Divine Sparks

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The envelope was plain gray. It had the dimensions of a greeting card, but it was obvious that it didn’t house a card. It was weightless and pliable. It had no return address. It had arrived about a week ago, a few days after my surgery. It lay around unopened for a few days as I lay around. Then, a few days ago, I casually opened it. Unfolded what looked like an ordinary piece of legal paper. There was no ordinary about it. It was an unsigned gift for which I was not prepared. It was a poem, handwritten:

YOU

You really cared enough to care about me, didn’t you?
You really cared enough to believe in me, didn’t you?
You really cared and believed enough to see me,
to listen to me,
to help me build me up, didn’t you?

Lots of people around here say they cared
But, they never dared
“I care” is easy to say,
It’s in the doing of caring that saves the day.

You cared about me when it wasn’t easy
You cared about me when you were busy
You believed in me
when I didn’t care to do what
you knew I could be.

You cared about me when I wasn’t perfect.
You believed in me when I was disrespectful.
You cared about me when I was a handful
You believed in me when I screwed up.
You cared about me when I faltered.
You believed in me when I made it tough for you.
You cared about me when I demanded time from you.
You believed in me when I did not like you.
You cared about me so you saw I am capable.
You believed in me enough
to see past my weaknesses to see my strengths
to see past my ugliness to see my beauties

You cared about me when. I hadn’t done anything
to deserve your caring.
You believe in me even when I didn’t yet believe
You cared about me even when I didn’t care

You saw in me a divine spark
When all I saw was dark and stark
And thought I was just a lark
I bet you don’t remember
When I told you I was just a spent ember.

Didn’t matter
You just kept on caring in a caring way
no conditions
You just kept on believing in a believing way
You just kept on coming at me
day after day after day
Nothing I could do or say
Would make you go away
As a student I was an F
As a person you saw me as an A
That’s what made me stay
Day after day after day

You cared
That made me scared
I didn’t know why
That made me cry
My anger made it worse
My mouth spewed out every curse

Whenever I deliberately slowed my pace
There you were in my face
You kept on me to seek my rightful place
And now I know I am full of grace

I know that it is too late for today
That I am beginning to see the light of day
And chase away my dismal gray
I know that it is not too late for tomorrow’s day
To see in me a whole new way
To see that in all I can be I can be an A

I’ve started caring about me,
and believing in me, too
I’ve started seeing what I could be and what I can do
I’ve joined you in caring and believing,
in me
That makes me so full of joyous glee
I want you to know that I’m so full of so much vim
Because I know I’m gonna be another Kim.

The color on your pinky is true
Whatever the week’s color it is a loving hue
Please keep doing it for others, I beg of you.
Help them set themselves on the right and true
So they can say as I do
A quiet and grateful, “Thank you”

Of all the accolades and awards and recognitions one could earn in academia, this poem is as good as it gets. What an honor to have earned a poem like this. I can’t think of a better Chanukah present.

For the life of me, I don’t know who wrote this poem. I can’t find any clues with its lines. I’m not sure that it really matters. Anyway, when whoever wrote the poem talked of her inner divine spark, it sparked a memory of a Kabbalah story I had read a couple of months ago. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Jewish Hasidism, explained that when God finished creating the heavens and the earth, God returned to heaven. Overflowing with joy, God celebrated, taking radiant sparks of light, throwing them up into the air, and watching them fall to the earth. For a moment, the earth radiated with glorious light as the sparks of God poured down from heaven. As they landed, however, the sparks became embedded in everything they touched. Eventually, the earth darkened, the divine sparks smoldering deep within every rock, and tree, and within every human heart as well disappeared from view. Realizing that we could no longer see the bright sparks, God gave us tools with which to uncover them, to stir the embers in ourselves and each other into a blazing fire, and once again illuminate and warm our world.

So maybe we as teachers should be “spark hunters” and “ember stirrers” with such tools as a soul of hope, a spirit of love, a heart of faith and belief and respect, a mind of empowerment and confidence, and a set of sharpened senses open to hints of the sacred in each student as well as in ourselves.

Well, there are no maybes about it. If you want to stir the embers, if you want the sparks to fly, if you want the inner fires to blaze, if you want to help students to be more caring of themselves and more believing in themselves and more accomplished, believe in them; caringly care about them; and, keep at it even when they don’t believe or care. Open yourself to each and every student each day as if you were a curious child seeing things for the first time.

Think you have to go to Tibet seeking someone draped in saffron robes to find a sacred place? You don’t. The place is right here inside you inside the classroom. You need only know how to make the classroom mystical whisperings of your soul and how to become a prayer yourself. Treat each student as sacred, believe the divine spark is hidden in each of them to be stirred into a blazing fire, and you will make your routine anything but routine. Then, as Martin Buber would have said, each new day will become purer and more beautiful, and more satisfying and fulfilling, and more profound than the one before.

Let me and Susan take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you and your family a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, a Happy Kwansaa, a Happy New Year, and a joyous holiday season. And to my friends of the Islamic faith, a much belated but no less sincere “Eid Mubarak.”

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

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About Louis Schmier

LOUIS SCHMIER “Every student should have a person who wants to help him or her help himself or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming, and I’ll be damned if I am ever going to let one human being fall through the cracks in my classes without a fight.” How about a snapshot of myself. But, what shall I tell you about me? Something personal? Something philosophical? Something pedagogical? Something scholarly? Nah, I'll dispense with that resume stuff. Since I believe everything we do starts from who we are inside, what we believe, what we perceive, and what we do is an extension of ourselves, how about if I first say some things about myself. Then, maybe, I can ease into other things. My name is Louis Schmier. The first name rhymes with phooey, the last with beer. I am a 76 year old - in body, but not in mind or spirit - born and bred New Yorker who came south in 1963. I met by angelic bride, Susie, on a reluctant blind date at Chapel Hill. We've been married now going on 51 years. We have two marvelous sons. One is a VP at Samsung in San Francisco. The other is an artist with food and is an executive chef at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. And, they have given us three grandmunchkins upon whom we dote a bit. I power walk 7 miles every other early morning. That’s my essential meditative “Just to …” time. On the other days, I exercise with weights to keep my upper body in shape. I am an avid gardener. I love to cook on my wok. Loving to work with my hands as well as with my heart and mind, I built a three room master complex addition to the house. And, I am a “fixer-upper” who allows very few repairmen to step across the threshold. Oh, by the way, I received my A.B. from then Adelphi College, my M.A. from St. John's University, and my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Valdosta State University in Georgia since 1967. Having retired reluctantly in December, 2012, I currently hold the rank of Professor of History, Emeritus. I prefer the title, “Teacher”. Twenty-five years ago, I had what I consider an “epiphany”. It changed my understanding of myself. I stopped professoring and gave up scholarly research and publication to devote all my time and energy to student. My teaching has taken on the character of a mission. It is a journey that has taken me from seeing only myself to a commitment to vision larger than myself and my self-interest. I now believe that being an educator means I am in the “people business”. I now believe that the most essential element in education is caring about people. Education without caring, without a real human connection, is as viable as a person with a brain but without a heart. So, when I am asked what I teach, I answer unhesitatingly, “I teach students”. I am now more concerned with the students’ learning than my teaching, more concerned with the students as human beings than with the subject. I am more concerned with reaching for students than reaching the height of professional reputation. I believe the heart of education is to educate the heart. The purpose of teaching is to instill in all students genuine, loving, lifelong eagerness to learn and foster a life of continual growth and development. It should encourage and assist students in developing the basic values needed for learning and living: self-discipline, self-confidence, self-worth, integrity, honesty, commitment, perseverance, responsibility, pursuit of excellence, emotional courage, creativity, imagination, humility, and compassion for others. In April, 1993, I began to share ME on the internet: my personal and professional rites of passage, my beliefs about the nature and purpose of an education, a commemoration of student learning and achievement, my successful and not so successful experiences, a proclamation of faith in students, and a celebration of teaching. These electronic sharings are called “Random Thoughts”. There are now over 1000 of them floating out there in cyberspace. The first 185, which chronicles the beginnings of my journey, have been published as collections in three volumes, RANDOM THOUGHTS: THE HUMANITY OF TEACHING, RANDOM THOUGHTS, II: TEACHING FROM THE HEART, RANDOM THOUGHTS, III: TEACHING WITH LOVE, and RANDOM THOUGHTS, IV: THE PASSION OF TEACHING. The chronicle of my continued journey is available in an Ebook on Amazon's Kindle in a volume I call FAITH, HOPE, LOVE: THE SPIRIT OF TEACHING. There a few more untitled volumes in the works..

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