3:00 a.m.  Can't sleep.  The house is quiet.  My angelic Susan is
still in Charlotte tending her mother.  I came back early because
Robby had to chef on New Year's Eve.  Can't walk.  This stuffy cold is a
drag.  While waiting for the warm milk to kick in, I was going through a
couple of weeks of backlog messages. I came upon one entitled "Another
Word?"  I knew it was from Kenny.  He's such a glorious pain.

        "Hey, doc," he wrote after the required inquiries about the
holidays, "classes are about to begin again.  What's the "word for the
term?"

        The very next message gave me his answer.  It was from another
student who had graduated last May.  She wrote in an air of frustration,
"I want so much to help these rural kids.  There's so much to do and so
much in the way, and I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to do it all.
I'm so impatient!  Help me!"

        "Impatient."  That word struck home, especially now.  I want to
take you back to events that occurred at a dazzling, uncontrollable speed
at one o'clock in the morning on December 24th near Macon, Georgia. I,
Robby, and Nicole were driving to Charlotte to meet Susan for a family
gathering:  a dark, drizzly morning in Georgia, traveling at the 65 MPH
speed limit, everyone asleep and buckled in, suddenly cut off, veered to
avoid collision, lost orientation, windows awashed, couldn't see, hit a
low embuttment at nearly full speed, car took off, no time to have my life
pass before my eyes, air bags burst opened, smoky haze inside the car,
couldn't see, front windshield exploded, couldn't see, car hard
front-landed half on slippery grass and half on asphalt shoulder, finally
came to a halt, blessed ABS brakes, car is not in good shape, everyone
came out of it without a scratch, finally made it to Charlotte just before
Christmas Eve, hugged Susan a bit tighter, buried my head in her neck a
bit deeper, a bit longer, a bit more lovingly with grateful tears in my
eyes.

        You have to understand that each moment after you survive being
driven into a highway embuttment at nearly 65 MPH and come out of it
without a scratch to yourself or your kids is one hell of a Chanukah
present.  I think I would recommend almost dying to everyone.  It sure is
a character builder.  You come out of it with a much clearer understanding
that the preciousness and beauty of life is important and little else
truly matters.  You feel a great release from what I'll call "the body of
wants."  All your senses are so honed that you get an intense and almost
insatiable savoring of the glorious newness of each moment.  As you
capture each "this is it" moment, as you experience what in Zen is called,
"the best season of your life," as you make each moment vital and worth
living, as you don't let it slip away unnoticed and unused, you feel
freer, lighter, happier, easier, and much more peaceful and more patient.
If I had a deep appreciation and intense love of life, it was nothing
compared to how I now feel.  It's amazing how five seconds can have such a
profound impact on your life.

        I told Selena all that was swirling in my head and heart and soul,
and added, "It's not a matter of keeping score.  You have to first have to
cultivate an inner attitude and ethical behavior of patience.  Patience is
far more powerful and wholesome than is anxiety.  Patience is a theme that
repreated over and over again in all of the world's great philosophical
and religious texts.  The Greeks and Romans call it the greatest of all
virtues.  The early Christian fathers called it a "contrary virtue" to
protect you against frustration and anger.  In Zen it is a display of
peace and compassion.  In Islam, it is more important than prayer.  It is
seen as the companion, if not the root, of perseverance, trust,
conviction, faith, stength, determination, hope, belief, wisdom, humility,
courage, confidence, commitment, endurance, attention, awareness,
mindfulness, understanding.  Cultivate patience, then, you almost can't
help cultivating all these other ethical attitudes and behaviors.  Be
patient, especially with yourself.  You want everything to change
overnight?  You know that saying about rebuilding Rome in a day?  Maybe
there is even a touch of arrogance and self-righteousness in such a
hurried desire.  There is a story in the Talmud that goes something like
this:  An aged man, whom Abraham hospitably invited to his tent, refused
to join him in prayer to the one spiritual God. Learning that the old man
was a non-believer, Abraham drove him from his door.  Later that night,
God appeared to Abraham in a vision. 'I have borne with that ignorant man
for 70 years,' he said. 'Could you not have patiently suffered him one
night?'"

        Feeling like Paul writing to the Galatians, I went on and said,
"Tell me, what wound heals in a hurry?  Ask any athlete what happens when
you try to rush Nature's healing process.  Being in a hurry, wanting to do
it all all at once, usually doesn't help. You usually will just give
yourself an Excedrin headache.  It just muddies up the waters. The more
patient you are, the clearer and sharper you will see and listen, the less
things will be in a blur, the more you will understand, and the more
you'll be in touch.  Sure, there is a lot to do.  Sure, there is a lot
that stands in your way.  It's okay to have a restlessness.  Just have a
patient restlessness.  It's okay to be in a hurry.  Just hurry patiently.
Just don't push it and don't let yourself be pushed.  Sometimes you do an
awful lot by not doing.  Don't flit about.  Don't let your anxieties and
your desires and your needs dominate the quality of the moment.  If you
let yourself be blown about by the "I have to" winds, you'll lose touch
with those around you, who you are, and who you can be.  It is the path to
anger and frustration and burn out.  Just don't let yourself get down or
tired.  Don't lose courage.  Don't lose heart.  You have to acquire a
strength to be weak.  Nothing comes all at once.  Things unfold in their
own time one little step at a time.  Renew yourself completely each day;
do it again, and again, and again, and again and always again.
Everything will come if you wait until the right moment comes for you to
do the right thing with the right understanding in the right way. Learn to
know how and when to push and how and when to pull and when not to push
and when not to pull.  None of this is easy."

        Nothing of what I told Selina is easy.  Yet, patience is the
essence of teaching.  Patience affects the quality of your day and
affecting the quality of your day is one of the greatest of talents.
When we say, 'I have no more patience,' or 'I've run out of patience,' it
is finished.  Patience holds more freedom and compassion, it offers more
discovery, it has a greater staying the course power, than we could
imagine.  I told Selena that when she is feeling impatient, she should
look deeply to see if she has given up hope or is afraid of giving up
hope.  I quoted a Sufi saying:  patience is fed on hope, it stands on the
feet of hope. As long as there is hope, there is patience; and, when hope
is gone, then there is no more patience.

        "I think understanding the critical role of patience in teaching,"
I went on to tell her, "is simple if we take a lesson from nature.
Nature never starts big.  In nature, change, growth, development always
starts slow and small.  There is no true suddenness in nature, no true
spontaneous creation.  Nothing 'just pops up and happens' spontaneously.
Even in an earthquake or volcanic explosion, there is a slow build up.
In my garden, if I want a flower I must have time, make the time, and give
it time.  There first must be the seed, then the seedling, then the plant,
then the flower.  Different flowers bloom at
different times in different ways at different paces.  They don't bloom
according to our time anymore than we bloom according to anyone else's
stopwatch.  It's no different with you, me, students, colleagues, or
institutions.  ."

        So, thinking about what I said to Selina, "patience" is my next
word, my eleventh I think, in my Dictionary For Good Teaching, that "word
of the term" I will give Kenney.

Make it a good day.

                                                       --Louis--


Louis Schmier                            www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History                    www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698                    /~\    /\ /\
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