A METAPHOR FOR LIFE IN WOOD, STONE, AND MARBLE

         Lately, in the midst of the season of frantic candle lighting, gift buying and baking, wrapping, and mailing, I’ve been pensive.  My brother-in-law, my dearest friend, whom I’ve known since the days before he met my sister when we roomed together back in the early sixties at UNC, is in the hospital, again, with some real serious stuff, again.   It was in that deep mood, about 4:30 this morning, that I jumped out of bed, brewed a cup of coffee, and came back to sit on the steps leading down to the sunken master bedroom.   It was still.  My angelic Susie was sleeping.  In the silky dark, I could feel a presence, for I find that it’s in the dark that my inner light shines forth brightest.  I looked up at the 22′ high cathedral ceiling and shook my head in amazement.  This  20′ x 20′ room, along with the large master bath and Susie’s huge walk-in closet, is what Susie and I call our “get-away master complex” in which we can shut ourselves off completely from the rest of the house with the mere closing of a door.

I had designed and built the whole thing with my own two hands thirty-seven years ago.  Me, an intellectual, a history professor, an “egghead,” but a person who loves to work with both his mind and hands.  Starting and continuing with a “what the hell” beginner’s mind I opened the roof, stripped off the outer brick in order to tie-in the new wing to the old house.  I did all the concrete work, carpentry, stone work, framing, electrical work, masonry, drywalling, plastering, wood working, hauling, lifting, nailing, screwing, hammering, ship-lapping, painting, staining, roofing.  It took me a year.  It wasn’t a free ride.  It was full of challenges.  It was full of aches and pains.  It was full of cuts and scratches, and an injury or two.  It was full of mistakes.  It was full of tearing out and redoing.  It was full of learning.   I still look at it now, as I have been almost daily for these past nearly four decades, with  a “wow!”   The “wow” was the result of keeping at it until I got it, and it, and it, and it.   It was the result of a determination, an needed antidote to cynicism, to face up to the hard realities of what it took to build this addition myself without letting anyone or anything diminish my imagination, creativity, and enthusiasm.

Since then, I’ve renovated most of the rest of the house, and Susan says I never really wanted to move not only because we live a block from campus, but because I have so much of myself in the house.  That’s true.  Much of what I learned, much of what I have confidence in doing started with this 800 square foot complex. I found abilities and talents I wasn’t sure I possessed.  But, while I picked up the gauntlet to build this complex, and learned a lot about myself, I did not risk taking the lessons of what it took to build this addition and other renovations beyond the confines of wood, marble, and stone into my larger personal, social, and professional life.  Until my epiphany fourteen years later, in the fall of 1991, there was still a great divide between the words I spoke and the way I lived.

As I began to put flesh on what I call “little big words” words like faith, belief, hope, and love, however, and as I began to embody those words in my values and beliefs, in my identity and integrity, in my all my relations, I came back to this complex with a different amazement.  “Why was I so blind and deaf that didn’t I see and hear what you have been saying all these years,” I remember one dark morning tearfully speaking to these rooms in the winter of 1991.  Since then, listening to the whispered answers of this complex, it has become for me a deep and insightful metaphor for anything in life:

First, throughout the year it took to build this complex, I was in a state of constant “edginess.”  But, I had learned that those unwilling to take any risk and play is safe have allowed comfort zones to control and restrict them; yet, they have as much angst in their comfort zone as a person who is willing to put it all out on the table, and expands what Howard Thurman called a her or his “growing edge” in life.

Second, so, I think the biggest mistake anyone can make is to avoid anything where they might make a mistake, for mistakes are the road signs to what we have to learn.

Third, I found as I was willing to be discomforted, I became so comfortable with discomfort that I could live boldly and fearlessly. In the words of Rumi;  “Forget safety.  Live where you fear to live.  Destroy your reputation.  Be notorious.”

Fourth, as a consequence, I learned that the boundaries of comfort zones are more often than not expanded by discomfort.  Again, in the words of Rumi:  “If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”  It’s a way of looking at things, a kind of essential edgy growth around the edges that reveals the nascent light within, and makes new starts possible in everything we do every day.

And, finally, I came to realize that the things I value most are those things to which, and for which, I give of myself the most.  I value this part of the house most because I gave of myself the most. I took the most chances; I learned most how to do things; I risked the most screw-ups.  I experimented the most.  I tested myself the most.  I reached out and stretched the most.  The valuable things are valuable because of how much of me has been put into them, not because they are easy.  The effort spent on creating value is a joy; and, when it is a joy, it is not laborious work.

Each day I hear this complex, as well as my koi pond and water fountain, speak to me.  They say that arduous and challenging efforts are not somethings to be avoided, but somethings to be sought out. They’re the way to make a difference in your life and the lives of others; they’re the way that problems are transcended; they’re the way of making a difference; they’re the way that lives live on.

Louis

THE CORE QUESTION

As I was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Christmas songs, my eyes drifted to a quote that hangs above my computer desk.  It contains some earth-shaking words written by Thomas Merton in his “No Man Is An Island”:  “Why do we spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be? If only we knew what we wanted. Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?”  Some questions!  I had been consciously asking those questions since my epiphany in the fall of 1991.  I found that they don’t just shake, they shatter.  And, to make sure I don’t let anything settle, I put them up there to read each morning as a constant reminder to struggle with my human imperfections in an effort to focus on living a life of constant astonishment and of daily epiphanies.

This quiet, melodic, soggy morning I thought that if we could cut through this time of superficial light bulb celebration of flickering, blaring, glaring, blinking neons, fluorescents, halogens, CFLs, incandescents, and LEDS, to the essence of Chanukah, Christmas, Kawanza, and New Years, it would be in Merton’s stirring-up words.

You see, I know how they’re spacious invitations to be reflective, to be contemplative, to be mindful of, to be alert to, to be aware of, to notice, to be awake to all things in your daily professional, personal, and social life.  Basically they boil down to ask the most challenging, frightening, and yet clarifying of all questions:  “What would you want to do, resolve to do, and do if you could do anything that you could do?”

It may seem to be a dangerous cross-roads question, certainly fraught with heartache and fear, for it demands you confront yourself with some serious choices.  It demands a quest for answers to a subset of questions:  Why am I doing this?  Who do I really want to be?  What do I want to really do?  What is my deepest identity that moves me?  And, then, “why am I not doing it?”  But, to shirk away, shrink into a dark corner, and not to ask, much less to seek honest answers, it is to languish in a dismal prison chained to a wall.  To ask and seek the answer with all honesty, to muster every fiber of your being to get rid of those enchaining things, to see that you have the courage and strength to break those shackles and open the cell door, ultimately is a releasing and liberating of a more loving, more believing, more hopeful, more caring, more joyous, more respectful, more honest, kinder, and more authentic person.

It’s a letting go of and a sacrificing of the “I am” person for a “I want to be” person.  It’s putting a smile on what was once a long, morose, grim face.  It’s a process of becoming your own, while shedding someone else’s, person.  It’s getting off your butt, meeting yourself where you are, facing your human messiness, taking yourself by your hand, and leading yourself to where you want to and can be.  It’s filling your shallowness with a fullness.  It’s putting flesh on your most secret yearnings.  It’s going through your own three Dickensonian Christmases.  It’s what Joseph Campbell called following “your bliss.”

Trust me, it can be pretty amazing stuff, scary as it may be, when that happens; it can be life-changing.  Having faced up to those questions, the answers somehow kept me in academia, or, as a student once told me, “you luckily found your place in the very place you were standing.”  Yet, it was both the same place and a different place, for slowly my answers took a surprisingly willing me out from the archive into the classroom, away from wanting to be important and professionally renown to doing things of importance and little renown, away from scholarship to teaching, away from being a professor to being a teacher.

But, it never ends, especially for me at this time and place.  After having reluctantly retired in December, 2012, I’ve had to go on and have been on an adventure to uncover a new set of answers for and from a very different place.  Everything I do, everything I contemplate, everything I share, everything and everyone of which I am mindful is part of an ever-searching, never-ending journey.

Louis

WHAT IF….

There is a coming sadness as this season of joy reaches its pinnacle with Chanukah and Christmas conjoining.  “Tis the season” will soon be over.  The season of miracles will be behind us.  The Yule Log will be a heap of ash.  The calendar will have turned.  The tree will be on the sidewalk for collection; we will have taken down the lights; we will have put the nativity scenes and menorahs in the closet along with the ribbons and wrapping. Unfortunately, any lingering inking of the meaning of the holiday season will be also boxed up and put away.  And so, we will go back to our everyday lives once again unaware of the miracles around us.  We’ll ignore the mysterious splendor of miracle layered on miracle in every step we take.  We will be deaf and blind to the miracle in which we constant engage:  ourselves, each other person, and our surroundings.  And, the challenge to be buoyant will return.

But, what if.  What if we rewrote the lyrics of  “Joy To The World” so that we lived the coming year in such a way that “Tis the season” became “tis the day” day after day until we can sing “tis the year.”  Great miracles are happening all around us.   When we stop being amazed, we stop revering; we stop appreciating; we stop celebrating; we stop making a pilgrimage to our hearts; we stop singing and dancing; we stop caring; we stop loving.  You know, if you go about your lives without a wonder that defies frustration, despair, scoffing, sneering, even mocking,  it just isn’t worth going there.  You’ll not live each and every aspect of your life life as if its a work of art.
So, I ask, what do you lose when you wonder at a student or anyone, if you live all aspects of your life in what Rabbi Joshua Heschel called “radical amazement?”  What if our frame of heart, that condition of consciousness in which each moment of life is apprehended, is that of a miracle, when each person is a blessing is a moment when the wondrous and the common, are never separated.  What if you stood constantly in awe?  What if you constantly were impressed.  What if you always noticed?  What if nothing and no one become “normal,” everyday, mundane, common?
I have striven to do two things since my epiphany 23 years ago, with jolts from having survived a bout of cancer a decade ago and a massive cerebral hemorrhage seven years ago. First,I get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted and nothing is treated casually; everything is incredible.  I go about with caring mindfulness.  I never treat life casually  It makes the seemingly ordinary into something extraordinary, the insignificant into something significant, the small into something large.  Second, I don’t wait to start living.  My goal is to live life in the present moment with a consciousness of being aware.
To do this,  I’ve learned several key life practices that I carry with me wherever I go, especially into the classroom:
1.   I don’t have to act impressively to make an impression and to impress;
2.   If I constantly worried about how I appear to others, I won’t really enjoy what I’m doing.  Moreover, it’s hard looking ahead when I’m peering over my shoulder;
3.   I’m not really concerned with how others define me. When they define me, they are defining and limiting themselves.  It says everything about them and nothing about me.  So, it’s their problem, not mine;
4.   I refuse to allow other people  make me into the person they want me to be who I don’t want to be.  In the spirit Viktor Frankl, I can’t lose, or have taken away, who I am—unless I agree–I can only lose what I have;
5.   #3 means I don’t limit myself or others.  I don’t bury my or their miraculousness by labeling or defining myself and others.  If I did, I’d be living up to an image and demanding others do so as well.  That’s called “inauthenticity,” making true connection impossible;
6.   I don’t interact with people according to my authority, role, or title.  I’m just me.  I’m not “Dr,” or “Professor of.”  Just “Louis”(rhymes with “phooey”);
7.   I realize intensely that now–the present moment–is all I have, and it’s my responsibility to make this now–not yesterday and not tomorrow–the primary focus of  my life.  Heck, the only time I can do anything is now;
8.   Change is the natural state of all things, and if my perceptions and expectations don’t change, I’m in trouble;
9.   I have discovered that a true inner peace does not come from what I have gathered, not in my position and title, not in my resume.  Whenever I become anxious or stressed, I know the outside trappings have taken over;
10. The primary cause of unhappiness or happiness is never the situation or person, but my thoughts about it or them.  I am constantly aware of the feelings I’m feeling and the thoughts I’m thinking.  Being whatever I believe I am,  has nothing to do with what I believe and everything to do with my state of heart and mind.  My mindfulness is my greatest catalyst for growth, and it is a mindfulness that must feel and live, not just think and talk about.
11.  I don’t need a reason for belief, faith, hope or love.  I just feel them; I just do them, live with them, nurture them, abide by them.
  Susie and I would like to wish one and all a merry, happy and all that.  May your candle burn brightly and bring only light and warmth each day in the coming year so that you can joyously sing “tis the day” each day.

Louis

Violence in Academia

There was an invigorating nip in the air yesterday morning, but nothing like the icy polar vortex of a message I found waiting for me.  I heard again from that mid-western professor whom I had mentioned a few reflections ago.  “‘Student whisperer’ indeed,” she started her message in a “bah-humbug’ snort.  “….Well, higher education has one big problem because of the likes of you.  We have made a college education into an American  birthright. Our problem is we have to let in everybody….I hate the retention demands from the administrations to keep them around….But, let me tell you something, buddy, those people can’t make it no matter what we do. They don’t belong in any college….And, I do everyone–me, them, my profession, my university, even society–a service when I refuse to give them false hope and weed them out….If they can’t cut it, I’m going to cut them out….You can’t make gold out of lead…”

When I finished reading her “grinchlike” words, I immediately thought of Emerson, Winnie the Pooh, and Elie Wiesel:  “What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered;” “Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them;” “We must not see any person as an abstraction.  Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.”

How to answer her.  This is what I said.  It is a variation of a letter I recently wrote to the editor of our local newspaper about recent events in Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York.

I told her that I have learned over my lifetime that when we violate, we commit violence.  I am not talking about physical assaults such as have been in the news lately.  I mean violence is done whenever we violate someone’s identity, integrity, and individuality. Violence is done when we demean, marginalize, dismiss; violence is done when we render other people irrelevant to our lives; violence is done when we see them only as an impersonal statistic or generality; violence is done when we distrust, when we disrespect, when we simply don’t care or don’t look hard enough to evoke our caring.

I asked her, who among us hasn’t been the victim of “violence by deboning,” by being stripped of the flesh of her or his personhood with sharp knives of biased generalities, prejudicial stereotypes, diminishing abstractions, and even hateful perceptions.   I have.  At Adelphi, I was one those “don’t belongs” tagged to be weeded out.  But, it was Dr. Birdsault Viault who interceded and nurtured me.  He was not blinded, as was I, to my undiscovered potential.  He was not deafened, as was I, to the opportunity I presented.  In spite of me, he was not deterred from mining the barren surface for the mother lode he believed lay below.  He was my Jacob Marley.  Instead of condemning, instead of judging, he served, reached out, connected, elevated, edified, inspired, bettered, and transformed me.  Or, at least, helped me to start doing that to myself.  And, that, among other things over the course of my life, has made me sensitive to living a nonviolent life as much as I humanly can, for I have learned that only light can drive out darkness, that only faith and belief and hope can overcome antipathy, and only love can be the transforming three Christmases of Charles Dickens.

Rumi said, “It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”  When we love and care about each student unconditionally, the classroom becomes so full of so many wondrous people.  I’ve learned, however, from my experiences, both personal and professional, you don’t look for how to care sincerely, but to seek, find, and tear down all barriers we build within ourselves against truly caring.  Every day I do stuff, exercises if you will, so that in every way in every relationship I have, I’m conscious to honor both myself and the persons around me.  Sometimes that’s as simple as noticing a person.  Sometimes it takes the form of a quiet, kindly word.  Sometimes it’s shaped as the arc of a supporting smile.  Sometimes it appears as an encouraging tap on the shoulder. Sometimes it’s more a complicated matter of quietly and empathetically listening to someone’s story.  Sometimes it’s still more of a complicated matter of becoming involved and assisting someone who can’t take that next step in life.  I just think there’s a thousand different ways that we can practice nonviolence in this fundamental sense.  Now, I think it’s urgent that we reframe education in a very personal way, as simple acts of supporting and encouraging relationship building and community building that empower people.

I told her that her assertion creates the impossible.  And, aside from being a “silver lining” optimist kind of guy, I don’t just don’t believe it; I know it to be untrue; I have proof it’s untrue.   Me!  Moreover, I have seen how we can be a Rumplestilkin weaving ordinary straw into invaluable gold using the spinning wheel of a compassionate heart.  I say you can be an alchemist transforming lead into gold if you choose to be an inspiring, encouraging, supporting, believing, hopeful, and loving person as Birdsall Viault was for me.  And if you are willing to put in the back-breaking effort, you’ll find the biggest motherlode of them all: your caring heart filled with inner joy, an inner pride, an inner sense of goodness, an inner sense of fulfillment, an inner happiness.  You’ll be able to look in the mirror and see reflected a congratulating nod of a head, an enriching wink of an eye, and a rewarding tip of the hat.

I also told her that belief, hope, and love are not wishful, soft, dreamy, new-agey, touchy-feely, and Hallmarkish.  They are a struggle.  They’re a roll-up-your-sleeeves, down-and-dirty, get-in-the-trenches grittiness.  They’re the kind that gets you up every morning and demands you make the world just a little kinder and more respectful place.  And, if you get your heart broken or are disappointed or get frustrated or get angry, as will inevitably occur, they won’t allow you to wallow in self-pity, or shrivel in surrender, or retreat into finger pointing.  Instead, they give you the courage and strength and energy to go on, to get up the next morning and do it again.   They are harder to live with than being cynical, pessimistic, and blaming.  A blamer and cynic and pessimist are never disappointed.

I told her that courage and strength to belief, have faith, have hope, and love have everything to do with loving something or someone so much that you will brave whatever may come your way because you have that much love for each of them. It’s worth the risk  because it’s the only way to overcome her impossible and transform it into the possible.

Louis

WHISPERER

I hope you all in the United States had a joyous Thanksgiving with your families. Susie and I sure did. We had a too brief family reunion as we traveled to Nashville where my son, Robby, the chef, and his family lives, and my other son and his family flew in from San Francisco. You might say we all had a “gorge-ous” holiday. Boy did we gorged ourselves on Robby’s culinary delights, first a multi-course banquet in his home and then the next evening an even larger feast at his restaurant. And, that doesn’t count the feeding frenzy over Susie’s cheesecake and my rugalach (a Jewish horned pastry), all of which sent all of us into a weekend-long caloric coma. Now I’m home and still groggy from a food OD.

Anyway, I went out onto the quiet streets this calm pre-dawn morning. I always find my language in such silence, and it was in this still that I was thinking about an old Sunday Morning segment on a “horse whisperer” that I had come across while surfing YouTube, and how what was discussed in the interview could well apply to the classroom. But, first. Do you know what a “horse whisperer is?” Well, the term goes back to a 19th century Irish horse trainer who had developed a knack for rehabilitating abused or traumatized horses. He would stand face to face with the troubled horse. People at the time thought that it was mysterious, that he was capable of speaking “horse talk” as he whispered into the horses’ ears, that the horses could understand him–and trust him, and that they were quickly calmed by his magical techniques. But, there was nothing mysterious and magical about what he did. What he really did was have a tender regard, be empathetic to the motives, needs, and desires of the horse. He got to know the horse, not guess or assume or presume or stereotype or generalize, but know that particular horse. He would seek out, find, and see that something beautiful that was to be found in that frightened, aggressive, and uncooperative horse. Sometimes it was obvious and overpowering, and other times it was subtle and delicate, and still other times it was totally hidden. But, it always took a lot of quiet and reassuring love, faith, commitment, and perseverance to uncover it and for the horse to feel it. He was posing no danger or harm, calming both his and the animal’s thoughts, simply being, feeling the power he and the horse were, softly touching and caressing that animal, feeling the strength and passion, enjoying, refreshing, living.

In the spirit of the Horse Whisper, we should be “student whisperers.” We should see each student as we do a magnificent dawn, feeling our pounding hearts and heaving lungs are too big to be caged in by our ribs. Teaching is a love story, a story demonstrated in unconditional caring, empathy, sympathy, and encouragement. All of whom are a potent serum in the fight against the prevalent academic disease of busyness and disinterest. It’s letting students see and know that you understand their feelings and thoughts. It’s personal interaction; it takes effort; it takes energy;it takes time. Yet, it is love, with its companions of faith, hope, and belief, that makes the classroom non-judgmental, non-industrialized, non-standardized. It is love that makes the classroom highly personalized. It humanizes. It individualizes. It has a reverence for each student. It energizes empathy. Student whispers walk the avenue of the heart and invite each student into their hearts.

What you think of life in that classroom plays an essential role in what you do in that classroom with each student. As a “student Whisperer,” you reshape the classroom with the gentleness of a far less frenetic inner quiet, a quiet of being mindful and attentive, a quiet that allows us to bend rather than snap, knowing that most guidance, as Leo Buscaglia would say, can be dispensed with a light touch, a soft encouraging word, a slight smile, and lots of respect and real love for the person on the receiving end. In Galatians 5:22 it is called “the fruit of the spirit.” I call it walking the street of my heart to take each student inside my heart. As a “student whisperer” you accept that your job is to compassionately nurture each student without asking whether they are worthy or have earned it, not to heavily weed out.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, forbearance. Those nine virtues say that we are in awe of each student, that we honor each, that we respect each, that we treat each as someone who is invaluable. That “fruit of the spirit” is at the ethical core of my “Teacher’s Oath;” it is being “student struck;” it is knowing that no one in that class is plain or ordinary or worthless or without potential; it is knowing that those in the classroom are rich beyond anything we can imagine; and, that in the classroom there are chances to do amazing things. It is the purpose of everything I feel and do; it is my love of each student; it is a commitment to help others. It is the loving, supporting, encouraging touch, word, smile that reminds us each of them that she or he is not alone, and there is hope.

Think that’s soft, touchy-feely, weak? I say that to be gentle is to be strong and courageous; I say that to be unfeeling is to be weak and fearful. Think back. Think back to a time in your life when, as the Lotus Sutra said, someone entered your life wearing “the robe of gentleness and forbearance.” Think back to the moment in your life when someone courageously took a chance on you making you feel you were worth it. Think of how some “fruit” vividly and robustly shines out in your memory of a time when you needed bracing against the storm. Think how potent it was. My whisperer was Birdsault Viault at Adelphi College in late 1959 who saw something shimmering below the surface when no one else did, reached out to me, helped me start believing, helped me to begin rewriting the lyrics of my sorrowful song, helped me to begin leaning into the light with him, and helped me to start turning my life around. Think that’s fluffy? No! That’s powerful power!

Be a “Loud” student whisperer. Put in the time and effort. Celebrate and, more importantly, live the uniqueness, sacredness, nobility, and worth that is each student. Be truly moved by the awesome wonder of each of them. Don’t let them go unnoticed and ignored as “cellophane people.” Don’t reject any as “don’t belongs.” Have an unconditional–unconditional–appreciative, loving, thankful, kind, empathetic, supporting, safe, encouraging, and calming heart. It sure beats thinking we’re jolting bronco busters who break the rough-stock, feral, recalcitrant students into submission.

As “Student Whisperers” we should work with, rather than against, each student; we should love those we see, for all we have to do is to find little bit of beauty, develop our powers of empathy, and we open ourselves up to finding more in both ourselves and others. In the spirit of Ed Deci, Carol Dweck, Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, Howard Gardner, Peter Senge, Peter Vail, Teresa Amabile, Barbara Fredrickson, and a host of others, we should nurture self-esteem and confidence, faith and hope, autonomy and ownership, creativity and imagination, curiosity, optimism, and resiliency; we should understand and appreciate each student’s strengths and abilities, and utilize them to help the student help her/himself develop emotional, behavioral and intellectual abilities to both live the good life and make a good living; we should help them find a sense meaning and purpose; and we should help them help themselves become the person each is capable of becoming.
Louis