The Virtue of Humility. Every Day.

The virtue of humility permits us to live before God as we truly are. Humility also is God’s way of making me realize almost every single one of my faults and weaknesses. I’m pretty much living the virtue of humility every day lately. Here’s a few ways how:

1. Subbing at a nearby Catholic school, I joined the faculty for their morning prayer. Why not?!?! During prayer, one teacher announces loudly that she knows me from somewhere. The principal and I look at each other, and he loudly announces, “No, no, Mrs. Brickler is here to sub today!” By the time that teacher got to her classroom after morning prayer, I am confident that she was informed. I smiled and waved warmly during lunchtime. #humility

2. At that same school, the 30 students in my classroom were quite rowdy, and the principal needed to do a few walk throughs to help me out. I used to be good at teaching and classroom management. Perhaps not anymore. #humility

3. Again at that same school I subbed for the better part of a week in the same classroom. Each classroom has spiritually adopted a saint and has the saint painted everywhere etc. The classroom I subbed in had adopted St. Patrick. #humility

4. I attended NCEA and saw many people I knew. The last time I saw them, I had just been hired as principal. I stopped counting after 18 people asked me how my first year as principal was going. #humility

5. I saw the priest who was pastor where I taught last. It was on a Friday during school dismissal, and he wanted to know why I was at his school instead of my own. “Aren’t you a principal somewhere?” #humility

Top 10 Reasons to Hire Denise

I just applied for my #DreamJob, and I am hoping to make it to the point where the search committee does some social media research about me, like digs through my Twitter (which is public for this reason and many others) and finds this blog. If you are on this search and/or interview committee, CONGRATS and WELCOME! You found the good stuff, which is this: Denise’s blog where she really digs deep and then posts it for the world to see. AND SO, here are the Top Ten Reasons to Hire Denise for This Particular Job (which hopefully you are in charge of or at least have some kind of say towards who gets hired...) in no particular order:

1. Denise is awesome and will be an excellent addition to your parish’s leadership team. 

2. Denise is on fire for the new evangelization happening in your parish. 

3. Denise has abundant enthusiasm and energy for the Church and sharing Jesus with others. 

4. Denise has an infectious zeal and joy for living her Catholic faith. 

5. Denise has a strong personal desire and dedication to keeping young people active Catholics. 

6. Denise practices radical hospitality. 

7. Denise is very well catechized and has dedicated her life to teaching and serving others in Catholic schools and parishes. 

8. Denise is a missionary disciple and wants to serve your parish community in this way. 

9. Denise is very talented using all social media platforms to connect Catholic families to the mission and vision of your parish. 

10. Denise is currently seeking employment, is eager to be hired, and has chosen YOUR parish to prayerfully and faithfully consider serving. 

How Retreats Saved Denise

In case you didn’t know, I was fired from my job in January.  This was fair based on things that happened.  But it DESTROYED me and sucked.  A lot.  During those first two weeks, I prayed a LOT.  I discerned what to do next.  I went and sat with Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration and cried.  Every day.  For two weeks. My heart was broken. And so was I. 

I had been praying for Jesus to show me what to do next to heal and to start to recover what was left of my career in Catholic education. And sometimes Jesus needs to be very intentional and obvious in order for me to get it, so I prayed that He would be. And, thankfully, Jesus brought it loud and clear to me. I had an awesome and amazing dream in which I was helping to lead a retreat with kids AND I was going from classroom to classroom in a Catholic school (because Jesus was there on huge crucifixes in each classroom) teaching different classes. So obviously this was what I was supposed to do next. I emailed the super awesome REAP Team to see if I could help lead retreats for the rest of the school year. I also emailed some principals who I liked and respected to see if I could substitute teach in their schools for the rest of the school year. The REAP Team said yes, and a few principals who I liked and respected said yes. And so the healing started. 

I’ve helped to lead about 15 retreats with the REAP Team in the past 2 months. And every single time is awesome. I truly believe that helping to lead retreats has helped me heal and prepare me for where God is leading me to serve the Church next. On some retreats, there is this forgiveness session with stones and Reconciliation and the chance to forgive someone who isn’t there. I’ve done this a few times, taken the stones with me, and prayed with them. And every time it gets easier. On retreats, I also get to share personal testimonies, which I love. I get to share how Jesus is THERE with me in my life, and I’m hoping that I’m leading some kids and even adults to have an awesome relationship with Jesus too. I know that doing this has caused me to be more aware of my gifts and has helped me to discern what is next for me. Retreating has basically saved me. God bless the Good Work being done by the REAP Team! And if you think to pray for us, please pray for the REAP Team!

#GodMoments for Denise Today

Today’s blog is brought to you by Denise’s #GodMoment of the day. You know, a #GodMoment is when you plan to do one thing, then God is like, NO, DENISE, THIS IS WHAT I HAVE PLANNED FOR YOU. Usually this is a good thing, as today it was. Actually, today consisted of a series of #GodMoments for me. Here’s what I got:

1. Originally, today I had scheduled for me to get paid to present about Google Classroom (Yes, I am Google Level 2 #certified, and this is #awesome) and help train a group of teachers at a particular Catholic school. However, not too long ago, the principal emailed me to cancel this opportunity, as her faculty had something more important to learn about. This meant that I was free to volunteer to help lead the REAP Team retreats today! #GodMoment

2. I met/saw 3 super awesome people who love their jobs working for the Church, which wouldn’t have happened if the first thing didn’t get canceled. #GodMoment

3 I saw my old pastor from the last school I taught, who is now pastor of the place I retreated at today. I wouldn’t have seen or stopped to talk to him if I hadn’t been walking out with one of the people from #2 above. Again, #GodMoment

4. And I wouldn’t have had the chance to talk to my old priest boss about how I’m currently seeking a job if any of the above didn’t happen. #GodMoment

5. God is Good. All the Time. Sometimes I’m honored and privileged to get to see how God lines up the good things that are all interwoven and dependent upon each other in my life. Today was a good day. Today was one of those times. #GodMoment

Forgiveness

Today’s blog topic is about forgiveness! #reconciliation

I helped lead a retreat REAP Team retreat (www.reapteam.org - if you don’t already know how awesome the REAP Team is!) for 8th graders today, and one of my absolute favorite things happened. Forgiveness happened! I love that the students, their teacher, and even our team members forgave someone there at the retreat or forgave someone who wasn’t at the retreat. Here are my big takeaways:

1. I’ve already forgiven the person in my life who has recently hurt me the absolute worst, BUT that doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to keep hurting and sucking for awhile. Like, maybe a long time. Forgiveness happened though. 

2. I need to think about and feel this hurt to get over it. If I try to forget about it, it will never go away. 

3. Face-to-face Reconciliation is best. If given the chance to see Jesus in the Sacrament, go see him face-to-face. For me, this helps me to forgive myself too. 

4. Sometimes people don’t have the tools to be able to forgive you. And that’s okay. I pray for this person every single day. 

Advice for Catholic Schools on Twitter

#sigh - I think it’s completely AWESOME that some Catholic schools are using Twitter to show what is happening in their Catholic school, but it has become quite boring for me to scroll through my Twitter feed to see really boring tweets. I am here to help! I know somewhat how to do this and have your Catholic school tell its story that is faithful to the mission and vision of the school. And it probably won’t get you fired, but no guarantees on that. 

1. Please do not take action shots and tweet what is happening!  For example, 2nd graders learning about fractions. YES, they are learning about fractions, but: a) they look miserable and/or blurry in the pictures, b) there is no connection to the school’s mission, and c) action shots are difficult to make look good if taken on a phone with little to no photography training, classes, etc. To make this a better tweet, take 2-3 staged pictures of students with their fraction things, but give them the phone and help them take a selfie or two. Or be in the selfie with them! Listen, kindergarteners are even experts on taking selfies. Tie what they are doing back to your school’s mission statement. Then tweet it out like, “Becoming lifelong fraction learners wasn’t easy for these 2nd graders, but with the virtue of perseverance, they were made #equivalent today! #SchoolHashtag #FractionAction #FractionSelfies” This works if the mission of the school is to instill the love for lifelong learning and virtues. 

2. Please use a school hashtag! And don’t make it one that is already being used by another Catholic school with the same name as yours. Have a contest to find one. Get everyone onboard using your school hashtag everywhere. This will become your branding. And capitalization matters! Be consistent with it, otherwise you look inconsistent and unprofessional. Good Catholic school hashtags I have seen include: #StPatProud, #bethegreatergator, #stjoelockport, #qasproud, and #WeAreVizLS. 

3. Please use hashtags well! In addition to your school hashtag, you should also include other CLEVER not-too-long hashtags. If it can be its own sentence, don’t put it in a hashtag! And don’t make your hashtags obvious. If it is already in the tweet, don’t hashtag it. For example, if you are tweeting pictures of kids completing a project, you shouldn’t tweet: #ourkidsareawesome because a) it can be its own sentence, b ) it isn’t clever, and c) if you tweet that for that one tweet, you’re going to have to tweet it for every single tweet because ALL of the kids are awesome. #justsaying

4. Tweet AT LEAST once a day! Anything less makes your Catholic school irrelevant in the eyes of other Catholic schools (and me, really). This can be really easy to do IF you have multiple teachers in your building tweeting about the awesome things happening in their classrooms each week, and as the person in charge of the Catholic school’s Twitter account, there is the magic of the #retweet that can happen, which helps to more accurately tell your Catholic school’s story on the Twitter. 

There is SO MUCH more to say. I think it’s time to write a book. #bucketlist