FAITH, HOPE, LOVE III

Wednesday, I heard from Arizona (her real name).  She is a former student from years back who is now a high school teacher.  Among the things she said was, “….Doc, you’ve written a lot lately about faith, hope, and love in the classroom.  And, you said you’ll write more.  Of course, that’s been your theme in everything you’ve put up, as you always say, into cyberspace.  And, what’s more important, that’s what your class was for each of us in there with you, a love story.  But, now I have an assignment for you.  Could you do me a favor?  I want you to boil all those reflections into one or two sentences that will be a tighter guide for following through on taking your  ‘Teacher’s Oath.’  I’ll give you a few days, but no later than Monday….”

One or two sentences!  I’m not sure how I get myself into these situations.  But, it was a challenge I could not ignore.  Anyway, picking up her gauntlet, this what I came up with:

Our attitudes drive our actions and our actions affect our attitudes.  Focusing on and making real unyielding, unconditional, non-judgmental, committed, persistent, inclusive faith, hope, and love “de-herds” the classroom; they transform “the class”  from an “is” into an “are,” from a collective, generalizing, stereotyping, depersonalizing, dehumanizing, faceless, nameless singular blur into a “gathering of separate, noble, sacred, unique ‘ones'” unclouded plural.  When we do that, we have no choice but to find ways to make each day a moral occasion when the process of unconditionally helping each and every student to help her or him learn how to make a good living and to live the good life come inseparably together.

Whew!  But, I beat her deadline.

Louis

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE II

After I decided to scrap the title of my book of selected Random Thoughts, “A Dictionary of Teaching,” for my new title, “Faith, Hope, Love,” I read a comment made by Tyrion Lannister of GAME OF THRONES.  “Power resides,” he said, “where men believe it resides.”  Five things occurred over the past week and one this morning that reinforced my belief that a variation of that statement applies to faith, hope, and love.  Those people in whom those virtues reside and from whom they exude, who are practitioners of those virtues, brighten anyone’s day.  They’re infused with what I call a “de-self-centering otherness”: their reality is infused with caring about others; they have a bold strength in their own skin; they’re enveloped by limitless gratitude; they an earnest self-awareness; they don’t seek  title, position,or reputation; they never mistake motion for action, word with deed; they don’t excuse with “try,” but act with “do;” they don’t impress with a recitation of a career resume; they transform their profession into both an outer and inner calling; they’re kind and generous to others; they flood others with joy; they listen well to others; they notice others; they value others; they think only of serving others; conquering their fears and hesitations, they’re fearless, compassionate, devoted, persevering empaths; they nourish rather than weed out; and, they’re energized by and electrify others with faith, hope, and love.

Faith, hope, and love reside where people feel they reside.

So what were these one-plus-five events that confluenced and triggered these thoughts?  This morning, I was sipping my coffee by the koi pond.  There was a slight breeze in the air gently rustling through the philodendron guarding the pond.  The skies were gray and clouded as heralds of predicted rain.  The quiet of the dawn was broken by the song of a distant bird.  And, as I watched the koi dance their watery ballet, I remembered my Rumi:  “The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”  I listened to the five other occurrences.   First, at the request of Amy Carter, a teacher at local Lowndes High School, a fellow traveler and kindred spirit,  I participated in an exhilarating round table discussion with twenty students in her pre-education class who were considering education as their future profession.   As you might expect, my central theme, as I handed out my TEACHER’S OATH, was that at the core of teaching were unconditional and non-judgmental faith, hope, and love; that education is a people business in which its practitioners always have out-stretched hands to help others help themselves along their way.  Second, I had read yesterday in passing a statement by the political theorist, John Schaar:  “The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination.”  Third was a piece by David Brooks, in last Saturday’s NY Times, called “The Moral Bucket List.”  The fourth was a profound and deeply personal message I received from a dear friend at a southern university.  About that I will say no more.  But, I will say something about a brief, but humbling, note from a student attending Mount Holyoke who read my last Random Thought on faith, hope, and love:  “After transferring from Valdosta, I have yet to meet a professor as passionate and caring as you . You had a great impact on my life and the lives of others, through your history class! I learned a lot about self-love and persistence! You know….life lessons that actually matter. You are a person who lives a life of purpose. You have cultivated your skills and helped others on the way! I hope to be more like you one day!  Thanks for believing in your students and me!”

Faith, hope, and love reside where people feel they reside.

These five streams meet at a junction to remind us that those with faith, hope, and love are made, not born.  They are practitioners who have chosen consciously, for a variety of reasons, to be the embodiment of those words.  They understand, as John Donne wrote, no one is an island; that everyone needs help from others.  They understand and recognize that education is personal, that the absence of unconditional, non-judgmental faith, hope, and love is a lethal barrier to betterment which needs tearing down.  They see that education is first, last, and only about people, that it’s not just a bunch of information and skills needed for credentialing.  They help others see over the horizon beyond passing a test, getting a class grade, accumulating a GPA, landing a “good” job, and getting a top salary.

It’s really amazing that so many academics are uncomfortable, to say the least, with faith, hope, and love; that as a consequence faith, hope, and love are so foreign in an academic vocabulary whose imbalanced culture is more concerned with developing skills and methods for a career rather and not being equally concerned with developing the qualities needed to build character; it’s unfortunate that academia focuses far more on the marketplace and almost always leaves the inner place ignored and unexplored; it’s sad when their presence and utterance is so surprising to students.  Personally and professionally, I wish faith, hope, and love would have a permanent place in the academic sun, that flesh and bone and name and face would be put on each of those words. Faith, hope and love are what I call one-person-at-a-time, look-in-the-eye “de-stereotypers,” “re-humanizers” and “re-personalizers” within a labeling, generalizing, and stereotyping culture that tends to impersonalize and de-humanize.

Faith, hope, and love reside where people feel they reside.

But, I also tell you that faith, hope, and love are struggles, and it takes both hard work and courage to live them.  And, should always be, for if we can do it “in my sleep,” it’s not particularly fulfilling; and fulfillment doesn’t come easy or sleep walking our way through things.  We can’t do anything free and easy, and expect it to be rich and meaningful to either us or others.  The treasure of what we do is in meeting the challenge to move away from being conditional, selective, small spirited, and judgmental.   So, faith, hope, love are not “Hallmark-ish.”  They’re not wishful thinking.  They’re not pop-cultural buzzwords.  They’re not trendy.  They’re not hip.  And, they certainly aren’t antique analogs in a digital age.

No, gracious as they may be, they’re kind of gritty.  We have to move away from being conditional, selective, small spirited, and judgmental; we have to stop presuming, generalizing, stereotyping, and assuming.   Going deep, they’re about hearing, seeing, and feeling in a certain way.  If we embark on this moral trek, we’ll find that they offer a clarity and sensitivity that gives us insight to the needs, not just the wants, of others.  As we venture along, they ask us to look at and pay attention to our spirit, our state of mind, and our state of heart.  They ask us to tune up and tune in our senses.  They are are words of “Now,” “Here,” “This.”  They required us to be present and right here; tied not to our lectures or controlled discussions, but to the person in front of us; concerned not only to help others learn how to make a good living, but to learn how to live the good life as well.  They ask us to be the embodiment of laughter, kindness, empathy, patience, dedication, commitment, compassion.  And, hardest of all we can’t mess with or short cut the amount of time and energy and presence that they require. There’s no technology for them, no app, no magic bullet, no hat trick, no quick fix, no sure-fire manual, no transforming elixir,

Faith, hope, and love reside where people feel they reside.

I wanted to write about the kind of hope that’s faithful and loving, the kind of faith that’s hopeful and loving, the kind of love that faithful and hopeful.   That interlocking strand is like super-bouncy flubber, a strong emotional formula which gives that needed resilient bounce for the ounce.  It makes us poor haters and weak disparagers; it makes us passionate and compassionate advocators; it makes us strong lovers.  Those kinds of faith, hope, and love are harder to live by, because it’s easier to be cynical. I mean, when you’re cynical, you’re never disappointed.  Problem is that we may find safety and comfort among that with which we expect and agree, but we grow and change from risk, discomfort, and disagreement.  Consequently, faith, hope, and love, however, don’t come without significant challenges, if for no other reason than we cannot control those whom we wish to help.  Of course, at the same time we don’t make ourselves into who we wish to be.  Sure, we’ll be met with disappointment, heartbreak, mistakes, fatigue, frustration, ridicule, dismissal, disregard, disparagement, and a host of other challenges thrown in our path.  Let the cynics condemn what we feel and do as “new-age,” fluff, tosh, soft, touchy-feely, dumbing down, watering down.  Faith, hope, and love are among what David Brooks calls the more important “eulogy virtues,” the ones that Linda Ellis describes in her poem, “the Dash,” that will be talked about at our funeral.

However, we shouldn’t despair or throw up our hands in frustration or grit our teeth in exasperation if we don’t have immediate answers or solutions or approaches–or results–to silence the snideness’.  To the contrary, the more we have faith, hope, and love, the stronger our armor against the slings and arrows of disdain and ridicule.  They deepen our courage and further open both our hearts and minds to both others and ourselves.  We should, however, get up the next morning and do it again. And, the next morning after that, get up, and do it; and, if we have been disappointed, we still do it again.  They’re the kind of words with which we get up every morning and choose to make the world just a little kinder and people a little better in our own way at our own pace, even if it’s one person at a time.    And, if things don’t work out, as Samuel Beckett would say, they help to insure they don’t work out better.  Nevertheless, as Rainer Rilke might have said, they demand we live the questions, hold on to the questions, being a questing Diogenes, until we live into the answer, live the answer, and become the answer.

Later on how I do it.  Enough for now.

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE

With the exception of my eldest grandmunchkin’s Bas Mitzvah in mid-February, I’ve been feeling off-balance for the last two months.   My brother-in-law, Stan, died immediately after that last Random Thought on gratitude.  He was one of the good guys; as my son, Robby, said, “There should be more like him in the world.”  Everyone thought he was over the proverbial hump when we gathered for Thanksgiving in Nashville to be feted by Robby, the chef.  Little did any of us know it would be the last time I would see him.  He returned to the hospital days later.  He never came out.  He was my oldest and dearest friend. Before he met and married my sister, we were room mates at UNC in the early ’60s.   I had said on Facebook at the time of his death,  “I will not mourn his loss. Instead, I will celebrate the gain I have from having had him in my life these past 51 years.”  And, I have lived up to those words.  Nevertheless, since his death, and though he had been serious sick, having undergone several major surgeries, for the past three years, I’ve felt a subtle void.  All that changed about ten days ago when, thanks to Venus (not her real name), I felt a rejuvenating “its time.”

I am putting together a selected collection of my Random Thoughts for E-publication that were part of a series that I sprinkled over years called “Words In My Dictionary of Good Teaching.”   But, I wasn’t satisfied with the working book title by that name:  “A Dictionary of Good Teaching.”  It didn’t have a zing, a “hook.”  It really didn’t capture the essence of all those particular reflections.  Then, about ten days ago, I found the title I wanted:  “Faith, Hope, Love.”  I might give it a subtitle of “The ‘Little, Big Words’ of Teaching.”  Let me tell you how I inadvertently and unexpectedly found it.

I was late to walking the streets.  I approached a young lady and offered her a “good morning.”  She stopped in front of me, blocking my way, and exclaimed,  “Dr Schmier!”  I must have had with a curious “who are you” look in my face.  “I was in class with you the last semester before your retirement (Fall semester, 2012).  I’m Venus.”  She told me a tale of being “not sure I belonged in college,” our encouraging conversations, of being “big time sick,” of dropping out of school the following semester, of “settling” (her word) for a “good paying” job as a waitress.  Then, she hit me square between the eyes and said something like, “But deep down I wasn’t happy.  One day after my shift I dug out my date book for that semester with you.  I began reading all those ‘Words for the Day’ you wrote on the board and we talked about.  I copied every one of them.  I read one entry that said these words weren’t just words but ways to look at ourselves and ways to live.  Then, I read two that said, ‘Your greatest enemy is your own fear,’ and  ‘faith means not worrying.’  I heard them speaking to me.  They suddenly opened my eyes to myself.  ‘Settling’ meant running away, being stopped by my fear and worrying I couldn’t do what I wanted and not having the faith to give myself a chance.  From that time one to today, every time I wanted to stop, every time I wanted to settle for something, every time I worried what others would say or that I couldn’t do something, I heard you say from one of our conversations, ‘you’re better than this and you can be better, if you’re willing to do whatever it takes to become better.’  You were living faith, hope, and love to me.  So, because of you I slowly stopped settling for things I didn’t want.  I soon stopped being afraid.  I stopped worrying about whether I could do what I wanted to do or not.  And, I decided, as you once told me, to put all of me on the field.   I took off my apron, went back to college, first at near-by ABAC, and now here.  I’m surprising myself that I am doing whatever it takes to become what I really want to become, and it’s working!”

“And what is it you want to become?” I calmly asked.

She hit me square between the eyes for a second time.  “To be the good clinical psychologist I can be.  I want to help people have faith in themselves,  have hope for themselves, and love themselves.  I want to learn to listen to people so I can help them learn to hear the truth about themselves and their abilities.   Just like you so did for me,” she answered.  After a few seconds, she added “And, I want to be the good person I can be.  I want to be for others what you were to me:  walking faith, hope, and love.”

We talked some more.  As we parted with a hug and I continued on my walk, I began thinking of what she said:  “you were living faith, hope, and love to me,”  “I want to be for others what you were to me:  walking faith, hope, and love.”

Those two sentences are still ringing in my ears and swirling around in my soul.  They, those three words–faith, hope, love–make up the story of teaching.  Over the past twenty-two years to the month, I’ve often said how these three words infiltrated my spirit, how those three words have been profoundly transforming on my self-perception, my perception of others, my sense of the value of teaching, my understanding of my craft’s mission, and my actions.  They helped me put aside so-called “human nature” and focus on an individual’s “unique potential,’ that humans can change.  They were sledge hammers that I swung to shatter the dehumanizing scaffolding of classification, labeling, ranking, disconnecting, tagging, pigeonholing, separating, dividing, stereotyping, and generalizing.  They helped me concentrate on teaching as an unending series of exciting milestones, not as objectives or as finish lines or as end points.

For me, education is a love story.  It means to dream dreams while you’re awake.  Education is an act of faith. Faith is a “you can do it” word.  It’s faith in the fact that human beings have the capacity to grow and that as humans, we can become better.  Education is an act of hope.  Hope is a “could be” word.  It’s a “this isn’t it” word.  It’s a “keep going” word.  It is hope in possibility, in the fact that there is more to come, that this is not all there is.   Above all, education is an act of love.   Love is the first principle of teaching.  It is a “you’re somebody” word, a “you’re worth it” word, an “I care” word, an “I see you” word, an “I’m here for you” word.  It’s love in the fact that each person is too valuable, too unique, too noble to lose without a fight.  These words never take a holiday; they are never selective; they are never conditional.  They are mind opening, heart unlocking, eye opening, spirit raising, firing up–driving.  They’re “never give up,”  “don’t walk away,” “don’t despair” empathies, compassions, commitments, dedications, and perseverances.

To talk of faith, hope, and love in the same breath with teaching is to make the classroom into an inviting oasis that welcomes all to come to nourish their souls, spirits, and minds.   They are the cause of more miracles than are information, assessments, grades, test scores, reputations, publications, grants, resumes.  If you embrace them, they will teach you.  They will teach you, as Dale Carnegie rightly said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”  Living those three words create a habit of the heart; a wellspring of respect for, valuing of, caring about, concern for each student; and, a practice of unconditional inclusion rather than exclusion. It’s unconditional faith, hope and love in each student that makes teaching worth doing.  They mean we don’t define a person by a GPA, an academic recognition, any more than we do by how she or he dresses, the color of skin, religion, ethnicity, special needs.    Faith?  Hope?  Love?  Little words?  Little things?  Little moments?  There’s nothing little about them.

Louis