You may have noticed the focus of this week’s blogs has been on excellence. It’s not because I’m feeling ambitious, confident or successful. Actually, I’m feeling the opposite. That, while noticing articles, interviews, quotes, conversations and TV programs that encourage letting low expectations take over.

Read between much of society’s lines, and we’re told: If you keep expectations low, you’re spared disappointment. If you don’t reach for the stars, you never fall short. If you don’t scale mountains, you won’t tumble down. Expect excellence, miracles, or relief? — Come on, who do you think you are? Find solace, acceptance, and community in majority thinking. Don’t look beyond us; we are the standard. Stay here where it’s comfortable; those who don’t, make us uncomfortable.

Why is that we justify low expectations instead of rejecting them?

I know I am at risk of mine slowly and imperceptibly slumping to settling. My time of relative rest may morph into terminal complacency. I may soon adopt mediocrity or defeat as my lot in life.

Thankfully there are people who don’t discourage excellence, they actively promote it. While I’m not feeling it, I’m soaking in the inspiration from those who are. I hope you’ll be encouraged also.

From “Humans of New York”, an arts and humanities website:

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Followed by this post today, January 22, 2015 –

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A couple days back, I posted the portrait of a young man who described an influential principal in his life by the name of Ms. Lopez. Yesterday I was fortunate to meet Ms. Lopez at her school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy.

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“This is a neighborhood that doesn’t necessarily expect much from our children, so at Mott Hall Bridges Academy we set our expectations very high. We don’t call the children ‘students,’ we call them ‘scholars.’ Our color is purple. Our scholars wear purple and so do our staff. Because purple is the color of royalty. I want my scholars to know that even if they live in a housing project, they are part of a royal lineage going back to great African kings and queens. They belong to a group of individuals who invented astronomy and math. And they belong to a group of individuals who have endured so much history and still overcome. When you tell people you’re from Brownsville, their face cringes up. But there are children here that need to know that they are expected to succeed.”

1 Peter 2:9 (NIV) But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Romans 5:1-2 (TLB) – So now, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith in his promises, we can have real peace with him because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be.

2 Corinthians 9:8 (NIV) – God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Philippians 4:13 (NIV) – I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

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John 10:10 (NIV) – The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

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John 14:12 (NIV) – Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.