quickly learned that one of the students that was in the hospital rode my bus.
On the bright side, I learned that the student who rode my bus – who is now in the hospital – got stabbed while trying to save someone else’s life.
My bus was obviously filled with a lot of concerned chatter, during the course of our trip and it seemed that as each second passed I was becoming more and more filled with anger for this human race or ours. I hate violence and I hated thinking that this problem was just beginning as I imagined more students turning to aggressive action to find vengeance in the days to come. Time will tell for this concern of mine…
Later that evening I went online to see the reports about this incident. As you can imagine, the news reports were lacking in their insights and investigation – as I find they most often do. This is a link to the news story and video feed from London’s local news station: http://www.atv.ca/london/news_70112.aspx
I let the last of my students off the bus and then I had to pull over to catch a quick breath of fresh air – and to recollect my thoughts – before I continued to my elementary school to escort those students home. I was extremely agitated and completely bummed out!
When I arrived at the elementary school, my spirits were quickly turned around. Each of my students presented larger than life smiles to me as the approached the bus and many of them greeted me with a ‘Peace out, Mr. Jim!’
Over the last few days, I had built a strong friendship with each of these students. I had introduced my bus as ‘The Peace Bus’ and each day I added two more peace-art decorations to the bus. Each day the students would look around to find the new decorations and I had told them that soon I would be asking them to help me decorate our bus with some of their own artwork. They became very excited!
One young girl presented this full page drawing to me just before she got on the bus, that afternoon. I was very amazed that someone would take this initiative to contribute creativity to my bus before I had even asked. The negative thoughts that had filled my brain because of the horrific incident at the high school were replaced with thoughts of joy and rapture for the beauty that humanity can be. Thanks Stephanie! You have filled me with renewed hope!!!
Stephanie’s artwork delighted my senses. The title for her art is ‘Peace In Space’ and in the centre of the drawing there is a peace symbol with a rocket booster attached to help propel it into the universe. The universe is filled with many peace symbols and two of them are orbited by rings to suggest that the peace symbols may represent planets. Stephanie obviously loves dogs and I can tell because there are many little dog faces, dog bones and dog paw prints decorating the heavens.
I thought that it was great that she had filled in the environment of this painting with the solid blue of space and many, many shooting stars. My mostest favouritestest part of this art creation was the tiny little peaceman spacedude! He (or – sorry! It could be a she) is just funking out, possible doing a little space dance, waving with the victory peace symbol in his/her hand - - - LOL!!! I can’t stop smiling – excuse me for a moment…
Jim
Soon, the students that rode my bus started getting on and each one had a lot to tell me about what had happened. I became very concerned to learn that two students were in the hospital with knife wounds. There had been a stabbing. I quickly learned that one of the students that was in the hospital rode my bus.
On the bright side, I learned that the student who rode my bus – who is now in the hospital – got stabbed while trying to save someone else’s life.
My bus was obviously filled with a lot of concerned chatter, during the course of our trip and it seemed that as each second passed I was becoming more and more filled with anger for this human race or ours. I hate violence and I hated thinking that this problem was just beginning as I imagined more students turning to aggressive action to find vengeance in the days to come. Time will tell for this concern of mine…
Later that evening I went online to see the reports about this incident. As you can imagine, the news reports were lacking in their insights and investigation – as I find they most often do. This is a link to the news story and video feed from London’s local news station: http://www.atv.ca/london/news_70112.aspx
I let the last of my students off the bus and then I had to pull over to catch a quick breath of fresh air – and to recollect my thoughts – before I continued to my elementary school to escort those students home. I was extremely agitated and completely bummed out!
When I arrived at the elementary school, my spirits were quickly turned around. Each of my students presented larger than life smiles to me as the approached the bus and many of them greeted me with a ‘Peace out, Mr. Jim!’
Over the last few days, I had built a strong friendship with each of these students. I had introduced my bus as ‘The Peace Bus’ and each day I added two more peace-art decorations to the bus. Each day the students would look around to find the new decorations and I had told them that soon I would be asking them to help me decorate our bus with some of their own artwork. They became very excited!
One young girl presented this full page drawing to me just before she got on the bus, that afternoon. I was very amazed that someone would take this initiative to contribute creativity to my bus before I had even asked. The negative thoughts that had filled my brain because of the horrific incident at the high school were replaced with thoughts of joy and rapture for the beauty that humanity can be. Thanks Stephanie! You have filled me with renewed hope!!!
Stephanie’s artwork delighted my senses. The title for her art is ‘Peace In Space’ and in the centre of the drawing there is a peace symbol with a rocket booster attached to help propel it into the universe. The universe is filled with many peace symbols and two of them are orbited by rings to suggest that the peace symbols may represent planets. Stephanie obviously loves dogs and I can tell because there are many little dog faces, dog bones and dog paw prints decorating the heavens.
I thought that it was great that she had filled in the environment of this painting with the solid blue of space and many, many shooting stars. My mostest favouritestest part of this art creation was the tiny little peaceman spacedude! He (or – sorry! It could be a she) is just funking out, possible doing a little space dance, waving with the victory peace symbol in his/her hand - - - LOL!!! I can’t stop smiling – excuse me for a moment…
Jim
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3 comments:
That is truly inspiring! Thank you!!
Jim! It truly is an honour to know you as YOU are a healthy inspiration to many. Keep up the great work... the world needs you! Much Love ♥
Peaceman, if ever there was a story that moved me to tears it was this one! You are my inspiration and hero!
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