Went out early on the streets this morning amid Noel Coward's mad dogs
and Englishmen. But, trust me, his noonday sun doesn't hold a candle to South
Georgia's brutally blazing summer morning sun: 82 searing degrees, 84% swampy
humidity. For an hour and a quarter, I fast walked six miles in that sauna
under a cloudless, breezeless, azure sky. The air was so heavy, no breeze
could have move it. All along the way, water cascaded off my body and I
wondered if I was walking or swimming, if I should have put on a bathing suit,
reef shoes and googles instead of my jogging shorts, walkers, and sunglasses.
When I got home, all clammy with salt, knowing how Lot's wife felt, I poured
cool water down my throat to replenish the gallons that poured out from my
pores.
As nature was water-boarding me, however, I had a soothing warmth
inside. I was thinking once again about faith, hope and love because of one
of those "you don't ask" incidents that happened on my walk Saturday. As the
saying goes: the strangest things happen at the strangest places in the
strangest ways. I wasn't two blocks out when, waiting for the light to change
by the University, a young man rushed over to me. He introduced himself as
Erik Wells, a student of mine in 2004. He was so excited that he had
accidentally bumped into his "favorite professor" that he naively asked if he
could walk and talk with me. During the entire six miles, at a pace I feared
would give him a heart attack, we eagerly talked. For the next 80 minutes or
so, we both forgot about the heat and humidity. We exchanged professional and
personal micro-autobiographies. Our discussions jumped around like a marble in
Chinese checkers from philosophy to theology to politics, from teaching to
sales, from the classroom to the workplace, from family to society. And yet,
as I look back, there was a common thread. Every word, implicitly and
explicitly, centered around such things as personal integrity, authenticity,
values, character, mindfulness, honesty, reflection, gratitude, purpose,
service, otherness, purpose, meaningfulness, and community. They, in turn,
constantly and explicitly evoked faith, hope, and love. We talked of Dale
Carnegie, Viktor Fraenkl, and Leo Buscaglia. I wrote Erik that night how the
walk and talk for me was an uplifting, inspiring, and meaningful "wow"
experience. A few of his sentences have stayed with me. "In everything you
did with us was for us, each of us....You not only spoke about faith, hope, and
love to us, but you lived it. And, you helped each of us struggle to do the
same thing with ourselves and others....I always remember how on the last day
of class when we did closure, you said to us without any embarrassment, "I love
you"....After all these years, I didn't see it until now that you're still
living in me and teaching me." At the end of the route, in front of my house,
we hugged, parted, and promised to keep in touch.
Fluff some of you have said to me about the need for faith, hope, and
love as guiding principles in academia. Tell Erik that; he and his peers are
heirs to them. To the naysayers, I answer, that it's easy to have an "I care,"
or "I have faith in you," or "There's hope for you," or "I love you" roll off
your tongue. It's something else to have them in your bones, to sincerely live
faithfully, hopefully, and lovingly, and to have others feel that special,
unconditional faith in them, hope for them, and love of them. Fluff? It's
hard to continually have faith, hope, and love, much less to constantly embody
them. It's takes a hell of lot of concentrated and conscious effort. It takes
a lot of time, commitment, determination. A soft heart is strong; a gentle
soul is fierce; a "touchy-feely" spirit touches and feels. To have
unconditional--unconditional--faith, hope, and love is like walking through a
London fog that forces you to slow down and have all your attentive senses on
full alert. It forces you to deeply and penetratingly see and intently listen.
To what? Well, first, to yourself, and then to the needs of people around
you. I know from whence I speak. I was in that thick mist until twenty-four
years ago. To find my way out of it, I had to be walk willingly--willingly--
inside myself and ask the tough questions of myself: Am I generous? Am I
haughty? Do I close doors? Am I judgmental? Do I offer opportunities? Am I
cynical? Am I a "kindness failure?" Am I selfish? Do I share? Am I serving?
Am I truly happy? Am I grim? Am I connecting and touching others? What do I
have to offer? Do I nurture people? Do I moan and groan? Do I weed out? Am
I respectful of who they are? Am I distant? Am I fearful? Am I insecure?
Am I enjoying life? Am I going? Do I resent? Am I filling empty pursuits
with purpose? And, do I have to have the strength and courage to honestly
answer them and make real decisions, for they are at the heart of how I best
map out the road trip forward towards my vision, of the extent to which this
trip is a joyful one. No fluff in that!
For me to have unconditional faith, hope, and love, I had to obey the
command of constantly letting go of dehumanizing stereotypes, of impersonal
generalizations, of flattening labels, and of closed-minded and denigrating
assumptions and expectations. Faith, hope, and love, for me, candles that
illuminated the unique and miraculous richness in every person; they came to be
about seeing and respecting each person as a valuable rarity, each possessing a
unique potential. As Viktor Frankl might say, they are about mindfulness,
awareness. alertness, attentiveness without which I could not truly be
reflective and contemplative; not see and listen to each student; not really
care and be empathetic and be sympathetic of each student. not be supporting
and encouraging of each student. And, by enabling each person aware of who
she or he can be, I can help each student help her/himself strive to become the
person she or he can be. And so, faith, hope, and love created a mindfulness,
awareness, alertness, and attentiveness that led me to fashion that vision and
to create my "Teacher's Oath" as a mean of walking towards that vision with
each student.
Faith, hope, and love came to live within me, spread beauty throughout
all I did, were all I had and all I was and am. They became my reason. They
became my drive. They became my persistence and insistence. They became my
patience. They opened, welcomed, cared, embraced, nurtured, fertilized. They
gave filled me with the power of an authentic purpose. They gave me courage and
confidence. They were
Roll your eyes if you will, but I tell you from personal and
professional experience, if you want to value strength, hardness, vigor,
ruggedness, sturdiness, muscular, toughness, value faith, hope, and love. To
have faith, hope, and love for anyone in the classroom, and anywhere for that
matter, demands a strong heart, a rugged determination, a steadfast spirit, a
tough skin, a hard perseverance, and enduring persistence.
I'm not sure academics need more pedagogies, more technologies, more
assessment, and all that stuff. What the Eriks of this world prove is that, as
Erik said in so many words, academia really needs is more humanity, more
community, more spirituality, more seeing, more listening, more serving, more
dealing with the needs of others, more unconditional faith, hope, and love.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
203 E. Brookwood Pl http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta, Ga 31602
(C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\
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/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/ / \ /\ \
//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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