A Serendipitous Moment

I was savoring a cup of Tanzanian Peaberry coffee by the koi pond early this non-walking morning.  Images of a chance meeting the other day, a serendipitous meeting, with a past student I’ll call Bob in Lowes kept dancing across my mind.  I was struggling to recover, retain, and savor every word of our brief conversation.   To say it was an unexpected jolt would be an understatement.

I had run in to pick up some insecticide I had ordered online to protect my amaryillis.  As I was piling the two bags in the cart, I heard a “Dr. Schmier” coming from off to the side.  I turned.  It was Bob.  I hadn’t seen him in a couple of decades.  I had thought of him now and then over the years. wondering what had become of him after he dropped out of school.  Maybe it was because he had been afflicted with the same ADHD as my son, Robby; maybe it was because I often sadly bemoaned that he became a “one that got away.”  At least, so I thought.  How wrong I just discovered I was.  “….I’m still around because you refused to focus on the obnoxious pain in the ass I was because of my severe ADHD,” he said.  “You got past the defenses I had thrown up….You wouldn’t let me belittle myself as I always did.  Instead….you tried to help me find hope in myself and because, if I can say it, you loved me when no one else, including me, did.…I know you thought you had failed when I dropped out…..this is my surprise chance to tell you that you didn’t….You finally did it….I alway felt I let you down, but I recently admitted that I had been really letting myself down….All these years I’ve been ignoring you, but something wouldn’t let me stop hearing you.…’It’s never too late to start dreaming and always too early to stop dreaming’ and ‘Become master of your own story’  drummed in my ears over and over and over again….I stopped being angry….Now, I’m finally listening….got myself on meds….I’m breaking the circle of sabotaging myself.…I’m believing….I’m loving myself, finally….I’m going back to school.…Thank you”

I smiled as my eyes teared up.  All I said as I came around the counter with outstretched arms was, “Come here.”  I gave him a big hug as I whispered in his ear, “No, thank you!”  And, I rushed off to tell Susie, who was waiting in the car, of this “you don’t ask” moment.

There was a freshness of Spring in the air.  We’re between cleansing storms.  The pelting rains have started washing away the gilting pollen—at least until the next pollen storm.  It was dawn, as always a hope-full dawn, a chance to begin again dawn.  Silently watching the eastern skies gray, accompanied by the songs of the waterfall and the chorus of birds, is a declaration of certainty that the “this too shall pass” story never ends, that things do change.  Feeling the hopefulness of the dawn, then, is a nonverbal de-hectic action, a calm savoring, a cherishing of awareness and attentiveness, a silent reflection.  It’s a non-reactive stillness, a spacious looking around, an energizing pause, an offering of a way to live a nourishing life.  It is as if each appearing leaf, each melodic koi, each fern fond, each pine needle, each person is an illuminating and revealing verse of Scripture.  There is majesty all around and you begin to notice it, sound by sound, sight by sight, feel by feel, smell by smell that almost creates a Rumi-esque temptation to genuflect, kneel, and kiss the ground in gratitude.  That makes the koi pond, for me, as it did the classroom, a holy place where I can celebrate and experience what I value most deeply, and take it out into both the academic world and the world at large.  The dawn, as every dawn, is a love letter filled with beautiful images.  In it, as the day awakens with its depth, profundity, and beauty, I am slowly enveloped with a dawning sense of wonder, of possibility, of opportunity, and of responsibility to live dynamically as a human being, as a human becoming, and as a human belonging.

Recently first it was Dave, then John, and now Bob who have reminded me of the words of Rumi:  “Let the beauty we love be what we do.  There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”  And, like it or not, aware of it or not, I constantly ask myself in word and deed what does it mean for me to kneel and kiss the ground this day.  It means that for the last 27 years I’m not angry with others and especially myself; I no longer accept the story of me written by others that I allowed to make me my own enemy and be my own obstacle to happiness, meaning, purpose, and joy; I am at peace with a compassionate and empathetic light of love, hope, faith that has driven out the darkness.  So, I have a hopeful feeling of being a living answer to the questions, to the ticker tape questions:  “Who are you?” “Are you exerting the power of being your own storyteller?” “Are you fully living a joyful life?”   Wasn’t it Jung who said that we can get an understanding of ourselves by those who irritate and by those who delight us.  So, it is not difficult for me to answer as I constantly think of my angelic beloved Susie, of my two sons and their wives, of my three grandmunchkins, of those students such as Bob and John and Dave whom I’ve knowingly and unknowingly have touched, and of all students for that matter in whose lives I strode to matter.
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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